D&D 5E D&D Multiverse as setting - do you do it?

[Mercule]

All of the fiction is clear on this point -- you might have the occasional scene set in a god's court in the Seven Heavens or Nine Hells or some such, but the Prime is where everyone is /striving/, god and man alike. It's where all the big decisions are made.

I can get behind this. For the PCs to be Important (capital 'I'), this is a necessary point. Not every campaign needs to shake the pillars of reality, but the Prime should be an anchor, when it does.

If I had it to do over again, I would make what is commonly understood to be "Planescape" a sort of independent middle-distance planar setting, over the hill and across the dale from the wild and wooly "Manual of the Planes" portals and conduits that link the Prime Material to its gods' realms on the planes and back to itself. And then beyond Planescape you'd find ever more increasingly bizarre and unapproachable interpretations of philosophy and its effects on your surroundings, as the Prime Material worlds connected to those distant lands become more and more different from what you know and understand. Because if you allow for a certain distance across which weirdness from other realities can propagate, you can see how Planescape /derives/ from the multiverse so long as it does not interact directly with the multiverse.

I could get behind this. Maybe an island in the astral, rather than Concordant Opposition (or whatever). You wouldn't have to change Sigil much, just enough so that it isn't set, essentially, in the afterlife or the realm of the gods. Maybe have demi-planes shaped by refugees/agents of the outer planes, too. You'd end up with an astral version of Ravenloft, in a way, maybe even sponsored/controlled by an unknown(ish) force.

If you wanted to make it even more accessible, you could let the demi-planes be something akin to a Purgatory, where souls are still able to be recalled by Raise Dead and the like (True Resurrection goes all the way to the Wheel). Since the true lords of the planes wouldn't be in residence, lower (mid) level adventurers could actually have some outer planar excitement without being insane. Since they'd technically still be in the astral, their souls would go to their normal destination, instead of being trapped. They'd also be subject to some much less disturbing natural laws, even if each demi-plane reflected its origin. But... adventurers would have to be careful because each demi-plane would have off-ramps to its origin, which could get nasty very quickly.

Done that way, Planescape becomes just another setting without breaking the shared Wheel. Still probably not my cup-o-tea, but I wouldn't grit my teeth whenever it's mentioned.

 

[DMZ2112]

I think you can leave Planescape on the outer planes without breaking the Wheel. Remember that the outer planes are infinite. It stands to reason that there is going to be a part of Arcadia that Oeridians are familiar with, and a part of Arcadia that Faerunians are familiar with. Given the in-setting familiarity between Oerth and Toril, it is not a stretch to suggest that while those regions are definitely different, those two parts of Arcadia are not terribly far apart.

But the part of Arcadia that Mystara is familiar with is further away, and the part that Cerilia is familiar with is further still, and beyond that Primes' conception of the planes is so different that they don't even think of them as a wheel anymore, and that's where you find Krynn and Eberron, and the region that was familiar to Athas when Athas had gods, and then in a different direction, somewhere off in the great distance to the left, or to the south-southeast, you find the place where all of these regions mix with the regions familiar to worlds unknown, and that's Planescape.

 

[billd91]

We've done the multiverse thing in a few specific campaigns - mainly to use characters in a variety of adventures in different settings. But we don't typically do it now. There's usually not enough play time to make it worthwhile.

 

[Staffan]

I'm not a big fan of the D&D Multiverse. Planescape is cool... or rather, Sigil is cool. But I'm not a big fan of the Great Wheel, because it's too closely tied to the alignment system and the gods.

A lot of the D&D multiverse is about "box-checking." OK, so you have demons and devils... that's cool. And then daemons... and demodands, and slaad, and modrons, and guardinals and eladrin and archons, because every alignment needs to have their own planar race apparently. And the four elements are cool, but all the varieties of element + other elemenent and/or energy plane are confusing and pointless - particularly since most of them are some variety of "go there and die."

4e's cosmology was one of the things I liked about it, because the structure was a lot simpler and open-ended: you have the Prime, with the parallel realms of the Feywild and Shadowfell. You have the (singular) Elemental Plane, where all the elements intermix, but in a purer form than on the material plane - and it being much more habitable than the 2e elemental planes. And then you have the Astral Sea, where a bunch of not-exhaustively-defined planes hang out. Basically, the 4e cosmology can encompass all the good parts about Planescape without including the bad ones.

I mostly like Eberron's cosmology, because it's not as alignment-based, and it keeps the gods out of things. It also fits the setting very well.

As for Spelljammer, I think it's one of the coolest and most out-there ideas ever in D&D, but it definitely leans heavily on the concept of Refuge in Audacity. I mean, you have wooden ships sailing through space, because why not? It might not be to everyone's tastes, but it certainly is to mine.

I do not, however, particularly like it as a way of connecting different D&D settings - it works much better when used as a setting of its own, based around the concept of spelljamming. Basically, going from Greyspace to Realmspace is a lot like going from Europe to America - yes, that's a thing you can do with a ship, but it's not super-exciting, particularly if all you're going to do when you get across the pond is get off and do the same thing you could do on the other side. But a campaign set in the West Indies? Lots of islands gives you lots of reasons to actually use your ship to get from one place to another, dealing with different things on different islands, and the increased frequency of nautical travel provides a good reason for nautical encounters with pirates, sea monsters, and other fun things.

Similarly, jamming from one sphere to another is not where the good part of Spelljammer is. No, what you want is a single sphere with lots of small planets and/or asteroid belts, preferably ones that aren't quite self-sustaining thereby providing incentive for trade.

(Oh, and the idea of "let's turn spellcasters into engines so they can't cast spells" is dull as heck, so scrap that while you're at it.)

 

[Jeff Albertson]

Basically, the 4e cosmology can encompass all the good parts about Planescape without including the bad ones.

I disagree, I think it chucked some of the great stuff, and got a bit Disney.

 

[Shasarak]

2) I generally view Spelljammer as some sort of bender-induced practical joke that isn't actually funny, so it doesn't get consideration in my game. I know a lot of folks love Planescape, but it's pretty much what turned me from casual acceptance of the Great Wheel concept to purging it from my home brew. It's nowhere near as objectionable as Spelljammer; it's just something that doesn't interest me in the least.

I wonder how much would be left to DnD if we cut out everything that could be considered some sort of bender-induced practical joke?

 

[Elderbrain]

Re: Dark Sun characters in Sigil

Actually, in the PS book "In the Cage", the halflings from Athas arrived in Sigil via a magical portal, not spelljamming. Nowhere to my knowledge does the PS material state you can get to Athas via spelljamming methods. Just so you know.

 

[Remathilis]

2) I generally view Spelljammer as some sort of bender-induced practical joke that isn't actually funny, so it doesn't get consideration in my game.

Its easy to mock Spelljammer coming from a world where man has been on the moon, but much of Spelljammer's ideas are based on real belief.

Celestial spheres full of air? That's pure medieval cosmology. Even the idea of the planes being "a ring around the world" is a very medieval concept of cosmology.

Wooden ships that travel through space? People believed that up to the 1890s.

Basically, Spelljammer is what the Medieval idea of "outer space" would look like if what they believed was true. Its only hokey to us who were raised on Star Trek and Star Wars, rather than ancient notions of beyond the world.

 

[aramis erak]

I think you can leave Planescape on the outer planes without breaking the Wheel. Remember that the outer planes are infinite. It stands to reason that there is going to be a part of Arcadia that Oeridians are familiar with, and a part of Arcadia that Faerunians are familiar with. Given the in-setting familiarity between Oerth and Toril, it is not a stretch to suggest that while those regions are definitely different, those two parts of Arcadia are not terribly far apart.

But the part of Arcadia that Mystara is familiar with is further away, and the part that Cerilia is familiar with is further still, and beyond that Primes' conception of the planes is so different that they don't even think of them as a wheel anymore, and that's where you find Krynn and Eberron, and the region that was familiar to Athas when Athas had gods, and then in a different direction, somewhere off in the great distance to the left, or to the south-southeast, you find the place where all of these regions mix with the regions familiar to worlds unknown, and that's Planescape.

Mystara doesn't have the same outer planes. Heck, it doesn't even have the same inner planes. The only defined planes for Mystara are the Prime, Astral, Etherial, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Outer planes in the Mystarran multiverse are bubbles in the astral.

 

[Kaychsea]

Mystara doesn't have the same outer planes. Heck, it doesn't even have the same inner planes. The only defined planes for Mystara are the Prime, Astral, Etherial, Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Outer planes in the Mystarran multiverse are bubbles in the astral.

I've always treated that as a case of "You can't get there from here." Doesn't stop you getting to somewhere you can get there from though. Not always easy mind.