D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Oofta]

Mad scientists say that you are wrong about research being of no benefit in Barovia. Muahahahahaha! But seriously, if a background doesn't work for an area, it's typically apparent to the players and they just don't pick that background except by deliberate choice(My PC sailor is far from home and has been in the desert for the last 3 years).

For my current campaign I just told them to use custom background and they gain a free feat from a list. There may be some advantages based on their backstory, but it's not going to be a background feature.

 

[Maxperson]

For my current campaign I just told them to use custom background and they gain a free feat from a list. There may be some advantages based on their backstory, but it's not going to be a background feature.

I personally like the background feature and wish there were a lot more, but I can see where you might prefer it another way.

 

[Hriston]

At the same time it's a good thing for sandbox games if 2014 style "background features" rot in the dustbin of history too. Many of those options pretty much grant a player the ability to automatically successfully eliminate a wide range of cornerstone adventure elements from play entirely. Once you spread those across 3-5 players with even mild knowledge of the campaign pitch you have a situation like:

• Alice automatically provides room & board in cities & towns for the group through one of multiple options carrying its own clout the whole world/multiverse cares about. No checks, no discussion, no worldbuilding... it just happens
• Bob automatically provides food & water for the group while traveling or adventuring away from cities & towns. No consideration for skills, no consideration for the conditions of the wilderness, no checks, no need to stop or slow down for RP discussion or anything else... it just happens
• After being presented with an adventure or problem that requires learning something, Cindy can point at the GM & just demand to be told where & from whom she can obtain that info from. No need for worldbuilding, no need to interact with NPCs to find it,,, just an immediate "ok guys we need to go this way".
• I'm only up to three players, Dave & Eddy could choose options like free & easy access to ship travel, the option to pull rank with military NPCs not blessed with a player encouraged to decide their own rank, fast travel in cities for the group, a pair of interns to play gopher & animated ten foot pole for the player, a solid fake identity they can throw at the GM, automatic knowledge of who's who of the criminal underworld and people will let you successfully interact with them... and more

They might not be a big deal in a prewritten adventure by virtue of the adventure boundaries & path being predefined, but in aggregate they violently kick the legs out from under significant chunks of a sandbvox campaign

D&D 5E (2014) is a TTRPG. Nothing "just happens" without discussion between the participants, without someone declaring a character's actions, and without someone doing some "worldbuilding" to provide a time and place in which a character's actions occur, so I'm really not sure what the gameplay is you're imagining.

 

[tetrasodium]

D&D 5E (2014) is a TTRPG. Nothing "just happens" without discussion between the participants, without someone declaring a character's actions, and without someone doing some "worldbuilding" to provide a time and place in which a character's actions occur, so I'm really not sure what the gameplay is you're imagining.

except when what should have been gm advice written to GM's are instead found as player facing features with sloppy writing that makes the GM need to regularly pull out their hair fighting it tooth & nail at the expense of creating an adversarial feeling at the table.

 

[Hriston]

We have two pages of Backgrounds from the PHB in layout with art thst were shown at PAX. They haven't changed the text substantially from the UA, which is to be expected as the Origins UA got big satisfaction numbers.

But it is all right there implicitly, and the problem with the "explicit" presentation is that it isn't always going to work in the fiction. In practice, I don't see any difference in how these will play out: any reasonable DM, and by thst I mean even a newbie 12 year old who just got the books, is going to read what's in the below pages and allow basically the same as theybwould in the prior prescriptive "feature".

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These images are too blurry to read on my screen, but assuming the text is pretty much the same as in the playtest, as it appears to be, then no, the same player behavior is not "equally encouraged" by this presentation as by the 2014 background features. Just taking the four backgrounds presented here:

• Shelter of the Faithful encourages the players of an acolyte and their party to "expect to receive free healing and care at a temple, shrine, or other established presence of [the acolyte's] faith". It also encourages the acolyte's player to expect other members of the acolyte's faith to cover the cost of a modest lifestyle for them, to stipulate the acolyte has an established place of residence at a temple, and, while nearby, to rely on the priests of the temple to provide assistance when called on.
• Guild Membership encourages the player of a guild artisan to expect other members of the guild to provide "lodging and food, if necessary, and pay for [the guild artisan's] funeral if needed." It also encourages the player to expect support from the guild if accused of a crime and to "gain access to powerful political figures through the guild."
• False Identity encourages the player of a charlatan to rely on being allowed to assume a persona they've created and being able to forge documents.
• Discovery encourages the player of a hermit to stipulate the hermit has "access to a unique and powerful discovery."

The playtest backgrounds say nothing to encourage any of these things.

 

[Parmandur]

These images are too blurry to read on my screen, but assuming the text is pretty much the same as in the playtest, as it appears to be, then no, the same player behavior is not "equally encouraged" by this presentation as by the 2014 background features. Just taking the four backgrounds presented here:

• Shelter of the Faithful encourages the players of an acolyte and their party to "expect to receive free healing and care at a temple, shrine, or other established presence of [the acolyte's] faith". It also encourages the acolyte's player to expect other members of the acolyte's faith to cover the cost of a modest lifestyle for them, to stipulate the acolyte has an established place of residence at a temple, and, while nearby, to rely on the priests of the temple to provide assistance when called on.
• Guild Membership encourages the player of a guild artisan to expect other members of the guild to provide "lodging and food, if necessary, and pay for [the guild artisan's] funeral if needed." It also encourages the player to expect support from the guild if accused of a crime and to "gain access to powerful political figures through the guild."
• False Identity encourages the player of a charlatan to rely on being allowed to assume a persona they've created and being able to forge documents.
• Discovery encourages the player of a hermit to stipulate the hermit has "access to a unique and powerful discovery."

The playtest backgrounds say nothing to encourage any of these things.

The way the 2014 "Features" play oit in game sem to match up exactly with the UA descriptions? I don't see a practical difference.

 

[Hriston]

I mean, the game is designed to be for new players, specifically teenagers...?

No, I disagree on both counts. Teenagers don't need to have a game designed specifically for them. They are perfectly capable of picking up and playing a game designed for adults. That can be a game in which your choice of background connects your character to the world. Also, the game is designed for both new and experienced players.

 

[Parmandur]

No, I disagree on both counts. Teenagers don't need to have a game designed specifically for them. They are perfectly capable of picking up and playing a game designed for adults. That can be a game in which your choice of background connects your character to the world. Also, the game is designed for both new and experienced players.

Right, and the text of the new Backgrounds does exactly that...?

 

[Hriston]

Fair enough. I'm a little surprised that those features are as important to you as all that, but I honestly support the character's story-integration that you're going for. I don't personally think that the background features did a good job of that, but I can see how players who leaned into them could get something out of them. Thanks for your perspective.

I think the background features could be better, including removing language that allows the DM to veto the feature in some cases. I would have liked to see an attempt to improve them, rather than the complete abandonment of the design.

ETA: They’re important to me because they codify giving players jurisdiction over parts of the fiction related to their character’s background — NPCs, locations, organizations/institutions, etc. — allowing players to play their characters as people with connections to the world they inhabit rather than strangers in a strange land.

 

[Hriston]

Sorry. I should probably restate my claim so it is clearer.

There are no background features in a campaign (even a published one like Ravenloft) that are useless. The DM can easily allow that background feature to shine at least once, but probably several times over the course of a campaign. I was replying to this comment:

Which I made in reply to this comment:

First, setting a campaign in a pocket dimension like Barovia, the Astral plane like Spelljammer, or a different plane of existence like Avernus are what happens in published mods.

Second if you don't care about the logic of how the world works, more power to you. I couldn't take a game like that seriously and wouldn't want to play in a long term campaign that does not. If I'm in a city my PC has never heard of, why would I have a contact there if I have a criminal background? It would make no sense.

So I think it's bad DMing to twist logic into a pretzel so a PC gets a minor benefit.