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

[Parmandur]

Elderbrain,





To be fair, 4E is also somewhat "off" still, but in brief:





Treating "Evil" and "Chaos" as equal opposing metaphysical principles to "Good" and "Law" is like treating cold as an equal opposite physical force to heat, or treating darkness as a physical opposite force to light. Mind you, people thought both of those examples to be true, and dualism is a thing, but still essentializing "Evil" or "Chaos" is nonsensical as they are basically by definition the lack of goodness or order, respectively.





From another angle, as transcendent principles, treating "Law" and "Good" as different is like trying to say that "True" is different from "Good": if you are going to have a Realist metaphysics, doesn't make much sense.

 

[Parmandur]

On the other hand, saying that character A is Lawful Good, while character B is Lawful Neutral can be a very handy shorthand for acting purposes. Which is why the grid is great for RPGing.

 

[Aldarc]

On the other hand, saying that character A is Lawful Good, while character B is Lawful Neutral can be a very handy shorthand for acting purposes. Which is why the grid is great for RPGing.

True, but are there better ways of getting a person in character for RPing their allegiances or dispositions?

 

[Hussar]

You must have really disliked the 4e Monster Manual given that the below were stated as facts therein and lets not get into the entire cosmology of 4e which was HEAVILY "intrusive", by being baked into at least all the books that I have read.

Aboleth Lore: In many of these places, kuo-toas serve them.

Balhannoths Lore: Kuo-toas commonly raise balhannoths in this way, while drow, grimlocks, and minotaur cabalists do so less often.

Basilisk Lore: Basilisks are strangely evolved drakes.

Cyclops Lore: Cyclopses are the willing subjects of fomorians, whom they view as the rightful lords of the Feywild. Indeed, cyclopses believe that fomorians are divine. Thus cyclopses are the fomorians’ most valued subjects, serving as bodyguards, soldiers, and artisans—roles that fomorians consider beneath them, but which they don’t trust to faithless subjects or slaves.

Earth Giant Lore: Many of the dwarves who were enslaved by the earth giants were transformed as galeb duhrs. Some of them continue to serve earth giants, while others escaped and view giants (and earth giants in particular) as bitter enemies.

...etc

How did you get over your feelings of being forced to play someone else's ideas? The complaint about Planescape/Great Wheel/World Tree..etc being forced, intrusive and whatnot seems utterly rediculous considering that 4e was the most intrusive cosmological edition ever, yet that passes as acceptable???

To be completely honest, I read the 4e MM once or twice, maybe used two or three monsters from it and then never opened the book again. I just made a dungeon crawl one off adventure recently. 13 encounters, about 40 ish different monster types, every single one of them one offs. I use the Monster on a Business Card and make my own.

That's how much I like the 4e Monster Manual.

 

[Parmandur]

Yes: Traits, Ideals Bonds & Flaws.

So far, I've done those first and then decided on the "Lawful/Chaotic/Good/Neutral" combo afterwards. As a shorthand.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah I think this is right... though as I understand @Hussar 's view more... I honestly find it odd that @Hussar's go to for his complaints are the Great Wheel and Planescape when 4e, the axis, etc. were much more pervasive in dictating setting lore.

Why would I complain about it though? It's been completely stripped from 5e and I've never seen anyone bitching about how 5e's monsters aren't following 4e lore. I've never seen anyone complaining time and again that elves aren't eladrin anymore. Do Formorians even appear in the 5e Monster Manual? Is anyone complaining that the giants have ignored 4e?

If people were constantly complaining about changes to 4e lore, I'd be right there arguing agains that too. But they don't. So, i don't have anyone to argue with.

 

[Parmandur]

I have also been fascinated to see how the 5E background system has sparked creativity with those fields: I've seen a lot of newbies roll a character and make up those fields from their own imagination, using the charts as examples. Much better tool than alignment, but unlikely to replace it due to the convenience of the short-hand and canonical status of the Great Wheel.

 

[Hussar]

See, I've never seen D&D in those terms. Perhaps because I came from different entry point into D&D (by way of video games), but I always saw D&D as defining its own thing. It had halflings, which didn't exist outside Tolkien and wasn't anywhere in the fantasy I read, yet they are the third most important non-human race! Or Vancian magic. Or different varieties of dragons (defined by color, element and alignment). And these were the things I found in my old Black Box in 1994!

D&D never has been good at emulating "generic fantasy", it emulates D&D. Where it has excelled was at being amazingly hackable. So even when I make my own world and stories, I acknowledge I'm still playing with all of D&D's tropes, and if D&D's tropes have come to mean "kobold = dragon worshiper", then I either accept or hack it out.



Wha? AD&D doesn't describe the great wheel? Where did this come from?

View attachment 64486

That is all references in the Monster Manual for AD&D 1e. 1977. I see specific references to other planes (adjacent on the GW), as well as descriptions of layers of Hell (abet brief).

/snip

Sorry, but, I'm misunderstanding. Where does that quote come from? Is that in the 1e Monster Manual or in the 1e Manual of the Planes.

 

[pemerton]

Parmandur, I'm curious... why do you think the Great Wheel and the standard nine alignment system are absurdities?

I'm not [MENTION=6780330]Parmandur[/MENTION], but I think that nine-point alignment is untenable.

There was a long alignment thread earlier this year that went over this in a lot of detail. MY TL;DR version is:

Once you contrast good and evil, it makes no sense to have commitments to law and chaos as independent elments. For instance, a LG person is meant to judge that a CG is both fully good (contrast a CN person, who is sometimes or partly good) yet morally flawed. That makes no sense.

 

[Hussar]

Let's take things from this way.
[MENTION=6779993]Elderbrain[/MENTION], if you'll notice, I 100% support the idea of The Planes getting their own material. I want you to have so much stuff that you'll never finish it. You want a City of Brass? Well, here's your sourcebook. You want a Hell that works like traditional D&D's planar Hell? Fair enough, here's your book.

I earlier talked about wanting supplements similar to the Environmental series dealing with the planes. [MENTION=50658]Rem[/MENTION]althalis pointed out that in 3e there were several examples of what I wanted, when it came to thematic books - Heroes of the Fallen Lands, etc - all setting free or at least setting light.

But, the second you step off the Prime, Whammo! You MUST play in The Planes. You have zero choice in D&D. Not if you want to use any supplements anyway.

If I want to run a setting light module set in a mountain region, there's fifteen different ones I could choose from. If I want to run a setting light urban adventure, again, there are fifteen options for me to use at least. But, as soon as I hit a Plane Shift spell, my only options are modules set in The Planes. There are simply no other options available. I'll give you a perfect example. In The Savage Tide AP from Paizo, the first series of modules each come with fairly lengthy sidebars on how to adjust the modules to fit within other settings - Eberron or Forgotten Realms anyway. But, as soon as the series goes planar, guess what? No more setting sidebars. It doesn't matter what setting you came from, the second you go planar, you are playing in The Planes.

That's how fixed The Planes are as a setting. It doesn't matter if your group starts in Greyhawk, Sharn or Waterdeep. As soon as you go planar, you are playing in The Planes.

That, in a nutshell, is my biggest problem.

Which rolls it back around to 5e. The more concrete lore they put into the core, the less freedom they will have to create modules and whatnot in the future. Kobolds will always come paired with dragons. Salamanders will always be linked to Efreeti. Every supplement, every module, every article in Dragon or Dungeon (should they return). The more they do this, the tighter it will become. We've already seen The Planes become this. I really, really don't want to see all of D&D be shoehorned into a single setting.