D&D 4E D&D Fluff Wars: 4e vs 5e

[Imaro]

There are sixteen Elemental Planes under the Great Wheel system: four Primary Elemental (Earth/Air/Water/Fire), four Paraelemental (Magma/Ooze/Smoke/Ice), four Positive Quasielemental (Radiance/Mineral/Lightning/Steam) and four Negative Quasielemental (Vacuum/Dust/Ash/Salt).

And you call the Elemental Chaos, which is one plane, messy by comparison?

Serious question... what is "messy" about the Great Wheel's structure of elemental planes?

 

[dave2008]

We lost the entire set of fluff relating to the Dawn War.

That is not entirely true. The Dawn War Pantheon is in the DMG and the world axis cosmology is discussed as well.

 

[Parmandur]

Actually, one of the coolest flavor things they have done in 5E is combine the Elemental Chaos concept and reconciled it to the old Great Wheel Inner Planes, and made a fantastic cosmic gumbo...

 

[Parmandur]

That is not entirely true. The Dawn War Pantheon is in the DMG and the world axis cosmology is discussed as well.

Pits it slightly ahead of some settings.

 

[Igwilly]

The book doesn't even explain the Dawn War, many alignments are just plain wrong, and the World Axis Cosmology has just a few lines about it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The book doesn't even explain the Dawn War, many alignments are just plain wrong, and the World Axis Cosmology has just a few lines about it.

It's fairly straightforward, Gods vs Primordials, Gods won, in overtime, with lots of injuries. The alignment system is just different, there's more detail in the traditional system, so LN and CN or CG and NG aren't lumped together. A few lines about covers it.

 

[Raith5]

4e generally has much better fluff.

Not necessarily because any specific component is better, but because 4e asked the question "Is this bit of fluff actually interesting and useful in play?"

That's a great question.

Agree with this. We found the 4E cosmology to be less "out there" and more usable and evident within in the motivations and allegiances of the PCs. This was because the relationships between the gods/demons/angels and planes was more dynamic.

While we did not play in Nerath we did play in a POL setting. The thing about a POL setting, of course, is that the PCs are "it". They are the thin line protecting the points of light. But the deeper issue is a world that is very fragile and open to change. At times when I have played in the Forgotten Realms (In 2e back in the day or now in 5e) there is sense that the world is not really open to change - it is just there.

 

[Igwilly]

No, many gods clearly belong to other alignments that they are listed; as I remember, they don't explain much what is the Dawn War. True support is more than just some lines hidden in a book.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No, many gods clearly belong to other alignments that they are listed.

I don't recall the listings, which ones did you think were off?

 

[Igwilly]

Don't have the book right here, but I remember: Raven Queen (should be N), Sehannine (clearly CN), Tiamat (in 4e is NE), Zehir (perfectly NE instead of CE)... The list goes on.