Does anyone else hate the planes?

[shadow]

I'll admit I really hate the concept of the various planes in D&D. I've always hated monster statistics that state that the monster "comes from the elemental plane of X". I've always hated spells that allow the user to contact the "plane of Y". It just seems like the whole D&D cosmology is so complicated. Admittedly, the current version of D&D allows for custom cosmologies. However, it often seems like D&D requires the DM to master complex, fantasy metaphysics to play the game. I never understood the whole planar concept; all the "prime material planes", "ethereal planes", "elemental planes", and "quasi-elemental planes" seem extremely convoluted. Moreover, I never understood the imperative for all the various planes in most settings. Sure some of the heroes of Greek myth visited the underworld and some sci-fi features parallel dimensions, but why does that seem to entail a complete and complex metaphyics for every campaign setting?

 

[Crothian]

I think you might be over complicting things, the planes are actaully fairly simple and easy to use.

 

[Davelozzi]

I'm not much of a fan of the planes, but they don't bother me as much as they apparently do you. I've never used them directly in my games (other than as a location that something was summoned from) and I've never had a problem.

 

[diaglo]

it doesn't have to be complicated. really. really. ogres and planes aren't like onions.

 

[The Grackle]

No way. Planes are cool.
We need more of them.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'm not too fond of the standard D&D planar structure (quasi-elemental plans? Bah.). In my game, its been simplified down to just a few. The material plane is bordered by Faerie, the Shadowlands, and Dream. All three are transitive planes - and they connect to myriad other material planes. Demons and Devils and such are natives of other material planes, not aligned infinite planes. There also is a wizard-created Plane of Mirrors, which can be used as a transitive plane. There are potentially many demi-planes created by wizards or clerics (technically the Plane of Mirrors would be one, I'd think).

Spells that refer to the Ethereal Plane instead interact with the Shadowlands (or Faerie, in theory - they're opposites). Spells that deal with the Astral instead interact with Dream - and Psionics are dream-based (this was before Eberron).

Elementals live in appropriate areas of the material plane - fire elementals in volcanoes, water elementals in rivers and oceans, etc. If there were a City of Brass in my world, it would exist on the same plane as the PC's.

The dead go to the Shadowlands, where they make their final journey to their reward. The ease of this journey is determined by how virtuous you were in life, and at the end, no one is entirely sure what happens. If heaven exists, then no one has ever gone and come back. Looking back, I find that my game's afterlife mirrors Grim Fandango pretty heavily.

 

[Psion]

I'm wondering what the complex metaphysics is. I mean, if you want to futz around with stuff like planes in conjunction in non-euclidean space, that's all on you, but really, all the typical GM needs to know is. "This creature came from [distant place]. We need to open a gate to shove it back to [distant place]. As long as you can't reach it by walking there, the place could be Texas as easily as Gehenna.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Never had the issues you're dealing with.

After Spelljammer came out, there was a mini-campaign model in Dragon devoted to spelljammer, that covered Voidjammers. I used that model extensively for a long time in traveling the Astral Plane. Good old fashioned fun.

Demi-Plane of Shadow has also made it's apperances in my campaign.

Abyss? Check. Nine Hells? Check. Other evil planes and of course Limbo? Check.

I love the planes.

 

[Mercule]

I'm not much of a fan of the planes, but they don't bother me as much as they apparently do you. I've never used them directly in my games (other than as a location that something was summoned from) and I've never had a problem.

My basic answer. I've never found the concept hard to grasp or anything.

I don't much care for the standard elemental planes because the "four elements" is more of a cliche than it is an archetype.

The way in which the outher planes bug me is more of "don't get the lure" thing. It kinda bugs me when I hear about campaigns that focus on planar travels -- especially at low levels. The outer planes are the abodes of the gods. Trips there shouldn't be taken lightly.

Take the lower planes -- these are places where the souls of bad people go in the afterlife to be tortured for eternity. They are populated with physical incarnations of evil. Those personifications of evil will do everything in their power to keep you damned in Hell. And the simple act of visiting there puts your soul in peril.

The upper planes are places of pure, untarnished goodness. The angelic incarnates of good will try to prevent anyone who might deminish that purity from visiting. Even if allowed in, you are risking being told, "I'm sorry, but once you've tasted the food/seen the face of God/touched the sacred punch bowl, you can never return to the living. You're dead, now."

Visiting the outher planes should be a rare and wondrous thing. Looking at Earthly myths, it is almost the epitome of an "epic" event.

 

[Wombat]

I never really liked the planes for the simple reason that I refuse to believe all the cultures on a given world look at cosmology in exactly the same manner. Instead, when I am forced to use the planes, I use them with a Belief Defines Reality filter -- you see more or less what you expect to believe, but different members of the same party may see different things (re: "Erik the Viking").

The planes are also too logical, too neat, too finite -- again, this goes back to my notion of multiple visions of reality on a given world slopping over into the cosmology.

Do all Good gods live in one place and all Evil gods in another? What of all Lawful gods and all Chaotic gods? What, then, do you do with Valhalla, Olympus, and the like, where all the gods, regardless of their alignments, are together in one place, all hugglemuggle.

No, I find the planes, as written, to be unsatisfying on a mythological, cosmological, and moral level.

Probably why I also don't allow plane-hopping in my campaigns...

OTOH, I know people who love them. For those who do, I hope your games live up to your expectations.