D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[Desdichado]

I must respectfully point out that the back stories everyone here seems to regard as an intrusion and as disposable fluff, are what many fans considered an indispensable element of what they LIKE about D&D and made the game attractive to them in the first place! D&D is not a fantasy version of GURPS, and people shouldn't try to make it fit that mold. Hussar would probably LOVE GURPS - nothing but character/monster creation rules and zero backstory. But I believe that the reason D&D has outlived so many imitators is precisely because of STORY... backgrounds that make the game come alive. Don't think so? Look at the outcry when 4e ditched almost every traditional piece of lore and substituted a new background and a new set of planes. Planescape fans weren't the only ones crying foul. And the lore about the demihuman deities goes back further than "Monster Mythology", FYI... at least as far back as 1e's "Deities and Demigods". For many players and dms, the story of the epic fight between Correlon and Grummush is as much a core part of D&D as character classes and spells.

Sure. And I really like the D&D take on Orcus and Demogorgon, for instance, which otherwise are pretty generic mythological figures without much to recommend them.

But at the same time, the degree to which D&D manages to accommodate everyone's own game is key to it's success. You say that the "story" of D&D is why D&D has outlasted so many competitors? That's an odd claim, given that almost every other RPG out there has a setting inherent with the game moreso than D&D. If a setting is the selling point, then you shouldn't expect to see D&D outlasting all of its competitors, you'd expect to see the opposite. The setting isn't what makes D&D successful--although I'll certainly grant you that some very vocal gamers do like it cough cough Shemeska cough cough--but I believe that the key to D&D's longevity is actually the degree that it manages to untie itself from those assumptions and allow gamers to use their own assumptions without having to do too much work to do so.

To the extent that the default assumptions grow, D&D will be less useful to more and more gamers.

 

[Desdichado]

Disingenuous question, they are not very different, and no names were stolen, no one decided to call them harpies or what-have-you and change their creature type to undead.

Kurtulmak, adversarial relationship with gnomes, is all classic lore.

I am personally not into the dragon deal that started in 3rd Ed.

Disingenuous answer; who cares about "stolen" names or creature type? Are you truly suggesting that that is the beef people had with archon? That the creature type changed? And then, in a bit of unintentional irony, you also admit you don't like the changes to kobolds?

 

[Desdichado]

Look, as far as hating Planescape, that's gotten blown way out of proportion. It's not that I hate Planescape. Well, sure, I'm no fan, but, that's not the point. It's that Planescape occupies a privileged position where changes cannot be made. I mean, look at the other Meta-setting, Spelljammer. Spelljammer has all sorts of very specific elements that relate to all sorts of iconic monsters - beholders, githyanki, etc. Yet, all the Spelljammer stuff is entirely self contained and completely divorced from core material.

Since Spelljammer is supposed to be just as "core" as Planescape - all the SJ elements are meant to be universal to all D&D settings - why is it perfectly acceptable to completely ignore SJ?

See, I actually quite like Planescape--when it's the setting in question. I don't particularly like assuming that Planescape is lurking just beyond the boundaries of Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms or Eberron or Dark Sun or any other setting, for that matter. As it's own thing? Planescape is great. One of my favorite of the 2e settings, actually.

As a component of everything else? I'd rather not.

 

[Alzrius]

Kinda, sorta though. If you go by simply core material, not the expanded supplements, the default cosmology is a bare skeleton with virtually no details. The abyss has 666 layers and demons live there. There are 9 layers of the hells and Asmodeus is the ruler. That's about it.

That's very dependent on how you define "virtually no details" being in the Core.

Most 2E players I know will call the Monstrous Manual a Core Rulebook, and it mentions the Blood War multiple times across its entries for the tana'ri, baatezu, and yugoloths; it has other particulars as well, such as the baatezu entry discussing the Dark Eight, etc. and it came out months before the release of the Planescape campaign setting.

 

[Chest Rockwell]

1) who cares about "stolen" names or creature type?

2) Are you truly suggesting that that is the beef people had with archon? That the creature type changed?

1) I do.

2) That is definitely a beef people had (among many others).

 

[Hussar]

That's very dependent on how you define "virtually no details" being in the Core.

Most 2E players I know will call the Monstrous Manual a Core Rulebook, and it mentions the Blood War multiple times across its entries for the tana'ri, baatezu, and yugoloths; it has other particulars as well, such as the baatezu entry discussing the Dark Eight, etc. and it came out months before the release of the Planescape campaign setting.

A core rule book that came out five years after the release of the other two?

And don't you think that there's a reason that the Monstrous Compendium included all that Planescape stuff? Wasn't it because TSR was trying to default all planar material to Planescape? That Planescape (and to some extent Spelljammer) was to become the over setting that ties all D&D settings together?

It would make sense to include that material in a compilation book would it not?

 

[pemerton]

Some relatively minor comments:

the planes have very little to do with D&D adventures at lower levels (unless you're playing Planescape or some similar setting).

I think if you are playing efaut 4e, then the cosmoogy can easily become central right out of the gate - even if the PCs aren't adventuring on other planes, the mythic history and its cosmoogical grounding can be a major driver of play, just because so many PC and monster elements are characterised by reference to it.

If you go by simply core material, not the expanded supplements, the default cosmology is a bare skeleton with virtually no details. The abyss has 666 layers and demons live there. There are 9 layers of the hells and Asmodeus is the ruler. That's about it. What does the fifth layer of Hell look like? Until you get into supplements, there's no information.

Gygax's MM contains some detail on the layers of the hells - eg Geryon rules the fifth ayer from a huge castle in the middle of the layer, and it is populated by bone devils; and the eighth hell is frigid and "is populated in the main with ice devis" (MM p 23).

In 4e, the MM - a core book - contains a full catalogue of the hells, clearly adapted from Planescape canon. (This is another of those cases where I find the claim that the 4e MM has less lore than prior versions impossible to fathom.)

I only reference "The Weave" when I'm talking about magic in FR. Magic isn't universal. It changes by setting.

Player's Handbook seems to define all magic in terms of the Weave

Pages 29 and 81 of the Basic PDF also define all magic in terms of "the Weave". Eg from p 81, "The spellcasters of the Forgotten Realms call it the Weave and recognize its essence as the goddess Mystra, but casters have varied ways of naming and visualizing this interface. By any name, without the Weave, raw magic is locked away and inaccessible . . . All magic depends on the Weave".

 

[pemerton]

Objectively, the changes in eladrin/tieflings/archons in 4e are different from the changes to kobolds because they were less gradual, more drastic (especially for archons, less so for tieflings), and were bunched up in some significant changes to the assumed cosmology of D&D for 3 editions.

I think one thing you're seeing is that 4e changed the lore, while 5e's lore...mostly...just builds on the lore.

<snip>

5e's touch is as deep as 4e's, but it is more respecting of the tradition it comes from, so it's less likely to step on toes.

The repurposing of archons as elemental warriors rather than celstial servants is clearly not, and not intended to be, an evolution of the prior canon. It is taking a cool name and attaching it to a new monster that the designers - rightly or wrongly - think is more worthy of the name.

But as for the notion of "change" vs "building", I think it is very much in the eye of the beholder. I am pretty familiar with a wide range of D&D lore - especially but not ony 1st ed AD&D - and didn't find 4e's changes "drastic". For me, they were about integration and enhancement, changing plot details to bring out thematic elements more strongly. (Which is also how WotC presented them in Worlds & Monsters.)

The idea that this is "disprecting" tradition is puzzling to me. It suggests a fixation on petty details of canon at the expense of thematic coherence. Integrating dwarves, giants, Moradin and the elemental planes into a story of slavery and liberation with the possibility of future fall or redemption doesn't strike me as disrepectful at all. It is respectful - displaying sensitive attention to the best in what has come before, and re-presenting it in a way that brings out that best.

You may as well say that the X-Men movies are disrepectful to the comic canon because they focus on theme and broad-brush elements rather than every bit of accreted detail of mutiple decades of serial publication.

And for clarity: If someone doesn't like 4e, that's his/her prerogative - I'm not arguing with that. I'm arguing with this notion of "change" vs "building", of "disprespect". I am strongly of the view that 4e built on past D&D in a deeply respectful way.

 

[Remathilis]

A core rule book that came out five years after the release of the other two?

And don't you think that there's a reason that the Monstrous Compendium included all that Planescape stuff? Wasn't it because TSR was trying to default all planar material to Planescape? That Planescape (and to some extent Spelljammer) was to become the over setting that ties all D&D settings together?

It would make sense to include that material in a compilation book would it not?

Oh FFS

Monstrous Compendium: Outer Planar (MC 8) 1991
Monstrous Manual 1993
Planescape Campaign Setting 1994

Planescape used the default Planar material from 2nd edtion, it didn't define it.

 

[Hussar]

Oh FFS

Monstrous Compendium: Outer Planar (MC 8) 1991
Monstrous Manual 1993
Planescape Campaign Setting 1994

Planescape used the default Planar material from 2nd edtion, it didn't define it.

You are missing my point. Call it whatever you want, I lump it all in as Planescape, although, that's probably not correct. The point is, all the lore became graven in stone and could never be changed. Despite the fact that 2e rewrites a large amount of planar lore from 1e and then takes it several steps further by forcing all settings to conform to that lore as well.

Yes, I have been calling it all Planescape. Call it 2e then if it makes you happy. But, please, stop missing the point.

I don't dislike it because it comes from Planescape (or doesn't as the case may be). I dislike it because it becomes canon and must never be changed, altered or fixed and all subsequent material has to follow what comes beforehand.