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

[Hriston]

Ok. If you think it works for you, play with 2014 backgrounds.

Well, yeah, of course I will continue to do so, and it's one of the reasons I gave for my choice to not use the new books, which started the whole discussion of background features. For some reason, saying I like them and would have liked to see them developed further in the new books caused a lot of people to want to tell me what I like is bad.

Those features did not prove to have much value in our games. Sad but true.

The only thing the sailor background added was saving our party a few pieces of gold per person. The sage background just skipped a bit of downtime activity researching where to find some piece of knowledge. So usually it skipped some of what people find fun in the game. Or saved a few adventuring days. But in nonway it did things something noone else could get.

By "something you can't get anywhere else in the game", I meant explicit permission to stipulate details of the fiction related to a specific area of a PC's background.

 

[Umbran]

It seems odd that only one would get the books. Thinking back to 1984 when I started playing in a larger group of 8 kids, we all had the books. Of course, that would anecdotally indicate that kids will find a way to get them if they really want them.

When I started, we had a table of 5 kids with one set of books. After a little while we changed up the table membership, and were at 6 kids and two sets of books for a year and a half, I think.

 

[Oofta]

...


By "something you can't get anywhere else in the game", I meant explicit permission to stipulate details of the fiction related to a specific area of a PC's background.

That seems to be the real issue here. D&D isn't designed to have the player control or decide anything outside of their PC's thoughts and actions. That makes the background features, as you interpret them, a clear outlier from the rest of the game. Therefore people who don't want to go against the core D&D constructs of the DM being fully responsible for the world, the players being fully responsible for their characters ignore or alter the background features.

Even though it goes against the assumptions of the game system you can, of course, have collaborative world building in D&D if you want. Personally, I don't unless it's discussions that happen outside of game time and even then I retain editorial control.

 

[ART!]

There's one player/DM in our group who will definitely be buying all the new books, and will probably get the versions with the limited edition covers.

I can see a smattering of the rest of us buying a smattering of the core books. I won't be surprised if I get one or more for my (November) birthday and/or Christmas.

 

[Maxperson]

Wow. It's interesting to see how many people played in groups with only a few having books. My experience over the last 40 years has been that almost everyone has the books. In every group I played in, either we all had the core books, or the vast majority of us did. I wonder if it's a geographical thing.

Sometimes we'd get people, usually new people, that didn't have the books. If they loved the game and stuck with it, though, they ran out and bought the core books(or at least the PHB). Then there have been a bunch over the years who leave their books at home since there will be multiple copies at the table that they can use.

 

[Cadence]

That seems to be the real issue here. D&D isn't designed to have the player control or decide anything outside of their PC's thoughts and actions. That makes the background features, as you interpret them, a clear outlier from the rest of the game. Therefore people who don't want to go against the core D&D constructs of the DM being fully responsible for the world, the players being fully responsible for their characters ignore or alter the background features.

Even though it goes against the assumptions of the game system you can, of course, have collaborative world building in D&D if you want. Personally, I don't unless it's discussions that happen outside of game time and even then I retain editorial control.

I think even back in the early 80s for our group that the players would often suggest things in character creation, and then sometimes between sessions. (With suggestions sometimes being really detailed). Some of that memory might be conflated in my head with us rotating DMs in a shared world.

It didn't happen during actual play though. Even now the only in-play world building players in the groups I'm in might do is suggesting things that might be there. ("My character would probably have been through here in his caravan days, do any of his former hangouts seem busy?". And the DM might say the whole town was rebuilt, or it wasn't on a trade route, or maybe that someone they worked with is in one, role a luck die to see how well you got on with them.).

 

[tetrasodium]

I think even back in the early 80s for our group thag the players would often suggest things in character creation, and then sometimes between sessions. (With suggestions sometimes being really detailed). Some of that memory might be conflated in my head with us rotating DMs in a shared world.

It didn't happen during actual play though. Even now the only in-play world building players in the groups I'm in might do is suggesting things that might be there. ("My character would probably have been through here in his caravan days, do any of his former hangouts seem busy?". And the DM might say the whole town was rebuilt, or it wasn't on a trade route, or maybe that someone I worked with is in one, role a luck die to see how well you got on with them.).

We did & still do have players suggest things to the GM. There is a pretty wide ocean of difference between telling your GM the way it is and optimistically crossing your fingers while making a suggestion to your gm that you hope they greenlight or run with. I think that ocean is very much in the space between 3,633 & the long running tangent it was responding to

 

[Oofta]

I think even back in the early 80s for our group thag the players would often suggest things in character creation, and then sometimes between sessions. (With suggestions sometimes being really detailed). Some of that memory might be conflated in my head with us rotating DMs in a shared world.

It didn't happen during actual play though. Even now the only in-play world building players in the groups I'm in might do is suggesting things that might be there. ("My character would probably have been through here in his caravan days, do any of his former hangouts seem busy?". And the DM might say the whole town was rebuilt, or it wasn't on a trade route, or maybe that someone I worked with is in one, role a luck die to see how well you got on with them.).

Yeah, it's one thing to ask if there's a blacksmith in town if it hasn't already been established and a player just declaring that that there is one. Especially when I secretly know that there's some secret reason there isn't one.

 

[Umbran]

Wow. It's interesting to see how many people played in groups with only a few having books. My experience over the last 40 years has been that almost everyone has the books. In every group I played in, either we all had the core books, or the vast majority of us did. I wonder if it's a geographical thing.

To be clear, this isn't a D&D thing for me. I ran something like a decade of RPGs for my main group, playing Ashen Stars, Classic Deadlands, and a few mixed short subjects, while being the only one to own rulebooks.

 

[Hriston]

So you agree that the background feature for a sailor will not always work?

I'm not sure what you mean by "always work" or what in my posts inspired this question.

Thing is though, as a DM I'm not going to state that the sailor knows no one in every port they find themselves in. I can't tell enumerate every negative, every detail of everywhere the PCs find themselves.

That's kind of my point. If there are "blank spaces" that haven't been filled with enumerated details, what's wrong with letting the player add something?

But, if you follow the strict reading of the sailor background feature they will know someone in port because there are no exceptions. "When you need to, you can secure free passage on a sailing ship for yourself and your adventuring companions. You might sail on the ship you served on, or another ship you have good relations with (perhaps one captained by a former crewmate). Because you’re calling in a favor, you can’t be certain of a schedule or route that will meet your every need."

Avoiding the whole "know someone" part of your statement, they'll be able to secure free passage if the player says they do. The exception would be when you don't need to. That, and that it isn't 100% certain to meet every need. The spirit is, you'll get free passage for the party when it matters to get to the place you need to go.