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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5165042" data-attributes="member: 2067">On the internet, that's no small thing. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />If I grok your meaning right here, I think you're seeing crunch where there's fluff. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Cosmology is, as far as I can see, always story/fluff/flavor/world-elements/whateveryawannacallit, and 4e especially has a strong divide between that stuff and all the rules/math/crunch/mechanic/etc. In other words, I don't think there's anything about the mechanics of 4e that mandate the planar structure that 4e uses. It's all just the ephemera of fiction. So they aren't part of the mechanical framework, as far as I can tell. They're flexible and changeable. Like how halflings can be dinosaur-riding natives in one setting and be hobbits in another and be cannibal jungle-dwellers in a third and be completely nonexistent in a fourth.For instance, Gamma World probably isn't using the planar structure, but it's still using the 4e rules, right? That's part of my thought process here: the rules don't imply the World Axis. So any bit of the core cosmology that's present is there for, say, marketing, or compatibility, or the mandate to make "everything core," or some reason aside from rules. Not that it can't be fine and dandy and even awesome, but just like how halflings don't have to be in every setting, neither does the Feywild, I think. The rules can work fine without it. And if there's a compelling reason not to include it (forex, the idea that magic and nature are what the Feywild is made of, and the idea that magic and nature are exactly what Dark Sun is severed from), it doesn't have to be there. I think you'd find plenty of disagreement on that last point (I think one of the other threads pointed out that githyanki episode as embarrassing, and another poster said that DS doesn't have demons and devils, and that it's a good thing, though the elemental largely do get a pass because, again, they were worked into the setting), and a wealth of support for the concept that part of what makes Dark Sun appealing and keeps it making sense is that, as far as the assumptions of the world are concerned, functionally, you can't escape it. Athas was part of the Great Wheel officially, but I, personally, have never seen that as a positive thing. Like making Al-Quadim part of FR, it was a shoehorning process, a rough fit, and ultimately more harmful to the setting than constructive to it. Dark Sun didn't need the Great Wheel. I think that 4e has a wonderful opportunity not to repeat the mistakes of the past. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> I'm not a purist. I don't long for the setting as it was under 2e (I didn't play much of it, and anyway I look forward more when I game than backwards). My concern is for the play at the table. I want my players, at least for Heroic Teir, to feel certain things in a Dark Sun game.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The players should feel their characters are struggling to simply stay alive. If your character can run away from this suffering, the drama of the struggle is diminished.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The players should feel that their world is next to death. If your character can go to a place where stuff is EVEN WORSE on a regular basis, the drama of their world being so bad is diminished.</li> </ul>This makes Dark Sun distinct, special, and significant. It makes Dark Sun stand out amongst D&D settings. It allows me to tell different stories in Dark Sun than I can in standard D&D. That's the selling point of Dark Sun, of any setting, really: you can tell different stories there. I want to see Dark Sun be awesome, and be a success (mostly in that order, though I get WotC's priorities might be the reverse. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />). So it's not so much that I feel this cosmology is different, it's more that I feel that planehopping hurts Dark Sun in any capacity. And my concern is that, due to marketing, or compatibility, or the mandate to make "everything core," or a lack of imagination, or some other reason (and I don't see the rules as a possible reason), Dark Sun's potential awesome is going to be diminished.That would suck.But I am pretty confident. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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