Dec13
on December 13, 2016
Everyone Has a Story
Backstory has often been a part of character creation, but 5th Edition codified the idea of “backgrounds”: what adventurers were before they were adventurers, how they were raised and what their life was like. It’s nice to have some set options, because when you give players the freedom to do whatever they want with their origin, some players can get creative.
D&D 4E also had codified backgrounds that gave a specific set of mechanics to the character. I really liked that they did it as it encouraged players to actually put some work into a background. I’m glad to see that they’ve continued this into 5e! :)
Other RPGs like “Third Era” also put the background as a step in character creation, only it is one of the foremost steps instead of a finishing touch, and I find this makes sense. I like this choice because, while I consider letting the players be creative a positive thing, and it’s easy to stop them if they try to unbalance things, having a system like this gives a canon to level the opportunities while giving flavour and deepness to the PC.