D&D 5E I think I prefer backgrounds in 2014

[MGibster]

The best way IMO to deal with biological essentialism in an RPG is to split species up into heritage (who your parents are) and culture (the society you grew up in). And then to make things even more interesting, you can either choose a culture that reflects your heritage or to have your character grow up in a culture that belongs to a completely different heritage. Ex. Captain Carrot from the Discworld series, a human who grew up among Dwarves and learned their cultural traits firsthand.

I don't know if adding more steps to character generation is a good idea. I find myself once again going back to page 19 of the 2024 DMG, "The rules of the game are meant to provide a fun game experience, not to describe the laws of physics in the world of D&D, let alone the real world." I think maybe that should extend to biology as we understand it as well.

 

[AK81]

This is one of those things where I feel WotC simply can't win no matter what they do. People complained about attribute score improvements based on a character's species, many because it reminded them of biological essentialism and made them feel icky, and still others who simply wanted more freedom in how they assigned improvements. A lot of people supported attaching such things as ASI and skills to backgrounds as they felt it made more sense for these things to be cultural rather than biological.

I am never going to understand the complaints against biological essentialism. These creatures are not humans, they are their own species. Even within our own species, our extinct cousins the neanderthals were much stronger than us.

Here’s a comparison of the height and weight of a median Goliath versus a halfling:

Goliath
Median Height: 7 feet 6 inches (7'6") = 2.29 meters

Median Weight: 340 pounds = 154 kg

Halfling
Median Height: 3 feet (3'0") = 0.91 meters

Median Weight: 40 pounds = 18 kg

Comparison:
A Goliath is about 2.5 times taller and 8.5 times heavier than a halfling.

It just make sense that Goliaths would be stronger than Halflings

I can understand the argument that it's not fun in a game sense, and not necessary. And that people would rather be free to choose the combinations of Species and Classes they want without being penalized for it.

The same can be said of backgrounds to a lesser degree. It makes sense that a blacksmith is on average stronger than a scholar. And that a scholar is on average more intelligent, as in better educated, than a blacksmith. But it is not necessarily fun either. And can hamper or spark creativity.

I think there are good arguments both for and against floating ASI

 

[Azzy]

I am never going to understand the complaints against biological essentialism.

Then just let it go.

 

[AK81]

Then just let it go.

Sure. It's it's not that important to me either way. I like both floating ASI and bound ASI to Species. But for different reasons.

 

[Corinnguard]

I don't know if adding more steps to character generation is a good idea.

This step has already been added to character generation in a certain 5e-adjacent RPG. I doubt that WoTC will touch this step anytime soon.

 

[Corinnguard]

This step has already been added to character generation in a certain 5e-adjacent RPG. I doubt that WoTC will touch this step anytime soon.

That 5e-adjacent RPG being Level Up: A5e.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I don't know if adding more steps to character generation is a good idea. I find myself once again going back to page 19 of the 2024 DMG, "The rules of the game are meant to provide a fun game experience, not to describe the laws of physics in the world of D&D, let alone the real world." I think maybe that should extend to biology as we understand it as well.

i would say that there is a notable distinction and a viable argument to be made to separate those choices, yes the rules are not the world physics, but these rules are not ones designed to model the world, they are rules to create a character, a significantly different part of the play experience.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Replacing nebulously defined background features with feats makes certain amount of sense. The former were rarely used and tended to work rather differently than rest of the game, so were a source of confusion and debate. That being said, I think some flavour is lost is the process, which is regrettable. Also, as the old features were not particularly useful, they were really not part of optimisation, just a nice ribbon, but feats are a bigger deal. This makes choosing background more of a thing that is subject of optimisation rather than theme. And of course baking ASIs into it makes this even more so.

And, yeah, the ASIs. What a mess! I was fine with them being tied to the species, though there could have been more flexibility. (Perhaps one fixed, one floating, but not necessarily to any stat. E.g. halflings might be unable to put their floating to strength.) But ultimately it seems silly to me that gnomes and halflings are just as strong than humans or orcs. I know a lot of people just treat ability scores as numbers that do not really represent anything, but if they're that then I think we might just as well get rid of them. To me the purpose of RPG rules is to represent the fiction, and if they cannot do that they serve no purpose.

But linking things to backgrounds is much worse. Some people felt species ASIs were racist, but that required interpretation, to see the species as allegories to human ethnicities. (which is valid, but it is just one interpretation.) But what we have in 5.5 is direct, no allegory or interpretation needed, classism. Nobles in D&D land now objectively are smarter and more charming than stupid and ugly peasants! And as people optimise their characters, these class stereotypes become part of the games. No magical geniuses from humble backgrounds etc. And of course "the biological essentialism" still exists in the species, and it does as long as they have any mechnical differnces.

Now completely floating ASIs are silly and inelegant. First we buy ability scores, then we choose a few points more using a different method. So if the ASIs not tied to any other choice (which seems to be what most people want) then they should just be removed and the point buy budget and caps to be increased.

 

[Corinnguard]

And, yeah, the ASIs. What a mess! I was fine with them being tied to the species, though there could have been more flexibility. (Perhaps one fixed, one floating, but not necessarily to any stat.

Backgrounds in Level Up follow this particular route by having one fixed +1 ASI and one floating +1 ASI. Anyone with the Noble Background in Level Up had a +1 STR and then could choose to have a +1 in one of the other ability scores. So, some nobles were strong and intelligent while others were quicker, hardier, wise or more charismatic than others of their background.

 

[mamba]

Now completely floating ASIs are silly and inelegant. First we buy ability scores, then we choose a few points more using a different method. So if the ASIs not tied to any other choice (which seems to be what most people want) then they should just be removed and the point buy budget and caps to be increased.

I believe that is how ToV handled it, and to me it probably is the best solution.

Let’s face it, if a Goliath gets a +2 to Strength and a Halfling no bonus, that is still not enough of a difference, maybe a +4 and -6 respectively would do. If we cannot have that (and we can’t) then we might as well not distinguish attribute ranges between species. We already started out much closer to that than to realistic ranges anyway