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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 6181862" data-attributes="member: 386">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.</blockquote>

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