Ok so I think the Background skills are an amazing idea.
Now however there's the bard. And while Perform being a Background skill seems ok for every other class, those get Versatile Performance, and use Perform for two other skills which are usually not Background ones.
Is that fair, or should I make an adjustment there?
I recently started a campaign and had the same issue. I decided that Perform may not be taken as background skill by bards and made the same limitation for Craft(Alchemy) concerning alchemists.
Unchained is specifically meant to be adjusted at some point, so don't feel bad if making such decisions.
Ok so I think the Background skills are an amazing idea.
Now however there's the bard. And while Perform being a Background skill seems ok for every other class, those get Versatile Performance, and use Perform for two other skills which are usually not Background ones.
Is that fair, or should I make an adjustment there?
I don't really see the problem. Odds are, the Bard is going to be putting ranks into their chosen perform skill every single level anyway, background or not. All this really does is free up a 'normal' skill rank to put into a skill that the bard will still not end up using very often.
Increasing the bards versatility is considered an "acceptable casualty" to the background skill system. I seem to recall something like that being mentioned in the blurb, but don't have access to the book and my memory isn't what it once was.