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<blockquote data-quote="Pauper" data-source="post: 7169018" data-attributes="member: 17607">I won't disagree that, used with the spirit in which they were created, Themes could be very helpful to a player in adding just that extra bit of 'oomph' to a character background. The problem was that, in practice, most folks playing (in our area, anyway) tended to use themes as an additional layer of character optimization.As a hypothetical, say there was a 5e Background (let's call it 'Nemesis') that allowed you to choose a type of opponent, and gave you an extra attack (as the Extra Attack feature of the fighter) against that type of opponent which stacked with the Extra Attacks of the fighter or similar classes. *That's* exactly the damage that the more poorly-designed themes did to 4E, and it seemed the longer the idea went on, the more poorly-designed the themes became.That the granted abilities of 5E backgrounds are restricted to non-combat and RP-related effects, as appropriate for a feature that's meant to flesh out those parts of the game, is a sign that the 5E designers noted the flaws in theme design in 4E and decided not to include that aspect in the new design.They were certainly popular, but popular does not automatically mean positive.--Pauper</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pauper, post: 7169018, member: 17607"] I won't disagree that, used with the spirit in which they were created, Themes could be very helpful to a player in adding just that extra bit of 'oomph' to a character background. The problem was that, in practice, most folks playing (in our area, anyway) tended to use themes as an additional layer of character optimization. As a hypothetical, say there was a 5e Background (let's call it 'Nemesis') that allowed you to choose a type of opponent, and gave you an extra attack (as the Extra Attack feature of the fighter) against that type of opponent which stacked with the Extra Attacks of the fighter or similar classes. *That's* exactly the damage that the more poorly-designed themes did to 4E, and it seemed the longer the idea went on, the more poorly-designed the themes became. That the granted abilities of 5E backgrounds are restricted to non-combat and RP-related effects, as appropriate for a feature that's meant to flesh out those parts of the game, is a sign that the 5E designers noted the flaws in theme design in 4E and decided not to include that aspect in the new design. They were certainly popular, but popular does not automatically mean positive. -- Pauper [/QUOTE]

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