As a game that's nearly 50 years old, it's no surprise that Dungeons & Dragons today is almost unrecognizable when compared to its original form. Over generations of players and developers, the game has constantly morphed and change to get to the acclaimed modern 5th edition. Still, it's interesting to see how Dungeons & Dragons 5e itself has transformed since its debut. In the latest several years, Wizards of the Coast has made major changes to class features, racial abilities, and much more. Even now, D&D fans can see WotC's next target through the lens of recent expansions and Unearthed Arcana: backgrounds.

D&D 5e's backgrounds are one of the edition's most fundamental features, providing players with skills and items based on where they come from. While the base system works, Wizards of the Coast seems determined to improved it, based on recent evidence. That's a great thing, since background features leave something to be desired in 5e. What's more, it's an encouraging sign for the general direction of Dungeons & Dragons in the upcoming backwards-compatible edition. Wizards of the Coast's changes to backgrounds imply a focus on player empowerment that could mean it has a lot of exciting ideas in store for D&D 6e.

RELATED: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Wins Over Hall H With Funny Clips

Recent Changes to Dungeons & Dragons Backgrounds

Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition

Backgrounds have always offered a good spread of personality traits and ability choices that flesh out a D&D 5e character, but the features for many of these leave a lot to be desired because they don't have compelling mechanical benefits. For instance, the Acolyte's ability to find shelter at a temple or the Criminal's knowledge of underground crime networks both seem like something that a player can simply put into their backstory with the Dungeon Master's help, rather than getting those benefits from the background. Some background features are decent, like the Outlander's ability to find food and water consistently in the wilderness, but the majority fall short.

Recent Dungeons & Dragons 5e books and Unearthed Arcana content have started to change that. For instance, in Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos, players can choose backgrounds based on the college of Strixhaven that they belong to; depending on their choice, they gain a feat based on that college, as well as access to additional spells. These mechanical benefits are vastly better than the original 5e background features, and new UA backgrounds also built around feats suggest that Wizards of the Coast intends for this kind of background content to become the norm.

Dungeons and Dragons 6e's Possible Backgrounds

Strixhaven-A-Curriculum-of-Chaos-Students-studying-in-library

While Wizards of the Coast hasn't gone back and reworked all of D&D 5e's original backgrounds, the newest background designs could mean that this player feature is dramatically more impactful in the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons. WotC might publish an updated list of all the backgrounds that gives a bespoke feat for each of them, or at least provides players with a list of feats to choose from as a part of their background.

If this is the case, then D&D 6e will be a major leap forward in player empowerment, making characters far stronger from the beginning of the game than they ever have been before. Feats are usually pretty inaccessible in D&D 5e, since players generally have to sacrifice an Ability Score Improvement to gain one of these powerful features. Free feats from the moment of character creation can put a lot more skills in the hands of characters, resulting in an entirely different D&D early game and adding a new layer to designing the best D&D character builds.

Ultimately, it remains to be seen if backgrounds really are such a big priority for D&D 6e; the new edition could instead pour its energy into class features and new race bonuses while keeping backgrounds simple. However, considering WotC's recent experiments and backgrounds' historically weak state, this part of the game seems ripe for innovation. New Dungeons & Dragons races and classes would be great, but the 6th edition would be wise to patch up 5e's weaknesses as best it can. In doing so, it has the chance to make players feel more capable and battle-ready than ever.

Dungeons & Dragons is available now.

MORE: How Dungeons and Dragons 6E Could Improve 5E's Warlock Class