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<blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 8506242" data-attributes="member: 5948">I cordially hate the idea of D&amp;D having 'a' one-size-fits-all-settings cosmology at all.&nbsp; Cosmology, like anything else, should fit the setting and campaign.&nbsp; Planescape you 100% want the Great Wheel.&nbsp; FR has its own variant of the Great Wheel with prominent deific domains and the overgod Ao overlooking it all, and that fits cos FR is a gonzo kitchen-sink setting so hell yeah, include ALL the weird subplanes.&nbsp; But the spare, limited cosmology of the Black and Grey fits Dark Sun far better, where you don't want easy travel to less-hostile otherworlds, and where things like upper planes stuffed full of benevolent celestials are thematically questionable.&nbsp; And in most&nbsp; Ravenloft games you probably don't want to talk about planar travel at all.One of the creative mistakes that TSR made in the 2e era was, imho, shoehorning everything into one greater cosmology no matter how poorly it fit, and forcing crossovers.&nbsp; For every time it worked even partially (Ravenloft fans liked Soth in Ravenloft, though Dragonlance fans generally hated it) there were a bunch when it didn't.&nbsp; Kalidnay in Ravenloft, githyanki in Athas, Zakhara in FR, Krynn in Spelljammer. Different settings exist to tell different types of stories.&nbsp; A Dragonlance story isn't the same as an Athasian story.&nbsp; Setting should exist and be designed to facilitate the telling of the stories, but if you design a cosmology that works for a planescape game (for example), it just isn't going to work for (for example) Ravenloft.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="humble minion, post: 8506242, member: 5948"] I cordially hate the idea of D&D having 'a' one-size-fits-all-settings cosmology at all. Cosmology, like anything else, should fit the setting and campaign. Planescape you 100% want the Great Wheel. FR has its own variant of the Great Wheel with prominent deific domains and the overgod Ao overlooking it all, and that fits cos FR is a gonzo kitchen-sink setting so hell yeah, include ALL the weird subplanes. But the spare, limited cosmology of the Black and Grey fits Dark Sun far better, where you don't want easy travel to less-hostile otherworlds, and where things like upper planes stuffed full of benevolent celestials are thematically questionable. And in most Ravenloft games you probably don't want to talk about planar travel at all. One of the creative mistakes that TSR made in the 2e era was, imho, shoehorning everything into one greater cosmology no matter how poorly it fit, and forcing crossovers. For every time it worked even partially (Ravenloft fans liked Soth in Ravenloft, though Dragonlance fans generally hated it) there were a bunch when it didn't. Kalidnay in Ravenloft, githyanki in Athas, Zakhara in FR, Krynn in Spelljammer. Different settings exist to tell different types of stories. A Dragonlance story isn't the same as an Athasian story. Setting should exist and be designed to facilitate the telling of the stories, but if you design a cosmology that works for a planescape game (for example), it just isn't going to work for (for example) Ravenloft. [/QUOTE]

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