Planescape Planescape IS D&D Says Jeremy Crawford

Planescape is Jeremy Crawford's favourite D&D setting. "It is D&D", he says, as he talks about how in the 2024 core rulebook updates Planescape will be more up front and center as "the setting of settings".

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[Zaukrie]

It’s a horrific thing they’ve done. Just listen to how pained Keith Baker sounds when people talk about how Eberron is linked to other settings. It messes with the fire conceits and themes of the settings but that sorta stuff doesn’t seem to matter I guess.

How? Just don't play that way. It literally doesn't matter unless you want it. It's fiction. Your fiction.

 

[Remathilis]

What bothers me about the "D&D Multiverse" framing is that it sets the assumption that a homebrew setting is really just a subpart of someone else's setting. While I can and do reject this assumption, the developers presenting it as the default still comes across as presumptuous, and it puts the onus on DMs to actively disclaim WotC's cosmology if they want to avoid misunderstandings.


Also, while I'm largely indifferent to published settings, it seems to me that, as a matter of storytelling, the possibilities that WotC is closing off by limiting themselves to a single cosmology massively outweigh those they open by connecting more settings to that cosmology.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people want to play D&D without playing D&D.

They are selling the notion that no matter if you are playing Eberron, Faerun or Bob's homebrew, you're part of a larger collective community and in theory PCs from different worlds and settings can meet up and share adventures. That villains like Tiamat or Venca can threaten multiple worlds. That great artifacts like the Deck of Many Things can appear in any world and then disappear off to the next. That powerful archimages like Tasha or Mordenkainen spread magical knowledge to all manner of places, and that if you want a dhampir warlock from Barovia, a gnome artificer from Sharn, a kender sorcerer from Solomnia and a gith fighter from the Rock of Braal to meet up in a pub in Sigil and stop a plot by Orcus, by God do what you will.

That has always been the implicit nature of D&D's multiverse. You're welcome to ignore it the same as any bit of lore or rule, but I see no problem with WotC trying to connect the community together and say "it's all D&D".:

 

[QuentinGeorge]

How? Just don't play that way. It literally doesn't matter unless you want it. It's fiction. Your fiction.

Ah yes nothing matters etc yes we get it,

 

[QuentinGeorge]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people want to play D&D without playing D&D.

They are selling the notion that no matter if you are playing Eberron, Faerun or Bob's homebrew, you're part of a larger collective community and in theory PCs from different worlds and settings can meet up and share adventures. That villains like Tiamat or Venca can threaten multiple worlds. That great artifacts like the Deck of Many Things can appear in any world and then disappear off to the next. That powerful archimages like Tasha or Mordenkainen spread magical knowledge to all manner of places, and that if you want a dhampir warlock from Barovia, a gnome artificer from Sharn, a kender sorcerer from Solomnia and a gith fighter from the Rock of Braal to meet up in a pub in Sigil and stop a plot by Orcus, by God do what you will.

That has always been the implicit nature of D&D's multiverse. You're welcome to ignore it the same as any bit of lore or rule, but I see no problem with WotC trying to connect the community together and say "it's all D&D".:

Is that why you think people play in Eberron and Dragonlance?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

It’s a horrific thing they’ve done. Just listen to how pained Keith Baker sounds when people talk about how Eberron is linked to other settings. It messes with the fire conceits and themes of the settings but that sorta stuff doesn’t seem to matter I guess.

He's the one that chose to connect and said it's fine.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

He's the one that chose to connect and said it's fine.

Ah yeah no he didn’t. WotC decided to connect it. Baker can’t stop him. He’s on several occasions say he would prefer it unconnected but it’s not his call. He pointedly states “his” Eberron is not in a multiverse.

 

[Remathilis]

Is that why you think people play in Eberron and Dragonlance?

People play Eberron or Dragonlance because they want to play a particular theme and story of D&D. In those cases, a particular type of magipunk pulp/noir and high romantic adventure both set in the backdrop of an ongoing or recently ended war. There is nothing in either that says that you are not still playing D&D, and that you can't cross the streams if you want to.

I am only suggesting why WotC wants to sell them as part of a greater multiverse rather than a bunch of isolated settings that have walls of flaming tigers separating them. That kender never appear outside Krynn or spells with Tasha's name on them only exist on Oerth.

 

[jerryrice4949]

It’s a horrific thing they’ve done. Just listen to how pained Keith Baker sounds when people talk about how Eberron is linked to other settings. It messes with the fire conceits and themes of the settings but that sorta stuff doesn’t seem to matter I guess.

That would be ridiculous. Ultimately the cosmology of every game is up to the DM and players.

 

[Morrus]

I’m pretty sure the first time I ever saw the word “multiverse” was in a D&D product…. in the 1980s. It’s not exactly a new thing for D&D. And it’s definitely in the the current 5E core rulebooks.

 

[Kurotowa]

People play Eberron or Dragonlance because they want to play a particular theme and story of D&D. In those cases, a particular type of magipunk pulp/noir and high romantic adventure both set in the backdrop of an ongoing or recently ended war. There is nothing in either that says that you are not still playing D&D, and that you can't cross the streams if you want to.

Even back in 3e when I played my first Eberron campaign, the final adventure saw us make a small multiversal tour after we were shot through a great rift while preventing a second Mourning. One of the stops was the Forgotten Realms and being from Eberron gave us an entirely new perspective on it. All our PCs decided it was a terribly crapsack world of isolated backward city states surrounded by hostile wilderness, where the "libraries" locked up all their books and demanded high fees for access. We departed as quickly as possible.

So yeah, I'm totally on board with Eberron being isolated but still connected. It's way more fun that way.