D&D (2024) Learning to Love the Background System

[pukunui]

I was assuming after the DMG comes out, all the people I know around me wont be making a change until the DMG or maybe even the MM comes out.

Fair enough. One of the games I'm running is very near the end (just one or two more sessions, I think), so I need to talk to my players about how we want to proceed re: the next campaign and whether we try out just the new PHB or wait until at least the new DMG is out or even wait until the new MM is out as well and, in the meantime, continue to use the 2014 rules.

 

[Daztur]

That’s assuming that will still be an option. If you’ve got Legacy content on, then I imagine it will let you use the 2014 custom background feature, and then you could manually add the feat and ability score adjustments, but if you’re only using the 2024 rules, you may not get that option right away.

I'm certainly not going to let an app tell me how I can play D&D.

 

[roguish]

So you're an Orc who lived in the Temple to Gruumsh instead of going out raiding every day (Acolyte)? You're not going to be as strong, at first, as the one who was a Soldier on the front lines from the moment he could crawl. That's OK. [...]

This is what Story is. This is what Role Playing is. And in the end, you're talking about 2 ASI points. A 5% greater chance at success than someone else. It really, REALLY isn't a big deal.

Two points.

1) Story is great, I also optimise around a character concept. And if I want to play a Rogue who's more book-smart than dexterous, I will (and I have!). But having the ability to pick any stat I want doesn't prevent me from making RP choices my priority. I can still do that! So why limit myself to WotC's 16 backgrounds whose flavour and mechanics may or may not fit the what I have in mind?

2) Your Acolyte and Sage descriptions are stereotypical in a way I personally find very restrictive. Why presume that ALL acolytes everywhere do nothing all day long except read and pray and chant (INT/WIS/CHA)? For example, do you know how christian monasteries work? There's A LOT of manual labour involved, menial labour to get humble, agricultural labour to get food, someone needs to move around furniture, there's carpentry abound, you get real good at kneeling and getting up again, all sorts of things. Can't a temple be like that to some degree?

What if I want to play someone like Friar Tuck, who's a poacher and who can beat you silly with his staff? Or Salvatore from The Name of the Rose, who surely has a penalty in all his mental stats? Or someone like a Shaolin monk (different monk!) who grew up in a temple, and there was quite a lot of physical exercise involved? Or someone like a Mevlevi mystic, a.k.a. whirling dervish, who joined a tekke in early youth and routinely danced to exhaustion? Or a million other things that don't conform to WotC's preconceptions and generalisations about their 16 Backgrounds, but can give life to amazing, diverse characters?

With all that in mind, is it really SO unfathomable that an acolyte could train in a physical stat? And even if none of that is prescribed, don't people ever do things NOT prescribed? If I'm an acolyte in a cloistered cell, can't I choose to do pushups before bed?

That's why I argued earlier that ideally, backgrounds as a concept should encompass everything in your upbringing and environment, and shouldn't be limited to this one job you had. And the only way to make that work is leave the mechanical benefits up to the player (with DM approval of course).

But different strokes for different folks.

 

[Ashrym]

That’s well and good, unless I’m playing in their game, at which point it actually affects me.

That's a possibility. How probable is it, though? Seems like more of the exception than the rule to me and at that point if it does come up you have the choice of following the rules of the table or withdrawing from participation in the game. If you're not allowed a custom background I would expect you'll still have fun, but if not then no one can compel you to play with that DM in that game.

It falls into the category of "what if?" ism. It's a condition being argued that has not happened and might not happen and you're arguing against what appears to be a remote possibility. I'd argue that the risk of a DM doing something we don't like or agree with is a risk regardless.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I would expect it more likely a DM will work with players to help with backgrounds than against them the majority of the time. I'd also point out that any background already in the PHB is permissible so being mechanically sound allows for free reflavoring. I don't imagine a DM is likely to say no to picking the mechanics of an existing background while changing it's name and flavor text to suit you're character better.

The backgrounds that could increase DEX for your rogue are: artisan, charlatan, criminal, entertainer, guide, sailor, scribe. soldier, and wayfarer. That seems like a fairly decent cross-section to me before reflavoring.

I hope you don't run into a problematic DM, but it doesn't look that bad from my perspective. ;-)

 

[Charlaquin]

That's a possibility. How probable is it, though? Seems like more of the exception than the rule to me and at that point if it does come up you have the choice of following the rules of the table or withdrawing from participation in the game. If you're not allowed a custom background I would expect you'll still have fun, but if not then no one can compel you to play with that DM in that game.

It falls into the category of "what if?" ism. It's a condition being argued that has not happened and might not happen and you're arguing against what appears to be a remote possibility. I'd argue that the risk of a DM doing something we don't like or agree with is a risk regardless.

Of course, I could be wrong, but I would expect it more likely a DM will work with players to help with backgrounds than against them the majority of the time. I'd also point out that any background already in the PHB is permissible so being mechanically sound allows for free reflavoring. I don't imagine a DM is likely to say no to picking the mechanics of an existing background while changing it's name and flavor text to suit you're character better.

The backgrounds that could increase DEX for your rogue are: artisan, charlatan, criminal, entertainer, guide, sailor, scribe. soldier, and wayfarer. That seems like a fairly decent cross-section to me before reflavoring.

I hope you don't run into a problematic DM, but it doesn't look that bad from my perspective. ;-)

“It’s not that bad” is not generally considered a very polite response to someone expressing a concern. If you don’t share the concern, fine, but your lack of concern doesn’t really affect me, and your attempt to tell me I should stop being concerned is condescending.

 

[Ashrym]

“It’s not that bad” is not generally considered a very polite response to someone expressing a concern. If you don’t share the concern, fine, but your lack of concern doesn’t really affect me, and your attempt to tell me I should stop being concerned is condescending.

Sorry. I didn't mean to sound condescending. Our feelings are valid.

 

[pukunui]

I'm certainly not going to let an app tell me how I can play D&D.

That's not the point. It's just an annoyance when you've become reliant on using the digital tool. If I had to, I absolutely would go back to using paper character sheets.

 

[Daztur]

That's not the point. It's just an annoyance when you've become reliant on using the digital tool. If I had to, I absolutely would go back to using paper character sheets.

In any game I DM I'm using paper character sheets as the default. Even with online games I lay all of the PCs' printed out character sheets in front of me so I can see all of them at once.

 

[Corinnguard]

I think I'll stick with either the 2014 Backgrounds or the Level Up Backgrounds. Like the Backgrounds in the 2024 PHB, the ones in Level Up do have ASIs. However, you get one fixed +1 ASI and one floating +1 ASI to work with. For instance, if you were using the Soldier background, you would get a +1 to STR and +1 to the ability score of your choice.

So, you can be a soldier who:

• was trained to be quick and agile on the battlefield. +1 DEX.
• was harder to put down than most of their fellow soldiers. +1 CON
• was trained to be a tactician. +1 INT
• was trained to be observant of their surroundings. +1 WIS
• was trained to lead other soldiers. +1 CHA

I wonder. The 2024 PHB has the claim that it is backwards compatible with the 2014 PHB. But could you also have compatibility with a 5e clone too? The clones use the same 5e chassis after all.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The pithy quip of ‘restrictions breed creativity’ is a lie, at least when it comes to backgrounds and their mechanics, RBC is only true when you actually have room to be creative in, to improvise and explore possibilities, but the design of backgrounds and classes are set in stone in ways that deny creative problem solving because there are no alternative solutions, your wizard NEEDS INT to improve their spellcasting, and that means a background with STR, WIS, CHA, is entirely useless to them.