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

[Buttercup]

i hardly ever even use planar creatures -- perhaps a few elementals here and there

I like elementals, but it's possible to come up with a reason for their existence that doesn't include other planes.

I think the planes have their uses, and in certain settings they are wonderful. However, it's too easy to overuse them, which can just become goofy.

 

[Li Shenron]

However, it's too easy to overuse them, which can just become goofy.

I don't know exactly what you mean with "overuse", but IMHO two common attitudes that can make them boring are:

1- to have too many of them: it may make each feel less unique and fun to adventure in; the Great Wheel has 17 outer planes just to match the number with some criteria of order, and in fact a few of them don't have much striking features to be interesting (at least, for what's in MotP)

2- to make them too similar with the prime material: MotP starts with great ideas to make the game effectively be different, but then it doesn't use them much; also it's frankly ridiculous to define outer planes as "where souls go after death" and then fill them with happy elven or dwarven cities, all mortals

 

[Snoweel]

I'll add my name to the list of those who neither like nor use the Great Wheel cosmology. I find it too contrived and flat. The Planes become less a mythological inspiration and instead are just 'other worlds' for high level PCs to visit. I admit I have never been comfortable with the concept of Planes in D&D. Whilst I like some aspects, notably the Planes as a source of energy for magical effects in the world (the elemental and energy planes particularly), I find that their introduction seems to cheapen a DM's investment in his game world. By that I mean that as soon as the PCs can they seem to go plane-hopping, abandoning the carefully crafted world that they've adventured in up to then. To put it another way, as DM I've created a world with an interesting back-story, but that's left behind when the PCs hop off into the wide blue yonder. Can you imagine how, say, Midnight would feel, if the PCs get to just wander off and abandon its dark atmosphere when they got to high enough level?

That's why I've always had sef-contained and restrictive comsologies in all the D&D games I've DM'd for the last 15 years. The focus has always been on the Prime Material, with the other 'planes' being cosmological backstory.

What Deadguy said.

All these planes make the Prime seem like a violent nightclub where the beautiful people have all disappeared to VIP rooms. Except that the VIP rooms are all way more spacious than the club proper.

Or something.

Anyway, I personally don't use the great wheel or any of the associated planes.

My current setting uses a handful of planes that are all twisted reflections of the single planet that is the Prime - echoes of what might have been if certain prehistoric events had gone differently.

A lot easier to keep the PCs contained in a geographically limited cosmology and a damn sight easier to map.

 

[Snoweel]

...sheer level of detail and elaboration it gave to the infinite planes.

Do you not see the contradiction here?

It is very hard to give a great deal of 'detail and elaboration' to something that is infinite; unless it is also infinitely homogenous.

 

[Derulbaskul]

FR doesn't use the great wheel, it uses the "Tree".

I know, that's why I said "but". I was differentiating between the main two WotC models.

 

[DMScott]

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?

The Great Wheel implies a much greater understanding of cosmology than I like in my campaigns, so I don't use it. People in my campaign talk about the homes of the gods, where souls go when mortals die, and where fiends/celestials/elementals/etc. come from, but nobody has much of an idea how that cosmology is structured.

I can't say I've ever much liked the Planescape approach to planes as just another place you go and adventure. The outer planes are the afterlife, the land of the dead - travelling there is almost always a one-way trip. In mythology planning to go there and come back is always an epic tale accomplished by the greatest of heroes, I prefer to keep that feel in my campaign. Even characters with access to planar travel magic only use it when they absolutely have to - the afterlife is too dangerous for mortals to wander around exploring or writing a travelogue.

 

[Piratecat]

There's some great ideas in this thread. I'm especially impressed with Nifft's theories.

 

[Psion]

Do you not see the contradiction here?

I don't.

 

[Desdichado]

I like some of the planes, and I don't mind the Great Wheel for a Planescape-ish game. I'd never use it for any other game, though, except possibly as something that's mentioned in passing. I typically like to come up with my own cosmology that's pared down quite a bit from the Great Wheel.

Of course, a primary driver of the Great Wheel is alignment, and I don't like alignment either.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I love using the planes (glances across at avatar and screen name) but I've always disliked the "great wheel" and I've never, ever used it. Back when I played D&D+Greyhawk, prior to 1e, we had already got a cosmology of the planes - basically the "winding road" cosmology from the Manual of the Planes, and we didn't want to ditch that for the "plane per alignment" idea which seemed really strange to us; it was more like a way of attempting to jam loads of earth religions heavens and hells together, quite uncalled for.

I don't doubt that it could be used as a suitable setting for some campaigns, but the whole basis felt really blah to me from the start.

(n.b. I still think the manual of the planes is the best supplement I've *ever* bought for any version of D&D. So full of ideas!)

Cheers