D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Micah Sweet]

And then there's this on page 6.

"Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world."

Even money on whether or not a similar sentiment shows up in the upcoming 5.5 corebooks.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Hadn't planned it. And as far as I know noone in my gaming group is planning on running a campaign in it. We have plenty of other games to run.

 

[Corinnguard]

Before the game even begins, the DM should know what the backgrounds of the characters are, and how to incorporate them into the game. The players should know what they can expect out of their backgrounds and features.

My DM did this with my Bugbear Ranger (Gloomstalker) character. Before my character became a Ranger, he was an Urban Bounty Hunter. After the party left the town of Greenest, a member of the Emerald Enclave came up to my character and asked if he was interested in finding an individual known only as the Silent Tradesman for them. He was offered a thousand gold to bring in the Silent Tradesman, dead or alive. He and his party would later succeed at doing so outside of Scornubel.

 

[Maxperson]

Even money on whether or not a similar sentiment shows up in the upcoming 5.5 corebooks.

It won't matter! They've gone out of their way to say over and over and over that we can still use the 2014 stuff.

 

[Parmandur]

So you're telling me that you cannot possibly keep in mind that maybe, ever few sessions or show, you could put in an opportunity for a player's background to matter or shine? That using a player's background choices to inform your campaign plotting in a meaningful way is too much of an ask?

Of course it is easy to take Background into account and use it in play: but the "Feature" rarely helps with that, given the awkward limits in real play they run into.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It won't matter! They've gone out of their way to say over and over and over that we can still use the 2014 stuff.

It won't matter to us, but it certainly will matter to anyone going forward who only has the 2024-2025 books to work from.

 

[Umbran]

It feels like the only real problem is that Features are presented are in the PHB instead of being in the DMG as "suggestions for what characters of different backgrounds can do".

For anything you want players to try to engage with, it ought to be in a player-facing source.

 

[TheSword]

It won't matter to us, but it certainly will matter to anyone going forward who only has the 2024-2025 books to work from.

If they haven’t got the books then why do they care about using characters from them?

 

[tetrasodium]

For anything you want players to try to engage with, it ought to be in a player-facing source.

In this case though it's an intro GM education chapter on example ways the GM can let a player leverage their backstory during play that was written for players with concrete mechanical function on par with a spell feat or class ability to override the GM's judgement & adjudication. Post 1113 did a nice job of giving examples of that technique using the sailor with knotwork & criminal with finding seedy joints likely to be information dens. Players have managed to cooperatively "interact" with their background without needing a 5e style push button solution in search of a problem at least as far back as 2e when it didn't really even have a distinct section in the phb like the 3.x & 4e phb did.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If they haven’t got the books then why do they care about using characters from them?

Not what I'm talking about. My comment was about the lines in 2014 core about how it's the DMs game, and the players need to check with them regarding house rules and the like. I wonder if they will explicitly maintain that in 5.5e.