Cosmology Part II

[Klaus]

Uh, why should every plane be a place for adventuring?

Because there's no other reason to have anything in an adventure game if you can't use it in an adventure with your adventurer PCs who adventure in adventuring locales.

 

[wingsandsword]

Because there's no other reason to have anything in an adventure game if you can't use it in an adventure with your adventurer PCs who adventure in adventuring locales.

Uh, it's not an "adventure game", it's a Role Playing Game. Things like the planar cosmology help to flesh out the entire setting, providing flavor for role-playing, not just be another site for adventuring.

The way I see it, the first thing is to create a consistent and believable fantasy setting. This may include places either physical or metaphysical that are not optimum places for the Dungeon Crawl Of The Week. Once that setting is created, then the DM creates adventures in the world that involve the PC's. The player characters exist to adventure in the world, the world does not exist to service the characters.

Is Mage: The Awakening a poor RPG because the Supernal Realms can never be visited (aside from in a dream-state during an Awakening) or adventured in? No, because while they aren't places groups of Mages are going to be stalking around hunting monstrosities, they are places of legend and myth that all mages aspire to.

Is Middle Earth a poor setting for RPG's because the Grey Havens are places very few will ever be able to go and even if you got there it would be a boring place to adventure? No, because the Grey Havens are a place of myth and legend, a resting place for the honored and the mighty, not another place to go stomp some orcs.

Is a quasi-historic game set during the middle-ages a bad setting because Heaven would be a lousy place for adventuring? No, because it exists as a core piece of religious belief for the setting not as a place for PC's to go get some XP's beating up Angels.

Was the Forgotten Realms a bad setting (before they blew it up to make it fit 4e) because it had the Demiplane of Cynosure, which was a place no mortal could enter and only Gods could walk in? It sounded like a pretty lousy place for adventuring, but they certainly described it because it was a place of lore for the setting that sages knew about and religiously-knowledgeable PC's would probably know well. Was it a bad place because it had the Isle of Evermeet, where only Elves were allowed to tread and that rule was backed up with artifact-level force? It was a terrible place for adventure, since most parties couldn't set foot there as a whole party, but it existed as a place told of in song and legend and rumor and myth.

D&D is a roleplaying game, some things in the game (like some planes of existence) are there to help roleplaying, not just to provide yet another backdrop for a combat grid.

 

[thundershot]

Because there's no other reason to have anything in an adventure game if you can't use it in an adventure with your adventurer PCs who adventure in adventuring locales.

Excellent statement. You win.

I'm all for the new cosmology design. I did my own anyway. I hope they find some way to slip Spelljammer in there somewhere, as well as Sigil...




Chris

 

[Wormwood]

D&D is a roleplaying game, some things in the game (like some planes of existence) are there to help roleplaying, not just to provide yet another backdrop for a combat grid.

In what ways do the Positive Energy Plane or the Elemental Plane of Earth provide role-playing opportunities that the new cosmology doesn't?

 

[RigaMortus2]

In what ways do the Positive Energy Plane or the Elemental Plane of Earth provide role-playing opportunities that the new cosmology doesn't?

I would like to know as well...

 

[Remathilis]

My best guess is that the "inhospitable" planes provided a "place you shouldn't go" mentality, that there ARE things mortals shouldn't do or go. That reality has places nothing we know of can survive in. Just as there are wyrm lairs low level PCs shouldn't go to or high mountain cliffs full of giants that will destroy unprepared PCs, so to the PLANE THEMSELVES can kill you if you are unprepared. Least, that the theory...

... In reality, it means there are a bunch of metaphysical realities (mostly inner planes, but some old outer ones as well) that never got anything more than a brief mention in game. There could have been an elemental plane of cheese for all the good it did me as a DM unless I was specifically setting up an adventure and prepped my players well in advance (and gave them access to proper survival gear). I mean, a gateway to the Elemental plane of Fire was either a deathtrap or a huge resource burn (no pun intended) to adventure in.

 

[Tambryn]

I am cool with the new Cosmology. How awesome will the battle between the PCs and their hated enemy be if it takes place on an iceberg floating on a sea of lava. They have to vanquish their foe and figure out how to get off the 'berg at the same time. The surface is slick and lurches as the ice melts. Sounds awesome to me.

Tam

P.S. Reality aside.

 

[Wormwood]

P.S. Reality aside.

A running battle on lava? Screw reality---count me in!

 

[Aloïsius]

I am cool with the new Cosmology. How awesome will the battle between the PCs and their hated enemy be if it takes place on an iceberg floating on a sea of lava. They have to vanquish their foe and figure out how to get off the 'berg at the same time. The surface is slick and lurches as the ice melts. Sounds awesome to me.

The iceberg would melt so quicky... sure, you can use magic to explain why it does not disappear in one round, or why it does not just cause a BIG explosion of vapor.

 

[Wormwood]

The iceberg would melt so quicky... sure, you can use magic to explain why it does not disappear in one round, or why it does not just cause a BIG explosion of vapor.

Exactly.

I'd rather have a kick-ass awesome adventure than an argument about physics and chemistry.