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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6296968" data-attributes="member: 2067">The game recognizes that skills and backgrounds don't need to be coupled -- you don't need one to use the other. I believe the game should also recognize that backgrounds and professions don't need to be coupled -- that use of one doesn't imply or demand use of the other. I imagine that's the intent in renaming "Priest" as "Acolyte" (and similar). The latter specifically implies training -- a set of skills you learned. The former implies behavior -- the things you do. If one can be trained in a church, but not actually participate or officiate at those rituals, and if one can participate or officiate at those rituals without being trained in a church to do so, these shouldn't be the same mechanical element. You can have one without the other.Which isn't to say you can't link them, of course. I imagine at a Basic level, being a Cleric also implies you were an Acolyte and have a Priest profession. But if you're going to specifically talk about backgrounds, that means your profession is irrelevant, just like if you're going to be talking about professions (such as with downtime), that means the background is irrelevant.  On one level, this is just semantics. The word "background" doesn't seem to imply something that you ACTIVELY DO. It's history. Context. It's not "how you make your living," it's "how you came to be who you are today." So if they're going to call the mechanical fob that tells you how your character spends their non-adventuring time your character's "background," it's just a lousy name for the thing. "Job" or "Profession" or even "Secondary Skill" are all much better words for that mechanical fob.On another level, there's a game design reason these would be separate. What you did before you took up your adventuring career can reasonably give you something I'm going to call "proficiency." You can learn to use a sword, or learn to con people with your charisma, or learn to sail a ship, or learn to conduct a ritual, or learn magical theory, or whatever -- you can get basic skills with that background training. Those are skills you can keep developing, because you were trained in the fundamentals.What you do actively when not adventuring is a different thing. Your training doesn't necessarily factor into it as heavily. Anyone can proclaim themselves a representative of Banjo the Puppet God and go around blessing newborn babies. What you do when not adventuring is more defined by the outputs you want from the time you spend on it -- if you want some coin or some work of art or some remarkable item or some new friends or what. This product comes from performing a craft or utilizing your profession or engaging the townsfolk or whatever. You don't need to be a trained schmoozer to roll into town, start buying drinks, and making buddies. Your proficiencies might affect the degree of your success (ie, make a Diplomacy check to see how well you make connections), but they don't determine what you can do (since it doesn't take a specialization to do that). So if "Acolyte" is what you did before you took up your adventuring career, it would give you some basic proficiencies (Religion and Holy Symbol, forex), but if "Priest" is what you do alongside your adventuring career, you might make Wisdom checks to see how much money you earn and how many people in town trust you after doing the Rosenberg's Bot Mitzvah for little Rebbekha (maybe you'd roll a Religion check instead if you were trained). Thus, you can have a system where someone is an Acolyte but not a Priest, or swapped, without one requiring the other, by separating those two elements.And if those two elements are separate, it makes a lot more sense in the simple English of the thing for the "background" to house the "before you began your adventuring life" rules (such as the package of proficiencies that come with Acolyte), and the "downtime" system to house the "what you do when you're not adventuring" rules (such as making a little money and a few friends while perform a few blood-pact weddings in the name of our lord and savior Satan or whatever).</blockquote>

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