D&D Cosmology: the old and the new. Where do you stand?

[Mercule]

I've used bits and pieces of the Great Wheel (Elysium, Pandemonium, the Abyss) but they were never considered to exist in a silly alignment-based wheel pattern, even superficially.

Really, any change to the GW would be welcome. Well, unless they decided that the elemental planes are the sum total of the cosmos or some such.

 

[Zurai]

The thing I like about the new cosmology is that it's very mythic in flavor. It bears a strong resemblance to, for example, elements of Norse and Celtic mythology.

 

[Aloïsius]

The results of the poll seems clear : the great wheel is not in the "core" of d&d, because most people never used it or don't use it anymore. If we do the same poll about classes, levels, or even "elf" or "dwarf", we won't have the same results.

 

[Riley]

And the bonus of this poll is: we get to see who the incompetents are!

Or those who didn't find a catergory that fit for the first half of the question. I've used the Great Wheel in the past. I've also used other cosmologies in the past. Unfortunately, I'm not using any cosmology at the moment. Or playing at the moment. Still, I had an opinion on the second part of the question.

The 4e cosmology has me intrigued, and it fits in very well with a campaign idea I've been contemplating. So I'm interested in what they're giving us. I much prefer them trying something new, because I've got plenty of Planescape and Fiendish Codex material to flesh out the Great Wheel already.

 

[Stone Dog]

In 4e terms, I'll likely do more 'planar adventuring' because Faerie (er, the Feywild :\) is considered an outer plane.

Sounds more like a transitive plane. Like shadow and etherial are.

 

[A'koss]

I've quite happily used the Great Wheel in my previous Planescape & Greyhawk games but grew away from it when I started running my own homebrews. I really like that WotC is creating more "finite" sized dominions - like the Abyss, the 9 Hells, etc. rather than an infinite number of infinitely-sized planes. It's very close to what I had been doing with the outer planes in my later homebrews. I'm looking forward to the day I can put up a sprawling map of the Abyss on the wall, containing all the various fiend lords' domains in one vast, but contained, region.

And the more I think on it, the more I'm digging the idea of the Elemental Chaos, even if I'm not wholly sold the name. I'm sure we all can imagine any number of evocative landscapes/regions in it. However, for reasons I can't quite put my finger on, the Shadowfell and the ghastly named Feywild just haven't grabbed me yet. And it's odd too because I have something very similar (a slightly off-kilter alternate plane) in my own homebrew. I think I would have preferred that these two planes are natively formless, and it takes certain powerful magics to create specific and contained mirror-regions in either plane... Something about there being 3 whole mirror worlds to our own feels like it takes something away from the unique and whole nature of the prime world (if that babbling makes any sense...).

 

[The Green Adam]

I have not used, don't use and probably will never use the cosmology depicted in 'official' material. I have used similar designs in some campaigns but most of the time the other planes are handled either more mythically or more akin to the infinite earths of DC comic books.

In one of my campaigns, the Bifrost Bridge to Asgard was located on top of a mountain in the north, heaven could be reached by traveling north of your current location until you got the feeling of standing on your head and Plane Shift and similar magics were restricted to the Gods and those they favored.

AD

 

[WayneLigon]

Never used the Great Wheel; it's almost always been a philosophically untenable concept in any campaign I've done.

I'm warm to the idea of the new cosmology, simply because it'll be a new thing and because it might drive some of the dead wood from the hobby. I might use parts of it, might not; depends on the campaign. It seems unlikely, but it depends on what they come up with.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I find interesting that, at the time of my voting, the number of people who "always used the great Wheel" is 28, but the number of people who are "cool" towards the new cosmology or "reject" it adds to only about 20. That means even those who never used anything but the great Wheel are open to this change.

 

[Caliber]

The instructional lines were so shiny! They had these big greater than signs! I couldn't resist!

Oh, and I've never really used the Great Wheel (well, I guess Lord of the Iron Fortress kinda asumed it, so maybe that once). I'm not opposed to the setup of course, but don't mind the new one either. The first one seems more interesting, but then, I already know whats there. I haven't seen the cool stuff in the new one yet ... I expect to be suitably impressed.