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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6135989" data-attributes="member: 42582">They existed "altered but unbroken" in Planescape material. And in the 3E MotP. Not in the core - as in, there was nothing in (say) the 3EMM that suggested that a devil and an angel might have a drink together in a bar in Sigil.I don't see why the WotC authors should regard themselves as never bound to writen anything planar that does not adhere to Planescape. (And it's not as if 4e can't be pretty easily retrofitted. The 4e MotP even has a whole page devoted to telling you how to do it.)My point is that (i) it didn't aim for minimalism (which is the other main alternative) and (ii) it didn't make many concessions to tradition (ie it prioritised "goodness" over continuity).Well, Planescape does all that for me. It makes me rewrite how I use demons, daemons and devils. It makes me rewrite how I use the Happy Hunting Grounds, and slaads, and Nirvana.Which is my point. Unless you go for minimalism, someone's game is going to conflict with the lore. Planescape has no special status in this regard.I though I explained that in some detail - it presents a world in conflict in which nearly all story elements are implicated, but the resolution to which is not yet settled - but the resolution of which will emerge through play. It's pretty much the opposite of the "metaplot" style that I associate with Planescape. The players don't discover the pre-established secrets; they (via their PCs) author the resolution to the cosmological fate of the world.There's no double standard. What you've described isn't a game. Nor a plot. It's a thematically-laden starting point. 4e gives you that starting presmise, and then sets things up so that play will resolve the premise. (I take it for granted that it's not as tight as Dogs in the Vineyard, or Sorcerer; I think it probably is pretty close to the tightness of HeroWars/Quest played in Glorantha, though.)If you don't like the tropes, or the thematic premises, then you won't like the game, sure. Likewise if you don't like Marvel Comics you probably won't like Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. But that's pretty orthogonal to the points I was making, which were about what happens in actual play - do you explore someone else's fiction, or make your own? 4e is set up for the group, via play, to make their own fiction.Which ones? Bane, who led the gods to victory in the Dawn War? Torog, whose imprisonment and torture of primordials is crucial to the endurance of the gods' victory? Lolth, whose webs held the universe together after Tharizdun's attempt to destroy it? Gruumsh, who (a bit like the Hulk) is an engine of destruction whom the gods need on their side?I guess I'm not sure what you mean by "over the top", but by the standards of D&D pantheon design, alignment rules and cosmology these strike me as fairly sophisticated characters whom (for instance) unaligned or even good PCs could revere for meaningful reasons.I guess I don't really understand the particular way in which this is Disney-esque. These are pretty classic fantasy tropes, and the tensions between necessity and morality reflected in some of these gods are pretty standard material for both political/military drama and the philosophy of political action.</blockquote>

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