Planescape Do You Care About Planescape Lore?

[I'm A Banana]

I don't think that avoiding all conctradiction is possible (it may be possible in many cases, of course, but not in all). For instance, I don't see how you can say without contradiction that (i) mezzodaemons are a type of demons, and (ii) they are the same thing as mezzoloths, and (iii) mezzoloths are not a type of demon but rather are members of a race of demon progenitors/breeders (I'm a bit hazy on the Planescape-y details).

I kind of look at it this way: if a mezzoloth is with a cadre of demons, working to support their goal of ultimate destruction, how does one tell the difference between that mezzoloth and the other demons?

Historically, it's mostly been alignment, and thus, to a certain degree, behavior. In 3e, this also meant demons were vulnerable to certain spells that the mezzoloths weren't. In 2e this was to a certain degree true as well, as yugoloth had slightly different immunities/resistances.

So, if immunities and resistances are simplified, and perhaps yugoloths in general get some meta-fictional twist so that there's some CE corruption among them, the difference between a CE mezzoloth and those demon allies becomes....essentially the same as telling the difference between a vrock and a marilith.

Those yugoloths that have "gone native" are, for all intents and purposes, demons. People call them demons. They work with demons. They may even be pledging allegiance to demon lords.

And in games that really love the 4e lore, this is all the mezzoloths. The difference between the 'loth and the demons is effectively nil in this scenario.

With the idea of maximal lore, this just isn't considered to be all the mezzoloths. These mezzodemons can exist alongside other mezzoloths -- the mezzoloths from pre-4e -- just fine. We use some sort of justification for the fact that some change (perhaps there's a demonic parasite that forces one to act CE; perhaps the 'loths have perfected magic that allows them to change the very fabric of their being to adapt to new planes and allies; perhaps some 'loths have thrown in their lot with the creatures that hire them, etc.), and run with it. It leads to interesting new places.

And for the people who want to excise non-4e lore, they just apply the idea that SOME mezzoloths have become mezzodemons to ALL.

And for those who want to excise 4e lore, they just apply the idea that SOME mezzoloths have become mezzodeomons to NONE.

And for those who just want to use good lore, maybe the parasite that turns you into a demon gets loose in Podunk, and the PC's find themselves working alongside an Aranoloth that has an interest in learning how to counter-act this demonic plague infecting the race.

 

[pemerton]

I had a look at mezzodaemons in Fiend Folio - it says that they freely work with demons, and will work with devils but dislike their strict regulations.

Just sayin'!

 

[billd91]

This, right here, is what bugs me.

Why does Planescape get this? Why do we have to have Planescape as the default planar setting? I mean, it's a bit circular isn't it? You have to write to Planescape to get published, because Planescape is the only planar setting, but, if you try to go in a different direction than Planescape, to, maybe, flesh out a different source than Planescape, you won't get published. So, Planescape is the most in-depth source because any other source automatically gets strangled out of the conversation.

Which is precisely what I've been complaining about all the way along. No other options get even entered into consideration because Planescape exists in this privileged position where any deviation is automatically edited out.

No other setting gets this level of control over core material. I don't have to write to Dragonlance lore when I write about Dragons, nor do I have to care about Council of Wyrms or any other source of Draconic Lore. In fact, I'm pretty free to contradict anything I want. Like I said to Imaro, dragons have gotten a massive rewrite in every edition with no apparent problems and considerable approval.

But deviate in the slightest from Planescape lore and it's impossible. We MUST keep everything Planescape compatible and we're not even allowed to consider changes.

But it's not just Planescape. There are a lot of people who weren't exactly thrilled with quite a few other changes in the lore when 4e's Monster Manual came out. I wondered what the hell happened to storm giants and wasn't thrilled with the change from gentle goodly sorts to brutal, scheming badasses. And the side of good wasn't exactly bolstered by turning unicorns unaligned either. There was backlash against those changes as well because WotC was changing the nature of things that had been relatively consistent... for what purpose? To give the presumably non-evil PCs more things to fight? I don't know.

You keep coming back to this being a Planescape thing, pouncing on any example of a bit of Planescape lore that comes up as if that's your proof of Planescape's "special" nature in this regard. But there are pervasive examples of this, and not limited to just lore too, but also rules, depending on what the complainant finds important or particularly vexing. Clerics and Fighters no longer getting the ability to wear plate armor as part of their starting package? I saw those complaints - and for some people, it contradicts their image of those classes. D&D's initial offering not including druids? I saw (and made) that complaint. No donkeyhorses? I saw that one too.

I'm not saying that this is solely a 4e problem at all. There have been some vociferous complaints about clerics losing the free heavy armor proficiency in Pathfinder too just as there were complaints about how druids were implemented in 2e and plenty of complaints about the 2e ranger (and 3e ranger) and two-weapon fighting fixations and crappy favored enemies. The examples I'm using in 4e are significant more because they're both relatively recent and came as part of a barrage of lots of other changes, including whole structures of the character rules, and served more as last straws rather than primary complaints. What I'm trying to point out is that this is a broad issue and calling out Planescape as some particularly special snowflake in this regard is really myopic. Change management is a tricky thing because you run the risk of changing the very things that appealed to some of the players in the first place. Or maybe you risk changing so many elements that loyalty to the continuity of the product line is hampered.

 

[Imaro]

So we can run different games? To try and to speak more powerfully to potential new players? In the case of 4e, the lore was part of what brought me back to GMing D&D.

This is only a plus if the lore changes bring in more players than it looses. I don't see evidence either way with 4e... and this poll seems to show that a majority like Planescape lore... so again, why change it? The game (D&D) needs some continuity otherwise there is no point to even calling each edition the same game, especially since the mechanics change drastically with almost every edition.

You agree with my first assertion. And in the other bit I've quoted you seem to reiterate my main point, namely that any lore, even Planescape law, will invalidate something somewhere.

Yep, but that's because this isn't pemerton's fantasy roleplaying game... or even imaro's fantasy roleplaying game. It's Dungeons and Dragons, a game with it's own tropes/lore/etc. and again the outlier here in both broad concept and time used is 4e's cosmology.

And that's all I'm saying. Or to flip it around, you seem to be agreeing with me that Planescape lore is not in any special, neutral, universal and hence unchangeable category. The decision to keep it or drop it is simply a decision about whose games to validate and whose to invalidate.

Like KM said... there is no such thing as neutral lore, but there is D&D lore... and until 4e every other edition used the Great Wheel. I'm sorry but 4e is the outlier here, so unless you can prove that it in some way was objectively better for the game, and is more popular with the player base... it should default to the traditional lore, regardless of both you and Hussar's personal dislike for the lore.

What choice WotC makes is of course up to them. If they think Planescape is where the big money is, they'd be silly not to go for it. That doesn't mean that they're not invalidating other games, though. Opting for Planescape isn't opting for universality. Even if we put 4e to one side it wouldn't be, because Planescape isn't neutral or generic with respct to original AD&D either.

Please explain to me what neutral or generic lore is... by it's very nature fluff is non-neutral. So please give me an example of lore that speaks to universality...

 

[SkidAce]

I mean, look at dragons. Every edition has radically changed dragons. Dragons went from a fairly low level threat in AD&D to massive airplane sized beasties in 2e to virtual gods in 3e before getting clawed back pretty hard in 4e. And everyone seems okay with that. But, make fairly minor changes to Planescape lore and we get 50 page threads.

A very interesting and valid point.

 

[billd91]

A very interesting and valid point.

Perhaps we should examine the point and see how strong it is.

1e dragons did end up being fairly weak, although there was a fair amount of variability and some could bloody pretty powerful adventure groups. 2e greatly expanded the range of their power, giving them a much higher peak. 3e translated that into 3e's terms, making them some pretty dense sinks of hit points (although also making them very vulnerable to a touch AC-based attack) and fitting them in the CR structure (usually at the high end of each rating). A great many of the powers were consistent between 2e and 3e so I'm not seeing much radical change here.

So how did this play out? I'd have to say largely positively. But it's important to see what's going on. The name of the game is Dungeons and Dragons, so the role of dragons in the core game has always been pretty iconic. I daresay most people investigating 2e from their 1e experiences saw the ramping up of dragons as an appropriate response to dragons being too weak for higher level adventurers. The prestige monster wasn't living up to its threat and that needed to be corrected.

Moreover, the weaker dragons of 1e could still be largely covered in the rules by just making the dragon encountered be fairly young. In other words, what it meant for a creature to be a dragon was expanded - but not invalidated by the new structures. The same is true for 3e. There are plenty of dragon encounters suitable for low level characters just as there were in 1e. The most 'radical' changes wrought by 2e and 3e were that dragons were now viable creatures to encounter at any level.

So how strong is the point? People were receptive to changes here because of the nature of the changes. They were largely additive rather than transformative. This isn't anything like the appropriate of the term eladrin to make blink elves. This isn't turning good giants bad. This isn't some grand unification of infernal creatures.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Like KM said... there is no such thing as neutral lore, but there is D&D lore... and until 4e every other edition used the Great Wheel. I'm sorry but 4e is the outlier here, so unless you can prove that it in some way was objectively better for the game, and is more popular with the player base... it should default to the traditional lore, regardless of both you and Hussar's personal dislike for the lore.

While AD&D used the great wheel, and D&D 3 used it, original D&D did not have it. It was added in an article in Dragon 8. Neither Moldvay/Holmes nor Mentzer D&D had it, although they had similar inner planes.

The Great Wheel is really a construct of the AD&D alignment system. If you diverge from it, as both non-AD&D older editions and 4e did, the Great Wheel makes less sense.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I mean, look at dragons. Every edition has radically changed dragons. Dragons went from a fairly low level threat in AD&D to massive airplane sized beasties in 2e to virtual gods in 3e before getting clawed back pretty hard in 4e. And everyone seems okay with that. But, make fairly minor changes to Planescape lore and we get 50 page threads.

FWIW, I had a tremendous problem with how they handled dragons in 4e. They're basically tied up with my deeper problems with the concept of the 4e MM as "a book of stuff to fight," though, so it's a broader concern.

It's also not unique to PS. Ask FR fans how they feel about the spellplague, or the time of troubles. Ask 1e fans if they like the 2e bard. Heck, the last 5 years of acrimony and edition wars were in part caused by the changes wrought by 4e to the lore of the game and how a lot of people really didn't like them (at least, any better than their previous lore).

And it might be worth mentioning that most of this 50 page thread consist mostly of you and me trying to hash out why it's a bad idea to just change a creature willy-nilly. It's the whole 4e lore debate: "Why is or isn't it a good idea to change the lore for Creature X?" PS, by this point, is a bystander.

 

[Imaro]

While AD&D used the great wheel, and D&D 3 used it, original D&D did not have it. It was added in an article in Dragon 8. Neither Moldvay/Holmes nor Mentzer D&D had it, although they had similar inner planes.

The Great Wheel is really a construct of the AD&D alignment system. If you diverge from it, as both non-AD&D older editions and 4e did, the Great Wheel makes less sense.

Well AD&D was the game that was expanded upon, revised, etc. by WotC not OD&D and not Moldvay/Holmes or Mentzer, so I'm not sure if I see much validity in your point since the Great Wheel was the cosmology of AD&D. Perhaps if WotC had chosen to instead use one of those versions of D&D as their basis, I could see more validity in this point but they didn't.

 

[Alan Shutko]

well AD&D was the game that was expanded upon, revised, etc. by WotC not OD&D and not Moldvay/Holmes or Mentzer, so I'm not sure if I see much validity in your point since the Great Wheel was the cosmology of AD&D. Perhaps if WotC had chosen to instead use those versions of D&D as their basis, I could see more validity in this point but they didn't.

My point was that you said that every other edition used the Great Wheel, which is wrong.