D&D General The D&D Multiverse: Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die

[Chaltab]

Ok, but that doesn't change my main point. Again, show me a D&D book that has more examples of alternate planes/cosmologies. That you don't like the book is no more meaningful to that point than my preference for the AD&D Great Wheel.

i mean sure, D&D wants their own particular copyrighted multiverse(s) to be front & center. My like or dislike of a book is irrelevant. my original point was responding to Zeke anyway--pointing out that an old edition book saying the great wheel is inflexible should have no bearing on current canon

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yup, to all of this. The MotP was amazing in concept, but in practice largely a book where fun went to die*. Focused on making all these places one could theoretically have adventures about as boring and inhospitable as possible, rather than on making them exciting places to have adventures and making them as gameable as possible.

It does have some sweet art, though.

*(a characteristic it shared with the Dungeoneers' and especially Wilderness Survival Guides)

Preach!

Look, I know that there are some people who love MoTP, or DSG, or WSG (or all three). Bless their cotton socks.

Umm, good for them. People have different preferences.

But I think that saying that they are where the fun went to die is so accurate. That is ... hmmm... I can't believe I haven't written a 36-part essay on that already, because it is exactly correct.

I still remember the DSG. It looked amazing. I was so excited! And then I started reading ... ugh.... it was nearly impossible to pull the small bits of good out of the giant morass of "OMG THIS THIS IS SO BORING KILL ME NOW."

And somehow, I didn't learn my lesson. Because I got the WSG. And that? That made the DSG look like a rip-roarin' page turner by comparison!

Yeah, I don't judge people who love those three books, but AFAIC they don't exist.

 

[Voadam]

DSG was great for turning OA's non-weapon proficiencies into something existing 1e non-OA classes could reasonably use. My 1e group really dove into that part of the book and liked that part and adopted it into our games.

And it had some cool art.

. . .

I did not get WSG.

 

[Voadam]

1e Manual of the Planes has some really cool stuff about where the deities and demigods' gods and other major beings (archdevils, elemental princes, etc.) domains are with some small descriptions and some interactions setting up a possible giant 2e Ravenloft type of situation where you could adventure in a specific domain ruled by a supernatural powerful being.

But it was really punishing in its mechanics with lots of completely inhospitable planes where you would need special spells for everybody to breathe and move and see through solid earth or whatever for elemental planes, the hit to magic items losing a plus for every plane you travel to away from the prime (at least a -2 for any elemental or outer plane), the long lists of magic that is crippled on various planes, and the general high level and high magic you need to be to even get to a single other plane.

It seemed designed to turn high level D&D into super hard mode.

And we had to wait editions until we got stats for the really cool Astral Dreadnought from the cover.

 

[Chaltab]

Also Ysgard is called Gladsheim for some reason.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yup, to all of this. The MotP was amazing in concept, but in practice largely a book where fun went to die*. Focused on making all these places one could theoretically have adventures about as boring and inhospitable as possible, rather than on making them exciting places to have adventures and making them as gameable as possible.

It does have some sweet art, though.

*(a characteristic it shared with the Dungeoneers' and especially Wilderness Survival Guides)

I take exception to this. I loved all those books, especially MotP. It had a logical, verisimilitudinous take on the planes as they were described in earlier material, and didn't push the supremacy of narrative tropes and a PC-centric view of the universe it was describing. That's why it's my favorite 1e book. Calling it "where fun goes to die", as you and @EzekielRaiden have, is harsh bordering on insulting, and not at all funny.

 

[Micah Sweet]

i mean sure, D&D wants their own particular copyrighted multiverse(s) to be front & center. My like or dislike of a book is irrelevant. my original point was responding to Zeke anyway--pointing out that an old edition book saying the great wheel is inflexible should have no bearing on current canon

No canon is inherently more important than any other, no matter how old it is. It's all subjective.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Preach!

Look, I know that there are some people who love MoTP, or DSG, or WSG (or all three). Bless their cotton socks.

Umm, good for them. People have different preferences.

But I think that saying that they are where the fun went to die is so accurate. That is ... hmmm... I can't believe I haven't written a 36-part essay on that already, because it is exactly correct.

I still remember the DSG. It looked amazing. I was so excited! And then I started reading ... ugh.... it was nearly impossible to pull the small bits of good out of the giant morass of "OMG THIS THIS IS SO BORING KILL ME NOW."

And somehow, I didn't learn my lesson. Because I got the WSG. And that? That made the DSG look like a rip-roarin' page turner by comparison!

Yeah, I don't judge people who love those three books, but AFAIC they don't exist.

There are plenty of RPG books I don't care about either. But that phrase is simply disrespectful to anyone who disagrees.

 

[Micah Sweet]

1e Manual of the Planes has some really cool stuff about where the deities and demigods' gods and other major beings (archdevils, elemental princes, etc.) domains are with some small descriptions and some interactions setting up a possible giant 2e Ravenloft type of situation where you could adventure in a specific domain ruled by a supernatural powerful being.

But it was really punishing in its mechanics with lots of completely inhospitable planes where you would need special spells for everybody to breathe and move and see through solid earth or whatever for elemental planes, the hit to magic items losing a plus for every plane you travel to away from the prime (at least a -2 for any elemental or outer plane), the long lists of magic that is crippled on various planes, and the general high level and high magic you need to be to even get to a single other plane.

It seemed designed to turn high level D&D into super hard mode.

And we had to wait editions until we got stats for the really cool Astral Dreadnought from the cover.

Plane-hopping in 1e was for high-level characters. Planescape was an excellent way to soften that stance without changing previous lore in a significant way.

I agree that it's a shame we had to wait for the Astral dreadnought though.

 

[Chaltab]

No canon is inherently more important than any other, no matter how old it is. It's all subjective.

You keep acting like my objection is the age of 3E canon and not Ezekiel's use of it to argue the GW can't be more than what the 3E MOTP says it is.