wingsandsword
Legend
From WotC at Gen Con we heard it reported about 4e that:
It strikes me as odd that they consider Vecna and Bigby, notable figures from Greyhawk, as assumed parts of any D&D world. The "Great Wheel" cosmology has been an explicit part of most official D&D worlds, to the point where it is presented as a generic multi-setting planar layout in 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition.
Before 3e gave Forgotten Realms it's own planar cosmology, it used the same "Great Wheel" (don't believe me? Check out the "For Duty and Deity" module, or read through the Faiths and Avatars supplement sections discussing the planar homes of the Gods). Ravenloft was an explicit part of the cosmology itself, and Dragonlance never discussed the Planes much except "The Abyss" being used to refer to the lower planes as a whole, or even the outer planes in general, but it was assumed by other settings like Planescape to be a part of it (such as references to events on Krynn). Kara Tur, Maztica and Zakhara were sub-settings of Forgotten Realms and used the "Great Wheel" when planes were needed (Zakhara did have a lot to do with the Elemental Planes, that was about it for planar stuff for those sub-settings). Birthright never really had much to do with planes, but was ostensibly part of the Great Wheel.
Only Dark Sun, Eberron, and Mystara explicitly always had another layout (and even then, Spelljammer and Planescape tried to fit Dark Sun in somehow).
Weigh that against how many settings have Vecna in it (Greyhawk, with crossovers to Ravenloft and Planescape), or Lolth (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Planescape, and intentionally omitted from some settings like Dragonlance), or other "assumed parts" which are largely Greyhawk centric and don't appear in a lot of settings.
How many major D&D settings were missing many/most of those "assumed parts", like Lolth not being in Dragonlance, or Bigby and Mordenkainen being setting-specific Greyhawk characters?
This brings me to my point: The reason that many fans are upset about the loss of the Great Wheel Cosmology is that to us, The Great Wheel was a major "assumed part" of D&D that was every bit as much D&D, or moreso, than Lolth or Asmodeus. Taking it out of the core and constantly bashing it in designer's notes about how not-fun it apparently is sounds to us like removing one of the things we presumed would always be a part of D&D between editions as a constant between generations of gamers. It was there in 1e, it was there in 2e, even with the massive changes into 3e they kept it mostly unchanged, but come 4e it goes out with this idea that somehow old is bad and tradition is to be avoided.
Many, if not most, homebrew campaign worlds I actually played in and saw used the Great Wheel for its set of planes, a DM creating their own set of planes for their campaign was a little like writing up new races for PC's to replace the PHB ones in terms of sidestepping expected common elements of D&D games. Saying you had your own set of planes was a little like saying "There are no gnomes in my world", it might still be D&D, it might even be fun, but it's distinctly different from the expected norm and what people had come to expect from a D&D setting.
Then with the new 4e cosmology we see a whole new planar layout thrown in, and out goes the "Great Wheel" which has been the generally assumed way planes work in D&D for almost thirty years.
It strikes me as odd that they consider Vecna and Bigby, notable figures from Greyhawk, as assumed parts of any D&D world. The "Great Wheel" cosmology has been an explicit part of most official D&D worlds, to the point where it is presented as a generic multi-setting planar layout in 1st, 2nd and 3rd edition.
Before 3e gave Forgotten Realms it's own planar cosmology, it used the same "Great Wheel" (don't believe me? Check out the "For Duty and Deity" module, or read through the Faiths and Avatars supplement sections discussing the planar homes of the Gods). Ravenloft was an explicit part of the cosmology itself, and Dragonlance never discussed the Planes much except "The Abyss" being used to refer to the lower planes as a whole, or even the outer planes in general, but it was assumed by other settings like Planescape to be a part of it (such as references to events on Krynn). Kara Tur, Maztica and Zakhara were sub-settings of Forgotten Realms and used the "Great Wheel" when planes were needed (Zakhara did have a lot to do with the Elemental Planes, that was about it for planar stuff for those sub-settings). Birthright never really had much to do with planes, but was ostensibly part of the Great Wheel.
Only Dark Sun, Eberron, and Mystara explicitly always had another layout (and even then, Spelljammer and Planescape tried to fit Dark Sun in somehow).
Weigh that against how many settings have Vecna in it (Greyhawk, with crossovers to Ravenloft and Planescape), or Lolth (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Planescape, and intentionally omitted from some settings like Dragonlance), or other "assumed parts" which are largely Greyhawk centric and don't appear in a lot of settings.
How many major D&D settings were missing many/most of those "assumed parts", like Lolth not being in Dragonlance, or Bigby and Mordenkainen being setting-specific Greyhawk characters?
This brings me to my point: The reason that many fans are upset about the loss of the Great Wheel Cosmology is that to us, The Great Wheel was a major "assumed part" of D&D that was every bit as much D&D, or moreso, than Lolth or Asmodeus. Taking it out of the core and constantly bashing it in designer's notes about how not-fun it apparently is sounds to us like removing one of the things we presumed would always be a part of D&D between editions as a constant between generations of gamers. It was there in 1e, it was there in 2e, even with the massive changes into 3e they kept it mostly unchanged, but come 4e it goes out with this idea that somehow old is bad and tradition is to be avoided.
Many, if not most, homebrew campaign worlds I actually played in and saw used the Great Wheel for its set of planes, a DM creating their own set of planes for their campaign was a little like writing up new races for PC's to replace the PHB ones in terms of sidestepping expected common elements of D&D games. Saying you had your own set of planes was a little like saying "There are no gnomes in my world", it might still be D&D, it might even be fun, but it's distinctly different from the expected norm and what people had come to expect from a D&D setting.
