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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9285060" data-attributes="member: 6877472">But again this is something you're meant to talk about before play begins.  I posted the relevant section where it says very clearly that "This their opportunity to tie their characters' history and background to the campaign, and a chance for you (ie, the DM!) to determine how the various elements of each character's background tie into the campaign's story.  For example, what secret has the hermit's character learned?  What is the status of the noble character's family?  What is the folk hero's destiny?"The DMG is very clear here, there's no need for "pushback"- you decide if you can work with a background or not, and you decide how that will play out, and you tell the players.  If it's not to their satisfaction, then they can play something else or not at all if there's no compromise here.Backgrounds were apparently conceived with the idea that 5e should be a collaborative gaming experience where the players and DM work together to tell a story, and the players can interject their background into the narrative.  They are a tool for both player and DM- if the story stalls, "oh hey, you recognize someone from your old guild".  Or a fellow noble.  Or what have you.What I get from your statements is that players are jack-booted thugs who demand to be allowed to use their backgrounds to override the DM's well-crafted plot (/tongue firmly in cheek), leaving the DM with no recourse.When it was up to the DM to make allowances for backgrounds in the first place, and weave them into their plot.  And if you as a DM don't want to do this, for whatever reason, you should be clear up front "your backgrounds will not have that level of power in my game", the same way you can restrict races, classes, subclasses, feats, or anything else in your game.I have had the experience where a DM told me that he didn't see how I could apply my noble background the one time it would have come in handy.  But we never had any discussion about how my being a noble would impact the game, I simply chose it because I thought it would be a neat backstory.And I noticed that this seems fairly common for DM's to think of backgrounds as an afterthought, and it's equally common for people to just use custom backgrounds to get the proficiencies they want and not have features, because they likely will never come into play.And the next PHB will reflect this attitude.  Now, is this WotC's fault?  Certainly, they could have given the DM more guidance here, and maybe they should have realized that not every DM is going to want to give their players this kind of latitude.  But it's not like the books are lying about their intent when they were written- there is no misleading going on here (at least, for this topic).Should they have reinforced this intent in the intervening years?  Maybe, but I think it's perfectly legitimate, when you see that your end product isn't being used as intended, to shrug and let them do their thing.  WotC was making money, people seemed happy with 5e, so why rock the boat?</blockquote>

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