So one of the characters in my new game chose the Urchin background. Their feature allows then to quickly navigate from point A to point B in urban settings. At first blush, this seems ok to be used in a wide variety of locations- urban sprawl is fairly universal. But then I got to thinking about it- surely there's a difference between Waterdeep, Victorian London, Sigil, and the City of Brass?
In Waterdeep, one might take a shortcut through the sewers, one of three "dungeons" in the city (including Undermountain and the dungeon in Knight of the Living Dead).
In Sigil, not only do you have to navigate twisting streets and backalleys, but maybe pop through a door you know the activation requirements for!
Now it's going to be awhile before the party reaches anything larger than a large town, and when they do get to the city, it's going to be a place the Urchin has never been to before. I'm going to assume that they are streetwise enough to quickly get the "lay of the land", as it were, and not bother with any required time to explore and acclimate themselves to the environment, though I did have an idea for how to reconcile the issue.
Just make it a downtime activity to allow your Background to function in a new region! Your Criminal can join a new Thieves' Guild in another city, your Acolyte presents themselves at a new temple, your noble carouses with the upper crust (as per the rules in Xanathar's), and so on!
I wonder if this had been presented in the rules to begin with if it could have saved Backgrounds from the scrap pile.
