Am I the only one who does not like the Great Wheel?

[Tinker Gnome]

Am I the only one who does not like the Great Wheel? It seems like almost everybody uses it, even in their hombrew worlds. While I do not like the idea of planes, besides the PMP at all. The planes just seem so dull, and political. I might have an alternate world in my homebrew world, but it is not a plane. So, who else does not like the planes?

 

[Crothian]

I use the planes, but they are much less political in my hombrew. It serves more of an after life then an alternate place to live. I also use Mongoose's Purgatory with the Dirty the Judge from Atlas' Sacred Ground.

 

[Piratecat]

I love 'em - but a custom cosmology makes sense for a lot of peoples' campaigns. I'll disagree with you about "dull," though. I think the planes are freakin' exciting.

 

[Crothian]

You may want to take a look at Planes and Portals written by Mike Mearls and put out by Fantasy Flight Games. It has a bunch of cool ideas for planes and has nothing to do with the great wheel.

 

[LondonReign]

Nope, the Planes are great. But, it seems, ya either love'em or hate'em.

I say, what's not to love about genasi and eladrin?

 

[Turjan]

I don't use the Great Wheel in my homebrew, as I don't use alignments. Nevertheless, I use planes, because they introduce more options to certain situations (dreams, for instance). Anyway, besides the Material Plane I've got only 4(-5) somehow accessible planes in use; that's enough for my purpose .

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I love the Great Wheel, but I absolutely don't think it fits in many games. Next homebrew I use will only have the Plane of Faerie accessible, for instance. (Players will be warned in advance.)

I like that FR has its own cosmology (although lots of people seem to ignore it) and am curious about the new one for Eberron.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Well, let's put it this way... In 2E, the PCs in our group were, well, "clueless", meaning that they had no flippin' idea what was out there. They had heard about one plane, but it was really just a region of Arvendor. They had heard about another plane, but was really just a layer of the Abyss. And so on and so forth. It had all the appearances of a divergent cosmology while all the while being the Great Wheel.

In that regard, no, I've never been too happy with it, but I never saw a reason to dislike it or wish it was different since nothing ever dictated that this was the way the PCs knew it to be. And with the "planar behaviors/traits" provided by Planescape, desigining these divine realms (a piece of Elysium, a wheel of Mechanus, etc.) was fairly simple, especially since each plane (and each layer of each plane) is infinite and there's always room for more.

Of course, my "limited map of the heavens and hells" easily translated into its own cosmology with the transition to d20, though honestly I diverted due to OGL issues and my web site (i.e., unable to use the Great Wheel rather than an actual desire to break away from it).

 

[d4]

Am I the only one who does not like the Great Wheel?

nope.

last homebrew i built had only four planes: the World, Paradise, Inferno, and an Astral Plane to connect them.

i almost never use the planes or planar influences in my campaigns. i hardly ever even use planar creatures -- perhaps a few elementals here and there, but i don't think i've ever used a fiend or celestial in any D&D game i've ever run. just not to my taste.

 

[Ottergame]

Am I the only one who does not like the Great Wheel?

Yep.