D&D 5E Krynn's Free Feats: setting-specific or the future of the game?

[James Gasik]

It is a really weird one, noble. It's like you have this "I'm better than you" aura that all peasants the world over simply detect and they must grovel. Likewise, all other nobles can sense that same aura but read it as "you're better than everyone else, just like me" and will be your friends. It's a really strange permanent and global friendship & charm person spell. Most players think it works just like mind control. It's so weird.

It's a fantasy game, so it's a riff on the myth of the "divine right of kings" or "nobles are just better" tropes. Honestly, it was just my backstory, I didn't expect it to be a big deal, as backstory elements rarely are (unless my DM wants to exploit them to make my life more difficult), but when it actually would matter, being told "ehhhh..." made me think that backgrounds were pointless and everyone should just get two free skills.

Along with how often I saw "personality traits", "ideals", "bonds", "flaws", or that weird little item sitting in my backpack mattered.

I mean, I even had to point out to my DM that I was carrying around a signet ring, wearing fine clothes, and had a scroll of pedigree!

And don't get me started on free tool proficiencies, lol....oh sure Thieves' Tools are useful, but let's talk about my Gaming Set proficiency...

 

[Aldarc]

having things on your sheet should mean something

I want you to know that you just made the entire OSR community ragequit a game that they no longer play.

 

[overgeeked]

yes becuse getting a place to spend the night is the same as charm....

No, but this is:

FEATURE : POSITION OF PRIVILEGE
Thanks to your noble birth, people are inclined to think the best of you. You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to.

having things on your sheet should mean something

Sure. Mean something. But not "every noble simply knows I'm awesome" nor "every peasant will bend over backwards to accommodate you". That's some weird mind-control aura stuff right there.

It's a fantasy game, so it's a riff on the myth of the "divine right of kings" or "nobles are just better" tropes.

Yeah, exactly. And it's freaking gross. I was born just being better than you. That's some nasty unexamined fantasy we should really not be promoting.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope. The document doesn't connect the options to a background at 4th level. There's no "if you were a Folk Hero you take YYY" suggestion. Even the knight and wizard ones aren't conneyto background, only requiring a previous feat, something you might get by being human.

If you are not choosing one connected to a background, you get to pick your 4th level feat from this list.

Divinely Favored
Skilled
Tough
Alert
Mobile
Sentinel
War Caster

Enjoy.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, it was obviously intended for the Background Feature to matter in games, but it often is vestigial with no real benefit, especially in public play. I remember my noble getting zero benefit for being a noble, and then one time when we needed shelter, I announced I'd ask the local lord to put us up in his keep, using my feature, and the DM actually said "I mean, I guess, but I don't understand how that works, the guy has never heard of you."

When I get pushback on simply finding my party a place to sleep for the night, it's obvious (to me) that a component of backgrounds has failed to work as advertised.

In my game nobility brings with all that nobility would, which is usually significantly more than the background gives you, so it's the one background you need my permission to take. If you have it, though, and I have had nobles in my campaigns, it means something.

 

[Maxperson]

but is putting the toughness feat in there anydiffrent then picking the background featurre you want and mixing it with the skills

I'm not sure what you mean. Would you elaborate on that please?

 

[James Gasik]

Well overgeeked, it's like this. If there's no place in your game for that "fantasy", that's fine. I didn't really expect to be treated like a king when I chose noble for my character, but I did think it would be more useful than it ended up being. I mean, even in AL, I would occasionally see an adventure that says "hey if a character belongs to this Faction or has this Background, this happens". I just never got my turn at bat, as it were.

Obviously, as Maxperson has pointed out, this is campaign-dependent; if a DM wants to work Backgrounds into their campaigns, great, since I think the intent is that they do- but without guidance, a player can pick a Background that doesn't really matter in the game that's being played.

Like if I'm an Outlander or Outlaw and we're working for the rightful ruler of a land, that might be a disadvantage! Yet the Background implies that being an Outlander or Outlaw is an advantage.

A lot of space in the PHB is devoted to Backgrounds, so I don't think they were intended to be vestigial, yet they certainly can be, and you do get DM's who say "you have no right or expectation for your Background to matter".

Who could blame a designer for realizing they could have bypassed this by giving each Background a mechanical benefit instead of a vaguely defined Feature?

 

[Maxperson]

FEATURE : POSITION OF PRIVILEGE
Thanks to your noble birth, people are inclined to think the best of you. You are welcome in high society, and people assume you have the right to be wherever you are. The common folk make every effort to accommodate you and avoid your displeasure, and other people of high birth treat you as a member of the same social sphere. You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to.

I see nothing there that grants advantage to any roll. And "inclined to think the best of you" is not "will think the best of you." It's not charm. Rather, it's what nobles get for the most part in media and historically.

Sure. Mean something. But not "every noble simply knows I'm awesome" nor "every peasant will bend over backwards to accommodate you". That's some weird mind-control aura stuff right there.

And it didn't say that every noble knows you're awesome or that every peasant will bend over backwards. It's just an inclination that won't hold true in all cases.

I was born just being better than you.

That's nobility. You can create your game world with no nobility in it, but in a game world that has nobility, there will be the class differences that go along with it.

 

[James Gasik]

I see nothing there that grants advantage to any roll. And "inclined to think the best of you" is not "will think the best of you." It's not charm. Rather, it's what nobles get for the most part in media and historically.

And it didn't say that every noble knows you're awesome or that every peasant will bend over backwards. It's just an inclination that won't hold true in all cases.

That's nobility. You can create your game world with no nobility in it, but in a game world that has nobility, there will be the class differences that go along with it.

I mean look at all the people who are intensely interested in the goings on of Britain's royal family, most of whom do not live in the monarchy! There are, to this very day, people who think "royalty is special". Rightly or wrongly.

 

[John R Davis]

Not really. More options is just more options. If those new options are explicitly more powerful than the older options, that's power creep.

Except having 2 free feats is PoCr