Kent’s village was reduced to ash at the beginning of the war. When he returned after so many years away, his army services no longer required, all he could salvage was a harmonica that survived the blaze. With nothing left, he took to the roads as a bard, performing and telling war stories at taverns in exchange for a night’s room and board. On his first night in a new town, he offers the deal to a tavern keep…
“You don’t have the right background feature for that,” says the DM. “You have the soldier background, not the entertainer background.”
I feel comfortable saying that Dungeons and Dragons is one of the most popular tabletop role playing games ever. The fifth edition of the game especially has reached a massive audience, and a lot of people love the system. I have my share of gripes with it. It’s vague in several areas, a lot of subclasses have severe issues, and it can be very restrictive. But, those are discussions to be had for another time. What I want to discuss right now is Background Features.
Background Features are something that I rarely see talked about, despite being the unique element of each, well, background. A player can get any other feature from character building at another time or place, but Background Features are special and unique. Honestly, they really shouldn’t be. I think they do more harm than good, and shouldn’t exist at all.
Oftentimes, that ability is something that you should be able to do anyway. Why does somebody need the entertainer background to get lodging? Why is sleeping in a barn restricted to folk heroes? I’m sure most DMs would let you do those things, so why even have those features in the first place? Their presence implies that you need the ability to do it at all.
Background features discourage actually thinking about a backstory for your character. It just gives you a button to push. If you make an interesting, multifaceted backstory, DMs should be encouraging you to use it! Players engaging with the worlds I create is one of my favorite things! Backgrounds, as they exist now, discourage that.
The next iteration of Dungeons and Dragons is in playtesting. If the system isn’t locked behind an abusive model, I hope that the entire Background system gets a huge overhaul. What do you think? Leave it in the comments below, or join us on the Boss Rush Discord and let us know!
Featured Image: Wizards of the Coast
The Boss Rush Podcast – A Podcast About Video Games
The Boss Rush Podcast is the flagship podcast of The Boss Rush Network and Boss Rush Media. Each week, hosts Corey Dirrig, Stephanie Klimov, LeRon Dawkins, and Pat Klein come together with their friends, colleagues, and fellow creators to talk about their week in video games, discuss industry topics, conduct interviews, answer listener questions, and more. New episodes every Monday. Get each episode one week early and more perks over on the Boss Rush Network Patreon page.
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