D&D 5E 4E Cosmology

[Chaltab]

I disagree that the great wheel is unplayable, I find it no different than the 4e cosmology in that respect.

I think the bigger issue for me is that I find most of the Great Wheel kind of useless. I included all the Outer Planes in my diagram for completion's sake, but honestly I think I could lose at least half of them and not feel it at all. I'd be more likely to send my players to Hestavar, Shom, or Kalandurren before Arcadia, Hades, or Limbo. And I definitely prefer Tiamat having an domain of her own than sharing Avernus with Zariel.

 

[pukunui]

Am I just weird? I'm 57 in March and this summer will mark my 50th year in D&D. I've hated the Great Wheel ever since I can remember. The shift in Cosmology and the addition of the Feywild and Shadowfell in 4e I thought was brilliant. I was disappointed when 5e went back to the Great Wheel model. I've kept 4th edition Cosmology In all my stuff and refuse to let it go. A couple of my players say I'm being a "Boomer" about it

What are people's thoughts on the current Cosmology In 5e? Do you make use of it or ignore it? Do you run successful adventures in it? Inquiring minds want to know!

I love 4e's cosmology. I wish they had kept it for 5e. It makes so much more sense than the Great Wheel.

I also like Eberron's cosmology.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How is... what possible?

A setting that is legitimately both the World Axis and the Great Wheel.

What you seem to have here is "The Great Wheel with some extra stuff attached." That doesn't look like you've found a way to make the rather dissonant principles of the two cosmologies work together.

Like, if I took the World Axis and said that all of the alignment planes are really there, but as Astral Dominions, I wouldn't say that that "incorporates both." It fundamentally is the World Axis, it just allows players to visit some of the Great Wheel locations outside the context of the Great Wheel proper.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I disagree that the great wheel is unplayable, I find it no different than the 4e cosmology in that respect.

There are numerous entire planes that cannot meaningfully be played in or around. Whole sections of the cosmology that essentially serve no purpose whatsoever other than to be the home of elemental creatures or to check off boxes on the alignment chart.

Even Mount Celestia in the World Axis has half a dozen adventure books. That's the cream of the crop for "boring do-nothing" places where adventurers have nothing to do if it were the Great Wheel, second only to "there's literally nothing there" places like the Plane of Air.

The Great Wheel was designed first and foremost to be a pretty diagram that checked off all the boxes, and only then trying to find some reason to actually do anything there. The World Axis was designed from the perspective, "How do we make myth, legend, and folklore exciting places for adventure to happen in?"

 

[Minigiant]

I'm World Axis Gang

I even add Jotunhiem (aka BIG Land) and Dragonspire (aka Brilliant Treasureland) as additional echo Planes.

Half the alignment planes are utterly useless gameplay and story wise,

 

[Staffan]

My preference is for cosmology to be as vague as possible, with millions of planes out there, each with their own weird stuff going on. Something like the 70s Hulk comics where he got banished to "the Crossroads" and kept wandering around having weird otherwordly encounters. Within this multitude, there's certainly room for local agglomerations of planes that provide some sort of structure, such as Yggdrasil connecting the planes of Norse mythology, but I want the overall multiverse to be weird and unpredictable.

The World Axis kinda gives you that if you squint a little. The Great Wheel... is an exercise in box-filling that doesn't even come close.

 

[Dire Bare]

A setting that is legitimately both the World Axis and the Great Wheel.

What you seem to have here is "The Great Wheel with some extra stuff attached." That doesn't look like you've found a way to make the rather dissonant principles of the two cosmologies work together.

Like, if I took the World Axis and said that all of the alignment planes are really there, but as Astral Dominions, I wouldn't say that that "incorporates both." It fundamentally is the World Axis, it just allows players to visit some of the Great Wheel locations outside the context of the Great Wheel proper.

Dissonant principles?

I'm not seeing your difficulty. The Great Wheel and World Axis are not terribly different cosmologies, IMO. They mesh together just fine.

@Chaltab even stated upthread that his home game cosmology is essentially "The Great Wheel with some extra stuff attached" and doesn't actively use all of the classic planes. Fail to see the issue with that.

 

[Dire Bare]

My preference is for cosmology to be as vague as possible, with millions of planes out there, each with their own weird stuff going on. Something like the 70s Hulk comics where he got banished to "the Crossroads" and kept wandering around having weird otherwordly encounters. Within this multitude, there's certainly room for local agglomerations of planes that provide some sort of structure, such as Yggdrasil connecting the planes of Norse mythology, but I want the overall multiverse to be weird and unpredictable.

The World Axis kinda gives you that if you squint a little. The Great Wheel... is an exercise in box-filling that doesn't even come close.

This is similar to the cosmology outlined in the BECMI D&D boxed sets, and that's what I grew up on in the 80s. I've always had my own loose head canon that the World Axis, Great Wheel, and even the Realms' World Tree cosmology are just planar regions within the larger multiverse.

 

[GusNBru]

Planescape, from 2e, is me and my wife’s favorite setting, so we are in the Great Wheel club. We did, however, add the Feywild and Shadowfell to our multiverse when 4e was the current edition, much in the same way 5e eventually added them.
We actually really liked 4e as a system, but largely kept the setting and lore from 2nd and 3rd editions.

I enjoyed Planescape. I never really cared for the 4E mechanics but I did like how the lore and such was written in 4E.

 

[Reynard]

The Astral Sea is just more playable, so I appreciate it. But my actual favorite cosmology is Eberron's.