D&D 5E Wandering Monsters 1/15/14: Reinventing the Great Wheel

[I'm A Banana]

Yes. Yes. and NO.
Saying abysal demons are not a D&D trope is like saying chromatic dragons are not a D&D trope. Or the nine alignments are not a D&D trope. Its a quintessential D&D trope, versus say orcs, which are a more general fantasy trope, or kender, which are dragonlance specific.

But chromatic dragons and the nine alignments aren't a quintessential D&D trope. Dark Sun doesn't have those dragons, and Dark Sun is D&D, yes? OD&D and 4e don't have nine alignments, but they're D&D, right? They don't traffic in those tropes, so why claim that certain tropes have some sort of primacy in D&D as a whole when that clearly isn't true? The tropes don't represent the whole D&D brand in any true way. Plenty of games don't have them.

That's part of what recognizing diversity and creativity means: blue dragons and Chaotic Neutral are options you can select from if they add to your games. If you don't select them, that doesn't mean you aren't playing D&D.

There isn't really a fair threshold at which you can round up "it happens in a lot of settings" to "This is how it is IN D&D," because whenever you do that, you prohibit people who play this game differently from defining D&D their way. Sure, it's how it is in D&D for people who have always played with those things in their game, but for people who've NEVER played with those things in their game, it might as well be how it is in Parcheesi. It doesn't speak to their experience or welcome them into the game. It denies their validity and puts up artificial fences. Gatekeeping like that is immensely counter-productive for a game that traffics in creativity and diversity as much as D&D does.

Demons in the first monster manual come from the the abyss. Thats what they are, abyss creatures. Every monster book afterwords that has demons has said the same thing.

1e was pretty clearly a Greyhawk-default. 2e was much more ambiguous, but apparently in the multiverse set around Greyhawk (given the fact that it used Greyhawk's cosmology). In 3e, we've got demons coming from the Abyss in the Greyhawk-default core material, but also coming from the Twelve Hours of Night in the Egyptian-inspired cosmology. So in Greyhawk, demons come from the Abyss. In the Pharonic setting, they don't.

And demons were of course abysal years before any settings has been published for D&D.

There is almost no such thing as pre-setting D&D. The OD&D box might qualify, but even that wove in the assumptions of the games that Gygax & Arneson played (set in Greyhawk/Blackmoor).

It wasn't a great idea to round up Greyhawk to the default in 1e. It wasn't a good idea to force the same cosmology on everyone in 2e. It wasn't a good idea to redefine swaths of monsters for 4e's setting. This is the same mistake: equating D&D with something that is actually very specific. It creates the same problems every time: people who disagree with something the game tries to define itself as (like chromatic dragons) are made to feel like they're playing some wild and crazy variant with madcap house rules when in actuality they just think technicolor dragons and magic morality aren't what they're looking for in their game of fantasy adventure.

 

[Shemeska]

Obviously I'm biased as a gigantic Planescape fan, but:


If they present the Great Wheel as the baseline, default cosmology*, above all you need to remember the following: actually present the Great Wheel. Don't attempt to force fit parts of the 4e World Axis into it because you'll end up pleasing neither fans of the Great Wheel or the 4e World Axis cosmology. You'll just end up with a hot mess.

*(and they should since it has the longest history of any cosmology within the game and a connection to virtually all of the published campaign settings)

For the sake of Ravenloft though, I pray that they don't attempt to overly define it beyond the 2e conception. Don't compromise the setting for the sake of branding purposes rather than just using something like the Plane of Shadow for the purpose of having a plane between the Material and Negative Energy (which is how Pathfinder approached the topic as well). Ravenloft should remain a demiplane or undefined in exactly where it fits within a given cosmology.

And this goes for other settings as well. Don't sacrifice setting continuity and integrity for the sake of whatever new idea is a darling at the time. That worked out poorly IMO for FR continuity in 3e when it went with its own cosmology rather than the Great Wheel which it had used extensively for two editions prior. The 4e attempt to push the World Axis cosmology on everything under the sun even when a setting had radically different and well established cosmologies prior to then was a poor idea. Keeping this in mind, yes, please use the Great Wheel as a default, but if a setting never used it (such as Eberron) allow that setting to retain its own unique system, and openly state that DMs can tailor the cosmology within their own campaigns. For FR however I would suggest a return to the Great Wheel in full, since that would preserve a majority of planar continuity with respect to the setting's prior material, and it seems to be the most popular option by far among the fanbase. The setting took a big hit in 4e in terms of popularity with the fanbase, and that's at least one way that they could try to bring people back.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Yes. Yes. and NO.

Saying abysal demons are not a D&D trope is like saying chromatic dragons are not a D&D trope. Or the nine alignments are not a D&D trope. Its a quintessential D&D trope, versus say orcs, which are a more general fantasy trope, or kender, which are dragonlance specific.

Demons in the first monster manual come from the the abyss. Thats what they are, abyss creatures. Every monster book afterwords that has demons has said the same thing. (The 2E/PS history of blood war is of course more confusing, as demons were not in the core rules, and the blood war was not originally fought by "demons".)

And demons were of course abysal years before any settings has been published for D&D.

A particular campaign world can say something else. fine, but then that is specific to that setting.

I agree--though, to play devil's advocate, Greyhawk was the default setting of 0e and AD&D. So, everything was Greyhawk-specific. Then Forgotten Realms came along and was exactly like Greyhawk (but nominally different for some reason that was never properly explained to me), even using Greyhawk-specific classes like Druids and Paladins. So a lot of Greyhawk stuff became all-AD&D stuff.

 

[GX.Sigma]

But chromatic dragons and the nine alignments aren't a quintessential D&D trope. Dark Sun doesn't have those dragons, and Dark Sun is D&D, yes? OD&D and 4e don't have nine alignments, but they're D&D, right?...There isn't really a fair threshold at which you can round up "it happens in a lot of settings" to "This is how it is IN D&D" ...This is the same mistake: equating D&D with something that is actually very specific.

They're just trying to create a baseline. Would you rather there be no baseline, and (e.g.) the Monster Manual just have stat blocks and no description? Just telling DMs they can do anything isn't helpful. DMs already know they can do that.

 

[TerraDave]

But chromatic dragons and the nine alignments aren't a quintessential D&D trope. Dark Sun doesn't have those dragons, and Dark Sun is D&D, yes? OD&D and 4e don't have nine alignments, but they're D&D, right? They don't traffic in those tropes, so why claim that certain tropes have some sort of primacy in D&D as a whole when that clearly isn't true? The tropes don't represent the whole D&D brand in any true way. Plenty of games don't have them.

I think there is a difference between a "trope" and a "requirement". Trope is like a strong association. So blue dragons and chaotic neutral are great examples. They are not greyhawk, FR ect, they are obviously D&D. But of course you can have a game without them. These are different then say, "fighter" or "hp" were someone might start saying "this is not D&D" if you removed those.

1e was pretty clearly a Greyhawk-default. 2e was much more ambiguous, but apparently in the multiverse set around Greyhawk (given the fact that it used Greyhawk's cosmology).

No, it wasn't. There was no greyhawk setting when the great wheel or demons where introduced. The only thing that makes sense out of this is if everything was "greyhawk defualt". You use kobolds, thats greyhawk! Long sword, thats greyhawk! Fireballs, thats greyhawk! But then you are just saying greyhawk=D&D. Which is ok, I guess.

There is almost no such thing as pre-setting D&D. The OD&D box might qualify, but even that wove in the assumptions of the games that Gygax & Arneson played (set in Greyhawk/Blackmoor).

It wasn't a great idea to round up Greyhawk to the default in 1e.

Based on what? Seriously. The assumption, for years, is that you would make your own world. The first published setting was actually the Wilderlands. But D&D as a game had descriptions of stuff, that was the default for any game unless the DM decided otherwise. Demons from the abyss was part of that.

 

[TerraDave]

I agree--though, to play devil's advocate, Greyhawk was the default setting of 0e and AD&D. So, everything was Greyhawk-specific. Then Forgotten Realms came along and was exactly like Greyhawk (but nominally different for some reason that was never properly explained to me), even using Greyhawk-specific classes like Druids and Paladins. So a lot of Greyhawk stuff became all-AD&D stuff.

I just made this argument, but latter, cause I missed this.

So yes, exactly.

 

[wingsandsword]

Trying to arbitrarily give Forgotten Realms into it's own planar cosmology instead of the Great Wheel was one of the mistakes of 3e.

In my games, we had knowledgeable PC's just look at that "great tree" diagram and laugh, when they'd go planar and visit Sigil, there were maps of that cosmology on walls as a joke about how clueless Primes were about the planes, going around thinking their one specific world was the central focus of all reality and the hub of all planes.

I genuinely loved that in 2e that all the official worlds were tied together in one cosmology, that if you hunted around enough as a planeswalker or with a spelljamming ship you could go from Krynn to Aebrinis to Toril to Greyhawk and such, and theoretically even Athas was out there. . .but next to impossible to actually get in or out of. Losing that unified over-setting was one of the downsides of 3e (the vastly improved mechanics was the upside, but improved mechanics to worsened settings was a hallmark of 3e).

 

[jasin]

Why is the over-setting desirable? It seems to me that its main effects were a clash of incompatible aesthetics and tropes, and the implication that all other settings were ignorant and parochial. What is gained?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I agree--though, to play devil's advocate, Greyhawk was the default setting of 0e and AD&D. So, everything was Greyhawk-specific. Then Forgotten Realms came along and was exactly like Greyhawk (but nominally different for some reason that was never properly explained to me), even using Greyhawk-specific classes like Druids and Paladins. So a lot of Greyhawk stuff became all-AD&D stuff.

I think it's a mistake to say that stuff that is in Greyhawk and FR is what defines D&D. It's a reasonable starting point perhaps but this is 2014 and it's incandescently transparent that Greyhawk and FR are NOT equivalent with D&D. They're particular flavors of D&D -- the first, the most popular -- but not all of the thing.

So blue dragons and chaotic neutral are great examples. They are not greyhawk, FR ect, they are obviously D&D. But of course you can have a game without them. These are different then say, "fighter" or "hp" were someone might start saying "this is not D&D" if you removed those.

But they're not OA or Dark Sun, so they are obviously not D&D. D&D exists independent of those elements. D&D doesn't require those elements. A D&D edition being designed today would be kind of narmed to assume that the games played with it include those elements.

But an FR setting being designed today could safely include those elements, since they are part of FR.

There was no greyhawk setting when the great wheel or demons where introduced. The only thing that makes sense out of this is if everything was "greyhawk defualt". You use kobolds, thats greyhawk! Long sword, thats greyhawk! Fireballs, thats greyhawk! But then you are just saying greyhawk=D&D. Which is ok, I guess.
...
But D&D as a game had descriptions of stuff, that was the default for any game unless the DM decided otherwise. Demons from the abyss was part of that.

Yeah, all that, by what 1e said, was pretty much descriptions of how things were in Greyhawk. When FR came along, they were also often how things were in FR. But by the time we're seeing 2e's alternate settings and 3e's alternate cosmologies (not to mention the galaxy that the OGL opened up), D&D > Greyhawk, or Greyhawk + FR. Now, when you talk about D&D, you need to make a distinction: sometimes it's Greyhawk. Sometimes, it's about FR. Sometimes, it's something else.

That something else may make use of Greyhawk elements if it wants (as FR often does). This is D&D, after all: stealing what works is how this game was born. But I don't think we should loose sight of the idea that these things are particular and local (even if they're early and popular). When you take the Warforged, you're taking a part of Eberron. When you grab a Red Dragon, you're grabbing a part of FR or GH or DL. You can't just wedge a chromatic dragon into anything the D&D logo and call it good (it wouldn't really fit in Dark Sun, for instance). You can't just put demons from the Abyss in any D&D game and presume that it'll be a welcome addition.

D&D is the platform more than any setting. But it's a platform with rich and interesting settings that examples and ideas can come from. And if it's in FR and GH and DL and Eberron, there's a good reason to put it in the MM! But there's also a good reason to maybe describe how it's different in different worlds, without presuming that any one description speaks for D&D as a whole.

 

[wingsandsword]

Why is the over-setting desirable? It seems to me that its main effects were a clash of incompatible aesthetics and tropes, and the implication that all other settings were ignorant and parochial. What is gained?

The real world is "a clash of incompatible aesthetics and tropes". The same planet gave us knights and ninjas, wild Celtic berserkers and stoic samurai. The same planet gave us Masaai tribesmen and the Papal Swiss Guard.

Clashing tropes? World War I was fought with 20th century weapons and 19th century tactics. Right now, today, on this planet you've got places that have cell phones but no indoor plumbing, laptop computers and pre-modern folk medicine. When men were walking on the Moon, we had primitive tribes in remote jungles that had never been contacted by the outside world.

Two thousand years ago on the same world you could have a Roman Emperor, an Egyptian Phaeroh, a Celtic High King, the Chinese Emperor, a Native American Chief, and the Gupta Emperor in modern-day India as people PC's could meet, and that was just among the same race on a world without demihumans, humanoids, and dozens of intelligent monstrous races.

Incompatible aesthetics? D&D has always had things clashing into each other. Remember the Barrier Peaks? A crashed starship in a classic 1e AD&D module. The core bestiary of D&D borrows from Tolkien, Greco-Roman mythology, European folklore, Celtic mythology, Norse mythology, to a lesser extent at least from Chinese folk religion, and still manages to splatter in some Lovecraftian influences.

The core rules classes combine monks inspired by 1970's Kung Fu movies alongside Wizards copied directly out of Jack Vance's post-apocalyptic science fantasy, throwing in rogues/thieves cribbed straight from Fritz Lieber and barbarians with Howard's fingerprints all over them, a Cleric that was unabashedly taken from The Song of Roland, a Paladin copied straight out of Three Hears and Three Lions, a Druid that's an idealized modern reimagining of a pre-Christian Celtic priest, a Ranger that started out as a clone of Robin Hood mixed with Aragorn, then became Drizzt Do'Urden, and a generic Fighter meant to stand in for every regular guy in every story who wears armor and swings a weapon without fancy powers.

D&D has always been a blender game of widely varied contributions, because it came from a widely varied world.

I always found the settings where they take one single setting/style and make the entire planet (or continent/hemisphere/known world) like that to be a bigger stretch to the imagination. The real world is incomprehensibly vast in culture and mythology, and many game worlds tend to fall flat not because they moosh lots of influences together, but because they are so two-dimensional of being the same aesthetic spread implausibly far.

DM's certainly don't have to have settings/worlds cross over, many campaigns may never even hint at it, but the over-setting gives them an easy way to do so, and it lets DM's have a way to introduce a new race or monster for one plotline/dungeon/encounter without having to re-think the entire ecology of their world. In my experience, planeswalking is a common adventure for mid-to-high level PC's, and having a rich tapestry of places that are out there helps build verisimilitude.