Trapdoor Technologies, a new licensee for Dungeons & Dragons digital tools, asked on their website what we want out of Codename Morningstar. Digital tools are an essential part of our game. We use virtual game tables both for ease of play and to allow members who cannot attend locally to join in the fun remotely. We use various character generation tools to assist with character creation and tracking.
PCGEN 5E DATASETS PDF
We have vast PDF libraries that keep us from breaking our backs hauling books back and forth. My gaming group makes extensive use of digital tools when playing. Or I guess I could just run a 13th Age instead. Assuming it is well implemented, I would definitely use that option in any D&D 5e games I run. So I was pleased to hear that at Origins there was talk of an optional module that would use backgrounds instead of skills in a similar manner. D&D Next was already more skill light than D&D 3e or D&D 4e after all. However, if they needed to tie up a captive probably only the bounty hunter background would be applicable.ĭuring the D&D Next playtest, I always thought this system would be easy to implement as a house rule.
PCGEN 5E DATASETS PLUS
If the party needed to track someone through the woods and one character had a poacher background while another had a bounty hunter background, both could make the roll using their background points plus their wisdom modifier. Rather than have a specific list of skills, you roll and add an appropriate ability modifier plus points in your background where you would roll a skill check in D&D. Maybe you were a poacher (4 points) who was drafted as a soldier (2 points) and then became a animal trainer (2 points) when you got out.
Rather than specific skills you might say you spent time as a cat-burglar, a guild mage, or a merchant. During character creation you allocate a number of points to backgrounds. I think my favorite take on this mechanic so far is in 13th Age. Maybe you spent a tour on the USS Hood as a security officer even though you were in command now so you were handy with a phaser. Last Unicorn Games short-lived Star Trek: The Next Generation RPG took a similar path, where during character generation you would take a number of ‘tours’ on previous starships to determine your skillset. Knowing that your character was a rat catcher or a merchant before they began adventuring wasn’t much, but it was something. Probably the first game I encountered that did this was Warhammer Fantasy in which your character development was tied to your career path. Still, I like games that encourage characters to develop their background a bit. That is OK, everyone has a different playing style. Often players will present me with character backgrounds no more complex than “I grew up in a peasant village and when I was old enough I left to find my fortune”. When I am running games getting character backgrounds from some of my players is like pulling teeth. Even in the MMORPG City of Heroes, where I never played with deep role-players, each of my ‘toons’ had surprisingly detailed character backgrounds. I feel I need to write these backgrounds in order to properly play my character. Sometimes they are written from a first person point of view, other times in the form of a journal, occasionally from a third person omniscient or the point of view of another character in the story. Some of them probably qualify as short stories. I am the kind of guy who writes pages of character backgrounds for my characters.
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