Elemental Planes Killed

[Malhost Zormaeril]

The Great Wheel has absolutely not been a constant, at least in the core books. 1e had it. I don't know about 2e. 3e referred to it obliquely, but it was only the 3.5 DMG that had it included. However, B/X and the RC didn't assume a great wheel. OD&D didn't have the Great Wheel.

Amen. The 3e MotP specifically stated that the cosmology of D&D was unspecified and that different campaign settings could present different cosmologies; it presented several alternatives for cosmologies, like planar orrery, cloud and the Great Wheel. So the GW does not really enjoy 30 years of unbroken supremacy...

 

[Desdichado]

1e on? 1e and the B/X slash RC game were concurrent for the better part of a decade and a half. What does 1e on mean?

Is Forgotten Realms no longer D&D because it didn't have a Great Wheel cosmology from 3e on? How about Eberron? How about Dark Sun?

Seriously; the Great Wheel isn't that big a deal. D&D's done without it before, and it can certainly still work just fine without it. Besides, Rich Baker's latest blog specifically states that the "core" 4e cosmology can accomodate the Great Wheel just fine if you want it to. It'll have a few extremely minor differences to the planar geography, but the Great Wheel has had all kinds of minor modifications over the years anyway.

 

[billd91]

You see, when 2e came out, they didn't rewrite the entire D&D cosmology just because some designer thought it sounded better like that. Same with 3e, 3e made a minor change or two to the Great Wheel cosmology, but not much. Now with 4e they want to chuck decades of D&D heritage for some Johnny-come-lately idea that's supposed to be better?

Heck yes, and looking forward to it too.

It's not just "four people" who care about it, or else we'd probably have a much shorter thread, many longtime D&D players, especially those who play or played cosmology-intensive games are going to care about this. Personally, the D&D Multiverse was one of the great things about D&D as far as I was concerned, the idea that all the myriad official settings were tied together via Spelljammer and Planescape.

The Great Wheel is primarily fluff. The actual rules for doing planar stuff have been generic enough to wedge nearly any cosmology into them. If you like that fluff, use the new rules on planar travel and adventuring to put it back in your own campaign.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Same with 3e, 3e made a minor change or two to the Great Wheel cosmology, but not much.

The Elemental Planes not being in the Ethereal and adding The Plane of Shadow was a pretty big change to me.

 

[Imaro]

Actually, the new cosmology gives DMs more freedom. Under the new cosmology, they can design their own planes and put them in anywhere they want. That wasn't possible under the Great Wheel.

The Great Wheel was far more constricting than this new idea, whatever you may think of it.

I just don't get this sentiment...isn't this what demi planes are(were) for (you know like Ravenloft)? If I wanted a corrupted elemental plane, bam there it was...if I wanted a fae realm there you go again, in fact I don't see how this was limiting at all.

In D&D 3.5 you were encouraged to create your own cosmology and the GW just remained as a default or example. So again, not seeing how it was "limiting"

As far as the argument that you can always change it...I could always do that before as well.

 

[Grog]

I just don't get this sentiment...isn't this what demi planes are(were) for (you know like Ravenloft)?

And what if I don't want to make it a demiplane? What if I don't want my plane to play second fiddle to the planes already there? What if I want to make a heavenly realm, and I think it should have a place right up there alongside all the other heavenly realms that already exist?

I can't do that under the Great Wheel. It's incredibly limiting. There's no way to invent new planes and insert them into the cosmology without "reinventing the wheel," so to speak.

In D&D 3.5 you were encouraged to create your own cosmology and the GW just remained as a default or example.

And you'll be able to do exactly the same thing in 4E, if you want to.

 

[see]

"The Great Wheel" is a shorthand that's been used for both the Outer Planes and the overall planar arrangement that's been the default in AD&D1e-AD&D2e-D&D3.x. In the first sense, sure, it's compatible with the 4e approach, you can stick the Wheel in the Astral. In the second, well, what's the title of this thread, again?

In place of the Elemental Planes, we're getting an elemental chaos where powerful beings can impose order. Well, I already had the plane of Limbo, so what exactly are the enhanced gaming opportunities here? Eliminating even "difficult-to-use" locales and not putting anything new in their place doesn't expand adventure possibilities, it contracts them.

There was no reason they couldn't, say, have place the Elemental Chaos as a new plane, in the middle of the old 1e MoP/2e DMG/Planescape sphere of elemental planes, marking where Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Positive, Negative, Lightning, Radience, Mineral, Steam, Ooze, Ice, Smoke, Magma, Dust, Ash, Vacuum, and Salt all met. Of course, that would have required three seconds of imagining that there were actually people who liked the Elemental Planes, and maybe one whole paragraph.

 

[wingsandsword]

There was no reason they couldn't, say, have place the Elemental Chaos as a new plane, in the middle of the old 1e MoP/2e DMG/Planescape sphere of elemental planes, marking where Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Positive, Negative, Lightning, Radience, Mineral, Steam, Ooze, Ice, Smoke, Magma, Dust, Ash, Vacuum, and Salt all met. Of course, that would have required three seconds of imagining that there were actually people who liked the Elemental Planes, and maybe one whole paragraph.

That and it would require respect for established continuity, instead of treating D&D as just a popular brand name to bolt onto some new fantasy RPG that vaguely resembles that which came before.

Elemental Chaos could even work within the Great Wheel as the "center" of the inner planes as a border region of all the elemental planes, but it does seem remarkably disrespectful of D&D's heritage to throw out almost thirty years of planar setting by saying how "bad" it was. If it was so bad all along, why didn't WotC chuck it when they were making the Manual of the Planes for 3e or the 3.5 DMG with the Great Wheel, after almost thirty years they only decided in the last few years that it's somehow very bad?

 

[DonTadow]

That and it would require respect for established continuity, instead of treating D&D as just a popular brand name to bolt onto some new fantasy RPG that vaguely resembles that which came before.

Elemental Chaos could even work within the Great Wheel as the "center" of the inner planes as a border region of all the elemental planes, but it does seem remarkably disrespectful of D&D's heritage to throw out almost thirty years of planar setting by saying how "bad" it was. If it was so bad all along, why didn't WotC chuck it when they were making the Manual of the Planes for 3e or the 3.5 DMG with the Great Wheel, after almost thirty years they only decided in the last few years that it's somehow very bad?

Screw continuity, sometimes things just need to make sense. Nothing should be done like it was 40 years ago. Designers got smart and made better changes. Thank goodness.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Screw continuity, sometimes things just need to make sense. Nothing should be done like it was 40 years ago. Designers got smart and made better changes. Thank goodness.

Huh? Elemental Tempest and the Abyss in the middle makes more sense than the Elemental Planes embedded in the Etheral Plane, surrounding the Prime? I'd like to see the kind of measuring standard for "more" or "less" sense you use on D&D cosmologies.