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

[Vic Ferrari]

Ah. Well, the same thing applies equally to titans

I don't think it does, calling a race of elementals the title of a celestial race is pretty jarring and lame.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't think it does, calling a race of elementals the title of a celestial race is pretty jarring and lame.

Meh. Perhaps jarring and lame for you, but it seemed like a fairly minor point for me that was step in the right direction. There were already so many varieties of celestials, and it was basically all different ways of saying 'angel' or a 'good celestial.' Applying a once celestial title to the ranks of the elementals did not seem like a big deal.

 

[Vic Ferrari]

Meh. Perhaps jarring and lame for you, but it seemed like a fairly minor point for me that was step in the right direction. There were already so many varieties of celestials, and it was basically all different ways of saying 'angel' or a 'good celestial.' Applying a once celestial title to the ranks of the elementals did not seem like a big deal.

"Step in the right direction", no, the subtleties are lost on many, but there is more to good and evil in the D&D Multiverse, than meanie vs. goodie.

 

[Nivenus]

To whom are you making this explanation? Players who have read the 4e MM (or are using Arcane Power to build a summoning wizard), and hence have learned what 4e archons are, but who aren't familiar with the prior material, but with whom you want to use the prior material? How many players are in that category? How many times did you have this problem in the course of your 4e campaigns?

The confusion props up anytime you want to use pre-4e archons in a 4e game or anytime you'd like to use 4e archons in Pathfinder or a 5e game (assuming 5e reverts to the pre-4e definition). The confusion, essentially, happens whenever you try to mix pre-4e and 4e material which (if you're using a preexisting setting like I often do) is not at all an impossible or even very improbable scenario.

I actually like a lot of the 4e lore. As I've stated elsewhere in the thread I think there is thematic room for both elemental and celestial archons and I like the concept of the Dawn War (just as I like the concept of the Blood War). The problem, insofar as I see it, is not the existence of elemental archons but rather the fact that WotC unnecessarily muddled the issue by using the name of a preexisting creature to describe their new creation. Which was wholly avoidable.

The issue with eladrin in 4e is pretty much the same. Yes, in a lot of ways 4e eladrin are very similar to their pre-4e version. Except that they're also high elves, which means they're actually a combination of two separate (and distinct) races from before 4th edition. Again, it's unnecessarily complicated.

I don't know very much about the ins-and-outs of FR lore either pre- or post-4e.

But personally, I don't see a major difference between "celestial race" (= magical race with a few bells and whistles) of pseudo-elves with intrinsic ties to CG deities, and "magical race" with intrinsic ties to the deities of Arvandor (which was, in Planescape-oriented presentations, a CG plane).

It isn't certainly more than just a representation of the same material. What is changing the nature of a mercurial, magical elven race from "celestial" to "fey" but a new presentation of earlier material? It is not making up something new from whole cloth.There's room for discussion about how faithful West Side Story is to Romeo and Juliet, and whether the change in the ending is better, worse or just different - but to say that because the setting is moved from Italy to NYC it simply can't count as a reworking of the older material would be silly. Being set in Italy, rather than NYC, just isn't so integral to Romeo and Juliet that you can't keep the gist yet lose that feature. My view is that identifying the essence of Eladrin with game-mechanical concepts like "celestial" rather than "fey", as opposed to story/thematic concepts like "mercurial, otherworldly elven beings" which are preserved in 4e, is precisely the sort of thing I talked about upthread: a focus on minor details rather than thematic resonance and story function.

There's two things that are really at work here.

1) What you consider "minor details" are not considered minor details by a lot of other people, mainly because they considered them defining details. Again, this comes back to the cosmology, which was the default for three editions (and later Pathfinder) until 4e changed it. To a lot of players, the label "celestial" carries its own assumptions and lore, separate from that for "fey." As a result, changing eladrin to fey does mean something.

2) More importantly though, you're missing what I've observed as the main complaint about eladrin which is that they trample on the territory of elves. Specifically, a lot of players saw no reason to separate high elves and wood elves into two distinct races, with different origins and racial traits, and the idea that high elves weren't elves any longer is something a lot of people were never really comfortable with (which has since been retconned in 5e). I honestly think it's less "eladrin are fey now and not celestials" and more "eladrin are high elves now and not angelic outsiders" or even "high elves aren't elves anymore."

Furthermore, D&D isn't a "published campaign setting": it is not a work of fiction. The story elements published in the core D&D books - monsters, PC backgrounds and classes, etc - are intended for use by D&D players to create their own works of fiction. (Of course, some players aren't as interested in the story elements as the more nitty-gritty challenge elements, which is fine too.) At most, they carry hints of theme or content for players to pick up and adapt to their own purposes. (See eg the interesting current thread "Evil enough", about tiefling warlock backstory.)

That's true to a certain extent, but the popularity of certain settings (e.g. Forgotten Realms, Eberron) does, I think, warrant consideration of consistency in the lore, because the way D&D is currently designed, changes in the "core" story affect the campaign settings as well. There is a certain assumption written into most editions of D&D that what applies to core will - except when specifically stated otherwise - apply to campaign settings as well. This is, for example, the reason why TSR implemented the Time of Troubles and WotC the Spellplague (and now Sundering): because core applies to all.

Furthermore, even people who don't play in published settings (or read setting-specific material) still can be attached to specific aspects of the lore. Just look at Pathfinder. A very, very large portion of the lore in Pathfinder, whether it's specific to Golarion or not, is based on the assumptions of pre-4e D&D. It has a Great Wheel (though it doesn't call it that). It has fiends and celestials, and divides them into different camps by alignment (including devils vs. demons and celestial archons). It has planetouched. It has drow, who live in a subterranean realm and worship a spider-themed god. And so on. All of these things are not specific to any campaign setting but nonetheless inspired a fairly large degree of popular attachment.

In presenting this sort of stuff, it's fine for designers to be inspired by what came before but I at least want them to produce the best that they can. Not simply to republish a recap of what came before with a few extra additions, like some never-ending chain novel. People who love the old versions still have their old books to read.

Except it's not about having old versions of the books to read or keeping everything exactly the same. It's about having a sense of continuity.

I think what you may be touching on - perhaps without realizing it - is a tension that has been discussed in this thread and elsewhere, which is whether D&D is intended to be a generic fantasy game or whether it brings with it its own assumptions. The crux of the issue is that it's kind of both: the game is designed with the intent that you can change things and swap things in or out for your own game, but there also are certain assumptions written into the game's design. And 4e, for better or worse, changed a lot of those assumptions, which is part of why (along with the rules changes) a lot of people felt that it wasn't really D&D.

 

[Aldarc]

"Step in the right direction", no, the subtleties are lost on many, but there is more to good and evil in the D&D Multiverse, than meanie vs. goodie.

Thank you for your beneficent condescension. I apologize for offending your sense of badwrongfun, which is clearly more valuable than mine. Please forgive this pleb for not appreciating the subtleties of moral complexities and celestial archons that only Planescape fans can.

The confusion props up anytime you want to use pre-4e archons in a 4e game or anytime you'd like to use 4e archons in Pathfinder or a 5e game (assuming 5e reverts to the pre-4e definition). The confusion, essentially, happens whenever you try to mix pre-4e and 4e material which (if you're using a preexisting setting like I often do) is not at all an impossible or even very improbable scenario.

I actually like a lot of the 4e lore. As I've stated elsewhere in the thread I think there is thematic room for both elemental and celestial archons and I like the concept of the Dawn War (just as I like the concept of the Blood War). The problem, insofar as I see it, is not the existence of elemental archons but rather the fact that WotC unnecessarily muddled the issue by using the name of a preexisting creature to describe their new creation. Which was wholly avoidable.

The issue with eladrin in 4e is pretty much the same. Yes, in a lot of ways 4e eladrin are very similar to their pre-4e version. Except that they're also high elves, which means they're actually a combination of two separate (and distinct) races from before 4th edition. Again, it's unnecessarily complicated.

What's complicated about it? Where there was an 'archon' you throw in a reskinned LG angel. Where there was an 'eladrin' throw in a reskinned CG angel that looks like an elf? What more am I missing here (apart from not appreciating the subtleties as per Vic Ferrari's condescension)?

 

[pemerton]

There was an assertion that being a moderator gave one an assumption of reasonableness by virtue of authority, or some such argument. Naturally, it's a suspect argument, but there it was.

I followed that. What puzzled me was that the other poster started off talking about KM, but then went on to talk about me (and whether or not I was a reasonable moderator).

Also, I agree with you on both archons and titans. (Which you probably already knew.)

Do you not find it a bit odd to have a race of Lawful Good Celestials and Evil Elementals called the same thing?

If I was desigining my own gameworld from scratch I probably woudn't do it that way. But that doesn't mean that anyone is going to be confused.

In AD&D both 1st level MUs and 1st level Illusionists were called Prestidigitators. Both 7th level Paladins and 9th level Cavaiers were called Chevaliers. Demons and daemons were mechanically distinct beings, although the difference in the two words is a mere variation in spelling.

D&D has a history of repurposing names in a pretty liberal fashion.

 

[Aldarc]

I followed that. What puzzled me was that the other poster started off talking about KM, but then went on to talk about me (and whether or not I was a reasonable moderator).

Also, I agree with you on both archons and titans. (Which you probably already knew.)

If I was desigining my own gameworld from scratch I probably woudn't do it that way. But that doesn't mean that anyone is going to be confused.

In AD&D both 1st level MUs and 1st level Illusionists were called Prestidigitators. Both 7th level Paladins and 9th level Cavaiers were called Chevaliers. Demons and daemons were mechanically distinct beings, although the difference in the two words is a mere variation in spelling.

D&D has a history of repurposing names in a pretty liberal fashion.

Considering how many people said that Pathfinder was "more D&D" than 4E, I can't help but wonder how many D&D fans became so incredibly confused by the 'eladrin' becoming the 'azata.' Not to mention that gamers jump between so many different systems and settings with all sorts of creature, naming, and type adjustments. Are gamers really so unintelligent that they can't figure these changes out?

People complain about moral complexity of goodies vs. baddies in 4E? Am I missing something? Take angels for example. In 1-3E, angels were any alignment of 'good.' 4E basically threw that out of the window. Angels became messengers and the hands of deities, such that angels could now be of any alignment. In 4E, you could see an angel and have little preconception about what or who you are dealing with. That angel may very well be a CE angel serving Gruumsh or Lolth.

One of the things I really enjoyed about the 4E cosmology and mythos was how deities regardless of alignment aligned together against the primordial forces of chaos. That even Gruumsh fought for the forces of astral order against primordial chaos is a splendidly subtle addition. This sort of thing you find in real world mythologies, but less so in some of the alignment-bound ones.

 

[Vic Ferrari]

In AD&D both 1st level MUs and 1st level Illusionists were called Prestidigitators. Both 7th level Paladins and 9th level Cavaiers were called Chevaliers. Demons and daemons were mechanically distinct beings, although the difference in the two words is a mere variation in spelling.

D&D has a history of repurposing names in a pretty liberal fashion.

I think bringing up subclasses having the same level title as the main class is reaching and a slightly disingenuous way to try and justify stealing names.

 

[Vic Ferrari]

One of the things I really enjoyed about the 4E cosmology and mythos was how deities regardless of alignment aligned together against the primordial forces of chaos.

Already done in Planescape (Queen of Chaos, etc).

 

[pemerton]

The confusion props up anytime you want to use pre-4e archons in a 4e game or anytime you'd like to use 4e archons in Pathfinder or a 5e game (assuming 5e reverts to the pre-4e definition). The confusion, essentially, happens whenever you try to mix pre-4e and 4e material which (if you're using a preexisting setting like I often do) is not at all an impossible or even very improbable scenario.

What is the nature of the confusion? Anyone who tries to do what you describe already knows that the archons in pre-4e material aren't the same as the archons in the 4e material. So how would s/he get confused?

Certainy, no one in this thread is confused - you're not, I'm not, no other poster is either as far as I can tell. Where have you encountered all these confused people?

The problem, insofar as I see it, is not the existence of elemental archons but rather the fact that WotC unnecessarily muddled the issue by using the name of a preexisting creature to describe their new creation. Which was wholly avoidable.

Of course it was avoidable, but for whatever reason the designers chose not to avoid it. My point is that this doesn't "muddy" anything. I have never met a person, either in real life or posting online, who thought that the elemental archons of 4e were intended as substitutes/an evolution of the LG archons of MotP and other pre-4e material.

It's a simple case of different things sharing the same name, just like titans in AD&D.

The issue with eladrin in 4e is pretty much the same.

Not at all. Eladrins in 4e clearly are intended to fill the same story niche as pre-4e eladrins. They even use the same titles (Ghaele, Bralani etc).

in a lot of ways 4e eladrin are very similar to their pre-4e version. Except that they're also high elves, which means they're actually a combination of two separate (and distinct) races from before 4th edition. Again, it's unnecessarily complicated.

"Unnecessary complication" is in the eye of the beholder. For some of us, it is a useful simplification. 4e already blurs the lines between mortality and immortality, both as part of its lore (eg the Raven Queen, Bane and Vecna all once were mortals) and as part of its mechanics, with PCs becoming demigods as a natural part of their development. In this context, re-conceptualising the pre-4e eladrin as powerful members of the Fey court is an attempt at presenting the old material in its best light.

X-Men First Class combines the original X-Men story in which Magneto takes over a military base and launches its missiles with later Claremont-era material about the Hellfire Club. This is not "unnecessarily complicated" either. It's also an attempt at repackaging the old material as best it can be done.

There's obvious scope for disagreement about whether the designers have succeeded in their aims, in either case. But I think it's obvious what they are trying to do.

What you consider "minor details" are not considered minor details by a lot of other people, mainly because they considered them defining details.

That's not in disupte. I am not misunderstanding what other people are doing. I'm expressing disagreement with it. For the sorts of reasons [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] articulated upthread, I think it is a detriment for the game to prioritise those sorts of details over theme and broad story function.

That eladrin come from the CG upper planes, and look like but are not elves, is part of an encyclopedia entry but it is not a guide to game play. That eladrin are mercurial, magical elven creatures who are aloof though generally benevolent tells me something about the role they can play in a game. I think it is a strength in RPG design to prioritise theme and story function over encylopedia-entry details.

Again, this comes back to the cosmology, which was the default for three editions (and later Pathfinder) until 4e changed it.

The Planescape cosmology was not a default in 1st ed AD&D, which had no Concordant Opposition until DDG was published (so there are two possible interpretations of the Great Wheel already), had no Sigil, no "Gate Towns" and no obsession with portals in the Planescape fashion.

I have already posted upthread, and will post again, that I do not find any great change between AD&D and 4e. Demogorgon, Orcus, Graz'zt, the archdevils, are all there playing much the same role that they always did. The changes are no greater than the changes between 1st ed AD&D and Planescape, which entirely repurposes daemons from a form of demon that lives on Hades and has slightly obscure magic resistance rules, to Machiavellian masterminds of a Blood War that did not even exist prior to 2nd ed AD&D.

4e's daemons - being treated simply as variant demons - is much truer to Gygax's use of them in D3 than the Planescape approach.

More importantly though, you're missing what I've observed as the main complaint about eladrin which is that they trample on the territory of elves. Specifically, a lot of players saw no reason to separate high elves and wood elves into two distinct races, with different origins and racial traits, and the idea that high elves weren't elves any longer is something a lot of people were never really comfortable with

That's fine for those people. Others of us, especially under Tolkienesque influences, saw the distinction as being drawn already in the 1st ed AD&D MM, with its various "subraces", and then reinforced in Dragonlance and other material.

I think what you may be touching on - perhaps without realizing it - is a tension that has been discussed in this thread and elsewhere, which is whether D&D is intended to be a generic fantasy game or whether it brings with it its own assumptions.

I'm not touching on that at all. No where have I suggested that D&D is a generic fantasy game. 4e doesn't present a "generic" setting - it presents a very particular setting, designed to support a certain version of classic D&D play, which will also be able to handle practical matters like the perennial balance tensions between martial and magical PCs (eg by explicitly allowing martial PCs to become demigods).

What you seem not to realise is that, for me (and I believe not only me) 4e made good on, and deivered better on, D&D's assumptions than earlier presentations of the D&D cosmology.

You may have a different opinion about whether or not 4e succeeded in this respect, but for my purposes that is irrelevant. My point is that the 4e designers didn't set out to change or depart from assumptions. They set out to make good on them. The process is discussed in some detail, for a range of different story and setting elements, in Worlds & Monsters.