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

[steeldragons]

You are right about 1 thing: Eldritch Wizardry introduces demons. (though not Grazz't, which Gygax actually used in play, and these may have been done by Brian Blume in a very non-Greyhawk specific way).

How the presence or not of Grazzt is relevant, I'm not sure. I would expect you know that Grazzt doesn't appear, anywhere in D&D or AD&D, until the "Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth"...and then, again, "officially" in the demon section of 1e's MM2. The fact Gygax used him in play but he didn't get published until X...? I'm not sure how or what that has to do with the conversation at hand.

The only planes mentioned are the ethereal plane and the astral plane. Demons come from a non-specified plane.

This plane was specified as the Abyss in the monster manual.

Demons are Abyssal. "Always" [from 1e onward] have been and always will be. It's an easily brandable thing. No questions or problems from me on this.

 

[Mournblade94]

De facto, D&D today is a diversity of cosmologies with no one having hegemony.

The problem is, socalled ‘traditional’ D&D is uncommon. According to the article’s poll, only 27% of players actually use the Wheel. Even support for it as a default seems devastatingly low, only 40%. Since most D&D players are aware of the Wheel, the majority are knowingly and actively rejecting it.

It is probably a mistake to impose a specific cosmology as a default. At least, the core rules do well to avoid setting-specific assumptions.

Diversity is the new reality and requires a culture of sensitivity.

The bias shows in the analysis of the data. You are misrepresenting that data.

let us look at the 3 top contenders for "what is used".

Great wheel :27%
4e: 21%
own devising:20%

This shows Great Wheel with a clear lead.
17% are using campaign specific cosmologies
and 12% do not care.

By all measures the Great Wheel is in the lead.

What is interesting to note is that 40% of those surveyed want the great wheel as the default, and it compares better than any other. Also consider MORE people want it default than actually play in it. You are mistaking that the 60% that did not vote for Great Wheel as default are REJECTING the great wheel. The survey has no sensitivity to determine that.

The analysis you made may doom the great wheel, but if one does not just pick the numbers they like from the polls to misrepresent the data, it is plain that the great wheel is favored. Therefore since it is favored above the others, it should remain the default.

There can still be diversity and sensitivity in a game with the Great Wheel as default.

Though I do not think diversity and sensitivity is an important issue outside of civil rights. It is only important in so far as the playing field is leveled.

Silly sensitivity trainings are best left in the workplace.

 

[Desdichado]

This shows Great Wheel with a clear lead.

I think the point was that it was only a plurality, though, not a majority. I don't think he's misrepresenting the data at all, although his interpretation of them is a bit strident. The fact that only 27% of players use the Great Wheel and only 40% want it as the default doesn't necessarily mean that the other 60% (or 73%, depending on which number you're talking about) are actively rejecting, or dislike the Great Wheel. It's entirely possible that they don't really care that much one way or another. There's no sensitivity in the poll as to how strongly the respondents feel about their pick. In my experience, the cosmology of a D&D game isn't often really all that relevant, unless it's specifically a planar jaunt style premise.

But it is true that only a plurality picked the Great Wheel, either as what they want to see as the default, or what they play with, either one. And that means that a majority of players picked... something else.

 

[Klaus]

I think the biggest point in the polls so far is:

- 88% use *some* cosmology, whether the Great Wheel, the World Axis, the Eberron Orrery or another campaign/cultural specific.

- 89% think there should be a default presentation. 39% think it should be the Great Wheel, 29% think the planes should be presented as pieces to be arranged as the DM decides, and 19% offer a mix of other cosmologies.

- 83% think alternative presentations should be made available alongside the default.

 

[tangleknot]

I agree with the numbers. Right now I'm GM'ing a Birthright game. I could careless about the great wheel since my players will never leave their home plane.
If I want to run a game in Hell or the Abyss, I'll snag my Baator or Abyss books from Planescape, but again the great wheel design doesn't matter much.

However when I do run another Planescape game it will be with the great wheel design. Unless D&D wants to commit another campaign setting with box sets and adventures on par with planescape I don't see why I would scrap 1000's of pages of campaign material for the new "updated design."

 

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think we can draw a lot from the poll numbers straight-up. They're a data point, but it's not going to tell you what you should do with the game, and if 5e was designed entirely according to WotC website polls, it'd be a mess.

Like this number:

- 89% think there should be a default presentation. 39% think it should be the Great Wheel, 29% think the planes should be presented as pieces to be arranged as the DM decides, and 19% offer a mix of other cosmologies.

Is there much of a difference between "pieces to be arranged as the DM decides" and "no default"? Couldn't we then say that ~40% of respondents aren't interested in any one default cosmology?

Which is all just to say that poll numbers don't need to be given too much weight.

 

[Hussar]

There is a danger in playing the numbers game though. The gnome effect for one and heck most of 4e's flavour decisions were based on majority or at least plurality points at the time and it bit them in the ass.

 

[RangerWickett]

Is there much of a difference between "pieces to be arranged as the DM decides" and "no default"? Couldn't we then say that ~40% of respondents aren't interested in any one default cosmology?

Odd. You quoted a post by Claudio but tagged me.

 

[Klaus]

I don't think we can draw a lot from the poll numbers straight-up. They're a data point, but it's not going to tell you what you should do with the game, and if 5e was designed entirely according to WotC website polls, it'd be a mess.

Like this number:


Is there much of a difference between "pieces to be arranged as the DM decides" and "no default"? Couldn't we then say that ~40% of respondents aren't interested in any one default cosmology?

Which is all just to say that poll numbers don't need to be given too much weight.

There's difference if we give them difference. The Jogsaw Cosmology (yes, I'm coining that now ) presented the planes, and lets the DM arrange them. No default presents *no* planes, talking about the concept of plane, demiplane, etc, but offering no examples.

Odd. You quoted a post by Claudio but tagged me.

Yeah, that was weird!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Odd. You quoted a post by Claudio but tagged me.

Derp. I clearly need more internet classes.

There's difference if we give them difference. The Jogsaw Cosmology (yes, I'm coining that now ) presented the planes, and lets the DM arrange them. No default presents *no* planes, talking about the concept of plane, demiplane, etc, but offering no examples.

It could also be taken to mean lots of examples, but no default (that is, the game doesn't assume one), which would look pretty much like the Jogsaw.

Which, again, is just to point out that internet polls aren't really great documents of record. Not that they're useless -- they're a data point. But one with some pretty deep flaws if you want to use it to inform actual decision-making (as opposed to it being some sort of elevator door-close button that makes you feel like you're doing something when you're really not).