Does anyone else hate the planes?

[Deadguy]

I admit I am a DM who has little time for the Planes. Not that I mind them as providing backstory and explanation for certain creatures. But there's always ther feling that creating a interesting Prime Material World is rather wasted when the player's actions take them away from the world into the infinite planes. Who cares if the world-spanning Empire of the Black Sun is about to destroy the last redoubts of the free realms, or that the death of the walking God has undermined magic in the world? Just hop away to another plane, and all the setting you've worked on is just quant backstory to the PCs!

Generally, I now create cosmologies to support the 'Prime Material' now, rather than the other way around. Works for me. Clearly YMMV.

 

[Altalazar]

I admit I am a DM who has little time for the Planes. Not that I mind them as providing backstory and explanation for certain creatures. But there's always ther feling that creating a interesting Prime Material World is rather wasted when the player's actions take them away from the world into the infinite planes. Who cares if the world-spanning Empire of the Black Sun is about to destroy the last redoubts of the free realms, or that the death of the walking God has undermined magic in the world? Just hop away to another plane, and all the setting you've worked on is just quant backstory to the PCs!

Generally, I now create cosmologies to support the 'Prime Material' now, rather than the other way around. Works for me. Clearly YMMV.

That is a very good point. If your world is just one of many, and you could entirely leave it behind without a second glance, that sort of makes what happens there seem somewhat irrelevant. Why save the world when it is just one tiny world among many, and when you can live somewhere far nicer anyway?

 

[LondonReign]

As long as you can't reach it by walking there, the place could be Texas as easily as Gehenna.

Texas is Gehenna. Trust me.

 

[Aaron L]

In the campaign setting I'm working on, there are no planes at all. There is "only" the universe, infinite in both space and time. And as Clark Ashton Smith said, "In an infinite, eternal universe, there is nothing imaginable—or unimaginable—which might not happen, might not he true, somewhere or sometime." Given that, I don't see how other planes can be anything other than superfluous.

The universe is neither infinite nor eternal. And other planes are fun.

 

[ssampier]

The Planes and The Great Wheel

I've always like the Planes, an science-defying infinite space populated by bizarre creatures and unique property where you can defy gravity, time, and space. I especially like the culturally specific planes (such as Norse, Greek, and Egyptian) detailed in DDG.

What I don't like is *puts on Ring of Fire Protection* the Planescape planes. I really dislike the "doorway" concept (especially Sigil). It makes the planes seem so bland and ordinary, like a trip to the neighborhood bar.

 

[kirinke]

I never viewed the multi-verse as a wheel. more like... an onion or the pages of a book. The binding is the astral plane. The place where all the pages meet is the ethereal plane and each page is a seperate plane. You can get from point A to point B easily enough on one page. But it's quite a bit harder to get from point A1 to point A2.

And I've also toyed with the idea of the multi-verse as being a humongous tapestry with each thread being a seperate reality.

When you do have to go from page to page, something big and powerful on the next page has to want you to come over for one reason or another. At least, if I ever DM'd plane-hopping, that's what I'd do.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Planar travel's a big deal in Moorcock and also in Vance, I understand. Read lots of the former, none of the latter. Both are certainly strong D&D 'fluences so maybe that's where it came from.

Personally I love planar travel (to weird dimensions not to the homes of the gods) and hate Planescape.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What I don't like is *puts on Ring of Fire Protection* the Planescape planes. I really dislike the "doorway" concept (especially Sigil). It makes the planes seem so bland and ordinary, like a trip to the neighborhood bar.

I agree 100%.

 

[Geoffrey]

The universe is neither infinite nor eternal.

Maybe, maybe not. In any case, as DM you can make your campaign universe infinite and eternal if you so desire.

 

[Anthraxus]

Originally Posted by ssampier
What I don't like is *puts on Ring of Fire Protection* the Planescape planes. I really dislike the "doorway" concept (especially Sigil). It makes the planes seem so bland and ordinary, like a trip to the neighborhood bar.

I agree 100%.

I disagree 100%.

Some people love Planescape. Some people hate it. I love it, myself. No need for the Ring of Fire Protection.

-A