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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8529022" data-attributes="member: 18">Except that's not quite true, at least in book 3 of the Stormlight Archive series.In all Sanderson's previous work that I'd read (Mistborn series, previous Stormlights), I hadn't really been aware of the "Cosmere" elements. What you are saying here was true in those books. The Cosmere didn't get in the way, or take centre-stage. It was simply something that informed the lore. Maybe you recognised a character-name or something but it wasn't huge.In Book 3, Oathbringer, that changed. One of the main plots of the book, a very lengthy one, involving absolutely core characters to the story, completely revolves around Cosmere elements, and frankly, makes very little sense if you don't know the Cosmere stuff. Two characters are introduced, and immediately given major roles, who turn out to be from other universes, and I dunno if this was intentional or Sanderson just stuffed up, but he didn't manage to justify why they were so major or weave them into the book like he did with previous Cosmere stuff. Instead you have this long weird plotline where you're wondering what the heck is going on, and it basically seems to be a "Cosmere showcase". Once I learned and read about the Cosmere stuff, it made a lot more sense, but until then, it just seemed confusing, boring and weird. Not great.But why do I mention this?Because I think it's a concern with multiverse stuff generally, including potentially in D&D. It's not an inevitable problem, as Sanderson himself showed. He managed to weave previous stuff in well enough that I didn't notice or noticed in a "Hah, cute!" way and it wasn't disruptive or distracting, and I could read the books without needing to know anything about it.That's how it should be, and I hope D&D 5E/DND2024 can keep it that way.But I think with Sanderson's own example, we certainly have a warning that it can, in fact, go wrong. What Sanderson did with the plot in Oathbringer would be equivalent to say, a future, say, Dragonlance setting book deciding to devote like an entire chapter to spelljammers/Krynnspace and/or portals/planescape-y stuff, or worse, WotC deciding all future setting books had to have such a chapter. So let's hope that they manage to keep it as something optional, like earlier Sanderson, not jam it in as a big deal, like Oathbringer.</blockquote>

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