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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 5983256" data-attributes="member: 1465">I disagree. If you play in a whole campaign then those traits are definitely going to come up. The fact that they don't come up every session but only once in a while actually makes them more interesting for my tastes compared to something that's always used. But OTOH if the group plays just a series of endless adventures with no downtime or gap, then Traits can probably be ignored.I would absolutely hate to see Traits become another "must be useful in combat" (although this is not what you mean) ability. If a group doesn't like downtime, travel management, social interaction (which is far more general than using the interaction pillar just to go forward or get benefits for each specific quest, which I think is more like what you mean) and other long-term "background" options for a campaign, then why should the "background" subset necessarily be changed for them? Nobody is going to change the combat abilities to provide non-combat benefits for a group that plays a campaign with no combat... Different rules subset serve different purposes, and that is good.As I hinted already, I don't think the Background is conceived to support the interaction phase when this is meant only as specific situations that will be solved mechanically (i.e. rolling) to go further in the current adventure. Of course part of the background is skill bonuses, which are mechanical, but at the same time it is good that the Traits are exactly non-mechanical, because that makes them IMHO more interestingly open-ended. At least I'm the kind of DM that wants this type of things in the game. So overall I personally think the task is different from what you have in mind.Incidentally, backgrounds are not supposed to represent cultures, but daily activities in a PC's life when she's not adventuring. They describe the "normal" life and work of characters, not their culture. Think of the PCs going to adventures as they were people drafted into the army and going on missions (although some PCs may do this all the time): while you're flying on the helicopter to your destination, your comrades ask you "what do you do, back there in Alabama?". They are asking you about your Background, and you may answer that you're a student, a scientist, a clerk or even a spoiled brat doing nothing and spending his family money. But you will never answer "I'm an Asian", "I'm a Russian" or "I'm a Jew". The Barbarian is a little bit on the edge but only if you think barbarians are all doing the same thing, otherwise it would be much much better not to have a barbarian background at all. Certainly not an "oriental" background... how could you even select three skills and one trait without bordering on racism?Now that's definitely reasonable. It's a good idea BUT it has one risk: that of actually codifying a benefit that you should already have!Let's go back to the barbarian persuading the savage tribe. Do we really need a Trait to tell us "you have +X bonus skill on social interactions with other savage people" when this could have been just a circumstance bonus that the DM grants if you ask her? A particularly stubborn and rules-lawyer DM would refuse the bonus, but IMHO a reasonable DM should immediately recognize that this is a circumstance that should be valid for everyone interacting with someone else with which they share strong cultural basis. Turn this into a Trait, and what you get is that actually you now have to pick the Trait to have something you could have been entitled to anyway, and now you can't pick another less obvious Trait.Of course you can make similar arguments about any Traits probably... but at least IMHO some Traits are much less obvious and may not necessarily apply to all characters with the same concepts (such as Knight's Station applied to a character with the Knight background but not necessarily to all characters who happen to be technically knights but decided to pick another Background).</blockquote>

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