D&D 5E Check Out Planescape's Table of Contents & More!

Brandes Stoddard has received a copy of Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse (which come out in two weeks!) and is posting loads of photos over on Blue Sky. You can check out his feed for the whole treasure trove--here's a look at the table of contents.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, it is about respect.

It really has nothing to do with WotC. It has to do with D&D being the largest and most recognizable brand by far in the industry. It doesn't really matter who owns it, the responsibility remains. If Paizo, Green Ronin, or Frog God, etc. owned D&D, it would have the same responsibility. Like I said it is about respect, not fear.

Agree to disagree then. This is about fear that someone will raise a stink that might lead to their shareholders making slightly less money. I my book, your responsibility is to make the best game you can, while maintaining some level of profitability. Saying it's about respect (if they were to bother making a statement at all) is marketing spin.

If you are, you know, a game company.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This runs counter to 40 years of modern business education.

I don't care. You can make a quality product, and actually be proud of your effort, AND be profitable. Pegging the scale just leads to shoddy work and constant upper level turnover as executives squeeze a company for all its worth and move on.

 

[Perky the Dragon]

It's a shame how risk averse WOTC has become.

It's probably why we're unlikely to get a Dark Sun anytime soon. Even with Ajit George saying he'd like to give it a go.

 

[Perky the Dragon]

No, it is about respect.

It really has nothing to do with WotC. It has to do with D&D being the largest and most recognizable brand by far in the industry. It doesn't really matter who owns it, the responsibility remains. If Paizo, Green Ronin, or Frog God, etc. owned D&D, it would have the same responsibility. Like I said it is about respect, not fear.

I mean, it's probably a little bit of fear AND respect.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Did they really 'use' the gods or just slip them in as cameos? It gave them stats but the only ones who really got love to them were the Norse and Olympic crews, while everyone else was 'yeah they're around I guess'

Also to just. Go off on one of my tangents about older D&D...


Ah, so the Olympic gods getting the amount of respect D&D showed the gods of... Every single other religion, then?

Seriously, old D&D didn't give any respect. If you're going to have bloody Olympus, Hades, Elysium (which should be, y'know. Part of Hades) and Asgard around and not even include the Duat, Takamagahara, Yomi or Xibalba? Lazy. Blatent where D&D's biases lie. The 'shove everything into the 9 point alignment system' just resulted in all of the interesting parts being torn from the various other deities and them being peppered around like glorified cameos

Also


Aboria's basically a proto-Feywild, and the Feywild's done a much better job at it. Making that realm the chaotic forest of elves and fairies and fairy-elves was always going to lean this way, and why it honestly should have been replaced. Its the chaotic side of the planes anyway, just shove in a new one to add some new flavour. The Planes should not be solid and unchanging, as that's Lawful, and one entire side of the thing should be very against that

Not the Duat of course (that is defo the lawful and structured side, though would be a far more interesting thing to shove in Elysium's place), but changing it up to make a far more diverse set of planes probably should have been done given the Feywild's sheer growth

The Egyptian Pantheon had Heliopolis on the second level of Arcadia, which became its own plane in 3e FR (Mesopotamian Gods have Ziggaruxus which has made a appear in 5e,it's being pulled out our of moth balls after the return of Untherite Gods, were it goes is anyone's guess, I'd personally put it on the 3rd level of Aborea) Personally I'd make Heliopolis the 3rd layer of Arcadia.

Also it's often Forgotten l, but Limbo had Layers named after Hindu Gods Indra and Rudra, and a Japanese Goddess.

Mechanus is also call Nirvana.

Other Gods were more scattered.

And honestly the Greco-Roman, Egyptian and to a lesser extent Norse Pantheons shaped Western civilization so far much more then Eastern or sub-Saharan African ones, so it makes sense they'd have used those more, both because they are safer and because of greater familiarity. As immigration increases that is likely to change.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

It's a shame how risk averse WOTC has become.

It's probably why we're unlikely to get a Dark Sun anytime soon. Even with Ajit George saying he'd like to give it a go.

I wish they'd given Planescape Ajit, his and his Wife's Domains in Ravenloft, and Radiant Citadel is well done (although it still should have been 2 separate full sized books IMHO).

 

[Parmandur]

The Egyptian Pantheon had Heliopolis on the second level of Arcadia, which became its own plane in 3e FR (Mesopotamian Gods have Ziggaruxus which has made a appear in 5e,it's being pulled out our of moth balls after the return of Untherite Gods, were it goes is anyone's guess, I'd personally put it on the 3rd level of Aborea) Personally I'd make Heliopolis the 3rd layer of Arcadia.

Also it's often Forgotten l, but Limbo had Layers named after Hindu Gods Indra and Rudra, and a Japanese Goddess.

Mechanus is also call Nirvana.

Other Gods were more scattered.

And honestly the Greco-Roman, Egyptian and to a lesser extent Norse Pantheons shaped Western civilization so far much more then Eastern or sub-Saharan African ones, so it makes sense they'd have used those more, both because they are safer and because of greater familiarity. As immigration increases that is likely to change.

None of that is canon, though, as theybare from prior versions of the game.

 

[dave2008]

Agree to disagree then.

Yes. The rest of your post ignored this sentiment so I will ignore it.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Also it's often Forgotten l, but Limbo had Layers named after Hindu Gods Indra and Rudra, and a Japanese Goddess.

They didn't it was described as a theory in 2e Planescape and no one had anything to back it up. And was promptly forgotten the way "Memory Cores" have been forgotten.

Mechanus may have been called Nirvana in 1e, but it really didn't match anyone's idea of Nirvana. Other than showing the problematic Asian=Lawful thing previous designers had. Seriously Lao Zi is LN? As in the philosopher who is credited as inventing one of the very concepts of Neutrality doesn't actually have a True Neutral alignment?

 

[Maxperson]

This runs counter to 40 years of modern business education.

To an extent. Sometimes how you maximize profits can have significant negative mid to long term effects on the company, and therefore the wrong choice for the company to make. The fiduciary duty is to protect the interests of the shareholders.