D&D 5E Eberron versus Multiverse

[Ruin Explorer]

How does it help branding?

See ChaosOS post above. It's about cross-sales within the brand, the idea that if it says D&D, you can use it, something more true in 5E than any previous edition.

 

[Coroc]

Branding

also @dave2008

No. It is a logic consequence of the base maxime to have a twist in everything.

Just as a gold dragon might be of evil alignment in Eberron, and benevolent orc druids try to save the world you cannot simply have the standard planar arrangement.

See, some of the other gods live in these "normal" great wheel planes. But it is all fine if you do not go to the nine hells or abyss or Elysium but instead to Shavarath, Dorluh or Syrannia instead.

The standard great wheel is totally interwoven with almost all of D&D history, (the decoupling from it went wrong in 4e), so it would be more complicated to keep it instead of coming up with their own planar system and some cool names to get a distinctive difference.

It worked very well in a similar context with darksun, so they did it like that.

 

[gyor]

Quite and even historically this precise sort of thing was a point of contention, with many early takes in Christianity having different spins on the exact nature of Christ, the triune god, and so on. Let's not even start on Gnosticism or other takes.

I mention this because D&D has tended to have very little of this sort of complex and interesting religious conflict (which is also extremely period-appropriate), due to the whole "gods are real and talk to people and have specific alignments" and so on deal.

Eberron was potentially the richest setting for this because of the strong implication that the gods might not be real at all, or not what people thought and apparent good and bad gods might not be that simple. So making it part of the actual Great Wheel cosmology, where gods generally are very real (which it clearly wasn't in 3E and 4E) is rather sad. But as you say at least it tries to keep things vague. I have literally no idea why they felt the need to explicitly place it in the Great Wheel though and would love to hear an explanation. I also guarantee 6th edition reverses that position.

The Forgotten Realms has it's heresies and alternative religions.

Just because most folks know the Gods exist doesn't mean the Gods share every secret and their are many points of contention and religious disagreements. Look at things like the Adama, the heresy that Shar and Selune are the same deity, and more. Plus their can be different interruptations of doctorine, difference of opinion on cosmology, differences of opinion on what the Gods are and their function, beast cults, and cults of the Overgod, the religion of Zakhara whose doesn't don't actively participate like the other Gods, the religions of Zakhara, Mulhorand, Kara Tur ect...

 

[dave2008]

It reinforces the idea that D&D is synonymous with the multiverse IP.

I strongly feel that could be handled another way (like the sidebar I mentioned above), and achieve the same goals without pushing some people's buttons.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The Forgotten Realms has it's heresies and alternative religions.

Just because most folks know the Gods exist doesn't mean the Gods share every secret and their are many points of contention and religious disagreements. Look at things like the Adama, the heresy that Shar and Selune are the same deity, and more. Plus their can be different interruptations of doctorine, difference of opinion on cosmology, differences of opinion on what the Gods are and their function, beast cults, and cults of the Overgod, the religion of Zakhara whose doesn't don't actively participate like the other Gods, the religions of Zakhara, Mulhorand, Kara Tur ect...

I am aware.

But the FR doesn't have much of that relative to the sheer volume of god stuff and a lot of it is objectively wrong. The non-interaction with other pantheon is a bug not a feature. The FR borged in those other settings but couldn't be bothered to actually work them in.

 

[dave2008]

See ChaosOS post above. It's about cross-sales within the brand, the idea that if it says D&D, you can use it, something more true in 5E than any previous edition.

I feel that is a remote possibility that could have been handled with a sidebar as I previously mentioned. But what is done is done, it has 0 effect on me other than discussions on this forum!

 

[gyor]

I am aware.

But the FR doesn't have much of that relative to the sheer volume of god stuff and a lot of it is objectively wrong. The non-interaction with other pantheon is a bug not a feature. The FR borged in those other settings but couldn't be bothered to actually work them in.

Some of those heresies are objectively wrong and others are more mysterious. Those that believe Selune and Shar are the same God still get spells granted to them for example.

The none interaction is the Zakhara Pantheon and that one was not borged in, it was designed for the realms, it was designed to be a very different type of religion to Kara Tur, Maztica, and Faerun's religions. Zakharan Gods don't possess alignment by design.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The thing is... I don't even think they're doing it to push an "agenda" to get everything into one "cosmology" for some grand reason (like "branding" or what not)... all they are doing is simply giving us an explanation as to WHY all this "cross-realm" stuff can and does occur.

In Eberron, there is a spell called 'Tasha's Uncontrollable Laughter'. Why is that true? Because that spell is in the Player's Handbook and thus any players who run games in Eberron can and possibly will use that spell.

Now... in the world of Eberron, who is 'Tasha'? The answer is "No one." There is no 'Tasha' in Eberron (unless a particular DM decides to create a person named Tasha to justify the spell name). But then, if there's no Tasha, why is there a spell in Eberron with that person's name? Any new player to D&D is rightly going to ask why that is? Why does a spell-- named after a person who doesn't exist in this game world-- actually exist in this game world? How does WotC explain how this is possible? And the answer they give is simple.

Everything in D&D is in D&D because every game of D&D overlaps in some way with every other game of D&D. The overlap might be huge (thousands of campaigns all following the plotline of 'Lost Mine of Phandelver'), or might be exceedingly small (any massively re-written work by an enterprising DM). But because the overlap is still there (because each game still uses stories, rules, identities, plots and trade dress from Dungeons & Dragons products)... every game of D&D is connected to every other one. And WotC calls that 'the D&D Multiverse'... infinite worlds of D&D, with infinite games of D&D, all of which are different, and yet... all shockingly the same in many different ways.

Why are there Ioun stones in Dragonlance? And Planescape? And Eberron? And the Realms? And Tal'Dorei? Why do they all have this exact same magic item, named after the exact same person, despite almost none of these worlds having a character in their setting with this name? How is that possible?

And why does MY D&D game have Ioun stones in them, just as Hussar's D&D game has Ioun stones in them, just like Yaarel's game has Ioun stones in them-- despite all of us probably thinking "Oh no, my game world has no connection to any other game world, and damn you for suggesting otherwise!"

It's because they are all games of D&D. We are all connected to each other. Every single one of us who plays this game. My game of D&D is just like one of your games of D&D. We are all a shared part of this D&D multiverse, and every single one of us knows it.

Even if we don't want to admit it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's lovely but literally none of that requires you to outright place Eberron in the specific Great Wheel cosmology, which is only one of a number of cosmologies 5E itself presents, and which Eberron has previously not been part of.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That's lovely but literally none of that requires you to outright place Eberron in the specific Great Wheel cosmology, which is only one of a number of cosmologies 5E itself presents, and which Eberron has previously not been part of.

But if every Eberron game is connected to every other Eberron game is connected to every other D&D game... what becomes of the difference between saying Eberron is part of the "D&D Multiverse" versus Eberron is a part of the Great Wheel? Is there functionally a difference? And by "functionally"... I mean does that actually play out in your games at your table? Do your Eberron games play differently if the book says its a part of the D&D Multiverse instead of it being a part of the Great Wheel?

Or is it just a philosophical thought experiment that you don't like to have to consider?