D&D 5E I think I prefer backgrounds in 2014

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

"suffer significantly" =/= being 5% less adept at something

Giving up a first level feat is a huge opportunity cost. In my examples - Tavern Brawler and Savage Attacker offer literally nothing to the paired classes, in addition to not offering a key ability score boost.

 

[Corinnguard]

I would keep Tashas (A floating +2/+1, or three +1s, that aren’t attached to any other character creation step) and then list common bonuses under the species as "guidelines."

This is from Ryoko's Guide to the Yokai Realms:

Each race has a suggested set of ability scores to increase, a representation of the typical distribution amongst people of that lineage. You can follow these suggestions or ignore them. If you choose your own ability score increases, increase one score by 2 and increase a different score by 1, or increase three different scores by 1.

If 5.5e hadn't move the ASIs from species to background, they could have put something like this in and kept the backgrounds as is. Then when you were picking your character's species, you would have had the choice of a suggested fix set of ASIs or a floating set of ASIs of your own to pick.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Giving up a first level feat is a huge opportunity cost. In my examples - Tavern Brawler and Savage Attacker offer literally nothing to the paired classes, in addition to not offering a key ability score boost.

I mean, I've seen druids leaning on Shillelagh in melee so Savage Attacker wouldn't be so useless, IME. Tavern Brawler for a Wizard would be a really niche build, I'll concede.

More importantly, however, given that the 2024 DMG (p 55) provides guidance that "You can also create a background to help a player craft a story they have in mind for their character", I'm not seeing any issue with swapping out the default Origin feat of a Background for something else a player has in mind.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

This is one of those things where I feel WotC simply can't win no matter what they do. People complained about attribute score improvements based on a character's species, many because it reminded them of biological essentialism and made them feel icky, and still others who simply wanted more freedom in how they assigned improvements.

But they already let you pick whatever in Tasha's. They went backwards for no good reason!

 

[bedir than]

The removal of personality and other flavor elements was completely unnecessary. It diminishes the role portion of the role playing game.

I'm trying to encourage my table to continue to use some form of personality beyond merely noting aligningment

 

[Osgood]

I see a lot of laments about the loss of personality traits, bonds, and flaws... and while I agree in theory, in practice I cannot recall a single time in the past decade where one of my players actually bothered to incorporate those ideas into their character in a meaningful way. It's entirely possible that I play with the worst group of gamers on the planet (and in one of my groups I could buy that), but I suspect my experience is common enough that Wizards decided to cut their losses and put that space to better (or more universally useful) purpose.

Who knows, maybe something like those tables will appear in a more specific form in campaign settings or adventure books.

 

[abirdcall]

The removal of personality and other flavor elements was completely unnecessary. It diminishes the role portion of the role playing game.

I'm trying to encourage my table to continue to use some form of personality beyond merely noting aligningment

It took up a lot of space and slowed character creation significantly.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Do people just not incorporate 5E14 material into their 5E24 games?

If you as a DM want BIFTS and the Background Features from 5E14 in your 5E24 game... then just add them. That's like the easiest thing in the world and you don't need WotC to write it down in their book for you to that. Or if you're a player, you can decide for yourself "I'm going to give my character some traits, bonds, and ideals." The DM won't care how you choose to roleplay your character... but you just shouldn't expect to get Inspiration when you play to them. Not that you would need Inspiration anymore, seeing as how 5E24 characters gets Heroic Inspiration so easily now that keeping the Inspiration mechanic for BIFTS would pretty much be overkill and unnecessary.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I preferred the overall design.

It allowed me to create original backgrounds for the Hodgepocalypse like:
Born Yesterday (for those who are fans of Johnny -5 and nice gals like Alias)
Bunker Buddy
Dreamer (originally hooked to the astral plane)
Cybercultist
Raider/Drifter
Sportsballer (I blame Rollerball for this one).

That gave you something to hang your hat on and gave it a ton of personality to hook your species and/or class on.

the new one feels watered down in comparison.

Am I missing something?

I might be missing something, but how has the new background system changed this specific aspect? DNDBeyond doesn't seem to yet have the build-your-own functionality for 2024 backgrounds (outside homebrew), but both 2014 and 2024 let you build your own.

This is one of those things where I feel WotC simply can't win no matter what they do. People complained about attribute score improvements based on a character's species, many because it reminded them of biological essentialism and made them feel icky, and still others who simply wanted more freedom in how they assigned improvements. A lot of people supported attaching such things as ASI and skills to backgrounds as they felt it made more sense for these things to be cultural rather than biological.

I watched the leadup to this with mild amusement. Having spent much of the TSR era preferring a BX/BECMI hybrid to AD&D, I had no natural affiliation with racial attribute bonuses and penalties; plus I think attributes are the least interesting way to distinguish characters now and would rather they have less focus and mechanical impact.

IMO, regardless as to whether it is tied to species or background, because of the mechanical weight, people (not all of them, but enough) are going to pick that species or background to support the attributes favorable to their chosen class. So wherever you place the bonus, it creates serious incentives and bottlenecking and eliminates against-type combinations in X% of games. I'd much rather have attributes divorced from everything else, except maybe at the suggestion level ("goliaths tend to be strong, although there are some who defy that trend").

Regarding backgrounds, I think I'd rather them be mostly separated from mechanics. Make them be exclusively personality traits, bonds, and flaws, perhaps with starting equipment (with the option of a set amount of GP instead, as it is now). That way it is entirely optional and those who feel they are slow character creation and don't provide much benefit can effectively ignore them. It also means the page space can be entirely devoted to goal suggestions, adventure hook ideas, and other RP advice instead of lists of (often fairly arbitrary) skills, feats, or attributes tied to each of them.

 

[Minigiant]

I see a lot of laments about the loss of personality traits, bonds, and flaws... and while I agree in theory, in practice I cannot recall a single time in the past decade where one of my players actually bothered to incorporate those ideas into their character in a meaningful way. It's entirely possible that I play with the worst group of gamers on the planet (and in one of my groups I could buy that), but I suspect my experience is common enough that Wizards decided to cut their losses and put that space to better (or more universally useful) purpose.

The truth is 90% of tables didn't use those role-playing aspects of 2014 backgrounds.

There is a common theme about D&D of wanting something for looks but not wanting to use it.

Everybody wants to folk hero to have the ability to rest or find shelter among commoners.

No one wants to warp the game around the idea that there has to be an opportunity for the folk hero to need shelter or rest among the commoners.