WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Xamnam]

If someone said "it feels more realistic that longbows use Dexterity instead of Strength in 5e" it would be valid and accurate to point out that bows actually require quite a bit of Strength in real life to use.

Valid and accurate are very different from helpful or constructive.

Bows require strength. Absolutely. That fact also in no way invalidates that other person's perspective. They are not saying it is more realistic. They are saying it feels more realistic, to them. That's not something anyone else can ever prove false. They know their own thoughts and feelings.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why is it so important that the Planes of Salt, Dust, and Steam get included in the books? Liking something is subjective. Whether or not it should be included is more objective.

Not really. Whether or not it gets included depends on a variety of factors. There is no straight objective answer, just one that they believe better suits their needs.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Bows require strength. Absolutely. That fact also in no way invalidates that other person's perspective. They are not saying it is more realistic. They are saying it feels more realistic, to them. That's not something anyone else can ever prove false. They know their own thoughts and feelings.

If their opinion is about something being included because it feels realistic (especially if they say it feels more realistic), but it isn't actually realistic, what is realistic is more important.

Not really. Whether or not it gets included depends on a variety of factors. There is no straight objective answer, just one that they believe better suits their needs.

Whichever would be more beneficial or helpful for newer DMs is something that you could measure. We don't have the data for that (WotC might, we don't), but it is something that you can objectively measure.

 

[Xamnam]

If their opinion is about something being included because it feels realistic (especially if they say it feels more realistic), but it isn't actually realistic, what is realistic is more important.

What feels realistic is a different consideration than what is realistic. Sometimes, what is realistic is more important. Sometimes, what feels realistic is more important. And if we're talking about personal preferences, neither is inherently a more valuable perspective.


Realistic doesn't look like a word anymore.

 

[Velderan]

Why is it so important that the Planes of Salt, Dust, and Steam get included in the books? Liking something is subjective. Whether or not it should be included is more objective.

Why is it so important people agree with you?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

What feels realistic is a different consideration than what is realistic. Sometimes, what is realistic is more important. Sometimes, what feels realistic is more important. And if we're talking about personal preferences, neither is inherently a more valuable perspective.

I just thought that it was weird that they mentioned that it felt more realistic. I was wondering if they weren't that familiar with real-world cosmologies because of it. And I was pointing out that it actually isn't anymore realistic and I just thought it was strange that the cosmology with several dozen planes of existence somehow felt more realistic than a simpler one.

Realistic doesn't look like a word anymore.

I know, right?

Why is it so important people agree with you?

It isn't. I was trying to understand their point of view. I was confused why they would say that, because it wasn't accurate and didn't seem like it should feel accurate based on any cosmologies that I know of from the real world. Most are generally much simpler than the Great Wheel (the Yggdrasil and 9 worlds of Norse mythology, the Duat of Egyptian mythology, the Underworld, Tartarus, and Mount Olympus from Greek Mythology, Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory/Limbo from Catholicism, the Dreaming from Aboriginal Australians, the Celtic Otherworld, etc).

In the real world, most cosmologies are pretty simple. So the statement that the Great Wheel somehow feel more realistic was really mindboggling, because I honestly cannot think of any cosmologies from the real world similar to it. Nothing about it feels realistic. It feels even more "artificial" than the World Axis.

 

[Oofta]

The way I explain some of the cosmology of my world is that it isn't "real". In other words while I use the world tree Yggdrasil that connects the different realms, the explanation for it and even the experience of travelling from one realm to another is all largely just a construct in the minds of mortals because they can't process how things really work.

The planes of existence are beyond the realm of human understanding, any order or structure we put to it will therefore be a false construct. That construct may be useful, but it can never really encompass the complexity of the planes.

In other words, everybody's right. From a certain point of view.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I prefer to go with that instinct personally. Not everything in the world needs to be designed for the PCs. The World Axis always felt artificial to me, because everything in it was designed for adventuring, and what world really works that way?

Others feel differently, and that's fine.

And yet a perfect spectrum of mixes of concepts of morality, Moving from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil and back to Lawful Good feels completely natural to you?

That level of balance and mirroring doesn't happen in nature. And 4e doesn't feel artificial, it feels exactly like a real mythology does.

 

[Incenjucar]

Real world cosmologies vary in complexity. In many cases there is a pop culture idea of these cosmologies that barely touched their surface. D&D does also graft a lot of these pop cultural versions together, as is also popular in comic books, so there is some inherent complexity there. However, most cosmologies are at least somewhat more complicated than the average person is aware of, especially given the people who can give us more details on many of them have been dead for thousands of years.

 

[Chaosmancer]

As an aside, there used to be a plane for thunder. The quasielemental plane of lightning. Anyway, on to the answer.

And it turns out, lightning =/= thunder. In fact, it is entirely possible to have "lightning" without "thunder"

The inner planes are the building blocks for all of the other planes. Shadowfell could not exist without the negative plane providing a lot of what builds it. Positive and negative energy provide the basis for a lot of what goes into the upper and lower planes, as well as planes like Shadowfell. Taking out the positive and negative planes takes a chunk out of the foundations of all the rest of the multiverse.

Really? It can not exist without the negative energy plane?

Huh... that's strange. Cause it absolutely does exist without the negative energy plane in literally every campaign world I have ever played. A lot of the one's I've read too. In fact, it isn't even trivial to explain why they don't need to be connected, it is literally more work to force the Shadowfell to need the negative energy plane that it is to not have it. You are literally making more work for yourself forcing those to be included.

Do you know what potential means? The ability to create fire(the potential of fire) was part of what the plane of fire contributed to the plane. I used the word potential for a reason.

So, it would be impossible for fire to exist in the Outer planes, right? Because the potential for Fire was used in the making of the material plane, and the outer planes aren't made of the stuff of the inner planes. Or, does that seem entirely wrong to you for some reason?