WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Nikosandros]

I personally love the Great Wheel, but I'm all in favor on the game not forcing a certain cosmology, but instead giving the tools to invent or customize one.

 

[Faolyn]

Or two different planes of war. Or two different chaotic evil planes that could easily be combined. Or seven different upper planes that more or less all blend together.

I can actually see the two planes of war. Because you have honorable war fought to protect and free the downtrodden (admittedly, this sort of war is probably common only in a fantasy world), and you have greedy, selfish, dirty war fought for bad reasons like revenge, greed, and hatred.

OK, yeah, you could create a single plane of war, but it seems to me that unless the Good (and Neutral) armies are incredibly strong, the Evil ones could very easily destroy them, since the Evil armies would have no problems using dirty tactics. And if the Evil armies were weak or unwilling to work together to fight against the Good armies, then the Good armies should destroy them because they're Evil and unable to fight against the cooperative forces of Good. At least with the physical distance of two planes, you can have a decent reason why there's both good/neutral gods of war and evil gods of war.

Also personally, I've always preferred the other Evil planes to the Abyss and Hells--the more Neutral Evil planes are just cooler IMO and I find the Blood War boring.

Of course, I don't use the Great Wheel myself. I prefer something closer to the World Axis, although I don't use that, either.

 

[Oofta]

Option number 1, always number 1

Salt Genasi.

You need an entire quasi-elemental plane of salt for 1 minor variation of genasi? That's kind of like saying we need a plane of existence for left-handed dwarven wood workers, it's just not necessary. I mean, there's only 3 LHDWW known to exist, but they have to come from somewhere!

I know it's supposed to be the opposite of the plane of water. But it's just overly complicated filler that serves no real purpose that couldn't be covered by, oh I don't know, a big salt flat desert somewhere.

 

[Faolyn]

Option number 1, always number 1

So... knowingly and willfully cause metal harm to players, especially women. Gotcha.

 

[Incenjucar]

The inner planes are underdeveloped, but contain significant potential for the sufficiently inclined. D&D historically thinks of the inner planes last, probably because they're too hostile and alien to just make it into a generic setting with bigger monsters like they do most planes.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

2e Great Wheel wasn't as complex as the 5e Great Wheel.

Well, unless you look at the Inner Planes, but then I have a soft spot for the para/quasi-elemental stuff...

 

[Oofta]

So... knowingly and willfully cause metal harm to players, especially women. Gotcha.

It could be worse. Back in Living Greyhawk days (3.x) you could play public games, but different areas had different "regions" with their own admins and stories. So you could experience new stories by travelling to conventions outside your area. New Mexico for example had the county of Urnst (thanks wikipedia!) which had an ancient red dragon that was a constant threat.

If you played a female in that region there was a good chance that you would be kidnapped and impregnated by the dragon. We played one con there and never went back. I have no idea who thought this subplot was something that should ever see the light of day in a home game, much less public games.

 

[Faolyn]

It could be worse. Back in Living Greyhawk days (3.x) you could play public games, but different areas had different "regions" with their own admins and stories. So you could experience new stories by travelling to conventions outside your area. New Mexico for example had the county of Urnst (thanks wikipedia!) which had an ancient red dragon that was a constant threat.

If you played a female in that region there was a good chance that you would be kidnapped and impregnated by the dragon. We played one con there and never went back. I have no idea who thought this subplot was something that should ever see the light of day in a home game, much less public games.

What the actual heck?!

 

[Oofta]

What the actual heck?!

Our thoughts exactly. There were other issues as well ... our impression was that basically whoever was in charge really wanted it to be an "all-evil" campaign but that wasn't allowed so everyone was "neutral".

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Well, unless you look at the Inner Planes, but then I have a soft spot for the para/quasi-elemental stuff...

Half of those are still there, I forget which, but its the ones that bordered energy planes that are missing, for now.

And what little it didn't have was so dwarfed by what was added, that its no contest.