Planescape Do You Care About Planescape Lore?

[delericho]

As noted by others, that arrangement of the planes long predated Planescape.

As AD&D lore, I could happily take it or leave it.

As Planescape lore... I don't really care. I never got into PS. If WotC were to republish the setting, though, they should stick with the existing lore, because that is the appropriate lore for that setting.

My objection to the 4e lore wasn't that they changed it, it was that there was a fairly strong stance that this is how it is coupled with and it's different. Especially when that led to changes being made to Forgotten Realms and to Eberron to make them compliant with the new order. Had they instead presented the new cosmology as merely an example (or, more importantly, simply not changed other settings), then I would have been fine with that.

With 5e, I'm hoping they'll stay away from locking down the lore any more than they have to. They're on a good path with the deities, IMO, by presenting them as archetypes rather than as specific beings. However, I do occasionally get concerned, usually when reading the articles about monster design, where every so often there seems to be a move to declaring "the D&D goblin" or "the D&D dragon", or whatever, especially if their chosen version is different from what has gone before.

 

[delericho]

If they want something new to keep the market excited, there is infinite room for new settings.

Design space? Yes. Market space? No, not really.

The thing is, the majority of groups don't use any published setting at all. Of those that do, the vast majority only use a single published setting. This means that setting materials are already a niche within a niche. They're marginal products at best... and if you have multiple settings, they compete against one another.

I will be very surprised if we ever see WotC publish a new setting, and I will be quite surprised if we see any setting other than FR be supported in print again. (Fortunately, the DDI has somewhat fewer constraints, so we might well see other settings be supported there.)

Existing settings should never be changed, only converted, or expanded by "zooming" i.e. adding more and more details on regions, locales, characters...

Problem is that if they publish a new version of an existing setting, they really need the existing fans to buy in in large numbers. But if they don't change things, there's no incentive for fans to do that - especially if 5e is taking the approach where existing materials will convert easily.

And simply adding more detail, while it should work, has problems of its own. WotC weren't wrong when they noted that the amount of lore in the FR had become oppressive for some groups. Much like Doctor Who and Star Trek, the sheer amount of lore, coupled with a significant minority of uber-fans, made it extremely difficult to write for the setting. Unfortunately for WotC, though, it appears that the fans of Doctor Who and Star Trek were willing to accept a quasi-reboot but the fans of FR were not.

(Indeed, WotC actually did far too good a job with FR in 3e - that Campaign Setting book is absolutely brilliant, but it completely obviates the need for any supplements, ever. Because when they're already verging on information overload, why would you want to add yet more information?)

 

[Weather Report]

The thing is, the majority of groups don't use any published setting at all.

Got any data to back that claim up?

 

[Li Shenron]

Design space? Yes. Market space? No, not really.

I was obviously referring to design space in fact.

WotC weren't wrong when they noted that the amount of lore in the FR had become oppressive for some groups.

I find the metaplot and the turning around of the world at each edition change much more oppressive!

Because you don't have to use all the regional books if you don't want to: you can just set an adventure in e.g. Waterdeep without buying the Waterdeep book, and making stuff up based on the smaller knowledge you have from the main campaign settings (just makes sure, to tell all your players that this means they cannot use their own prior knowledge on Waterdeep, in case they have that book).

OTOH, if you play 3ed you are much more constrained to use the 3ed version of the settings, because all the "crunch" is designed to match the "fluff", and the "fluff" is changed a lot compared to 2ed.

Then you want to move to 4e because you like its rules mechanic more? Ah, but you have to then eat up whatever huge change they did to 4e FR, because the 3e crunch won't work anymore, and the 4e crunch for FR is matched to 4e huge changes to FR world.

That's what I find oppressive... And that's what I mean when I say that fantasy settings shouldn't change. The fluff shouldn't change, the in-world stuff shouldn't change... The crunch of course can change to adapt to the new rules! So they can still convert old books to the new rules and sell them. Instead we got the totally nuts idea of the Times of Troubles once and every edition change since then.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I care for Planescape lore. I always found cool how this setting blended it all in and Sigil, city of Doors, with thousands of portals connecting to just about anywhere using just about any kind of possible funky key. This is just awesome!

 

[trancejeremy]

Apparently I'm strange in that I grew up reading Michael Moorcock along with Tolkien, right when I started playing D&D.

So both the ideas of planes and there being philosophical forces (Law & Chaos) are something I strongly associate with fantasy and D&D. So I like the idea of the Great Wheel, and while some aspects of Planescape struck me as silly (the cant), for the most part is was well done.

 

[delericho]

I was obviously referring to design space in fact.

Sure, I got that. Unfortunately, WotC are a business before all other considerations, so if there's no space in the market, they're sunk.

I find the metaplot and the turning around of the world at each edition change much more oppressive!

And I certainly don't disagree that the Forgotten Realms have handled edition changes badly!

 

[delericho]

Got any data to back that claim up?

I've had a look, but I'm afraid I can't find the source quote. But it was in amongst stuff Ryan Dancey said about the time the Escapist did those articles on D&D's Past, Present and Future. (Sadly, it doesn't seem to be in either the articles themselves or in the "bonus column" he did. I fear they're probably in the thread concerning the articles... but given that that's 20+ pages long, I'm afraid I'm not going to hunt them down.

Basically, at that time RD noted that the 3e Forgotten Realms books were sold at a fairly significant markup, because they were always a niche-within-a-niche. He also noted that those books were also packed with crunch materials that were easily adapted to the core, and that many sales of FR books were therefore to people who just wanted the crunch, rather than to use the setting itself.

But, yeah, by all means treat it as an unsupported assertion.

 

[Li Shenron]

Sure, I got that. Unfortunately, WotC are a business before all other considerations, so if there's no space in the market, they're sunk.

Sure, but it's their problem, not mine. I merely pointed out that they are rehashing the same few settings that sold enough, changing them each time to apparently justify the books because they're afraid people won't buy them (although as I said, conversion of the crunch would seem to me enough for all lovers of a fantasy settings to buy the new books, there is no true need to also change the setting itself IMHO).

Would they sell less if they put the new ideas like Dragonborn into an entirely new setting, instead of changing FR and split the fanbase between those who want same setting - new twist and those who want same setting - just give me updated rules?

Maybe they're doing what's best for them, I can only suggest what would be best for me. As I said, it's more their problem than mine... there are enough RPG material to keep me engaged for multiple lifetimes, in fact I haven't bought anything from WotC since early 3.5...

 

[Li Shenron]

He also noted that those books were also packed with crunch materials that were easily adapted to the core, and that many sales of FR books were therefore to people who just wanted the crunch, rather than to use the setting itself.

I can totally see that. Monsters of Faerun was probably better than any other 3e monster book after the core, for example.