Planescape Do You Care About Planescape Lore?

[Weather Report]

I don't know about planescape in general. But it seems that many, if not most, of the elements tied to it are special. They existed altered but unbroken in DnD for many years. They were then tossed out to make way for "good lore" in 4e. So, yes they have a special place. You haven't yet shown me a well reasoned argument of why 4e's cosmology has a special status.


As already pointed out: "Good" is highly subjective. Also, every edition, I would assume, tried to make their lore good. I fail to see how 4e was the exception here. If anything 4e was the one that threw out existing lore and therefore made it less good for long standing customers. Decidedly un-good in that sense.


I don't think that they were talking about sheer words, or whatever metrics you claim we are using, though I don't know for certain I am not in their head. My metric is how much of existing elements still remain. How many times I would have to STOP using my existing game/cosmology and start using 4e. And how many elements were retconned or wildly changed for no good or apparent reason. Eladrin as grey elves, Tieflings as human-devil pact makers. Dragonborn (with or without mammary glands). Okay, onto now chapter two..

Either way, I'm not seeing you answer the question. What did they ADD? They simplified but what did they add? What made it good lore as opposed to different lore?


Um... aren't you who said...

... from later down? I thought you were.

You don't want to have to run someone else's game.. err.. endevour.. but you have no problem if all the races and classes are directly tied to a random cosmology involving the gods, primordials, etc. Interesting. Double-standard much? Yes there is no longer a law-chaos conflict, except there is, but that is all that you now no longer have. Instead all the races are directly tied to specific gods and the history of the world. That is fine if you prefer it. If not you suddenly have a whole bunch of gods that likely to not exist in people's homebrew settings being inextricably linked to the core races. Again, seems like "someone else's endevour" is much more heavily involved here.


Unlike the elemental chaos, astral homes and god-primordial conflict, that was entirely different?


If I remember the blood war correctly, and I mean the real blood war, then this is basically the "early days" of it. But beyond that, nothing here is better it is merely different. It is no more or less an incentive to participate. The players are no more or less involved.


All editions tried. Some thought the best idea was minimal involvement. Others (looking at 4e) tied it into everything. 4e just decided the great wheel was too silly and threw away a metric tonne of lore that had been represented for decades and decided a undescriptive but oddly super-involved cosmology of bland gods vs. over the top evil gods was a better fit. I agree with others.. that's disney-esque. It represents everything wrong when people say L = G and C = E, taken to extremes and then said to be better.

Yes, 4th Ed really beat you over the head with the whole Primordials (Titans) vs. The Gods deal (The Dawn War), and that Tharizdun dude.

 

[Siberys]

[MENTION=95493]Tovec[/MENTION] & [MENTION=6722817]Weather Report[/MENTION]

You really think the World Axis setup is "trite?" I mean, the central conceit of Order vs. Chaos is prevalent in a number of ancient mythologies (frex, Babylonian. I'm pretty sure it's important to Egyptian myth, too, and a case could be made for both Greek and Norse. They certainly influenced the World Axis cast of deities, anyways.) Not to mention that some OD&D systems had only a Law/Chaos alignment axis. Compared to the Great Wheel's alignment box transparent symmetry, I have a hard time taking "trite" at face value. Not to your preference? Yeah, I can dig that. But trite?

But whether you prefer the Great Wheel or the World Axis is orthogonal to the point a number of the "anti-PS" folks are trying to make (though I can't speak for [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]). Even though I prefer the World Axis, I'm totally with you that 4e built it too far into the base system. My position is that setting details should stay in the setting, beyond the barest veneer of a vanilla framing setting in the core books. Neither the Blood nor Dawn War should be a thing in Core. Not Crystal Spheres, or the Factions, or the Red Wizards of Thay, or any of the Dragonmarked Houses, or Defilers, or what have you.

IMO, the best "default cosmology" is one similar to the Krynnish one. Heaven, Hell, and Natural/Fey Realm. (Now that I think about it, that's pretty similar at a basic level to the World Axis, too, though switched from a Good/Evil axis to Law/Chaos...)

(Also, Weather Report: Did you have to quote the whole of Tovec's post just for a one-sentence agreement? Mentions and XP are there for that.)

 

[Imaro]

@Tovec & @Weather Report

You really think the World Axis setup is "trite?" I mean, the central conceit of Order vs. Chaos is prevalent in a number of ancient mythologies (frex, Babylonian. I'm pretty sure it's important to Egyptian myth, too, and a case could be made for both Greek and Norse. They certainly influenced the World Axis cast of deities, anyways.) Not to mention that some OD&D systems had only a Law/Chaos alignment axis. Compared to the Great Wheel's alignment box transparent symmetry, I have a hard time taking "trite" at face value. Not to your preference? Yeah, I can dig that. But trite?

I find it kind of ironic that you list all of these places that this basic cosmology has been used, (and let's not even go into the number of fantasy rpg's that use it as well, HINT... a really big one is Exalted) as a defense against calling it trite. If anything that just supports the notion that it is trite... it's been used to death, especially the gods vs. primordial thing. On the other hand, I am having a hard time thinking of any other examples of the Great Wheel being used in anything but D&D... thus the opposite of trite. I'm just saying...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Lemon Curry

Good and bad.

I think there were too many planes, so inevitably some were boring or stale. One could say the same thing about factions (there's about 16 of them) and even races.

 

[Siberys]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] - I never knew that trite specifically dealt with originality. You learn something every day! I always viewed it's meaning as having to do with being simple or childish, not original. Guess that's what I get from learning that particular word through context - I'm bound to make a mistake at some point. Ah well, point conceded. :/

Regardless, I can switch your argument around easily enough. Order v. Chaos is more resonant - I find it strikes a more powerful chord with me than does the Great Wheel's bizarre check-box symmetry, and it's prevalence in human myth speaks to that. But, again, whether this cosmology or that is resonant or trite is orthogonal to my point that putting setting material in the core should not be done.

 

[Imaro]

Regardless, I can switch your argument around easily enough. Order v. Chaos is more resonant - I find it strikes a more powerful chord with me than does the Great Wheel's bizarre check-box symmetry, and it's prevalence in human myth speaks to that. But, again, whether this cosmology or that is resonant or trite is orthogonal to my point that putting setting material in the core should not be done.

Uhm... I get it, you like 4e's cosmology better than the Great Wheel... cool, I guess... but that's not switching any argument around that I made and it doesn't change the fact that it (4e's cosmology) is trite.

EDIT: I guess my problem with all the 4e fans suddenly claiming that no lore should be in the core is that I didn't see these same fans advocating for that when it was lore they liked... I also didn't see them advocating for no lore when the same lore they liked was pushed on to other settings. But now that it's lore others enjoy all of a sudden... lore shouldn't be in the core period... and lore should be setting specific. I mean I'm just calling it like I see it.

 

[Piratecat]

Remember that point where I said "It's okay if someone doesn't agree with you. That doesn't give you the right to be rude to them"? Yeah, that.

Go re-read it, please.

EDIT: Thanks for clarifying your post, and to everyone working to keep things both polite and fun to read. Occasionally circular but an interesting conversation.

 

[Quickleaf]

Good and bad.

I think there were too many planes, so inevitably some were boring or stale. One could say the same thing about factions (there's about 16 of them) and even races.

I don't know, you could be right, but I got a lot of play out of most of the Outer Planes when I ran a 2e Planescape game. Maybe for a game based in the mortal world like most traditional D&D campaigns there were too many, but for Planescape it seemed about right. I think the para- and quasi- elemental planes were a bit ridiculous in number, but they were never the focus of Planescape - the Outer Planes were.

The often cited example of an extraneous plane is Bytopia, which IIRC some of the current designers poked fun at. Bytopia was defined as a "Plane of Conflict" in Planescape, and it had 2 built-in tensions that made it both interesting as an adventuring locale and distinct from other planes:

(1) The ideals of an enlightened democracy as realized there, but it's a delicate balancing act to maintain. LG sects of Mt. Celestia want to see greater regulation of trade, better codified laws, and charity for those who can't help themselves. NG sects of Elysium want to see greater individual freedom to work in a field of one's choosing or to not work at all, and would find the Bytopians preoccupation with work to come at the detriment of the deeper questions and joys of life. A DM might incorporate this into their campaign as a question of the welfare state. Sure it's not armed conflict, but there's certainly room for subterfuge.

(2) Bytopia is itself two models of utopia: one agricultural/pastoral and the other industrial (albeit on a family workshop scale not overburdening the ecology). There's an inherent tension between these two layers which need to remain in balance that the PS books alluded to but didn't explicitly state. The DM could come up with a spire connecting the two layers witha resource both need - would the struggle for the resource become a source of conflict or can the PCs help broker an equitable solution?

Lastly, Bytopia was one of the Upper Planes of Conflict, along with Elysium and the Beastlands. These planes are highly sought after by Fiends who want to corrupt or damage them, but must do so covertly or thru proxies.

So Bytopia is a delicately balanced dual utopia with neighbors who would see it pulled toward a welfare state or varying levels of law, and fiends who want to corrupt the work ethic Bytopia stand for. However too much outside influence might cause the two Utopias to fall out of balance with each other and bring the whole paradise crashing down. That's the unique sort of theme Bytopia empowers a DM to use in a game.

 

[Balesir]

They're not being "spun off" though, that's what they've always been. Having an infinite plane that has borders with another plane isn't enough to delegitimize the entire concept.

I didn't say "spun off" - I was meaning they don't have to be "off being a separate plane".

As to "delegitimising the concept", I don't agree with you but I think that the point is actually irrelevant. My thrust here is that they work either as "planes" with metaphysical edges (or whatever), or as parts of the over-plane of the Astral Sea/Elemental Chaos.

So does having them in a "Great Wheel."

Oh, sure it does! It has, in my view, some hinky bits ('infinite' planes with edges) but the "layout" of planes is very much in the eye of the beholder! If you can jump from Bytopia to Elysium and there are portals from both to Sigil, do you conclude that they are "planes" that are "next to one another" or do you conclude that they are "both in the Astral Sea and next to each other"?? As with so many other theories, you observe what you observe and then make up an explanation that fits with your pre-existing belief. Is the Guv'nor who believes in the "Great Wheel" right or the Xaositect who says "they're all just floating about in the Elemental Chaos, man"? Why do we even need to know, for sure?*

*: Just for the avoidance of doubt - I don't think we do. In fact, I think we get a better game if we don't.

I think that the metaphysical effects ont ravel times does showcase the quality of "infinite while still finite" nicely. It's certainly not an issue of "light speed" in a metaphysical plane where distance doesn't obey purely physical laws.

Um, yeah - that's why I said something like "their equivalent of light speed". Basically, the thing that messes with what folk think of as "common sense" vis-a-vis travel speed - whatever that might be in the locality in question.

It's the thing that means:

Traveller: "So, if we accelerate to twice the speed we get there twice as fast, right?"
Expert on local "science": "Um, no. It doesn't actually work like that".
Traveller: "Huh?"

 

[Weather Report]

@Tovec & @Weather Report

You really think the World Axis setup is "trite?" I mean, the central conceit of Order vs. Chaos is prevalent in a number of ancient mythologies (frex, Babylonian. I'm pretty sure it's important to Egyptian myth, too, and a case could be made for both Greek and Norse. They certainly influenced the World Axis cast of deities, anyways.) Not to mention that some OD&D systems had only a Law/Chaos alignment axis. Compared to the Great Wheel's alignment box transparent symmetry, I have a hard time taking "trite" at face value. Not to your preference? Yeah, I can dig that. But trite?

Yes, overused contraptions of ye olde mythology.

I see no Law vs. Chaos deal in 4th Ed Cosmology.