D&D 5E Customizing Backgrounds Core Rule - Public Service Announcement

[The Crimson Binome]

This. If this thread was "PSA: Humans are core" people would be like "Yeah, and...?"

I seem to recall that they clarified this at one point. None of the races, classes, or backgrounds, are core. The only core thing is that races, classes, and backgrounds exist; and they interact in a pre-defined way. You can't assume that a setting has humans, any more than you can assume it has gnomes or warlocks.

At least, that's what I seem to recall. It could have been one of their propaganda lines, from before the books were printed, just like the idea of supporting the 4E-playstyle.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Don Durito]

I always customise my ideals, bonds and flaws.

For each of them I go with ".......".

 

[prabe]

I always customise my ideals, bonds and flaws.

For each of them I go with ".......".

I never use them as a DM, because I find Inspiration ... uninspiring (heh). On the other hand, I find writing them out to be a useful exercise when I'm writing up a character's background. Obviously, YMMV.

 

[Umbran]

I never use them as a DM, because I find Inspiration ... uninspiring (heh).

A friend of mine recently started a game, and he doesn't fine Inspiration uninspiring as a mechanic. He just finds it terribly difficult to remember int he middle of everything else.

I think he's instead defaulting to giving a PC advantage for clever play on the spot, rather than giving it to store up for later use.

 

[prabe]

A friend of mine recently started a game, and he doesn't fine Inspiration uninspiring as a mechanic. He just finds it terribly difficult to remember int he middle of everything else.

I think he's instead defaulting to giving a PC advantage for clever play on the spot, rather than giving it to store up for later use.

That's a fair approach. I myself am unable to remember all the traits, bonds, flaws, and ideals well enough to use them fairly, and I find that advantage (or other boosts to a roll) are easy enough that the game doesn't suffer without them. And, I was unable to resist the (weak) joke.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Arilyn]

With inspiration, I've been giving it to players at end of a successful session. The traits, bonds, etc. are just used to help players craft their characters.

 

[Rikka66]

I really enjoy that the traits, bonds, ect. have such a prominent place on the character sheet, and I like to give out inspiration, but I do find it hard to remember. A bigger problem with my group is that once I do give it out, they will all sit on it for ages. We reached the end of tier 1 with every player having unused inspiration, and from there on I declared that any unused inspiration is lost at the end of a story arc.

 

[Bacon Bits]

A friend of mine recently started a game, and he doesn't fine Inspiration uninspiring as a mechanic. He just finds it terribly difficult to remember int he middle of everything else.

I think he's instead defaulting to giving a PC advantage for clever play on the spot, rather than giving it to store up for later use.

Personally I'm a fan of using something other than Inspiration. I don't like Inspiration because it's both hard to earn and difficult to remember that you have it. I'd rather players get ~3 tokens or hero points per game session that they can spend to give advantage to any one attack, save, or check or to reroll an attack, save, or check they've already made. Each session, they get another 3 tokens. A lot of games do something like this and I think it works very well to let players do something extra when it's important.

I'd only use that if the Lucky feat were removed, though.