WhatGravitas
Explorer
I think it's because it's not a "big idea": conceptually, it's not a paradigm change or new mindset like "Fail Forward", "One Unique Thing" and so on. It's a small, little refinement that happens to work *really* well.
Your best 13th Age thing
Dragonblade
Adventurer
To me this is a "feature" not a bug. I think you miss the point of backgrounds entirely because you're viewing 13th Age backgrounds through the traditional D&D lens as a game of strategically managing limited resources. Hence the misplaced concern that a player is somehow "getting away with something" they shouldn't if they create a broad encompassing background.
13th Age's approach is a completely different paradigm than the one established in prior editions of D&D, where your PC's chance of survival with a critical skill check was won or lost during the character creation mini-game. Essentially the player is forced to strategically anticipate what skills are more important during character creation. They are then punished for guessing "wrong" if they put ranks into Tumble when they should have put ranks into Swim and now they can't swim well enough to make their check, so they die. Or rewarded for guessing right, when they can make a difficult skill check because they anticipated the need for it correctly and put all their ranks into it.
But that sort of strategic management of skills is not what 13th Age cares about. Now 13th Age does have areas where management of resources does matter. But this element of the game has been moved solely to the combat side, where you manage your spells, and powers and whatnot.
The 13th Age approach to skills is different. Backgrounds are really a storytelling tool cleverly disguised as a skill system. The point of the game is create an interesting story through play, not to test the player's ability to anticipate the future importance of skill choices required now. If you have a broad background in a 13th Age game it doesn't matter. Its simply a means for the DM to engage with the player and make the story more compelling. Why does your PC's background as an Imperial soldier let him swim better?
Well, perhaps the player creates a fascinating tale of how he was assigned bodyguard duty for the young prince while still a raw recruit. The young adolescent prince and his playmates liked to swim in a lake near the castle, and occasionally the player was forced to pull one or two of them out of the water who swam too far out and panicked.
Cool, now the player has some deeper ties to the campaign, and some important NPCs, and added some flavor. So heck yeah, give them the +5 for that swim check now. Does that help them succeed on the check, sure? Why not? Because the entire purpose of the background system as a story enabler has been achieved. Its not about punishing the player for making a poor resource allocation choice in the form of skill ranks.
You can certainly play 13th Age in a more traditional D&D style, if you want, though. So, if you want backgrounds to matter as a more traditional risk vs reward resource management way, then yeah, you probably would want to more carefully define how broad or narrow a PC's background choices can be.
I'm most interested in the TotM/Zone rules, would some elaborate for me?
Warbringer
Explorer
[MENTION=2804]Dragonblade[/MENTION]
Agreed, but if some players perceive their background as an always on bonus, they do challenge the DM to say "No" if its being abused (i.e. every check). This is system manipulation and unfortunately it will happen.
My own simple solution is at each time a background is used, the next use is a -1 penalty until the party reaches the heal up threshold.(Note story compelling reason not withstanding - Background: Warrior of the Snow Tiger Clan IS always on if the party is wandering through Arctic climes)**
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** Note, I've only run 3 games so far, 4th this weekend
Agreed, but if some players perceive their background as an always on bonus, they do challenge the DM to say "No" if its being abused (i.e. every check). This is system manipulation and unfortunately it will happen.
My own simple solution is at each time a background is used, the next use is a -1 penalty until the party reaches the heal up threshold.(Note story compelling reason not withstanding - Background: Warrior of the Snow Tiger Clan IS always on if the party is wandering through Arctic climes)**
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** Note, I've only run 3 games so far, 4th this weekend
LostSoul
Adventurer
The Backgrounds discussion is interesting: If they are completely free-form, I think they missed the mark a little. Not because of the concerns that Balesir has - though I think those are valid. No, I think they missed out on the chance to inject setting & theme into the game via the skills.
The idea I had with my hack was that the DM would create a custom list of skills (I stole the idea from Sorcerer, I now realize) that would define the world and how the PCs interact with it. If you are city-born, "Civilized: You come from the last city of men, the only one to survive the fall of the empire. How did you survive in the gutters, and how did you escape?" (It's something like that.) The other background skills are Refugee, Savage Raised, and Stranger in a Strange Land.
If I set my game during the last days of the empire, then I might use Born on the Borderlands, Economic Refugee, Disgraced Noble, and Born Behind the Walls. Which immediately gives the campaign a different flavour.
(This makes me think I should tighten up my current skill list. It's too generic at the moment.)
Anyway. So my critique comes from a "story" perspective: a list of backgrounds would give the DM an excellent tool to get the players into the game's setting and present its themes and conflicts in broad strokes. You'd always have people who want to colour outside of the lines, but that would require a conversation, and then you're talking about the setting without having to do an info-dump.
The idea I had with my hack was that the DM would create a custom list of skills (I stole the idea from Sorcerer, I now realize) that would define the world and how the PCs interact with it. If you are city-born, "Civilized: You come from the last city of men, the only one to survive the fall of the empire. How did you survive in the gutters, and how did you escape?" (It's something like that.) The other background skills are Refugee, Savage Raised, and Stranger in a Strange Land.
If I set my game during the last days of the empire, then I might use Born on the Borderlands, Economic Refugee, Disgraced Noble, and Born Behind the Walls. Which immediately gives the campaign a different flavour.
(This makes me think I should tighten up my current skill list. It's too generic at the moment.)
Anyway. So my critique comes from a "story" perspective: a list of backgrounds would give the DM an excellent tool to get the players into the game's setting and present its themes and conflicts in broad strokes. You'd always have people who want to colour outside of the lines, but that would require a conversation, and then you're talking about the setting without having to do an info-dump.
Dragonblade
Adventurer
There is certainly no wrong or right way to play. But my take is that by giving them X uses of their background per session, or per day, or whatever, you're essentially turning the use of Backgrounds back into a resource to be strategically managed. You're telling the player they get an X% worth of bonus percentage points towards your successes today, better use them judiciously. So, I can see why from your perspective you might consider it a rules abuse if the player gets what you feel is a free unlimited use of their background.
Nothing wrong if thats the way you like to play. But that's not how I perceive the game was intended to work. Which is not about backgrounds being a game resource to be managed, but more about an enabler of fiction. I've posted this before, but the players getting their bonus every time isn't the problem, its them getting the bonus every time but making it routine and boring.
If the players get the bonus every time, but the game is interesting and fresh, then who cares? That's really the point of the game. Also, mechanically, even getting the full +5 bonus just drops the difficulty by one degree. There is still a chance of failure. But again, with Fail Forward, the emphasis of the game is on making things interesting, not on beating the resource management mini-game by hoarding your daily allotment of background usages for when you need them.
Now if you like the resource management aspect of it, and you derive enjoyment from pulling out that bonus you had in your back pocket for when you need it, then more power to you. The cool thing about 13th Age is its really easy to house rule things to suit your tastes.
Imaro
Legend
I actually think the Backgrounds are supposed to work more along the lines of giving the PC's the ability to build and add to the world and through those additions become invested. The OUT works in a similar fashion. The setting for 13th Age is only loosely defined so while the DM could take the approach you suggest, and thus create the entire world and the themes of the campaign himself... the method they opted for in the game gives the players a chance to build parts of the setting out that are pertinent to their character through the selection of OUT's and backgrounds... of course it's also simple enough for players not interested in building out the setting to pick backgrounds that don't comment on it either way... something like, "Wasteland Survivalist".
Dragonblade
Adventurer
I think the DM providing a list of suggested backgrounds is a great way for a DM to get the players focused and thinking about theme and tone if the DM has a specific campaign in mind. It also allows you to implicitly determine the breadth and the scope of the backgrounds you want to see from your players in such a game.
But then again, the anything goes campaign can be fun too. I love how flexible the background system is.
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...thanks, people, so it's as lame as I thought it would be...?
Imaro
Legend
Not sure... How lame did you think it would be? As lame as a poster coming into a thread to write a one sentence threadcrap with no substance??
No, I don't think 13th Age is that lame.
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