Background and Personal Bond/Event

Background

• (Optional) Choose a RAW Background for a social ability/Feature but ignore any Proficiencies (which are replaced by Cultural Setting) or equipment.
• Removing the RAW Outlander Background. The Wanderer Feature circumvents much of the survival aspect built into these house rules.

Significant Bond or Event

• Replaces Ideals, Flaws, and Bonds from RAW.
• Use the FATUM deck to generate either a Bond or Event that shaped your character’s life.
• Optionally, you may generate or create a second Bond or Event.

Thoughts on Game Design

Backgrounds in 5e are a nice way to help customize a character by giving them a little bit of a backstory as well as a (generally minor) social ability. In my experience, these Backgrounds aren’t entirely necessary (and perhaps limiting) if a Player has a rough idea of where their character came from. The mechanical aspect is replaced by Cultural Setting, which in itself gives a seed for a character’s background.

Rather than use the existing Ideals, Flaws, and Bonds rules, I’ve opted to use a new RPG character tool — the FATUM deck — to generate a significant Bond or Event in the character’s past. It emphasizes relationships and motivations, and I believe will prove to be even more interesting than the current system of Ideals, Flaws, and Bonds (which was a move to either flesh out or move away from Alignment, another system of essentialism found in D&D from the earliest days).