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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9581617" data-attributes="member: 6790260">...Either it is difficult, or it is not. Is that acceptable?Because either the restriction is there, or it isn't. I don't understand how that is such a difficult thing."Doesn't deny the rest" still means it denies part, which has been my point this entire time. You can't just say that the whole kit and caboodle is equally as valid as any other--because it makes claims that either are true, or aren't.Then that's all I've been asking for an admission of, this entire time. The admission that, officially, no other model--not the World Tree, not the World Axis, not the Eberron Orrery--can be said to correctly describe the D&D cosmology. Only the Great Wheel actually works for that cosmology, and the Great Wheel makes claims that directly contradict all three of those other models.Whether or not perception is central, whether or not it is possible for someone to phrase some claims reflexively, whether or not there's been retcons or active modification of the cosmology, or whatever else: the only way for all of these cosmologies to be actually equal in truth content is for there to not actually BE any "truth" at all, just whatever beliefs or perceptions a being projects onto reality, which isn't an epistemological/metaphysical framework I find even remotely interesting or productive, since (as noted) that makes change or communication functionally impossible. If you believe someone said "Your mom!" when they believe they said "Thank you!", both of you are somehow right.Officially, D&D's reality is the Great Wheel. If you decide to do differently, awesome, they can't stop you. But they also won't lift a finger to help you, all while stuffing the game full of resources and adventures and monsters etc., etc. that presuppose the Great Wheel and only the Great Wheel.It just flat isn't the case that all cosmologies are officially on equal footing. The Great Wheel is clearly the "correct" cosmology as far as the books are concerned; everything else is merely a in-varying-degrees-mistaken alternative. Nobody can force any DM to stick to the official, "correct" cosmology, but any work they produce will make your life harder, not easier, if you don't use the Great Wheel.Edit: For example, consider this bit you said above.This would mean Toril is functionally cut off from the rest of the multiverse, yes? They're two different, disconnected patches.Meaning it isn't correct to say that the World Tree is comparably true to the Great Wheel or whatever else. The World Tree is only true of Toril's space, and the Great Wheel is true of some other space (perhaps even all other space!), and the two are cut off from each other. Meaning, in places inaccessible to the World Tree, the World Tree's model is false, and in places accessible to the World Tree, the Great Wheel is false. They can't both be true of the same thing (the same "space" within the multiverse), in the same sense, at the same time.The World Tree would be correct, and exclude other models, for someone talking about Toril and its cosmological space. Some other theory would be true (possibly the Great Wheel, possibly something else) in a region that isn't Toril and its cosmological space.</blockquote>

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