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

[pemerton]

For what it's worth, I agree with [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] about demons being Aybssal by default; and I share [MENTION=7531]jasin[/MENTION]'s scepticism about the merits of an "oversetting" (either Planescape or Spelljammer).

 

[Ichneumon]

I'd like to see the planes between the defined alignment planes (e.g. Arcadia, Ysgard, Carceri) have the quality of transitioning between the alignments of their neighbours. This would happen gradually, in either direction. So the PCs could visit Arcadia, to find it becoming more regimented, more mechanistic, with less acts of kindness, due to it transitioning towards lawful neutral. They could then undertake an adventure to help swing it back towards lawful good.

Furthermore, it'd be nice to have the outer planes take a leaf from 4th Edition's book and be cut down to a finite size.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I think there's a tremendous value in allowing DMs and world designers the freedom to design a cosmological system that suits the exact needs of a particular campaign. But this approach has its pitfalls as well.

Probably the biggest danger is in eroding the things that everyone knows about D&D—the D&D intellectual property, to put it in legal terms.

This might just be the most profound thing I've seen posted in a Wandering Monsters column.

 

[jasin]

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

This seems to me a better argument against an over-setting: obviously, a huge variety can fit within a single setting, as in the real world. But doesn't it allow for even more variety to also allow for other, more thematically focused (even if that makes them less "realistic") settings? Shoehorning all of them into the over-setting necessarily either limits the possible premises, or reveals them as somehow mistaken, limited, &c.

To clarify, I'm not against the idea of a setting like Planescape, with lots of planar travel and infinite parallel worlds. But I think it should be treated as a setting of the same order as Forgotten Realms or Eberron, rather the setting which contains all others and constricts them all to fit within its own premises.

 

[delericho]

I don't really care what they do with their baseline, provided:

1) It's easy for me to change
2) They don't insist on retro-fitting their existing settings to match their new baseline. Like Eberron be Eberron, Dark Sun be Dark Sun, and if that makes them incompatible, so be it.

For the individual settings, they should really leave the varying cosmologies alone. If the Eberron cosmology changes significantly under my feet with the new edition, that's a strong reason for me not to bother adopting Eberron 5e... and that in turn is a good reason for me not to both adopting 5e as a whole.

Beyond that, I no longer care over-much.

As regards the 'over-settings' (Spelljammer and Planescape): way back when, I thought they were great, and I also thought that the connections between the existing worlds (and my homebrew worlds) was the best aspect of the settings. Nowadays, I still think they're great (yes, both Spelljammer and Planescape), but I think they're best as their own settings. Attempting to force all existing settings into a single, unified model no longer appeals, and indeed is something of a weakness if it means WotC are going to insist on a grand unified model for their settings.

 

[Balesir]

Furthermore, it'd be nice to have the outer planes take a leaf from 4th Edition's book and be cut down to a finite size.

Not to pick a nit, but they are actually cut down to infinite size. Infinity of physical extent is, to be fair, something very, very many people don't really seem to grok. If the Astral sea is infinite, there is no real reason that some of the realms within it should not be infinite (in a limited number of dimensions) also. If you have an infinity of space to spread out into, you can spread out into it infinitely.

As to the actual WotC article, I thought this bit sums up almost the totality of my feelings on the matter:

...the reality is that it's not actually very hard to reconcile even vastly different cosmologies. As I've mentioned before, the Great Wheel cosmology doesn't model an objectively verifiable truth. There isn't a being in the multiverse, except maybe an Overgod figure like Ao (and he's not talking), who can look down and see the planes in their arrangement as we look at a diagram in a book. Is the plane of Celestia sandwiched between Bytopia and Arcadia? Who can say? The only way to get from one to another is through a portal anyway, so for all anyone knows, that portal could be crossing a thin planar boundary, hopping to a different branch in a cosmic tree, or traversing incredible distances across an Astral Sea.

For that matter, is there actually a place called Celestia? A lot of lawful good deities seem to have realms with quite a bit in common—steep mountain slopes, archons all over the place, an air of beneficence to the place—but are they physically connected? Maybe. Maybe not.

For the purposes of your campaign, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you talk about Celestia or about the Seven Heavens or about the distinct divine realms of Green Fields, Dwarfhome, and the House of the Triad.

 

[Hussar]

So long as that is honestly true that it doesn't matter then I'm all for it. Otoh if I'm constantly being told that X must be a certain way because the over setting says so then I won't be very happy.

 

[steeldragons]

Should there be a default cosmology? Answered this himself. For the D&D IP/branding purposes, if nothing else, Yes there should be a default presented. As with classes, races, monsters and every other element of the game. They need a baseline. So show us the baseline, a couple of alternate baselines ["here's how 4e did it", "this is how Eberron does it", etc...], and then tell us how to work around/change/incorporate other cosmologies/make our own [for those, I suppose, who need too be told how to make their imagination work. ]

I mean, look, we're talking about alternate planes of existence here. Different dimensions. If you need a chart in a book to say how you "get" from "my campaign's version of 'Heaven' to Asgard or the Olympian Hades." or don't comprehend "I use the Norse mythology for my setting but I want to run an adventure involving Set and Coyote teaming up to destroy the world...how can I do that?" How?! Just put them in! Dimensional vortex...planar convergence...someone escaped [or was banished] from their "reality" and now wants a piece of yours. I mean...there is no "way" to do it. It's fantasy people. Magical, or at least mystical/mythological powers. Book's can't tell you how/why...or my personal favorite..."where" these infinite otherworlds exist.

What that default should be? If they want to talk about IP/branding concerns, then the D&D Great Wheel is obviously their longest running default. So use it. Add in 4e's and Eberron as a setting-specific alternate...and I might go for presenting Dark Sun as an "this is how to go completely off-the proverbial D&D multiverse-grid" example, as well. All of which is also D&D's IP.

Now, if you'll excuse me... <pulls wide brimmed hat down over eyes and settles against tree tunk> Someone wake me when he wants to do a Wandering Monsters article about, ya know, monsters again. <invoke Rip Van Winkle.>

 

[Hand of Evil]

I am a create your own, this is just part of how I look at building my world myth, how I bring my ideas and thoughts into my campaign.

 

[delericho]

Why do you honestly need a guide? Creating a cosmology would be considered an advanced level task amd by then, you shouldn't need a book to tell you how.

There are a lot of things I can do myself that are a whole lot easier if I have a guidebook walking me through it and/or tools to help.