Dragon 370 - Design & Development: Cosmology

[I'm A Banana]

Nonsense. The MotP has a section on how to do exactly that: Change the cosmology to suit your tastes.

The whole "One cosmology to rule them all" applies to published settings.

Fair point. I should've specified that if I'm playing by the published rules, all the settings that I will play in will have the same cosmology.

I still think that's a bad thing.

Good. Yes, I was barking at the wrong tree with those two sentences. I apologize for them.

...how about settings published through the GSL? Would not using the shadowfell constitute a redefinition?

I don't like it limiting published settings. It feels bad, just like when the Great Wheel did it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Good. Yes, I was barking at the wrong tree with those two sentences. I apologize for them.

...how about settings published through the GSL? Would not using the shadowfell constitute a redefinition?

I don't like it limiting published settings. It feels bad, just like when the Great Wheel did it.

That, I couldn't say. I have no idea what the GSL is going to say regarding third-party cosmologies.

And like I said, I actually agree to an extent--I'd prefer that certain settings not use the World Axis--but it's not anything I can't live with. (It helps that I'm a much bigger fan of the World Axis than I ever was of the Great Wheel, and that I feel the World Axis concept is more flexible.)

 

[The Little Raven]

...how about settings published through the GSL? Would not using the shadowfell constitute a redefinition?

The planes are not included in the SRD currently, as far as I can tell. The only Shadowfell mention is the Shadowfell gloves in the PHB, but the section in the DMG SRD titled "World" lacks the planes.

To me, it seems to force you to develop your own cosmology if you want to explore cosmological issues.

 

[doctorhook]

Now, that said, I admit that I'd have preferred that some of the published settings be permitted to keep their own, unique cosmology. I'm not a huge fan of the "one over all," and I liked the fact that, in 3E, Eberron was completely separate from the other settings.

I understand the reasons behind it, and I like the way they melded the old Eberron with the new World Axis cosmologies. I think it works and works well. But if I ruled the world, I probably wouldn't have gone that route.

Generally speaking, I love the 4E cosmology! That said, I also love Eberron, and I was worried that the cosmology changes might **** Eberron up, so to speak.

After reading this article, I'm cautiously optimistic! I'll be happy, as long as I can still say, "There's thirteen planes! They each orbit Eberron, and at times can either spill into Eberron or become nigh-inaccessible!" I'll be okay, if all it now means is that I describe this group of planes as Elemental Planes, others as Astral Dominions, a handful as either Feywild or Shadowfell Planes, plus a "Region of Dreams" (or is it Astral?) and a "Far Realm". I'd still like it if the Eberron default is that these are the only planes, excepting perhaps the very occasional demiplane.

If this is the biggest upset I have to deal with about 4E Eberron, I'll be dandy.

 

[Roman]

I don't like a design approach that tries to overhomogenize, shoehorn or retcon settings. This has been recurring throughout the editions of D&D, but often in different guises.

AD&D used the Great Wheel for all published settings. On the positive note, however, it did allow for the exclusion of material from the setting that was not deemed suitable.

3E wisely enabled each setting to have its own cosmology. Unfortunately, it decided to go the retcon route for Forgotten Realms, which was artificially removed from the Great Wheel. Sure, Eberron having a new cosmology is a good idea, but the retcon of Forgotten Realms was less so. 3E also, regretfully, insisted that all core material be usable in all published settings.

4E uses the World Axis for all published settings and previous settings are retconned into the cosmology. As far as I understand it, not only continues with the 3E 'innovation' that all core material should be usable in all published settings, but it takes it a step further and insists that all materials should be usable in all published settings.

 

[Roman]

This is a "it's not really broke" angle. Like the size of halflings, no one had a problem with it. Infinite planes don't stagger the imagination, and the quantity of devils is a pointless question and has always been. You could walk millions of miles to your goal because you traveled at the speed of plot, exactly the way most D&D games travel. Limited Planes don't fix anything. No one mapped out all of Avernus, no one bothered to count the number of devils in Hell, and no one ever felt a need to. Infinity wasn't a problem, it was a solution: there's infinite possibilities here.

With that said, even "finite" planes are too big to map and STILL no one is asking how many devils exist in the nine hells, so it's not like anything has really changed.

Which is really the hallmark of a pointless change. No one cares.

Provided that planes are almost incomprehensibly HUGE (yes, I like the sense of scale bordering on the mind-boggling) I have no issue either way - the planes can be truly infinite or they can simply be vast. I guess this sort of meshes with your point that it is a pointless change, because no one cares.

IMO, this kind of thinking is thinking is almost entirely bass ackwards.

FIRST of all, and most importantly, having a different cosmology helps define what is important in your world. I mean, this is basically the real reason that human cultures over the aeons have all come up with different cosmologies (Dante's vision of Hell/Purgatory/Paradise, Miltonian "world on a string"/"music of the spheres" heliocentrism, the Hindu wheel of existence, Nordic Ysgard, et cetra ad nauseum). To lack support for this customization in D&D is lazy, narrowminded, and ultimately at cross-purposes to actually telling the story you want to tell.

I agree completely.

SECOND of all, but related, is that one cosmology is not truly universal. Like I talked about in the thread on "what is Core," settings define themselves by including things that others don't and excluding things that others include. If you can't exclude the feywild or the astral sea or the far realm or the elemental chaos, or the shadowfell, if you can't include, I dunno, a plane of dreams or a plane of parallel consciousness, or a million extra Earths, or something like the thread "A Nameless City on a Many-Named Sea" cultivates, you're shoehorning in things that were never meant to fit, that don't fit, and that are frankly incongruous, and you're leaving out things that would help define and differentiate the setting.

Again, we are in perfect agreement here.

Now, I understand their reasons for making One True Cosmology. But there is too much sacrificed on the altar of convenience here. In a game that expects me to come up with on-the-fly narrative acrobatics for Shroedinger's Hit Points, they can't expect me to figure out what a shadowslayer sword or a shadow creature or the shadow crossing ritual is in a campaign that wants to make itself unique by excluding the shadowfell? REALLY? They have no problem chucking encounter-limited tripping at me and expecting me to totally be okay with that exception to the way the world normally works, but excluding or altering a subset of abilities is somehow too vastly complicated for my little lizard-brain? Are you serious? I can read a 900 page instruction manual for the game, but I can't quite understand when a shadow-thing might not work if I decide there's no shadowfell? Do you think I'm that dumb?

Actually, it's even worse than you say. There is absolutely no reason that a shadowslayer sword needs to have any cosmological plane to back it up whatsoever. You can easily just say that a shadowslayer sword affects creatures with the shadow subtype/origin/descriptor/whatever it is called in 4E. There is really no reason why the shadow subtype/origin/... has to be tied to some shadow plane. It can just as well refer to creatures somehow tied to shadow having some sort of shadow essence without being otherworldly. As far as I am concerned their argument on this matter is mostly spurious.

To be frank, I don't even see a reason why shadow creatures should be in every setting. If they don't fit, than they shouldn't be there, as far as I am concerned. Fair enough, it is the commercial policy to make sure they are, but as pointed out above that certainly does not require a uniform cosmology.

 

[avin]

"The Elemental Planes were unusable"

Yes. Sure. But they used to be sources of primal energy, the place where elementals come. Should every plane be a dungeon to explore? Sorry, this is a very poor idea.

"Infinite planes stagger the imagination"

It seems your imagination is kinda short. Infinite or not infinite, what difference does it make? If you walk from A to B does it matters if the plane is infinite or not? Infinite means less maps, enforcing creative ways to travelling... finite is like "let's map the place, explore, kill the boss and take the loot".

"Good planes were boring"

Probably, but they were there for a reason: background. Again you want every place to be a dungeon?

 

[avin]

I don't like a design approach that tries to overhomogenize, shoehorn or retcon settings

Same here.

After trying FRCS4E I'm done: I won't play FR4E. What they did to magic destroeyd what was Faerûn to me, granted, I'm not the biggest fan of it.

While I like DMing using the new system I am very worried about some ideas popping up.

EVerything must be "useful", everywhere is a "dungeon"... geez... it seems the 4E guys only care about dungeon crawling and super adventures from the past.

Wotc boards are worst than ever, crowded by people saying things like "Miniatures are as important as the game now, get over it"...

Again, time to adapt things... more work to DMs who don't want to be pigholed.

 

[FireLance]

Again, time to adapt things... more work to DMs who don't want to be pigholed.

Erm, if you're a DM who doesn't want to be pigeonholed, wouldn't you want to adapt things by definition? So, the amount of additional work for such a DM is zero?

Not seeing how one cosmology for all published settings is any different from a handful of different cosmologies from different settings here.

 

[Stogoe]

Should every plane be a dungeon to explore?

I certainly don't want fifty pages detailing the endless layers of the planes of Instant Death. That sort of thing is worse than useless. I want page count to describe Places You Can Venture To, and not "Oh, these places are so extremely awesome cool and you can never go there, ha ha".