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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[Echohawk]

But the multiverse has a setting.

Planescape.

Doesn’t matter where you start, the second you step off your plane, you’re in Planescape with all the accompanying baggage.

It’s why I like the new Spelljammer. I get all the benefits of a multiverse without the thousands of pages of philosophy and lore that leaves me cold.

I'm not sure that the first and last paragraphs can both be true. If you are using Spelljammer as a multiversal setting, then the multiverse must be capable of having more than one setting, right? It can't just have a single setting.

So maybe this would be a slightly more balanced perspective.
1. The Planescape setting can be used as one way to explore the multiverse. WotC's marketing department would very much like to promote this as an option.
2. Spelljammer can also be used as a setting to explore the multiverse.
3. In addition, other settings (like homebrew campaigns) can explore the multiverse using the information on planes in the DMG without being forced to use any Planescape or Spelljammer lore.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not sure that the first and last paragraphs can both be true. If you are using Spelljammer as a multiversal setting, then the multiverse must be capable of having more than one setting, right? It can't just have a single setting.

So maybe this would be a slightly more balanced perspective.
1. The Planescape setting can be used as one way to explore the multiverse. WotC's marketing department would very much like to promote this as an option.
2. Spelljammer can also be used as a setting to explore the multiverse.
3. In addition, other settings (like homebrew campaigns) can explore the multiverse using the information on planes in the DMG without being forced to use any Planescape or Spelljammer lore.

You can use Spelljammer, you can use Sigil, you can use the Radiant Citadel. These are just different ways of achieving the same end. Pick the one that suits. Or don't use any, it up to you. Do you prefer to travel to strange new worlds by Enterprise or Tardis?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I'm pretty excited for that Adventure. Hopefully helps clear the ground for the future of D&D as a game.

I suspect I'm dreading it for simular reasons, we have very different views on that nature setting canon and its value.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It depends on the type of Multiverse, D&D Cosmology VS D&D Parrell Timelines.

D&D Cosmology is awesome and hasn't been a disaster for D&D, the upcoming Vecna Adventure on the other hand which likely was inspired by Everything Everywhere All At Once, may very likely prove to be a Spell plague level disaster, but on a multiversal, multi setting scale (much like March of the Machine was). I just had a sinking feeling Vecna is going to be an epic disaster.

They can't even handle their own canon in this edition, they won't be able to handle the complexity of what they might be trying to do.

It won't be 5e24 core books that kills 5e, it'll be the Vecna Adventure if they screw it up.

Only if one feel obliged to follow canon and to treat this adventure as canon. It is the need to subjugate ones setting to canon that can cause an official adventure or setting books to destroy the game, everyone else just ignore the bits they do not like.
For people that ignore canon the thing that can destroy the game is crunch that break the mechanical structure of the game and one can ignore that also.

 

[dave2008]

One of my criticisms of Dragonbane is that it doesn't have a lot of support for homebrewing monsters out of the literal box but man is it a sweet game. The new Bestiary will go a long way to making it complete.

Sorry for the tangent, but I was wondering if you could tell me what you like about Dragonbane? I look at it briefly but decided not to get it. What am I missing?

 

[Remathilis]

But the multiverse has a setting.

Planescape.

Doesn’t matter where you start, the second you step off your plane, you’re in Planescape with all the accompanying baggage.

It’s why I like the new Spelljammer. I get all the benefits of a multiverse without the thousands of pages of philosophy and lore that leaves me cold.

Personally, I think you can run D&D's multiverse and not touch Planescape if you want because much of what separates Planescape from the Manual of the Planes is Sigil and the factions and those are easily circumvented if you want. Descent into Avernus for example is a planar adventure that deals nothing when Planescape.


I don't find competition between Planescape and Spelljammer though. Spelljammer is about traversing the material plane using the Astral Sea as hyperspace. You can use both to get from Faerun to Krynn, but SJ is designed for that kind of adventure while PS is more interested in getting from Faerun to Ysgard. Both have their niche.

(As an aside, I hated the notion of combining both into one setting with every fiber of my being. This was akin to having a boat with wheels so you can sail a river and then drive on the road. It failed at both).

 

[Hussar]

See my problem is that I lump everything under the Planescape umbrella. Asmodeus is the king of hell? Planescape. Alll those demon lords? Planescape. Ysgard? Planescape.

No matter what you do, if you travel in the Planes it’s all the same Planescape stuff. It all follows the same lore.

But if I travel away from Faerun and go to Krynn by Spelljammer, none of that applies. Nothing in one setting bleeds into the next. The gods of one setting aren’t sitting around having tea with the gods of another. My Krynn doesn’t even have a Hell. Doesn’t exist when I run Krynn.

So my Spelljammer is oretty much nothing related to published settings. My SJ game will not visit any of them. Every location will be completely new and completely disconnected from every other location.

 

[TwoSix]

(As an aside, I hated the notion of combining both into one setting with every fiber of my being. This was akin to having a boat with wheels so you can sail a river and then drive on the road. It failed at both).

Heh. I love them both, and have them combined in my own personal "oversetting", but I also love adding extra gonzo into my Gonzo Flakes.

 

[Maxperson]

Those are settings. They just also exist within the broader multiverse setting. You could run a game set in one of them that did not include the broader multiverse, just as you could run a game set in Kata-Tur that did not include the rest of the Forgotten Realms. That doesn’t make either of them not settings. They are settings with different scopes nested within one another.

Set in the multiverse = set everywhere. That's so broad that setting becomes meaningless, since setting is more specific than that.

 

[Echohawk]

Set in the multiverse = set everywhere. That's so broad that setting becomes meaningless, since setting is more specific than that.

I don't agree. The D&D multiverse is still a particular setting. It isn't the MCU multiverse or the Star Wars multiverse. It is its own setting, albeit a very broad one.