D&D General D&D's feel vs. what D&D should keep - final comparison

[Neonchameleon]

And that's why I want Planescape to be a published setting again: so alignment can be in it's place and not bother anyone else anymore.

I really hate that Planescape by default pokes itself into all the other settings by being ALL OF EXISTENCE. And take the Far Realm and it's Lovecraft fetish with it, please.

The Great Wheel massively predates Planescape - and the parts of Planescape I find actually interesting and at least slightly original (the Factions playing low key Mage: the Ascension) are, as I've mentioned, at odds with the Wheel.

 

[TheSword]

And how does that match up to the Factions of Sigil?

The other premise of Sigil's factions is "the more people who believe the basic laws of the universe work a certain way, the more the universe tends to work in just that way". The Great Wheel on the other hand is immutable, inhuman, and inherently indicates some sort of balance between good and evil. If there was a faction within Sigil that held sway and the one thing the other factions could agree on was that they wanted them deposed to start to shatter the Great Wheel then that would assist the theme. But it isn't there as far as I can tell. Which means that the Great Wheel only works if you throw away the central conceit of the factions and of the central city to Planescape.

The planes are mutable. They respond to the folks in them. If enough people believe strongly then chunks of planes can break off and shift to other planes.

The factions are found all over the planes and they come from all over the planes. I don’t see how anything about the outer planes undermines the factions. If anything the scale of the planes is why the factions are more about beliefs than holding physical kingdoms and lands. Because such holdings are largely irrelevant.

The vast, inhuman symmetry of the Great Wheel that sorts everyone and everything onto its predetermined boxes is a good match for the vast, inhuman planes whose single biggest shared characteristic is that they are infinite. And works in a setting like Dragonlance where the nonsense of "balance between good and evil" is something that must be preserved.

It doesn’t sort people into boxes at all. You are free to be whatever you want on any plane… but with the small exception of those few planes that change alignment like Hades. Celestia is expressly called out as a place where it’s ok to be a fiend for instance. Most people find a place that suits them though. It doesn’t mean folks don’t travel around. The single biggest characteristic of each plane is its alignment. The reason they are infinite is that they are conceptual ideas given form. If a person started walking in one direction they could walk endlessly and never return to their starting point. They could turn round and be back where started in a day. Distance location are irrelevant to what the planes are. It’s about the beliefs of their inhabitants and the ethics of the plane they’re part of.

Also what’s wrong with a balance of good and evil. Most settings I see maybe with the exception of Ravenloft have a balance of good and evil. Why is it so strange to think that would be the case in the wider multiverse? Heaven and Hell, Order and Chaos.

The infinite planes could also work exceptionally well for a nautical-inspired setting like Spelljammer; while the sea might not actually be infinite it is massive and you can easily get lost in it for days, never seeing land - especially when the wind is blowing. It's a strong trait for some settings.

I see how you see that, thank you.

Not my cup of tea, I’m more interested in the encounters and have no problem those being in the right place at the right time. But you do you hun.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Well it’s devils, demons and daemons.

Yeah, demons and daemons sound way too similar and are basically the same concept (yes, so were a lot of folklore creatures that D&D draws from, but none of them had names as similar as "Demons" and "Demons with an extra A"). That would be like having two BBEGs, one named Ronin and another named Ronan or Ronian.

Baatezu, Tanar’ri and Yugoloth so I guess they don’t have the monopoly on unusual names.

5e doesn't use those first two, and I've only ever played 5e. Demons and Devils got back their normal names, Yugoloths got stuck with the phlegm-hawking of a name (likely because others pointed out that Demon and Daemon were too similar).

Though I don’t see how it’s any worse that Githyanki, Aasimar, Slaad or Modron. Ultimately I think you either get the aesthetic or you don’t. Or if you don’t like one elements, don’t include them.

Githyanki is kinda weird, but it has an excuse for being weird (it was stolen from another book). Modron is weird, but at least it sounds like "drone", which fits the robot-theme that they have. I've also discussed my contempt for Slaad earlier in this thread. Aasimar is a strange name, as is Tiefling, but they're better than Yugoloth, IMHO.

I personally think Yugoloth’s are pretty cool. Arcanaloth for instance are used over and over again in all sorts of adventures and in my opinion make far better tempted and brokers of power than glabrezu do.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate all of the creature concepts for Yugoloths, I just think that they're irrelevant. Yagnoloths and Arcanaloths scream "Devil" to me. Canoloth screams "Carceri" to me. Mezzoloths, Nycaloths, Dhergoloths, Oinoloths, and Hydroloths just seem like Demons to me. (TBH, I have no idea what I would do with Ultroloths. They look like Aberrations, not Fiends, and have a similar flavor to Devils.) I'd just make Merrenoloths be their own Charon-selves unconnected to any category of fiends, like how Night Hags, Howlers, and Hell Hounds aren't Demons or Devils, they're just their own thing. I also think that it's perfectly fine giving different behaviors and personalities to different types of demons, so although a Glabrezu might just attack you on sight, a greedy Demon like a Nycaloth or Mezzoloth might be more willing to make a deal for truce or even mercenary work (until they can stab you in the back for a better offer, that is).

 

[TheSword]

Yeah, demons and daemons sound way too similar and are basically the same concept (yes, so were a lot of folklore creatures that D&D draws from, but none of them had names as similar as "Demons" and "Demons with an extra A"). That would be like having two BBEGs, one named Ronin and another named Ronan.

5e doesn't use those first two, and I've only ever played 5e. Demons and Devils got back their normal names, Yugoloths got stuck with the phlegm-hawking of a name (likely because others pointed out that Demon and Daemon were too similar).

Githyanki is kinda weird, but it has an excuse for being weird (it was stolen from another book). Modron is weird, but at least it sounds like "drone", which fits the robot-theme that they have. I've also discussed my contempt for Slaad earlier in this thread. Aasimar is a strange name, as is Tiefling, but they're better than Yugoloth, IMHO.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate all of the creature concepts for Yugoloths, I just think that they're irrelevant. Yagnoloths and Arcanaloths scream "Devil" to me. Canoloth screams "Carceri" to me. Mezzoloths, Nycaloths, Dhergoloths, Oinoloths, and Hydroloths just seem like Demons to me. (TBH, I have no idea what I would do with Ultroloths. They look like Aberrations, not Fiends, and have a similar flavor to Devils.) I'd just make Merrenoloths be their own Charon-selves unconnected to any category of fiends, like how Night Hags, Howlers, and Hell Hounds aren't Demons or Devils, they're just their own thing. I also think that it's perfectly fine giving different behaviors and personalities to different types of demons, so although a Glabrezu might just attack you on sight, a greedy Demon like a Nycaloth or Mezzoloth might be more willing to make a deal for truce or even mercenary work (until they can stab you in the back for a better offer, that is).

So maybe have some appreciation that while you are new to things, there are plenty of people that like the Planescape ideas and creatures. You’re entitled not to like it. That’s your call. I’m just not sure why you’d keep laboring the point of how dumb you find the names. I certainly wouldn’t go onto a Greyhawk thread and repeatedly tell people how dumb I find their setting names for instance.

If you’ve never played the setting, and dont want to. That is OK. The DMG has made it perfectly acceptable to use other multiverses even your homebrew.

The survey mentioned in another thread clearly states that Planescape is in the top tier of popularity (ahead of Dragonlance, Greyhawk and Spelljammer) though. So I’m not sure why you would want to rain on their parade. Not to mention the 20% of respondents on this threads survey that think the Great Wheel is important and worth keeping.

 

[Faolyn]

Their name is stupid, they're not rooted in folklore/mythology like Demons, Devils, and Fiends, they all look ridiculous, and they're both more lawful and chaotic than both Devils (devils generally don't do mercenary work, cause money typically means nothing to them, unless it's with Soul Coins or Mammon) and Demons (the whole "which one of you is truly chaotic, the ones who are predictable at betraying others, or the ones that are always scheming for the right moment?" debate).

Yugoloth is a variation of Yugoth, as in "the fungi from Yugoth." Because Yugoth is another name from Pluto, and Yugoloths are originally from Hades.

Thinking of Yugoloths as Lovecraftian horrors helps make them a lot cooler.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Thinking of Yugoloths as Lovecraftian horrors helps make them a lot cooler.

As much as I've come to hate the squalmous, gibbering nothing burgers that have captured the nihilistic heart of nerdom we call the Lovecraftian milieu, it's kind of weird to add anarcho-capitalist space mutants and anthros to their number.

 

[Keldryn]

Having started playing D&D with the Mentzer Basic and Expert sets, I always find it puzzling when someone asserts that the Great Wheel cosmology is important or essential to the feel of D&D.

IMO, Basic/Expert D&D (either Moldvay/Cook or Mentzer; they're close enough) is the purest distillation of the essence of D&D. Everything that is essential to the D&D experience was present in Basic/Expert.

 

[Rabulias]

Yeah, demons and daemons sound way too similar and are basically the same concept (yes, so were a lot of folklore creatures that D&D draws from, but none of them had names as similar as "Demons" and "Demons with an extra A"). That would be like having two BBEGs, one named Ronin and another named Ronan or Ronian.

Like Sauron and Saruman?

5e doesn't use those first two, and I've only ever played 5e. Demons and Devils got back their normal names, Yugoloths got stuck with the phlegm-hawking of a name (likely because others pointed out that Demon and Daemon were too similar).

I also believe the similarity in "demon" and "daemon" is why they kept the yugoloth name for daemons in 5e. To distinguish between them in discussions, I took to intentionally (mis-)pronouncing "daemon" as "day-mon" to be clear.

 

[Lanefan]

Like I say, space is effectively infinite. It's just not great for adventuring.

I suspect there's a few Spelljammers out there who might have something to say about this...

The Great Wheel is a place where alignment is at its best. Alignment is intrinsic and essential to the fundamental structure of the multiverse in the Planescape version of the Great Wheel, and in that setting alignment works.

The reason it works, is because in the great wheel Alignment comes first and then individuals are free to act their own way and then deal with the consequences of that. The variations of alignment inform the nature of the plane. The concept of Strongly aligned and Mildly aligned work together to create some very interesting concepts.

Exactly. And I have no problem whatsoever with this being the baseline default for all of D&D, in part because it's easier to tone this down if one wants than to ramp it up from a more wishy-washy baseline.

 

[Lanefan]

Also what’s wrong with a balance of good and evil. Most settings I see maybe with the exception of Ravenloft have a balance of good and evil. Why is it so strange to think that would be the case in the wider multiverse? Heaven and Hell, Order and Chaos.

Agreed.

Within some of those planes, however, the balance might be heavily skewed or won't exist at all. Someone or something Good that shows up in Hell (any of the nine), for example, is going to stand out like a sore thumb.

That's what makes the Prime Material settings interesting and playable, that the universal balance can be - and usually is - reflected on a more micro scale on the game-world.