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OneD&D Character Origins summary
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<blockquote data-quote="Benjamin Olson" data-source="post: 8736477" data-attributes="member: 6988941"><p>So I spent a bunch of my Summer helping little kids make D&D characters. There's a lot I like here from an introducing new players perspective, but on that front I really dislike first level feats tied to backgrounds <em>as presented</em>. It's great for new players that <em>want an existing background</em>. But the thing is that a lot of new players would rather just come up with their own background. This is not an advanced option to me, so much as something to facilitate accessibility and decision making for people who don't want to read through pages of backgrounds. With an experienced player's help someone can just say "I want to be a swamp dweller" and they can make up that background.</p><p></p><p>Now on the one hand it is easier than ever to create a custom background with the flavorful but useless background features and equipment removed. I applaud this move. But, now the background has to have a feat, which ties in a whole, much more complicated system.</p><p></p><p>It used to be that when a kid said something like "swamp dweller" as their desired background, I would just help them think of two suitable skills, and two suitable tools or languages, and then ignore the pointless background ability and crappy random equipment. Now there's a damned feat involved.</p><p></p><p>I think it would be easiest for new players, and those helping them, if they just got a feat giving expertise in their background skills by default (I think people should be experts in the things they did their entire life until they became adventurers anyway, and especially since the background skills often don't tie to a characters prime stat, it's hardly overpowered). Then, as an advanced option this could be swapped out for other "level one" feats. </p><p></p><p>I think first level feats tied to backgrounds is a great idea, but a simple, catch-all default option that doesn't require understanding the feat system would make it much more accessible for new players.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Benjamin Olson, post: 8736477, member: 6988941"] So I spent a bunch of my Summer helping little kids make D&D characters. There's a lot I like here from an introducing new players perspective, but on that front I really dislike first level feats tied to backgrounds [I]as presented[/I]. It's great for new players that [I]want an existing background[/I]. But the thing is that a lot of new players would rather just come up with their own background. This is not an advanced option to me, so much as something to facilitate accessibility and decision making for people who don't want to read through pages of backgrounds. With an experienced player's help someone can just say "I want to be a swamp dweller" and they can make up that background. Now on the one hand it is easier than ever to create a custom background with the flavorful but useless background features and equipment removed. I applaud this move. But, now the background has to have a feat, which ties in a whole, much more complicated system. It used to be that when a kid said something like "swamp dweller" as their desired background, I would just help them think of two suitable skills, and two suitable tools or languages, and then ignore the pointless background ability and crappy random equipment. Now there's a damned feat involved. I think it would be easiest for new players, and those helping them, if they just got a feat giving expertise in their background skills by default (I think people should be experts in the things they did their entire life until they became adventurers anyway, and especially since the background skills often don't tie to a characters prime stat, it's hardly overpowered). Then, as an advanced option this could be swapped out for other "level one" feats. I think first level feats tied to backgrounds is a great idea, but a simple, catch-all default option that doesn't require understanding the feat system would make it much more accessible for new players. [/QUOTE]
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