The tables are great, but I’d have also loved to have more random tables for personality/bond/flaw which are tied to class (or even anticipated subclass) and race/subrace instead of just background.

Good catch on Boons. I’m going to check those out again. I remember looking at using them for my first 5e campaign.

There are a handful of Life Events in Xanathar’s which give you some extra gold or a common magic item, but that’s about it.

The 5e DMG already gave us something very similar to story feats: Boons. Many of these boons are best suited as rewards for characters who are already at level 20, but some of the suggestions would work for characters of any level.

As far as the first part of your comment, the book has become a best seller almost immediately. I’ve read about stories of people getting more than one copies of the limited edition cover and it is no wonder that such copies have appeared in eBay with crazy pricing. Also, I’ve seen many people getting both types. So, it’s logical not to find it right now. I’d say be patient for a month or so, the hype will go down and stores will restock.

I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip!
I know 3.x had a book with very similar tables to what Xantahar’s has. I think it was the Hero’s hand book or something? I have it at home somewhere. It seemed like they had a decent idea, but their character creation was more messy and so they weren’t able to easily hook into backgrounds and the like.
I should dig it up and do a comparison…

Thanks for sharing!

These optional tables are good for new PCs or adding something to PCs you have already been playing.

Pathfinder has a book called Ultimate Campaign which has some content which is very similar to Xanathar . Like Xanathar, it has tons character background content and tools which I believe are more extensive than Xanathar.

As 3.x rules like to, nearly everything has a statistical reason for existing. Many of the background options come in the form or traits or drawbacks, which provide a +2 bonus here, a -2 penalty there.

Xanathar (with the exception of the racial feats) has provided all this just to help create more fleshed out characters. I think keeping the crunch/numbers out of the optional background content was a good idea. We still have the core race, class and background to get crunch from.

There is an interesting idea for homebrew feats in Ultimate Campaign, Story Feats – which puts some of the RP mechanics back on the DM side of the table. You could give out feats to characters as they progress across milestones like treasure. Kill a bitter, long time enemy, gain the Foeslayer Feat which could give out whatever benefits you like.

Here’s where I moved on to the tables. My mother was executed for a crime she didn’t commit, and my father had disappeared to an unknown fate. I was raised in an Asylum. So, right away, I had a great bit of depth that already fit my backstory. I decided my mother was wrongly convicted due to racism; they feared her serpentine heritage. Because of my similar monstrous heritage, I was raised in a cruel and brutal asylum, instead of a reasonably safe orphanage. This gives my character the motivation to start her own home for ostracized and monstrous orphans. And if my character’s orphanage was full of abandoned half-orcs, half-elves, etc., that would give the evil racist human King a reason to want it destroyed.

My most notable life event was a trip to the “Feywild or Shadowfell”, and I became a Warlock after discovering a magic tome which summoned my patron. The extra-planar trip didn’t seem to add much, so it became a minor part of my character’s backstory; it was the reason she survived the King’s attack on the orphanage. One of the children had extraordinary hidden magical talents, including clairvoyance, and teleported away his beloved Aunty to spare her from the flames. When Yfa returned to the material plane the next day, she found the orphanage in ashes, except for a single book (that which summoned her patron).

So even when I had my character’s backstory largely pre-set, I was still able to get something out of those tables.And I could make as much or as little out of the results as I pleased.