D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Worlds of D&D

Mercurius · Dec 18, 2013

DMZ2112 said:
Also, this unified subrace idea is great. And not at all because it implies that all mountain dwarves came from the same place originally. No, sir. That is not a thing /at all/. There is nothing to see here; carry on.

Actually, this reminds me of an idea I'm playing with for my own world's cosmology - that there was originally one world, a kind of Platonic archetype that was, ah, "sundered" or lost or destroyed (no one knows, of course) and from that, the countless worlds were born. I don't see this as having any real application in the campaign, other than to add mystery and depth as a myth some cultures ascribe to. On the other hand it does open the possibility of an epic quest in search of that world, if it still exists...

steeldragons · Dec 18, 2013

Mercurius said:
Actually, this reminds me of an idea I'm playing with for my own world's cosmology - that there was originally one world, a kind of Platonic archetype that was, ah, "sundered" or lost or destroyed (no one knows, of course) and from that, the countless worlds were born. I don't see this as having any real application in the campaign, other than to add mystery and depth as a myth some cultures ascribe to. On the other hand it does open the possibility of an epic quest in search of that world, if it still exists...

But...but...if the original mythic world was sundered to create all the other worlds...I...it...I mean...PAMF! <head explosion. Wipe off your screens.>

I'm A Banana · Dec 18, 2013

I'm very pro-diversity in D&D. The more worlds the better, and the more "core" these worlds are, the better, for me!

James Wyatt said:
This is a truly expansive view of the multiverse, and it allowed us to create entirely new cosmologies for the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and the pantheons presented in Deities & Demigods. That approach had its pitfalls, and maybe I’ll talk more about that next week.

So here he pretty much comes out and says that there are problems with every setting having its own cosmology.

With the information I have at my disposal, I don't buy that. Why is it a bad thing for Fantasy Norse World and Fantasy Egypt World to each have their own view of the planes, the afterlives, the dimensions? Why does someone who likes the World Axis from 4e need to be forced to play in the 2e version of the planes? Why can't FR and Dragonlance actually have different cosmologies?

So I'd like to hear about those problems. Because right now, I don't see what benefit One True Cosmology is giving the game, what pitfalls this option is the best for avoiding. It creates at least one problem, and that is this idea that we all need to play with the same planes.

James Wyatt said:
I think this approach is important, because it stresses the idea that dwarves are dwarves, across the multiverse, and more specifically, that mountain dwarves are mountain dwarves, whether they’re called shield dwarves, Hylar, Daewar, or something else entirely. Mountain dwarves are a part of D&D, and all the worlds of the multiverse are a part of D&D. Not all those worlds have mountain dwarves, but where they do appear, they’re the same mountain dwarves as you’ll find on any other world.

Danger! Danger! Danger Will Robinson!

These are not the same thing. They are different. Different worlds, different abilities, different cultures, different kinds of creature. When I want to play one, I do not want to play the other. There is no compelling reason I can see to eradicate this interesting diversity and apply a homogenous smear to things.

I'm also eyeing this pretty closely:

James Wyatt said:
All these worlds share characteristics, but each world is set apart by its own history and cultures, distinctive monsters and races, fantastic geography, ancient dungeons, and scheming villains

Yes. But don't forget that they're also set apart by the fact that their dwarves are different. Their skies are different. Their cosmologies are different. Their magic is different. Let them be different. Empower me as a DM to make mine different. We don't need to all share the same One True Cosmology and we don't need to all share the same One True Mountain Dwarf.

steeldragons · Dec 18, 2013

Kamikaze Midget said:
I'm very pro-diversity in D&D. The more worlds the better, and the more "core" these worlds are, the better, for me!

No questions, qualms or other "qu" beginning words.

Kamikaze Midget said:
So here he pretty much comes out and says that there are problems with every setting having its own cosmology.

With the information I have at my disposal, I don't buy that. Why is it a bad thing for Fantasy Norse World and Fantasy Egypt World to each have their own view of the planes, the afterlives, the dimensions? Why does someone who likes the World Axis from 4e need to be forced to play in the 2e version of the planes? Why can't FR and Dragonlance actually have different cosmologies?

I have two words for you: "Branding Iron."

As anathema to imagination and creativity as it is...that's the answer. These guys, with all of their own personal interests, preferences and beliefs aside, work for...wait for it...WotC....Who work forrrrr?....That's right, Hasbro.

They [Hasbro...and to, I very much hope, a lesser extent, WotC] don't give a damn about creativity or imagination. They care about the bottom line. These guys' necks [the designers now, not the companies/corporations] are on the line to produce returns.

How do you do that? You brand every living thing you can so it's "yours." So you have the "rights" to it and can make money off of those rights.

Kamikaze Midget said:
So I'd like to hear about those problems. Because right now, I don't see what benefit One True Cosmology is giving the game,

Branding Iron.

Kamikaze Midget said:
what pitfalls this option is the best for avoiding.

It's not at all about avoiding pitfalls. It's about...tssssssssss. The Branding Iron.

Or, in D&D terms, the legendary "Iron of Branding, born in the forge of the great and powerful Eegygackses."

Kamikaze Midget said:
Danger! Danger! Danger Will Robinson!

LOVE the graphic!

Kamikaze Midget said:
These are not the same thing. They are different. Different worlds, different abilities, different cultures, different kinds of creature. There is no compelling reason I can see to eradicate this interesting diversity and apply a homogenous smear to things.

[emphasis mine]
Can you see this?...Berrrannndinnng Irrronnn! There's the reason, whether you see it or not.

Put another way, and I confess I am not fluent in "urban", but I'll give it a shot: S'bout makin' money, yo!

Kamikaze Midget said:
Yes. But don't forget that they're also set apart by the fact that their dwarves are different. Their skies are different. Their cosmologies are different. Their magic is different. Let them be different. Empower me as a DM to make mine different. We don't need to all share the same One True Cosmology and we don't need to all share the same One True Mountain Dwarf.

Yes. All of what you say is true. Yes. Lemme say it one. more. time. They want the great Iron of Branding to cover their proverbial asses...er...um..."[IP] assets" any which way but loose.

Is it the "best thing" for the game? Is it the best thing, for that matter, for their brand? No or not necessarily.

But it's what they think they have to do...for their future...possibly even for their jobs...ultimately, for the bottom line.

I,personally, like the bits I quoted earlier, but you bring up different quotes and concerns that could, legitimately, be "bad things" for some games. That is, unfortunately, not a universal opinion...nor d their decisions or opinions exist in a bubble. These guys have to do things that are good, hopefully, for the game but also for themselves and the company's success. I don't have to like that rationale, but I can't fault or ignore it exists.

I'm A Banana · Dec 18, 2013

steeldragons said:
I have two words for you: "Branding Iron."

I'm aware that this reason is sometimes trotted out, but I don't find it compelling.

Part of the D&D brand is that it is a game of creativity and imagination, where you and your friends can tell your own fantasy stories.

One True X (cosmology, dwarf, goblin, whatever) is counter to that brand identity. It is not a game about creating your own stories and imagining your own worlds at that point, it's a game about playing with other peoples' toys in certain pre-defined ways. I'm not allowed to imagine and create my own hellish afterlife, there's the Nine Hells, and if I play D&D, that's my hellish afterlife!

So if you want to capitalize on the D&D brand, you don't want One True Way!

I,personally, like the bits I quoted earlier, but you bring up different quotes and concerns that could, legitimately, be "bad things" for some games. That is, unfortunately, not a universal opinion...nor d their decisions or opinions exist in a bubble. These guys have to do things that are good, hopefully, for the game but also for themselves and the company's success. I don't have to like that rationale, but I can't fault or ignore it exists.

I don't think One True Cosmology or One True Dwarf are the things that will give the game financial success. In fact, I think that because it works against the existing identity of the brand, it could actually hurt the bottom financial line (and the overall brand), if it's driven home too tightly.

I mean, conjecture about WotC's internal management policies in an exercise in reading tea leaves if ever there was one, so if they're getting pressure from higher-up that is distorting and harming the quality of the game, maybe there's not really much of an option for the designers. There's no real way for us out here to know, short of a leak.

If there's a design reason (as Wyatt alluded to), maybe it's a good one?

Zaukrie · Dec 18, 2013

Big fan of the examples. Big fan.

DEFCON 1 · Dec 18, 2013

Kamikaze Midget said:
>>With the information I have at my disposal, I don't buy that. Why is it a bad thing for Fantasy Norse World and Fantasy Egypt World to each have their own view of the planes, the afterlives, the dimensions? Why does someone who likes the World Axis from 4e need to be forced to play in the 2e version of the planes? Why can't FR and Dragonlance actually have different cosmologies?

>>Yes. But don't forget that they're also set apart by the fact that their dwarves are different. Their skies are different. Their cosmologies are different. Their magic is different. Let them be different. Empower me as a DM to make mine different. We don't need to all share the same One True Cosmology and we don't need to all share the same One True Mountain Dwarf.

To me, the answer's simple. Every single difference in a cosmology or a monster or a race is word count spent re-writing information that has already been written elsewhere. That means less new information. Less new stuff specific to a certain setting. You only get a certain number of pages in any particular book... and the more paragraphs and pages spent going over Gold Dwarf physicality and culture because its completely different from "base" Hill Dwarf physicality and culture, are less pages spent on other cool stuff specific to the Forgotten Realms.

Now there might be a few of you out there who would love to see the Races section of the FR Campaign Setting be equal in size and page count as the Races section of the base Player's Handbook... but I think most people would find that a waste of space. I would suspect most of us believe that for the most part, a dwarf is a dwarf. Regardless of setting. So you don't need to re-invent the wheel in every single setting book. And every time you do... you lose pages better spent on setting materials that aren't a part of the base game. A paragraph or two going over small changes is all you really need.

And the same is true of cosmologies. Can you have one particular type of "portal" that opens up your setting to the other planes (for example)? And the method for summoning and using that portal be relatively the same across all settings? Just so that you only need to write about it in one section of the DMG that talks about planeshifting, and all wizards can use the same "Plane Shift" spell across all settings... without WotC needing to regurgitate those rules again and again in every campaign setting book because you feel the need to change half of all those rules just in an effort to make that setting's portals "unique"?

I understand a few of you might actually enjoy that... but I for one would rather see word count in these books spent elsewhere.

I'm A Banana · Dec 18, 2013

DEFCON 1 said:
To me, the answer's simple. Every single difference in a cosmology or a monster or a race is word count spent re-writing information that has already been written elsewhere.

I'm not exactly sure how you envision this working, because I can envision at least a half-dozen ways that won't result in copypasta and that preserve interesting variety. Repeated language is an avoidable problem, and you don't need to be exhaustive (in fact, exhaustiveness is a problem!).

And, to a certain degree, taking what has already been written and making changes to it for your own purposes is what D&D is. Gygax took Tolkein and Leiber and Howard and re-wrote them for his own purposes. We do the same thing today with our own fantasy influences. Every table does this for their own game each night. We grab plots from Buffy, action scenes from the most recent superhero movie, villains from awesome books we read.

And the same is true of cosmologies. Can you have one particular type of "portal" that opens up your setting to the other planes (for example)? And the method for summoning and using that portal be relatively the same across all settings? Just so that you only need to write about it in one section of the DMG that talks about planeshifting, and all wizards can use the same "Plane Shift" spell across all settings... without WotC needing to regurgitate those rules again and again in every campaign setting book because you feel the need to change half of all those rules just in an effort to make that setting's portals "unique"?

If that's what you think I'm advocating for, it's pretty clear that you don't really understand my actual position.

GX.Sigma · Dec 18, 2013

Kamikaze Midget said:
These are not the same thing. They are different. Different worlds, different abilities, different cultures, different kinds of creature. When I want to play one, I do not want to play the other. There is no compelling reason I can see to eradicate this interesting diversity and apply a homogenous smear to things....their dwarves are different...we don't need to all share the same One True Mountain Dwarf.

I don't think this has anything to do with branding (it's not like you can copyright "mountain dwarf"). I think it's more that they didn't want to print a million slightly different dwarves for each setting. Really, how many dwarves can you make? And if you make new dwarves for each setting, that means that, no matter what setting you're playing in, you can't use the PHB dwarf.

DEFCON 1 · Dec 19, 2013

Kamikaze Midget said:
I'm not exactly sure how you envision this working, because I can envision at least a half-dozen ways that won't result in copypasta and that preserve interesting variety. Repeated language is an avoidable problem, and you don't need to be exhaustive (in fact, exhaustiveness is a problem!).

And how many of those ways don't involve more than 2 paragraphs worth of description and a table? Because anything more than that to detail in a Gold dwarf because you refuse to just add onto and slightly change the two pages of description spent on the Hill dwarf in the PH is a waste of space I'd rather see go to more description of the various locales of the FR.

If that's what you think I'm advocating for, it's pretty clear that you don't really understand my actual position.

From what I'm gathering, you're advocating for entire cosmologies that are complete and separate from any other. And presumably... just like you seem to be advocating for dwarves... with little to no overlap. You want them to be entirely standalone. Which requires you to spend pages upon pages to go into base detail about how the entirety of the cosmology works, because you can't have anything be "universal" to D&D cosmologies on the whole. Which is what my "portal" example was getting at-- a part of D&D cosmology that doesn't need to be a unique sparklepony for each and every setting. How portals works can be universal to all settings without robbing any of them of their identities. And the same holds true for any other number of bits and bobs of planar life. Another example? The clerical domains Wyatt was talking about. You can use the same universal D&D "Life Domain" and have it apply to all the lifegiver gods of every setting... you don't need to create unique domains for each setting every single time. That's a duplication of work for little to no benefit other than "special snowflake" syndrome.

To have a base D&D game that you don't actually apply to any of your campaign settings you produce results in a whole heap of time and word count spent recreating minutia that in the long run is inconsequential enough to be a waste.

D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Worlds of D&D

Mercurius

Legend

steeldragons

Steeliest of the dragons

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich

steeldragons

Steeliest of the dragons

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich

Zaukrie

New Publisher

DEFCON 1

Legend

I'm A Banana

Potassium-Rich

GX.Sigma

Adventurer

DEFCON 1

Legend

Similar Threads