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

[Maxperson]

Now you're getting it. See, if it's a feat, I know the DM isn't going to start playing silly buggers and insisting on all sorts of hoops. I get my feat, and, poof, we're good to go.

Gee, I wonder why players would choose that...

Yeah, if they make it a feat, the feat will have to make sense with the background for my game. No hermits who have lived their lives in solitary knowing folks in every town that will run messages.

I will have to start restricting things so that they make sense, rather than the ability just not working once in a while when it makes sense for it not to work. This change is a bad one.

Edit: And feats aren't guaranteed to work under circumstances where they shouldn't any more than background abilities are. If someone takes the feat to send messages through criminals that they don't know since they've never been to that universe and have no contact...

I'm not sure why you think feats and spells are more reliable. Those work when they make sense to work and don't when it doesn't make sense for them to work.

 

[mamba]

Now I'm confused. Why make me pick the Position of Privilege feat if I choose the noble background when it can just be a part of the noble background?

I have no idea what you are talking about, I said the feat comes with the background, you are not picking both individually

 

[mamba]

Now you're getting it. See, if it's a feat, I know the DM isn't going to start playing silly buggers and insisting on all sorts of hoops. I get my feat, and, poof, we're good to go.

if the feat is just the feature under a different name, I can tell you right now that nothing was accomplished at all. I expect more practical feats, not a repackaging

 

[Maxperson]

if the feat is just the feature under a different name, I can tell you right now that nothing was accomplished at all. I expect more practical feats, not a repackaging

Yeah.

"CRIMINAL
You are a n experienced criminal with a history of breaking the law. You have spent a lot of time among other criminals and still have contacts within the criminal underworld. You're far closer than most people to the world of murder, theft, and violence that pervades the underbelly of civilization, and you have survived up to this point by flouting the rules and regulations of society.

FEATURE FEAT: CRIMINAL CONTACT
You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you."

That changes nothing at all.

 

[Oofta]

So I take a couple days off and people are still claiming we're saying background features never work?

First, no one has said that. They may not make sense in some situations. For me, I don't use them because they don't always make sense but also because they're so limited. I'd rather have background/backstory grant special hooks and benefits customized to the PC.

Someone with a criminal background may know about different gifts, have a better idea where to find where the criminal element could be found far from home and so on .in other cases I have things like someone that spent time in the feywild which will likely have more impact than any background feature.

Much like alignment is just part of a character's personality, background is just part of their backstory. Usually a small part.

 

[Faolyn]

feels a lot like some background feature consequences to me

Sure--like when you adhere too closely to RAW and insist that people have to know you for a feature to work, or that you have to have access to messengers for a feature to work.

 

[mamba]

Sure--like when you adhere too closely to RAW and insist that people have to know you for a feature to work, or that you have to have access to messengers for a feature to work.

so ‘we’ are ok with abstracting everything about the feature away until we are left with ‘you somehow….’ as the explanation, just so long as this means the feature can work anywhere (but it is not necessarily guaranteed to work either…).

Yeah, you can certainly play that way, I have zero interest in doing so, on either side of the screen

Also, ‘we’ did not really take the messenger out of the equation, we only ended up with ever more bizarre reasons for why they can be a messenger…

 

[Hriston]

Good to hear. From your posts prior, I'd taken your stance to be that these abilities have to work no matter the in-fiction situation.

Not at all. I'm a fiction-first guy. My stance is that whether the abilities are appropriate for the player to use, given a particular fictional situation, is a matter of table consensus. Once used under that rubric, they ought to go off as indicated.

The problem is that the way some of these features are worded in the book, using words like "will" instead of "may' or "might", can easily give players the mistaken impression that these abilities are guaranteed to work whenever invoked; and thus paint the DM as the bad guy for shutting them down when their not working makes sense.

Whereas I don't think they go far enough in guaranteeing a predictable outcome that's under the player's control to encourage players to take ownership of the fiction related to their PC's backgrounds with confidence.

And most of the time it should be fairly obvious when a feature isn't likely to work; a good example being a criminal trying to find contacts and send messages on/from a new world or plane, or a folk hero playing on that heroism in a distant land where none have heard of her and she maybe can't even speak the local language.

This is going to vary table by table, which is why it's a matter of the group sharing a consensus about the fiction.

That said, something like the criminal features inexplicably not working when they should might be a clue that all is not as it seems; that somewhere during that storm they and their ship jumped worlds or planes without knowing it, and they haven't arrived at the port they think they have.

This is something I would expect to be telegraphed in short order because when it gets to the point of negating a player's action declaration, I think it's treading into "gotcha" territory.

 

[Faolyn]

so ‘we’ are ok with abstracting everything about the feature away until we are left with ‘you somehow….’ as the explanation, just so long as this means the feature can work anywhere (but it is not necessarily guaranteed to work either…).

Are you OK with the idea that a fighter can swing his sword anytime they like, but isn't guaranteed to hit every time?

If so, then why is it problematic for you that a feature can be used anytime but isn't guaranteed to work every time?

Yeah, you can certainly play that way, I have zero interest in doing so, on either side of the screen

So, what, in your games, every time a fighter tries to attack they succeed automatically?

If not--if you insist on die rolls to determine if a fighter can hit when they attack--why are you so adverse to the idea that sometimes a feature may need rolls to work?

Is it because you're hewing too closely to RAW, much like Crawford did when he tweeted that bit about see invisibility?

Also, ‘we’ did not really take the messenger out of the equation, we only ended up with ever more bizarre reasons for why they can be a messenger…

You got so caught up on one particular theoretical--someone choosing one of a couple of specific backgrounds in a game that immediately took that player to Ravenloft--that you decided to ignore every other particular use of that background--and have apparently decided because you think the background is illogical in 0.01% of games, that it's always bad for everyone.

 

[mamba]

Are you OK with the idea that a fighter can swing his sword anytime they like, but isn't guaranteed to hit every time?

no, just like with the messenger there will be exceptions. If your fighter has been tied up, knocked unconscious, etc.

I expect you to say that this is comparing apples to oranges, but to me it is not. The fiction trumps the mechanics, esp. such poorly worded and thought out mechanics

If not--if you insist on die rolls to determine if a fighter can hit when they attack--why are you so adverse to the idea that sometimes a feature may need rolls to work?

I am not adverse to rolls, I am adverse to rolls overcoming the impossible. Sometimes you do not get to roll, at other times you might not need to roll…

Is it because you're hewing too closely to RAW, much like Crawford did when he tweeted that bit about see invisibility?

no, it is because I rather ignore the RAW to get a reasonable result, the RAW is Crawford’s invisibility

You got so caught up on one particular theoretical--someone choosing one of a couple of specific backgrounds in a game that immediately took that player to Ravenloft--that you decided to ignore every other particular use of that background--and have apparently decided because you think the background is illogical in 0.01% of games, that it's always bad for everyone.

I have decided no such thing, I referred to the scenario we discussed for 200 pages, that says nothing about any other scenario