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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 6888176" data-attributes="member: 15700">From my observations, it seems backgrounds are used mostly for the mechanical reasons (skills and tools), and once the game starts, are largely ignored.  So my question is how often do you as a DM tie in their backgrounds into the gameplay?  Here's a few example to show what I mean from some of my DMing in the past:*On of the PCs had a criminal background, and grew up on the streets of the cities.  So whenever they would enter a town or city, rather than have the party stumble around asking for directions for things, I would give that player a brief sketch of the city and key points ahead of time to account for his ability to pick up on clues, theives cant, etc.  That player would then take the lead on advising the rest of the party on the various areas.*On PC was a sage researcher, and any time the PCs would try to find research on an area or monster they thought they were about to face, I'd give a bonus to any INT checks.  When they'd face a monster they hadn't before, I would allow him to make a check to find out something about that creature after studying it.  For example, one time they fought a carrion crawler and after the player described how he investigated it, I let him know the monster's abilities and typical ecology.* Another PC was an outsider, and I used that to impact reactions he got from urban people and fellow outsiders.  I.e., a negative reaction when in the city, but with rural people, got a positive reaction.</blockquote>

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