Do You Care About Cosmology?

[The-Magic-Sword]

I really love it, it is a big part of what makes me interested in a fantasy setting in the long term, whether for reading books or to play in them for an RPG. The Magic system is even more important than other elements for me because I want to be able to understand what my mage characters are doing and why, and I want them to be able to (accurately) technobabble about the magic they're doing when they pass a knowledge check or what have you. Similarly, the cosmology tends to inform a lot about dungeons and the lore that I'm trying to discover, some of it is more historical, but in a fantasy setting that tends to blend-- civilizations that worshiped now forgotten gods or whatever. To me, the appeal of a game that doesn't really allow for that kind of world-building up front would be if it lets us do it at runtime in a collaborative way, but even then it's chancy because I don't like badly thought out lore.

Eventually that usually leads me to the literal cosmology, to addendum about a discussion from a page or two ago. We've actually been working out what exists outside of the planet, and the 'Dream' since Starfinder is going to be offering us rules for starships my players are interested in using.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I want to know the background lore and stuff, but I'm pretty sure I'm in a minority. But I think it's good to have it there, as a "base of the iceberg" kind of thing – it may be that only some bits actually matter in the campaign, but I think it makes for a better foundation if they have common roots.

This.

 

[aramis erak]

Not really. In RPG terms, "cosmology" is "how the universe is ordered."

YUP!
Mythology really doesn't apply in the technical sense, as the beings we'd label mythological are cosmological forces within the majority of D&D settings...
Mythology is the fantasy written to explain the world's cosmology...

But in D&D, it's often written such that the gods actually did the things that we would think of as myths... and in some settings, they can even go track them down for the "No «bleep», there I was..." stories that we associate with mythological heros, such as Utnapishtim, Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Deucaledon, Yima, Noah, Nuh... building boats to survive a world flood... but to be honest, not a one of those is likelythe actual name of whomever it was build the boat and rode out the flooding of the black sea valley. In a D&D cosmology, we can get a priest to connect us to as who actually did it...

 

[MNblockhead]

Cosmology is important to me but I don't go into extreme levels of detail. It helps me to read, think about, and sometimes write down campaign canon when it comes to cosmology. It helps get me into the game and create a certain flavor when running games. Generally I don't find players particularly interested in it, so I don't have to worry too much about coming up with answers to deep questions in game. It is more of a background interest to get my head into the game.

 

[Desdichado]

As a player? No, not at all.

As a homebrewer? Not very much.

As a reader? Sometimes, if it matters to a book I'm reading. Mostly not, though.

It has it's place. It's not usually a super important place, though.

 

[Simon Miles]

I think it's inevitable. While they are technically different there's a huge amount of overlap, especially when it comes to the way that players interact with them. If you were to create a game world with clerics worshiping Helios for his job literally carrying the sun across the sky and create a detailed back story for the god, can you really draw a clear line of where the cosmology ends and the mythology begins?

There is also some conflating of cosmology and alignment, but I think that's expected as well (particularly when planes of Good and Evil get involved).

Yes. I didn't get into the whole alignment thing but you are quite correct, the d&d format has alignment to the core. I have tried doing without it but I have found it leads to poor characterisation and inconsistent characters.
Instead I have slightly reinterpreted the definitions, good = respectful, evil = nasty, Lawful = following the rules, chaotic = selfish. Neutral is in between or pragmatic. I have tried to get away from modern western societal norms being automatically LG and anything Other to be Evil. It's deliberately open to interpretation and, sadly, has not really been tested in our games. My players are all veterans and Alignment is so ingrained in them that they assume the Old School interpretation instinctively.