Planescape Do You Care About Planescape Lore?

[Hussar]

And the DMG when it talks about the planes, and in pretty much every supplement in 3.x that focused on the planes, and in Dragon/Dungeon material as well. It was omnipreset. If you wanted to write planar D&D material that was one of the major sources you did your homework on since it was the most in-depth source covering the topic.



It's one the issues with writing for a shared world, you need to be aware of the material and its continuity if you want to write for it. The material has been a part of D&D long enough that it's iconic, and even as part of a core, implied setting and common bag of tropes and themes, it approaches shared world status as a baseline to be knowledgeable about, even if specific campaign settings can deviate from it. If something is changed, it's usually for a very good reason and with popular support, and if it's not, there's going to be a giant amount of blowback from the fanbase.

This, right here, is what bugs me.

Why does Planescape get this? Why do we have to have Planescape as the default planar setting? I mean, it's a bit circular isn't it? You have to write to Planescape to get published, because Planescape is the only planar setting, but, if you try to go in a different direction than Planescape, to, maybe, flesh out a different source than Planescape, you won't get published. So, Planescape is the most in-depth source because any other source automatically gets strangled out of the conversation.

Which is precisely what I've been complaining about all the way along. No other options get even entered into consideration because Planescape exists in this privileged position where any deviation is automatically edited out.

No other setting gets this level of control over core material. I don't have to write to Dragonlance lore when I write about Dragons, nor do I have to care about Council of Wyrms or any other source of Draconic Lore. In fact, I'm pretty free to contradict anything I want. Like I said to Imaro, dragons have gotten a massive rewrite in every edition with no apparent problems and considerable approval.

But deviate in the slightest from Planescape lore and it's impossible. We MUST keep everything Planescape compatible and we're not even allowed to consider changes.

 

[I'm A Banana]

KM, how would you do that in the core books ?
D&D specific IP is huge, and the external lore (ie "Appendix N" 2.0) the game (should) support is even bigger...
I agree with you in a virtual way, but I don't believe in its practical implementation.

The idea isn't necessarily to include all the rules up front, but rather to be careful not to exclude the things that have come before. The important thing is to leave room for addition. So we don't define halflings, for instance, as one thing. We define them as manifold.

They're showing signs of thinking like this in the playtest docs, too. Subraces help resolve this dichotomy nicely: hobbits are a type of halfling, gypsies are a type of halfling, kender are a type of halfling, wild cannibals are a type of halfling...they're all halflings. And that doesn't define the limits of halfling, but rather simply the beginning, what they have been throughout D&D. The subraces allow plenty of room for new or specific types of halflings.

In the first appearance, you might get two types (say, kender and hobbits), but it should be crystal clear that these aren't THE halfling types, they're only two of the INFINITE halfling types. They're two items on the menu. I'd even advocate for the initial mention of halflings to explicitly acknowledge halfling types they aren't giving stats for, to whet the appetite and inspire DMs.

Fine, but in that case the mere fact that some option would contradict Planescape wouldn't be a reason not to add it to the buffet, would it?

Contradiction goes gently against the idea of maximal lore, because it invalidates other lore. Wherever possible, in seeking to be maximal, the idea is that ideas shouldn't HAVE to be invalidated. So hobbits don't contradict the existence of cannibal halflings -- the two could even exist side by side. Planescape lore is no more important than any other lore, but it is just as important -- it doesn't need to be directly served, but it shouldn't be contradicted, where possible, due to the idea of maximizing the possible lore that a given game can draw from.

No other setting gets this level of control over core material.

And Planescape hasn't had it since at least 2008, and isn't likely to get it again.

 

[Ratskinner]

Merit in this case, for me anyway, means how it's used at the table. A Plane of Fire where it looks like the surface of the sun, isn't terribly useful. Either convince me that an unending Plane of Fire can be used at the table, or let me change it.

I hate to break it to you, but "how its used at the table" is very much subjective as well. I haven't seen OSR players keeping the new summonable mount, maybe that's not as objective as you seem to think.

Also, you're not thinking broadly enough for what I'm talking about. I want room in the game for cosmologies that don't even have a plane of fire. What you do at your table, or what you like as a DM are totally up to you and totally subjective. The (core) game doesn't need anywhere near the sheer amount fluffy lore that has built up around it. None of it is inherently better or worse than the next bit, and it all needs to be shuffled off into setting books of some sort or another. If you want a plane of fire that does X and some other dude wants a plane of fire that looks like Y...then the game should give you (in the DMG or MotP or something else) the tools you both need to make it so AND the freedom to see that as just as "legitimate" as any WotC-produced setting.

 

[Balesir]

So hobbits don't contradict the existence of cannibal halflings -- the two could even exist side by side.

Not for long, I'll wager!

 

[pemerton]

Contradiction goes gently against the idea of maximal lore, because it invalidates other lore. Wherever possible, in seeking to be maximal, the idea is that ideas shouldn't HAVE to be invalidated.

I don't think that avoiding all conctradiction is possible (it may be possible in many cases, of course, but not in all). For instance, I don't see how you can say without contradiction that (i) mezzodaemons are a type of demons, and (ii) they are the same thing as mezzoloths, and (iii) mezzoloths are not a type of demon but rather are members of a race of demon progenitors/breeders (I'm a bit hazy on the Planescape-y details).

 

[Shemeska]

mezzoloths are not a type of demon but rather are members of a race of demon progenitors/breeders (I'm a bit hazy on the Planescape-y details).

2e had the 'loths as creating demons and devils at the direction of their own creators the baernaloths, using the creation to purge themselves of the taint of chaos and law.

3.x ran with this idea and tweaked it, having the baernaloths responsible instead for the creation of the obyriths and ancient baatorians (as well as the 'loths prior to this). The obyriths later created demons, and the ancient baatorians were displaced following the arrival of Asmodeus and the baatezu (following his fall from LN to LE).

4e never used the ancient baatorians, and had an entirely different origin story for the obyriths (but it was a different cosmology and continuity).

 

[Cyberen]

If you call mezzo-xxx, demons, and devils "fiends", you've got a pretty convenient umbrella that fits with the new classification (monsters as they are perceived by common folk) and enables every possible take on lore (including setting-based, homebrews or undecided)

 

[pemerton]

ancient baatorians

In original AD&D nupperibos were devils - sort of proto-lemures - but I gather from Tales of the Infiinte Staircase that in Planescape these are retconned as Ancient Baatorians. Is that right?

 

[pemerton]

If you call mezzo-xxx, demons, and devils "fiends", you've got a pretty convenient umbrella that fits with the new classification (monsters as they are perceived by common folk) and enables every possible take on lore (including setting-based, homebrews or undecided)

Yes, I think [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] flagged that upthread (or maybe on the other thread). That would be my preferred way of going - all it requires is WotC having the courage not to angst over assigning alignments!

 

[Shemeska]

In original AD&D nupperibos were devils - sort of proto-lemures - but I gather from Tales of the Infiinte Staircase that in Planescape these are retconned as Ancient Baatorians. Is that right?

nupperibos had to be forced into becoming lemures by the baatezu, and TotIS revealed this as being because nupperibos were the larval forms of the ancient baatorians, who continually generated from the raw stuff of the plane, and the devils had to do something about it continually, perhaps unknowingly except for the eldest devils. The advanced nupperibo in the module was a gift by an ultroloth to the kyton lord of Jangling Hiter, the 'loth having apparently allowed it to mature for an unknown period of time, and then dropped it back into Hell presumably to see what happened, or just wanting to stir up problems given the politics of Jangling Hiter's situation between the baatezu and the non-baatezu kytons.