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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7924428" data-attributes="member: 6801228">That begs a question. Why bother to include backgrounds in the game? At that point, just say "All Barbarians take Outlander, All Wizards take Sage, All Fighters take soldier, All Clerics take Acolyte, All Rogues take Urchin" ectHey, why not take it a step further. All Fighters are gruff men with beards who have seen too much war. All Wizards are old men with long beards seeking power for powers sake. All clerics are beautiful and kind women who act as the mother of the party. I mean, if you are going to require people to play a trope, go all the way. All wizards are named Gandalf. All Fighters named Bob. I mean, my PC makes sense in the gameworld. In fact, they are a logical follow up of a barbarian tribe who is protected by their ancestors getting a noble title and acting as the royal guard for a kingdom. Their ancestors aren't abandoning them, because they still fight for the glory of the family name. They are still a martial people. They just aren't womanizing, hard drinking slobs. But, that is unnacceptable because of the almighty trope, even though that trope is itself younger than the archetype this represents.If they didn't want to change fluff, they wouldn't create any setting other than Greyhawk, because once they made a different setting, they changed the fluff of races and classes. If the fluff was that important, Dark Sun and Eberron and Planescape and all the others would not exist.Are you actually serious? Like, completely serious? Because you, the person calling on me to follow classic archetypes, is going to say "nobles don't adventure" when I specifically said that he was a Questing Knight? I mean, if you haven't read it, I'm sure you'll love Le Morte d'Arthur. It is about a place called Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table, and about all they do is go on adventures and quests. I mean, I can easily get a Guild Artisan adventuring too, because explorers were often looking for new sources of raw materials to increase their businesses, but I'm just flabbergasted that you are going to throw away the entire archetye of the Questing Knight.They are valid answers. It depends on the campaign. "Our campaign focuses on the recovery of ancient holy relics lost in a great war. The first character is an Acolyte."The answer to the question of background isn't suddenly "I am no longer an acolyte and have no ties or intentions to work within the church, I'm all about the gold now" No, the campaign is being built around a concept where a party who has deep ties to the church makes perfect sense. And, surprisingly, you can still be mostly adventuring and still be something like a con artist, a sage, an entertainer, a smuggler, a nomadic tribesman, a soldier, a spy. Because adventures are wider than tomb robbing and dragon slaying.The way words work? Really. Okay, let us test that a little bit. The questions were "The most important question to ask about your background is what changed? Why did you stop doing whatever your background describes and start adventuring?" So, let us rephrase them a little bit and try Panda-s1's answers"Why did you stop fighting for your country and start mercenary work?""I didn't" Hmmm... answer makes sense, I can even add context like "I didn't, I took on a role as a government contractor, not a mercenary." Let's try the other oneThe most important question to ask about your career as a Rock Star is what changed?"Nothing" Seems like a valid answer, especially if we go with "Nothing, I am taking my music to the people, instead of letting them come to me." It seems words work just fine. Must be an operator error then.If race, class and background don't matter.. why even have them?That is my question, if background means nothing, if my Barbarian is a trope-standard barbarian no matter if I put sage, urchin, soldier, knight or spy as my background, then why even have backgrounds? If they do not change the character, who they are, what they care about, ect. Then why include them in the first place.</blockquote>

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