D&D (2024) Bonus languages in One D&D backgrounds goes contrary to their other goals

[UngeheuerLich]

You need some flavour or you get very boring rules.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's where we run into the limits of biology being the only justification for racial traits. Firearm use has been a major part of the Giff story since their inception. Ask any D&D player who has heard of Giff prior to 5e and they will say they are "hippo people with guns". Remove the latter and they just are "hippo people" and they can be tossed on the furry pile with cat people, bird people, elephant people, etc.

The alternative, of course, is that races NEVER grant proficiency in anything and only ever influence size, movement, senses, and natural attacks/defenses. But I think that design space isn't going to support a lot of options.

The alternative is to have a culture metric in your character creation system, where stuff like that can go.

 

[Cadence]

The alternative is to have a culture metric in your character creation system, where stuff like that can go.

I was wondering earlier about something called just "Early Life" or "Formative Years", that combined the culture and background things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was wondering earlier about something called just "Early Life" or "Formative Years", that combined the culture and background things.

I just use Level Up.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was wondering earlier about something called just "Early Life" or "Formative Years", that combined the culture and background things.

Isn’t that… what background is?

 

[Cadence]

I just use Level Up.

It separates culture and background.

Isn’t that… what background is?

Maybe I'm spoiled by culture and background in A5e or thinking of race and background in 5e.

I wonder if changing the name would make people think about all of those things. So the Giff that went off somewhere fairly young with a caravan might still have firearms skill because of being trained really young in it. The Halfling who was hired as a cook for the Giff might have it for a very different reason.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It separates culture and background.


Maybe I'm spoiled by culture and background in A5e or thinking of race and background in 5e.

I wonder if changing the name would make people think about all of those things. So the Giff that went off somewhere fairly young with a caravan might still have firearms skill because of being trained really young in it. The Halfling who was hired as a cook for the Giff might have it for a very different reason.

I love the giff (one of my favorite parts of Spelljammer) so I built a Level Up heritage for them, and giff culture. Works great for me.

 

[Remathilis]

So make a “gun-loving people” background/culture and associate the Giff with it in the lore.

There’s also room for unique race features like the new version of Stonecunning, inherent spellcasting, the halflings’ lucky, the Tabaxi’s cool dash move, orcs’ adrenaline rush, humans’ new inspiration feature, etc, etc, etc.

Well since backgrounds aren't really anything more than a bunch of free choices, I guess you could take the Gunner feat from Tasha, strip out the ASI, and make it a level one feat (that's basically what the Giff firearm proficiency is anyway.) That leaves powerful build and astral spark as the giffs racial traits. Seems weak IMHO.


What I'm not understanding is why Gods granting magical kewl abilities is ok, but granting mundane proficiency isn't. Why are ALL halflings lucky? The lore says they're blessed by the Gods of luck. Apparently, the Gods of luck can bless an entire race with good fortune, but hit Gods of crafting can't bless them with natural talent with crafts. Maybe the God of crafting should just give dwarves free rerolls when using artisan tools.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

What I'm not understanding is why Gods granting magical kewl abilities is ok, but granting mundane proficiency isn't. Why are ALL halflings lucky? The lore says they're blessed by the Gods of luck. Apparently, the Gods of luck can bless an entire race with good fortune, but hit Gods of crafting can't bless them with natural talent with crafts. Maybe the God of crafting should just give dwarves free rerolls when using artisan tools.

Luck is impersonal (even if the players can use it so that other people fails when around their halflings). They are blessed and it affects the world around them. The ability to cast a spell is an ability that the character decides on using. On the other hand, inspiring the mind of their creatures toward studying stonecutting and masonry is not different to inspire hatred toward the god's enemy: WotC has clearly departed from that past and gods now respect free-will, and if gods can't inspire a basic emotion, they can't inspire a craving for studying masonry, that even a dwarf raised on the plane of Air, without any access to a mason or a boulder or a rock, because he lives on a floating cloud, would feel and self-teach somehow. It would certainly mesh better if the dwarf's creator god had commanded the stones to comply to the orders of his children, so they are considered proficient with mason's tools without any need to learn them (or even without the need to have them).

 

[Remathilis]

Luck is impersonal (even if the players can use it so that other people fails when around their halflings). They are blessed and it affects the world around them. The ability to cast a spell is an ability that the character decides on using. On the other hand, inspiring the mind of their creatures toward studying stonecutting and masonry is not different to inspire hatred toward the god's enemy: WotC has clearly departed from that, and if gods can't inspire a basic emotion, they can't inspire a craving for studying masonry, that even a dwarf raised on the plane of Earth, without any access to a mason or a boulder or a rock, because he lives on a floating cloud, would feel. It would certainly mesh better if the dwarf's creator god had commanded the stones to comply to the orders of his children, so they are proficient with mason's tools without any need to learn them (or even without the need to have them).

It's not that they're inspired to study, it's that they have instinctual racial memories that are part of their heritage. A dwarf, regardless of where they were born and raised, finds that if they pick up an artisan tool, they know how to use it. They have muscle memory and knowledge of the tool despite never having used one before granted by their creator. Likewise, a dragonborn might never have learned or spoken with someone in draconic, but when he finds another creature speaking it, he automatically understands what is being said and can respond*. If that's not as magical as supernatural luck or spell knowledge, I don't know what is.



* there are some recorded examples of people knowing a language despite never having studied it or heard it spoken before. My roommate in college could understand what his grandmother said when they were speaking Gaelic as a child despite him never learning the language, his own mother couldn't understand it. You can chalk this up to all sorts of phenomena, from past lives to osmosis, but in a world where 7 ft lizard people can literally spew fire from their mouths, I don't consider racial memories of their creator's tongue to be unreasonable.