But it's not like the presence crafting rules is the totality of the issue. Editions prior to 4e and after all incorporated aspects of a character's more mundane life and were useful for helping fill in and enrich those aspects of a campaign, assuming PCs are occasionally doing things other than constant dungeon delving. I've found them particularly useful for city-based campaigns where much of the play takes place outside of a dungeon. We used them fairly extensively in Oriental Adventures campaigns I've run, multiple Paizo APs set in cities, and in my current Age of Worms 5e campaign.
4e starting with PH2 had backgrounds to give narrative non-class background specified options with mechanical distinctions such as:
Occupation
Before you became an adventurer, this was the way you earned your keep.
Artisan: You had a skilled occupation dedicated to a particular craft, such as baking, blacksmithing, carpentry, or cobbling. What did you make? Did you enjoy your work, or was it only a means of supporting yourself? What was your finest creation, and what happened to that item?
Associated Skills: Athletics, Diplomacy
or
Farmer: You worked on a farm, learning the ways of the natural world. Did you raise livestock, crops, or both? Did your farm have a specialty? Did you or your family own the farm, or were you a hired hand? Do you miss those days, or were you eager to escape?
Associated Skills: Endurance, Nature
The 1e PH has nothing like that either, you had to wait for the 1e DMG to give you the option for secondary skills.
PLAYER CHARACTER NON-PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
When a player character selects a class, this profession is assumed to be that which the character has been following previously, virtually to the exclusion of all other activities. Thus the particular individual is at 1st level of ability. However, some minor knowledge of certain mundane skills might belong to the player character — information and training from early years or incidentally picked up while the individual was in apprenticeship learning his or her primary professional skills of clericism, fighting, etc. If your particular campaign is aimed at a level of play where secondary skills can be taken into account, then use the table below to assign them to player characters, or even to henchmen if you so desire.
Assign a skill randomly, or select according to the background of your campaign. To determine if a second skill is known, roll on the table, and if the dice indicate a result of TWO SKILLS, then assign a second, appropriate one.
SECONDARY SKILLS TABLE
Dice
Score Result
01-02 Armorer
03-04 Bowyer/fletcher
05-10 Farmer/gardener
11-14 Fisher (netting)
15-20 Forester
21-23 Gambler
24-27 Hunter/fisher (hook and line)
28-32 Husbandman (animal husbandry)
33-34 Jeweler/lapidary
35-37 Leather worker/tanner
38-39 Limner/painter
40-42 Mason/carpenter
43-44 Miner
45-46 Navigator (fresh or salt water)
47-49 Sailor (fresh or salt)
50-51 Shipwright (boats or ships)
52-54 Tailor/weaver
55-57 Teamster/freighter
58-60 Trader/barterer
61-64 Trapper/furrier
65-67 Woodworker/cabinetmaker
68-85 NO SKILL OF MEASURABLE WORTH
86-00 ROLL TWICE IGNORING THIS RESULT HEREAFTER
When secondary skills are used, it is up to the DM to create and/or adjudicate situations in which these skills are used or useful to the player character. As a general rule, having a skill will give the character the ability to determine the general worth and soundness of an item, the ability to find food, make small repairs, or actually construct (crude) items. For example, an individual with armorer skill could tell the quality of normal armor, repair chain links, or perhaps fashion certain weapons. To determine the extent of knowledge in question, simply assume the role of one of these skills, one that you know a little something about, and determine what could be done with this knowledge. Use this as a scale to weigh the relative ability of characters with secondary skills.
Or wait until Oriental Adventures for non-weapon proficiencies to enter the character sheet and develop your mechanical mastery of the tea ceremony.
Basic did not have non-class stuff until around the gazetteer series introduced some skill option stuff.
It would have been preferable for 4e to have their background stuff in their first main books but they became a regular part of character creation fairly quickly.