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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 9739096" data-attributes="member: 6988941">Sure, but defaults matter. I don't avoid making many changes to core rules because I'm lazy or because I don't think I can balance design changes, I'd happily rewrite anything and everything. I was up half the night last night dreaming up a complete overhaul of the 5e skills system, and I'm pretty happy with it, but will probably never implement it at a 5e table unless I'm inviting people specifically for a playtest. I avoid changing rules because every change to the defaults people are familiar with is another thing they have to know and we all have to discuss. Not wanting to have to issue everyone a 30 page supplement of my house rules or whatever is not a laziness issue, it's a reasonableness issue. It is an issue of not playing with a whole lot of people who want a homework assignment for a game that's already a huge time commitment. If I just played one home game with one group I'd happily evolve the game into whatever, but, like many people, I play with a variety of other people who in turn play with multiple groups and so I am highly invested in the default options not sucking. Even if I took the time to get everything I disliked changed and got all my groups to agree on the changes, I've spent enough time as a classroom teacher to know that communicating things clearly is hard, and someone's going to forget them no matter how clearly or repeatedly you communicate them. And while I myself have a good memory for rules I'd doubtlessly mess them up if I was running multiple campaigns with different rules. Default options thus matter even when they are utterly trivial to change. Most people playing the game are not obsessives like me who spend hours arguing about this sort of thing on ENWorld; most people have pretty limited bandwidth for house rules. Basically unless the house rule is so ubiquitous that people don't even know it's not the default, is entirely a DM side thing players don't need to understand, or is a particular change requested by a player that only directly effects their character, I avoid it.Lack of default support for custom backgrounds in 2024 5e is a garbage move, chosen either out of foolishness or avarice. It just sucks, with no upside whatsoever. I seriously doubt there was a large number of people clamoring for the change, so "can't please everyone" arguments are moot. The game is a little bit worse for it for people actually invested in the default rules, and for those who aren't it makes no difference.Hopefully eventually custom backgrounds become one of those "so ubiquitous people don't even know its not the default" things in 2024 5e that I can just quietly let take hold at all my tables without sucking up anyone's bandwidth, but until that happens it will just be another way that this edition is a needless downgrade from 2014.</blockquote>

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