D&D 5E L&L 1/7/2013 The Many Worlds of D&D

[Dausuul]

I am excited to learn more about The Sundering tomorrow.

My guess is, having joined them in 4E, they're going to split up Abeir and Toril again for 5E. It's the New Edition Apocalypse. By this point it's become a tradition--the only new edition that didn't smash up the Realms was 3E.

 

[Weather Report]

I'm very mildly interested. My guess is, having joined them in 4E, they're going to split up Abeir and Toril again for 5E; just another New Edition Apocalypse. The only new edition that didn't smash up the Realms was 3E.

That's why I always stick with the original book/boxed set for any setting (Grey Box for me, thanks).

 

[gyor]

I'm hoping Mearls is aware of what seems to be a consensus on the "Ravenloft" issue. At least that's what I'm seeing, both here and on the WotC forum.

Its like you read my mind.

 

[Dausuul]

That's why I always stick with the original book/boxed set for any setting (Grey Box for me, thanks).

Good policy. I'm not much of a Realms fan, myself, but I do like Dark Sun, and as far as I'm concerned the revised boxed set never happened. Original only, thankyouverymuch.

 

[Klaus]

My guess is, having joined them in 4E, they're going to split up Abeir and Toril again for 5E. It's the New Edition Apocalypse. By this point it's become a tradition--the only new edition that didn't smash up the Realms was 3E.

IIRC, FR's cosmology changed in 3e, from the Great Wheel to a World Tree structure, and a few deities here and there changed. I could be wrong, since I was never into FR.

 

[Squidmaster]

I agree with everyone who is saying that the default cosmology is either an unnecessary extravagance or a bit of a wrench in the works for homebrew games. At the same time, I do understand the need for one, and it doesn't have anything to do with traditional D&D games so much as it does with novels and computer games. If there aren't clearly defined rules for these types of things, content could easily become conflicting.

Comments that the D&D designers have made in the past lead me to believe that they understand that many of our games use custom material in this regard, and it would not surprise me if they present the default cosmology with a pretty strong suggestion that you can ignore it if you like.

 

[avin]

Add me as somebody that wants Ravenloft as part of The Plane of Shadows.

 

[Dausuul]

I agree with everyone who is saying that the default cosmology is either an unnecessary extravagance or a bit of a wrench in the works for homebrew games. At the same time, I do understand the need for one, and it doesn't have anything to do with traditional D&D games so much as it does with novels and computer games. If there aren't clearly defined rules for these types of things, content could easily become conflicting.

That's relevant for specific settings, but not for the game as a whole. Eberron, Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, and 4E-Land all have quite different cosmologies; the orrery for Eberron, the Gray and the Black for Dark Sun, the World Tree for FR, the Great Wheel for Planescape, the World Axis for 4E. And it works just fine that way. What jacks up the content is repeated efforts by Wizards (and TSR before them) to consolidate all these disparate cosmologies into a single grand scheme.

 

[Squidmaster]

I agree with that. Preserving the uniqueness of different settings is critical.

 

[Hussar]

Defining a cosmology is a key component of designing a world, and it's something that D&D could be more helpful to DMs with than "here's a cosmology that ALL OF OUR WORLDS ARE GOING TO FOLLOW, THIS IS REALITY!"

See, now this I don't really agree with. Most worlds get along fine without much of a cosmology. It's not really relevant to many campaigns and probably doesn't see play all that much. Beyond maybe, "Well, demons are invading from somewhere". I've never really understood why cosmologies matter very much.

But, then again, this is precisely the argument I made about Planescape. Planescape did exactly what you're complaining about KM - all D&D worlds are going to follow a single reality. And deviating from that brings huge negative reaction.

So, we're going to get Planescape (ish) style cosmologies in D&D. That last little go around proved that. People want a core cosmology, they want that core cosmology to be Planescape and anything which changes that will be criticized. This one gets the pass because it's basically just Planescape with a bit extra tacked on.