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

[Oofta]

I don't think they're as narrow as you present them.

The Folk Hero says you have a destiny. You're marked for greater things. 'Already the people of your home village regard you as their champion, and your destiny calls you to stand against the tyrants and monsters that threaten the common folk everywhere'. (Note the use of 'already' rather than 'only'.)

The ability itself says 'Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them'.

The clear implication is that the character has some quality of 'folk hero-ness' that commoners recognise and respond to regardless of whether they know them or have heard of their specific exploits. It's like having a very narrow kind of 18 Charisma, in the appropriate environment you just sort of speak the right alignment language and people take to you.

You ride into town wearing armor and/o carrying gear that's worth more than the total GDP of the village. You're with up 5 other individuals. Combined, your group has more wealth than anyone has dreamed of.

I find it difficult to believe that you will automatically and instantly be accepted. But take it a step further. You don't look or have the same customs as the locals because you're halfway around the world. Maybe you're a dwarf and this is a goblin village, the war of Dwarven aggressors is still fresh in their memory.

I don't have a problem with being able to relate and possibly gaining advantage on checks. It's the automatic guaranteed "You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them."

 

[Parmandur]

Did anyone say that Backgrounds were being removed from the game? And if they did, isn't it obvious that they meant to say "Background Features"?

But to your point, yeah, I personally won't miss 'em, and the feat means as much to me when it comes to "where you come from and what you trained to do". I can have NPCs react to PCs all on my own.

Still, I sympathise with @Hriston if they got a lot out of them. I'd say "so keep them in" but I know that people like to have the game reflect their preferences. I'm not immune to that desire, myself.

Personally, I miss the Traits-Ideals-Flaws-Bonds stuff, but I can see that it didn't take off for people in general the way it did in my circles: those saw more usage than the Features!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Did anyone say that Backgrounds were being removed from the game? And if they did, isn't it obvious that they meant to say "Background Features"?

But to your point, yeah, I personally won't miss 'em, and the feat means as much to me when it comes to "where you come from and what you trained to do". I can have NPCs react to PCs all on my own.

Still, I sympathise with @Hriston if they got a lot out of them. I'd say "so keep them in" but I know that people like to have the game reflect their preferences. I'm not immune to that desire, myself.

I don't see why you can't just use the background features as is if you want. Sometimes I swear people act like every game is Adventurer's League or something.

 

[tetrasodium]

Ever watch a show where the main character, no matter where they go, ends up in a situation that suits their skill set? I believe the trope is called a Busman's Holiday. Illogical or not, it's oft the basis for many entertaining plots.

Take the non-canon James Bond film, Never Say Never Again (a remake of Thunderball). Early on, there are concerns about Bond's age and health so he's sent to a spa. While he's there, he just so happens to stumble onto a SPECTRE conspiracy in action! Nobody complains about how illogical this is, because it's entertaining.

Strange coincidences abound in fiction, often in some very classic stories. Prisoner of Zenda-style plots where you encounter someone who looks almost exactly like another character, dramatic twists that tie character motivations to the main plot, and so on. Or heck, as the Fighter's Handbook put it:
View attachment 356981
So the idea that a character could encounter old allies (or enemies) or other circumstances where their background comes up in strange situations is perfectly cromulent, especially in a fantasy game.

"This is something that the DM will have to play very carefully if the Swashbuckler is to be as hindered as the other warrior kits. " Classes like this back then tended to have ejection clauses the GM could pull when the player failed to live up to their end of things with their PC, 5e does not have any of that.

 

[soviet]

You ride into town wearing armor and/o carrying gear that's worth more than the total GDP of the village. You're with up 5 other individuals. Combined, your group has more wealth than anyone has dreamed of.

I find it difficult to believe that you will automatically and instantly be accepted.

Why would it be automatically and instantly? Why wouldn't you play it out?

But take it a step further. You don't look or have the same customs as the locals because you're halfway around the world. Maybe you're a dwarf and this is a goblin village, the war of Dwarven aggressors is still fresh in their memory.

I agree in that situation (which seems very much an edge case BTW) the onus is on the player to come up with a reason why it would work. And that the GM should refuse if they can't.

BUT I would also say there's still a lot of room in that situation for a sincere, helpful, or generous Folk Hero to talk their way into a position of empathy and make the ability work.

I don't have a problem with being able to relate and possibly gaining advantage on checks. It's the automatic guaranteed "You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them."

It's your prerogative to change the rules, of course. But your version necessarily removes power from the players and shifts it to the GM.

 

[tetrasodium]

Did anyone say that Backgrounds were being removed from the game? And if they did, isn't it obvious that they meant to say "Background Features"?

But to your point, yeah, I personally won't miss 'em, and the feat means as much to me when it comes to "where you come from and what you trained to do". I can have NPCs react to PCs all on my own.

Still, I sympathise with @Hriston if they got a lot out of them. I'd say "so keep them in" but I know that people like to have the game reflect their preferences. I'm not immune to that desire, myself.

There is the UA chargen stuff omitting the background features in favor of a L1 feat. Also IIRC there were some pictures of page layouts for a couple backgrounds displayed at some con a while back & those pages lacked the background feature element

I get that. But IRL I have only rarely experienced situations where an appropriate justification can't be found. In these sorts of threads it seems that some people are vetoing these powers on a much more regular basis.

Bit of history on the tangent. The players generic pulled into ravenloft from FR scenario started rolling because the ship of discussion kept crashing into irrelivant reefs of how $specific_Thing might nullify this that & the other hypothetical scenario for discussion about the poor design of background features. Being pulled from FR into Ravenloft avoids all of that because there is zero chance that the PC has a history in Ravenloft and Ravenloft itself has numerous elements that double down to make those difficult even if they exist.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think they're as narrow as you present them.

The Folk Hero says you have a destiny. You're marked for greater things. 'Already the people of your home village regard you as their champion, and your destiny calls you to stand against the tyrants and monsters that threaten the common folk everywhere'. (Note the use of 'already' rather than 'only'.)

The ability itself says 'Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them'.

The clear implication is that the character has some quality of 'folk hero-ness' that commoners recognise and respond to regardless of whether they know them or have heard of their specific exploits. It's like having a very narrow kind of 18 Charisma, in the appropriate environment you just sort of speak the right alignment language and people take to you.

You are correct. Many background features are presented as narrative mechanics. This can make them rather jarring as there are relatively few such mechanics in vanilla 5e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why would it be automatically and instantly? Why wouldn't you play it out?


I agree in that situation (which seems very much an edge case BTW) the onus is on the player to come up with a reason why it would work. And that the GM should refuse if they can't.

BUT I would also say there's still a lot of room in that situation for a sincere, helpful, or generous Folk Hero to talk their way into a position of empathy and make the ability work.


It's your prerogative to change the rules, of course. But your version necessarily removes power from the players and shifts it to the GM.

Worldbuilding power, which in my view should reside first with the DM, who can then give some of it to the players if both agree they want that in their game.

 

[soviet]

You are correct. Many background features are presented as narrative mechanics. This can make them rather jarring as there are relatively few such mechanics in vanilla 5e.

I agree with this. It does seem a bit out of place with the rest of the system. Personally I was disappointed they didn't expand on the backgrounds. In particular these kinds of pseudo narrative traits might have been a good way of giving purely martial characters more ability to affect the other pillars of play.

 

[soviet]

Worldbuilding power, which in my view should reside first with the DM, who can then give some of it to the players if both agree they want that in their game.

It's pretty mild as far as worldbuilding goes.

I don't disagree but 'it's written in the text of the game we have all agreed to play' is a fairly clear default position absent further discussion.