Dragon 370 - Design & Development: Cosmology

[demonsquidgod]

I have always hated the Infinite planes idea. It is mutually exclusive with many other key concepts in the game. If there are an infinite number of demons and an infinite number of devils than every time a book tells me that the devils use their superior tactics to keep up with the demon's overwhelming numbers it's a lie because they have the same number of troops. And when the books tell me that eight of the nine lords must lend legions of their armies to supplement the armies of the first layer of hell than that must also be a lie because the first layer would have an infinite number of legions to begin with and would never need reinforcements.

There are too many other instances where the rest of the fluff clearly works from the idea of finite numbers and areas. They say the planes are infinite but they never really extrapolate their ideas from that basis. It always felt tacked on.

Plus, infinite planes make for a static universe. If there are an infinite number of demons and devils the bloodwar will never end. It doesn't even make sense. You could defeat them with some kind of uber reality warp spell but it is impossible to have any effect at all by physical warfare. Similarly the forces of good could never defeat the forces of evil.

And, really, the amount of room I have to play with as a worldbuilder is the same. Just because they say there's a limit doesn't mean you know where it is. But it does mean that there's vague hope that maybe if you raised an army that was large enough and unbelievably powerful enough you could s
torm the gates of hell itself and win.

 

[Hussar]

In the 1e/2e/3e Elemental Plane of Fire you could have adventurers step through a portal and trudge across a plain of compacted ash, intermingled with the crumbling bones of dead Azers, slain centuries ago by a theocratic empire of Salamanders. The PCs could struggle across the landscape, crossing lakes of cooling lava covered only by a thin crust, sweating from the heat as they search for the ruins of the Azer capital city where a longstanding campaign antagonist searches for a relic of Imix, once worshipped by those same Azers, hoping to use it to summon the Elemental Prince to the prime material.

So, exactly why can't you do this in now? If the Elemental Plane of Fire looks like this, how are the changes suddenly "stripping any serious level of hostility from some of the planes"? After all, what you describe could be visited without any real magical protection, or at least a Dispel Magic spell isn't instant death.

Seems like the planes were already pretty stripped of any serious level of hostility if I can step through a portal and survive unprotected all the way back in 2e days.

Look, it all comes down to this. Do you want setting elements that are purely decorative or do you want them to be decorative AND functional. Put me 100% in the second camp. Areas of "THOU SHALT NOT PASS" are interesting and all, but, ultimately nothing more than window dressing. It's all very well and good to detail the wars between the Archomentals of Good and Evil, but, if the planes are so inimical to life that you cannot visit them, then who cares? The PC's can have no effect on it, so, it's fanfic.

 

[Hussar]

:... as pointless as making halflings four feet tall as opposed to two-and-a-half feet tall. It doesn't change anything, it just scratches a particular designer's itch to change the verbiage.

I dunno about anyone else, but, this one ALWAYS bugged me. I looked at my 3 year old daughter and realized that she was the same size and weight as a halfling. Suddenly expecting her to have an 18 strength was just really jarring to me.

And before ANYONE mentions Chimpanzees, take a look at what a chimp weighs. It's a heck of a lot more than a halfling. Yes, they might be similar heights, but, they've got nearly double the mass.

Sorry, totally off topic, but, this is one change that I'm really glad they made.

 

[Harlekin]

"Infinite," for all intents and purposes, means "Contains whatever you want." As that doesn't change at all between any edition of D&D's planes, changing infinite to finite is just as pointless as making halflings four feet tall as opposed to two-and-a-half feet tall. It doesn't change anything, it just scratches a particular designer's itch to change the verbiage.

See, for me infinite is a buzzword used by people that do not actually know what it means, when all they are trying to say is "very big". There is a fundamental difference between something being big but finite and something being infinite. Several posters in this thread have shown fundamental problems with infinite planes.

Nevertheless you argue that changing the wording is change for change's sake? Note that finite, large planes provide exactly the same play experience as your idea of infinite planes, but at the same time get rid of several inconsistencies in the world design. Hence they are strictly superior. I would think that maintaining "infinite" planes, just because they existed before is conservation for conservation's sake.

 

[Aldarc]

Let me try this reasoning for you, and I'll keep it simple: How does "finite" give you more than "infinite"?

Would you have liked my point better if I had expressed it as 1+1+1+1+1 etc etc etc etc.

Gimme a break.

Because after a certain point, infinity has no real sense of real meaning or substance in game terms. Despite the Elemental Chaos being finite, it's ever-changing and chaotic nature makes for a singular plane that can act nigh-infinite and varied ways or at least more ways than you could possibly use it for and certainly more than planes dedicated to singular elements.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It also lets them al ACTUALLY (in game actually) be floatin around in the astral sea, and not just philosophically so.

Like if you were sailin around in the astral sea, you could see the "edge" of one of the planes. Can't really do that with an infinite plane.

I can see that argument, but it's just as easy to say that infinite planes can have an edge (they can be infinite in the interior). Plenty of infinite planes had edges in earlier editions (celestia's first layer was infinite beach, for instance).

That's kind of the catch 22. For any reason one may think of to change it to "finite," "infinite" works equally as well. That's kind of why I don't have a problem with the...finitude? per se, I just think it's dumb to have to change it. It's not really broken. Pointless change for the sake of it. Wasted energy, basically.

See, for me infinite is a buzzword used by people that do not actually know what it means, when all they are trying to say is "very big". There is a fundamental difference between something being big but finite and something being infinite. Several posters in this thread have shown fundamental problems with infinite planes.

Halflings are really 3/4ths of a human, not half of them. Does that mean "Half" is just a buzzword used by people that do not actually know what it means?

No, it means you are thinking too hard about fantasy.

Seriously, this is 4e. You could be forgiven for wanting precise definitions of infinity in 3e. In 4e, "infinite" is an end purpose, just like "encounter powers" are or the "small" size category is. However you want to fluff away infinity, the long and short of it is that it contains everything any DM ever wants it too.

Oddly enough, changing it to "finite" doesn't change that reality. All it does is scratch an itch (and guess what? now others have to scratch a different itch that the change caused). It's pointless.

 

[kilamanjaro]

The hell they did. The inner planes of previous editions had more options than the hand-holding "Don't make it too dangerous! Then adventurers won't come to our extraplanar dungeon! Oh noes!" I see in the 4e planar design.

By stripping any serious level of hostility from some of the planes, you water down the wonder and challange of actually adventuring in those planes, even as you strip depth and background flavor from the cosmology.

By no means was the elemental plane of fire just a blank, endless, YOU DIE NOW! plane of flames. Just skimming The Inner Planes by Monte Cook from the later days of 2e that's blazingly clear, even when the book happens to be narrated by a crazy slaad named Xanxost. In the 1e/2e/3e Elemental Plane of Fire you could have adventurers step through a portal and trudge across a plain of compacted ash, intermingled with the crumbling bones of dead Azers, slain centuries ago by a theocratic empire of Salamanders. The PCs could struggle across the landscape, crossing lakes of cooling lava covered only by a thin crust, sweating from the heat as they search for the ruins of the Azer capital city where a longstanding campaign antagonist searches for a relic of Imix, once worshipped by those same Azers, hoping to use it to summon the Elemental Prince to the prime material.

The Elemental Plane of Fire wasn't just a monolithic stretch of fire. And saying that it was displays either an ignorance of previous editions' material on the plane, or a blatant misrepresentation of it.

The 4e cosmology by its nature is placing limits by what the design team feels is proper for your campaigns, and in the process it's happily twisting previous campaigns to fit that sterile, homogenous view. Nothing in the previous cosmology from 1e/2e/3e precluded anything from the 4e planes from happening therein.

My copy of the Inner Planes says that unprotected characters take 6d10 fire damage each round and another 1d10 from breathing the super heated air. Sounds like instant fiery death to me.

 

[Harlekin]

I can see that argument, but it's just as easy to say that infinite planes can have an edge (they can be infinite in the interior). Plenty of infinite planes had edges in earlier editions (celestia's first layer was infinite beach, for instance).

That's kind of the catch 22. For any reason one may think of to change it to "finite," "infinite" works equally as well. That's kind of why I don't have a problem with the...finitude? per se, I just think it's dumb to have to change it. It's not really broken. Pointless change for the sake of it. Wasted energy, basically.

So the change works equally well for you and better for others. That sounds like the perfect reason to change it. If we wait for changes that improve everyone's game, we'll not get any evolution at all.

Halflings are really 3/4ths of a human, not half of them. Does that mean "Half" is just a buzzword used by people that do not actually know what it means?

No, it means you are thinking too hard about fantasy.

Seriously, this is 4e. You could be forgiven for wanting precise definitions of infinity in 3e. In 4e, "infinite" is an end purpose, just like "encounter powers" are or the "small" size category is. However you want to fluff away infinity, the long and short of it is that it contains everything any DM ever wants it too.

See i think internally consistent fluff is necessary in every edition, no mater how awesome it is.

Oddly enough, changing it to "finite" doesn't change that reality. All it does is scratch an itch (and guess what? now others have to scratch a different itch that the change caused). It's pointless.

That itch seems to be mostly a general resistance to change though.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

By no means was the elemental plane of fire just a blank, endless, YOU DIE NOW! plane of flames.

I agree with you. However . . .

Just skimming The Inner Planes by Monte Cook from the later days of 2e that's blazingly clear, even when the book happens to be narrated by a crazy slaad named Xanxost. In the 1e/2e/3e Elemental Plane of Fire you could have adventurers step through a portal and trudge across a plain of compacted ash, intermingled with the crumbling bones of dead Azers, slain centuries ago by a theocratic empire of Salamanders. The PCs could struggle across the landscape, crossing lakes of cooling lava covered only by a thin crust, sweating from the heat as they search for the ruins of the Azer capital city where a longstanding campaign antagonist searches for a relic of Imix, once worshipped by those same Azers, hoping to use it to summon the Elemental Prince to the prime material.

. . . I say "this region exists in the Elemental Chaos".

What have I lost, using the Fourth Edition cosmology? Nothing apart from the meaningless ability to state that X and Y locations technically lie on wholly separate planes.

If you're going to allow relatively friendly locales like "a plain of compacted ash" and "lakes of cooling lava covered only by a thin crust" in your Elemental Plane of Fire, you're already halfway to Fourth Edition's combining every "elemental" location into a single enormous maelstrom. Especially considering that both Ash and Magma were given their own quasi-elemental and para-elemental planes in Second Edition, and were thus intrusions into plane of Fire in any case.

To be perfectly frank, as far as I'm concerned the only thing that's genuinely lost from Planescape in the switch to the Great Axis cosmology is the Outlands and its gate-towns . . . and, you know, in a lot of ways I'd really like to see the gate-towns reused as locations in the natural world. Everything else in Planescape can exist as locales on different planes or in a slightly different configuration; since it was never more than metaphorically true that the Grey Wastes lay between Baator and the Abyss, for instance, there's nothing to stop you from saying that's still true.

 

[Aldarc]

I can see that argument, but it's just as easy to say that infinite planes can have an edge (they can be infinite in the interior). Plenty of infinite planes had edges in earlier editions (celestia's first layer was infinite beach, for instance).

That's kind of the catch 22. For any reason one may think of to change it to "finite," "infinite" works equally as well. That's kind of why I don't have a problem with the...finitude? per se, I just think it's dumb to have to change it. It's not really broken. Pointless change for the sake of it. Wasted energy, basically.

Why is there such resistance then to an incredibly simple change of wasted energy? Is it really change for the sake of it? How did you determine that?

Halflings are really 3/4ths of a human, not half of them. Does that mean "Half" is just a buzzword used by people that do not actually know what it means?

In which case it's an exaggeration, just as it would be an exagerration to say that the planes are infinite.

No, it means you are thinking too hard about fantasy.

Pot and kettle.

Seriously, this is 4e. You could be forgiven for wanting precise definitions of infinity in 3e. In 4e, "infinite" is an end purpose, just like "encounter powers" are or the "small" size category is. However you want to fluff away infinity, the long and short of it is that it contains everything any DM ever wants it too.

Oddly enough, changing it to "finite" doesn't change that reality. All it does is scratch an itch (and guess what? now others have to scratch a different itch that the change caused). It's pointless.

Then why the resistance?