D&D (2024) DMG 2024: The Planes

[Chaltab]

Shattered Obelisk spends about half the time in the Far Realms.

Wait really? How do PCs keep from going insane?

 

[Hussar]

Wait really? How do PCs keep from going insane?

Often they don’t.

There’s all sorts of nasty effects of being in the Far Realms.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As far as the planes not being used, don’t a fairly large chunk of modules spend some time on various planes?

Shattered Obelisk spends about half the time in the Far Realms. Candlekeep has numerous pocket plane adventures. Obviously Avernuz spends quite a bit of time in Hell. Radiant Portal. Wild Beyond the Witchlight. Ravenloft.

It’s not like planar adventures are all that rare.

Keys from the Golden Vault is the one for the outer planes. It manages to (briefly) take in The Outlands, Acheron, Elysium, Mount Celestia, Nine Hells, Pandemonium, Ysgard and Mechanus. And the Feywild is the setting for another adventure.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Carceri

I had a brief visit to Carceri in one of my campaigns.

It's in Planescape: Torment CRPG.

 

[Sulicius]

This new DMG is the first time I actually read through the information of all the planes. A lot of them just bother me, and feel like they are too close in theme to the others. Weirder still to me, is how they are all supposed to be where the souls of all creatures go, but people live in those planes too? It's still a lot for me to wrap my head around.

I am glad to see that there have always been people who thought this planar stuff has some weird parts.

For now, I will start a Planescape campaign in a couple weeks, so it should be useful to me. I think I will reduce the planes by up to two-thirds and make a world-tree cosmology.

 

[the Jester]

Technical dungeon aspects, like traps, secret passageways, etc are intuitive ideas pretty easy to grasp. Likewise, visual aspects like jaquaying a dungeon aren't necessary to for a good starter dungeon. But even then, building a full, OSR-style dungeon is just not something a lot of homebrew DMs do. I'm drawing this data not just from social media and WotC, but also from my own anecdotes. I'm in a pretty large group of players -- over 30 people. We divide up into different games that go for different lengths (few weeks, few months) and rearrange based on who wants to do what at the time. We also have a lot of players ranging from lower 20s to 50s. What I've learned here is that, dungeons just don't appear a lot. Not traditional dungeons, I mean. There's just so much more fantasy to explore then dungeons IMO.

My experience, which also involves many dms and players, differs substantially from yours. Dungeons are common; megadungeons, while not common, are far from unheard of.

I think part of the difference probably arises from experience. When members of a group encounter an awesome dungeon, they are more likely to try to create one when they themselves DM. If your large group of gamers hasn't had a lot of fun dungeoneering experiences, they are less likely to spend the time to create one.

 

[the Jester]

The Great Wheel is a dumb setting, shackled to a dumb mechanic.

There. I said it.

You're doing an awful lot of "my preferences are teh right way to play" in this thread.

The truth is more that your preferences are the right way to play for you.

 

[the Jester]

And even those DMs who have only been DMing a month almost surely looked through the MM and so would have seen how creatures of a group are found together. This change doesn't really help anyone.

It helps anyone who doesn't know what an obscure monster is, if that monster is found under some heading other than its name.

Not that these are in the MM, but it helps anyone who doesn't know that a deathdrinker is a demon, anyone who doesn't know that a paelyrion is a devil, anyone who doesn't know that an all-devourer is an ooze, and anyone who doesn't know that a xag-ya is an elemental.

 

[Reynard]

You're doing an awful lot of "my preferences are teh right way to play" in this thread.

The truth is more that your preferences are the right way to play for you.

I never said otherwise. Do we really have to put a boilerplate explanation that this is ALL opinion at every post?

 

[TwoSix]

On the other hand, Pit Fiends are Devils, WereWolves are Lycanthropes, and Black Puddings are Oozes. The only DMs who wouldn't be familiar with this are in all likelihood people who started DMing in about a month.

Nothing "silly" about it. Standard bestiary organization. You're welcome not to like it, but why make fun of something other people like?

I think how use the Monster Manual at the table makes a big difference here. I tend to run with heavy improv and little prep; so at the table, I'm a lot more like likely to think "I need something vaguely devilish for this encounter" than "I need a nalfeshnee and an orthon".