Do You Care About Cosmology?

Most cosmology about planes I don't care about.

I really like 4e's world axis. I like the Norse Nine Worlds. I have known a bunch about the Great Wheel since the 1e era with the little bits in the PH, DMG, and Deities & Demigods, then eventually 1e Manual of the Planes and it is OK. I enjoy Ravenloft's pre 5e closed off but reaching out cosmology. I also like the similar setup that 3e-Pathfinder OGL Oathbound setting used. Spelljammer's 2e extended prime material setup is fun.

I like Eberron's cosmology origin story about the three dragons but do not really care about the specifics of their multiple planes going in and out of conjunction. I could care less about the Rokugan planar setup. Pathfinder's Golarion and the Scarred Lands' planes are fairly similar to the Great Wheel but not really that interesting to me figure out specific differences. Greek myth cosmology has some interesting things with Tarterous and such but mostly I do not care that much about the non earth places compared to the rich mythology on the gods. Dark Suns' Gray and such is not that interesting to me to explore.

I really dislike Ptolus's entirely closed off planar cosmology with trapped beings in contrast to the ones I like for Ravenloft and Oathbound. I use Ptolus and its world as a big part of my homebrew mashup but I ditch their moons and planar setup.

I have a lot of settings I enjoy where I do not really explore or care about the planar cosmology. Warcraft and Everquest pop up for me as does Lankhmar. FR and Dragonlance I don't really care to explore how it generally differs from default D&D beyond knowing things like FR's 2e and on era Wall of the Faithless.

doctorbadwolf said:

So let’s say my game has a unique creation story that informs all of my world building, the nature of all beings, especially the adversarial beings that threaten everything, and underpins how magic works and what it even is in the world.

Do you want to know about it, as a player? Do you read all you can, or ignore it and only bother learning the “right now” stuff that directly affects your character?

Do you want cosmology to matter, with mechanical weight put behind it?

Click to expand...

So, it is a big-old, "that depends". With a note that there's a difference between what my character knows, and what the player knows, and both are relevant to such questions. For example:

1) Traditional game: Let us say that the setting/game creator (GM or published designer) had an idea for a cosmology. They have build mechanics inspired by what they feel the consequences of that cosmology are...

Meh. If I can work with the mechanics without knowing the cosmology, the cosmology is flavor text. I find worlds in which the mortals are largely ignorant of the reality of the cosmology to be more interesting, because people in that world can disagree about elements of the cosmology, and their individual takes, and how they disagree, helps reveal internal character.

2) Traditional game: The cosmology is going to be plot relevant to events in the story, and eventually PCs are going to directly interact with the cosmology itself.

Then, the cosmology should be revealed like any other plot element. I probably don't want all the details up front. Please allow the details to be revealed as the character would learn them.

3) Narrative-focused game: the cosmology is part of the relevant fictional conceits of the game, and the GM needs the players' help to work the narrative impacts of the cosmology into the dramatic aspects of the game, even if the characters are unaware of them.

Yeah, fine, tell me the cosmology.

doctorbadwolf said:

So let’s say my game has a unique creation story that informs all of my world building, the nature of all beings, especially the adversarial beings that threaten everything, and underpins how magic works and what it even is in the world.

Do you want to know about it, as a player? Do you read all you can, or ignore it and only bother learning the “right now” stuff that directly affects your character?

Do you want cosmology to matter, with mechanical weight put behind it?

Click to expand...

For a game like D&D no, as lore to rob or for your specific campaign possibly. Cool lore can be very cool, depends on execution.

Voadam said:

I really dislike Ptolus's entirely closed off planar cosmology with trapped beings in contrast to the ones I like for Ravenloft and Oathbound. I use Ptolus and its world as a big part of my homebrew mashup but I ditch their moons and planar setup.

Click to expand...

I like that it's part of the way Monte Cook focuses the action on Ptolus (and the rest of the continent, to a lesser extent). If you run off on a field trip somewhere else, it's almost certainly related to stuff happening in and around the city.

And of course, the end stage of the main/obvious campaign in Ptolus opens Praemal up to the cosmos. So your campaign could just be set some time after that.

doctorbadwolf said:

Do you want cosmology to matter, with mechanical weight put behind it?

Click to expand...

Sometimes... Im a bit odd in that I actually really like alignment and my favorite fantasy RPGs to this day are 3E and PF1. I like that there are tangible elements that can impact the gameplay. It makes the cosmology interesting to me. Without those elements, then it really needs to bring political intrigue tot he table to gather my interest. If its just background fluff for world building of no real import, I likely wont have much interest.

You don't even need to explain the cosmology for players of clerics, though it might depend on the player, I'm quite content to play a cleric of war or a cleric of order and just use the domains as the church. Others might really want to have a god in which case you might need something which can also be created by the player to make the DM's life a little easier. Of course, it's also easy to borrow a pantheon; my friend just used the critical role pantheon for his campaign.

It really depends on the game. But ultimately, I am most interested in it to the degree it might influence my specific character's beliefs and choices engaging with the world. But I don't necessarily have a preference for what that degree should be.

In a recent campaign I GMed, I had an NPC point out to the PCs that, like, nobody has mapped the planes. And since you get to these places through portals and dimension hopping, there isn't a consistent passage that you can chart out.

Like, for as much confidence as a wizard might say, "Oh, that monster is from the plane of fire, and this one is from the first level of Hell, and that other one is from somewhere in the Abyss," for all you know, maybe they're all just regions of the same world. We've got deserts and volcanic calderas and geothermal geysers on earth, and if you just blipped from one to the other, someone could probably convince you they're different planets.

Then again, the cosmology I'm working with for my current setting is that basically there's one world, and then a sort of shared 'extradimensional space' that everyone - wizards and gods alike - play around in. But everything there is connected, at least tangentially, with something else. And some of the oldest places were created as afterlifes for the worshipers of different gods. So in my setting, you can literally end up at the gates of hell, and if you're clever enough you can run to another afterlife, or just take refuge in somebody's bag of holding sphere, or whatever. It's all the same 'world.'

doctorbadwolf said:

So let’s say my game has a unique creation story that informs all of my world building, the nature of all beings, especially the adversarial beings that threaten everything, and underpins how magic works and what it even is in the world.

Do you want to know about it, as a player? Do you read all you can, or ignore it and only bother learning the “right now” stuff that directly affects your character?

Do you want cosmology to matter, with mechanical weight put behind it?

Click to expand...

Are you familiar with 'Chekhov's gun'?

If you are planning to run a long campaign in your setting, it may be that your players will have sufficient time to advance their characters into the second or third act.
Should they get that far, perhaps that is the time to bring those larger scale oppositions to the forefront in the campaign?

Or not. Its up to you.
That particular 'end of the world' timer/hourglass can stay on it's side in the sandbox the entire campaign (ie. not advancing).
That doesn't stop you from having NPC's dropping hints about the setting. (The drunken ramblings of a senior cleric in a tavern; or the apocalypse priest on a soapbox proclaiming the end of days (which would happen if someone set that hourglass upright)).

Where do you plan to locate the PC's adventures in the world's timeline?
The answer to that question will help you with 'What the PC's Must Know'.

Brendan Byrd said:

Are you familiar with 'Chekhov's gun'?

Chekhov's gun - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you are planning to run a long campaign in your setting, it may be that your players will have sufficient time to advance their characters into the second or third act.
Should they get that far, perhaps that is the time to bring those larger scale oppositions to the forefront in the campaign?

Or not. Its up to you.
That particular 'end of the world' timer/hourglass can stay on it's side in the sandbox the entire campaign (ie. not advancing).
That doesn't stop you from having NPC's dropping hints about the setting. (The drunken ramblings of a senior cleric in a tavern; or the apocalypse priest on a soapbox proclaiming the end of days (which would happen if someone set that hourglass upright)).

Where do you plan to locate the PC's adventures in the world's timeline?
The answer to that question will help you with 'What the PC's Must Know'.

Click to expand...

This is more of a game creation question than a running the game question.