Designing Character Backgrounds in the Shadow of Mordor

In case you haven't heard, the new One D&D has decided to institute a "big change" in character generation.  This post isn't going to discuss the change, or even judge it.  Essentially, however, "ability scores are going to be tied to backgrounds instead of race."  Feel free to chew that one over.

It feels a little funny to be working on a background generation book at just this time, when the company has decided to tether its entire future to making backgrounds the most important part of D&D.  Is it an opportunity for me, since I can see already that my approach is vastly more intricate than the company's?  I think it might be.  I don't see a down side, as yet, though I might make some buyers unhappy when they learn that my system isn't built to be compatible with company, which we can start calling Lord of the "ching".  Or Sauron for short.

I want to add a note into my book about the entrance of characters entering the campaign that seems to me hasn't been directly addressed ... though to some extent we took it for granted.  Here's the passage:

Notes about the end of childhood

Regardless of whether or not a character was raised by a family, a single mentor or an institution, the emphasis in every case should be that the character has achieved the transition from being a child to becoming an adult. This is the important stepping stone that entry into the campaign describes. The moment which becoming a member of the game’s party represents is that of the character obtaining complete prerogative to act as he or she desires. At last, the character has no more lessons to learn, no more teachers that are there to demand answers, no more parents or persons of importance to impugn the character for daring to act on his or her own behalf. The character is free.

Truth be told, this state of being hasn’t been in place very long. The character has just completed his or her studies. The character’s 1st level status has just been attained. And so, while the player is certainly champing at the bit, he or she might also realise that this character hasn’t the player’s experiences, yet.

Of late, as the game's been pushing this background thing, we've gotten into the habit of thinking of "new" characters in a campaign as ready-made, hard-bitten campaigners who are now ready to enter into the DM's new adventure.  There's no sense that new characters are really "new," and the backgrounds that are being invented reflect that.  Perhaps it's because so few characters in a lot of games begin at 1st level, because it's so much more "fun" to start them as 7th to 9th.  Perhaps it comes from a pervasive societal sense of entitlement that we're supposed to be respected as experts by our bosses the instant we emerge onto the job market.  Perhaps the internet has simply made the work of actually obtaining experience at something a dull-as-ditchwater expectation, that we don't think ought to act as a burden on our time.  I don't know.  I do know that new soldiers fresh out of boot start out in a war zone with a low life-expectancy, a truth that ought to apply to new 1st level characters ... not because 1st levels are "weak," but because players with 1st level characters tragically over-estimate their capabilities.  I experienced that in online campaigns with more than one 1st level swaggering around as though one level was something of a great achievement.

Anyway ...

Not sure I'm going to leave the passage above in the book.  I'm looking for another argument as to why I should than I can think up on my own.