D&D 5E July 11 Q&A: Cosmology, Monster Descriptions and Monster Variants

[Falling Icicle]

Why does there even need to be a default cosmology? Can't it just be left up to individual settings?

 

[JeffB]

Why does there even need to be a default cosmology? Can't it just be left up to individual settings?

you would think so...however

Wizards has the Branding Iron out...time to round up all those stray little dogie campaign settings and herd 'em into the Great Wheel Corral.

YEEHAW!

:whiplash:

 

[Dausuul]

So in other words, generic planar adventures should avoid any references to the planes they take place on? That seems like it'd be somewhat onerous, as it wouldn't allow any description of anything beyond the local area - one could say that it wouldn't need any such detail, but it'd be awkward for things like random encounter tables for a general area.

Why? You make random encounter tables for whatever locale the adventure takes place in. If the PCs decide to leave that area, it's no different from PCs playing "Red Hand" deciding to leave the Elsir Vale--you're going off the map.

There'd also be issues of specific planar effects, the most common being the way magic is altered by various planes. While it'd be easy to manually add modifiers like penalties and bonuses, it's more difficult when you're adding something like a blanket ban on X type of magic that's a large component of the adventure (e.g. a central tactic of one of the major villains).

Since I regard such blanket bans as a horrendous way to write an adventure, discouraging them is a feature, not a bug. Let's just shut down the caster who chose to specialize in that kind of magic, because why not? It'd be like having an adventure where axes don't work. Hope you weren't playing a dwarf fighter.

For less extreme "planar effects," the locale should specify any environmental effects that are relevant to the story. It's up to the DM to decide whether those effects are a result of the plane you're in or just this specific part of the plane, or something else entirely. Of course, some effects might strongly suggest a particular plane--if unprotected creatures steadily gain hit points, continue to gain above their normal maximum, and finally explode, it's a pretty good guess that the adventure writer was thinking of the Positive Energy Plane. But it could also be in one of the upper planes; or a mystic vale in the Feywild; or even a little-known layer of the Abyss.

If the adventure is well designed and self-contained, it should be trivial to put it wherever it fits best in my cosmology. But if adventure writers take "planar" as license to import reams of Planescape lore, that won't happen.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I wonder if their hand is sort of forced, in that regard, though.

D&D has, in every edition, had some sort of basic default cosmology. It had to, because when writing planar adventures (and there were always some), they needed some sort of basic assumptions on which to hinge the background and plot exposition. From being given a mission from the Seven Heavens to go to the Abyss and kill Orcus (and then make sure he's even more dead by going to the Nine Hells and slaying Tiamat), to Demogorgon in the Abyss wanting to break into the Bastion of Unborn Souls on the Positive Energy Plane, planar adventures need a framework to be hung on.

I confess it's kind of one of those things that D&D hasn't really gotten spectacularly right. The closest they came was the 3e Manual of the Planes / Deities and Demigods, which actively promoted the idea of alternative cosmologies. But the former book was mostly taken up by the Great Wheel, and the later book was mostly taken up by (IMO) massively pointless god-stats. So the germ of a good idea got lost in the shuffle of what those books were mostly actually about.

But it should be one of those things that it's easy to get fairly straight. They don't need any universal basic assumptions. If your adventure requires you to go to some kind of Heaven and accomplish a mission, or to go to Orcus's lair in some sort of hellscape and kill him, that doesn't imply a whole cosmology. It just implies that, if you use the adventure, you need to use one kind of heaven or one kind of hellscape -- preferably one that suits the needs of your adventure first and foremost.

Maybe think of it this way: just because Greek myths speak of an underworld, and Norse myths speak of an underworld, and Mayan myths speak of an underworld, does not mean it has to be the same underworld. An adventure using Greek mythology might take you to a world ruled by Hades. An adventure using Mayan mythology is more like to take you to Xibalba. These are similar worlds, but they have key differences, and each one actually serves their home setting better than either one would if smashed together with the Norse underworld into one MEGA-UNDERWORLD.

D&D can be done the same way: Greyhawk has its own cosmology. Eberron has its own cosmology. Your game has its own cosmology. Maybe they all have a version of Orcus's lair -- maybe it's pretty much exactly the same. But in Greyhawk, it's in the Abyss and he's sitting in his demonic undead court. And in Eberron, it's Shavarath, and his undead court wages eternal war with the Demons against the other three factions there. And in my homebrew Norse setting, maybe it's in Hel and he is her consort. And by the way the adventure is written, the PC's just jump through a portal and wind up in Orcus's lair and now have to fight to survive -- that could take place on any of those planes.

What's potentially harmful is the idea that actually, no, there's only one place that Orcus's lair can be and it's the Abyss and now if you use this adventure, you have to use this entire cosmology, too. Hope Xibalba didn't add much to your game, because you're not supposed to use it with this adventure designed with the One True Way to do the planes.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What's potentially harmful is the idea that actually, no, there's only one place that Orcus's lair can be and it's the Abyss and now if you use this adventure, you have to use this entire cosmology, too. Hope Xibalba didn't add much to your game, because you're not supposed to use it with this adventure designed with the One True Way to do the planes.

And thus you make the fiction within the module match your planar cosmology for the world.

Which is EXACTLY the same as you would have had to do if Orcus' lair wasn't assigned anywhere. The module would describe Orcus' lair on its own, and you'd have to then add in all the stuff about your own cosmology to the adventure.

So you're doing the same work. You're layering your own cosmological fluff onto the adventure regardless. The only difference is that for all the players who don't have a cosmology set up... they have one given to them to use. Which is the entire point. And if that means some players have to take the extra fifteen minutes to cross out the word 'Abyss' each time it appears in the module... that's a small price to pay for giving the other 75% of players some easy-to-use default cosmology that they otherwise wouldn't have had.

 

[Alzrius]

And thus you make the fiction within the module match your planar cosmology for the world.

Which is EXACTLY the same as you would have had to do if Orcus' lair wasn't assigned anywhere. The module would describe Orcus' lair on its own, and you'd have to then add in all the stuff about your own cosmology to the adventure.

So you're doing the same work. You're layering your own cosmological fluff onto the adventure regardless. The only difference is that for all the players who don't have a cosmology set up... they have one given to them to use. Which is the entire point. And if that means some players have to take the extra fifteen minutes to cross out the word 'Abyss' each time it appears in the module... that's a small price to pay for giving the other 75% of players some easy-to-use default cosmology that they otherwise wouldn't have had.

This is precisely the point I was trying to make. A planar adventure with no particular setting requires everyone to do some work adapting it to their particular campaign, whereas one with a default setting only requires some people to adapt it to their non-default campaign.

 

[Ratskinner]

And thus you make the fiction within the module match your planar cosmology for the world.

Which is EXACTLY the same as you would have had to do if Orcus' lair wasn't assigned anywhere. The module would describe Orcus' lair on its own, and you'd have to then add in all the stuff about your own cosmology to the adventure.

So you're doing the same work. You're layering your own cosmological fluff onto the adventure regardless. The only difference is that for all the players who don't have a cosmology set up... they have one given to them to use. Which is the entire point. And if that means some players have to take the extra fifteen minutes to cross out the word 'Abyss' each time it appears in the module... that's a small price to pay for giving the other 75% of players some easy-to-use default cosmology that they otherwise wouldn't have had.

Nope.

When there is a default cosmology, players come expecting that. So its not just a matter of my re-writing a few bits. Its players who expected something else. So, if I want a custom cosmology or universe that eschews the default, I effectively have to produce a mini-setting book for the experienced players detailing the differences. Which makes it much harder to GM certain playstyles and puts a crap-ton of work for the DM. Not to mention the petty "fluff-lawyering" or griping that can happen if your group has high turnover. It may not seem like much, but it can grind the game to a halt and really lead to bent noses when somebody was really really relying on Orcus' lair being here with elements X, Y, and Z attached: "What!?! That's not what it said in 1001 Demon Princes and their Lairs! My whole strategy was based on X!" or "What!?! I've been developing my character for three levels based on Orcus existing!" Which is made epically worse when 1001 Demon Princes and their Lairs is actually the MM, DMG, or the PHB! The game gets to take a big timeout to explain your custom cosmology and hopefully to some retconning to assuage that player's feelings while the rest of the group plays a game of Magic.

Additionally, it is always (IME) easier to add fluff or even mechanics than it is to take away or re-fluff. Running games that didn't come with default setting taught me that. (Perhaps unfortunately, those experiences also served to highlight the issue.) If the spells/powers, monsters, and even character classes are written as dependent on that default cosmology, it becomes that much harder to extricate that cosmology from play. Which doesn't mean that the game can't have planar adventures or even Planescape, but those shouldn't be the default assumptions of all D&D everywhere.

Now, you (and many others) say "for all the players who don't have a cosmology set up... they have one given to them to use." I gotta ask: Why?!? Honestly, what purpose does it serve? The only time you (as the DM) need defined cosmology is if you plan to run an adventure or story that has it as a focal point. In which case, even the newbie DM has in mind how/what he wants to have in that campaign, because he's thinking about it already. If not, he's probably been attracted by the Planescape boxed set (or adventure path or whatever). And that's fine too. So long as that stuff stays there. If there is some kind of in-game crisis that one can organically stumble upon that relies on players knowing the relationships between Bytopia and the Elemental Chaos, I can't think of it. (Crises of that type which have been effectively written into the game by using a default cosmology don't count.) I, and presumably many other DMs, started running the game with little to no thought of cosmologies. I only tacked a very sketchy cosmology into my first world after the characters reached 8th or 9th level.

Basically, I just can't see any benefit to having a default cosmology permeate the rules. There are only problems that it can generate (even if small or peripheral problems). So why bother?

 

[Ratskinner]

This is precisely the point I was trying to make. A planar adventure with no particular setting requires everyone to do some work adapting it to their particular campaign, whereas one with a default setting only requires some people to adapt it to their non-default campaign.

Adventures written with less presumed context within a larger world are many many times easier (often trivial) to adapt to your personal campaign (kinda the point) than one that presumes extensive background of a larger campaign setting. (Imagine trying to take a Dark Sun adventure into the Realms.) Which is not to say that both types of adventures shouldn't exist.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

Now, you (and many others) say "for all the players who don't have a cosmology set up... they have one given to them to use." I gotta ask: Why?!? Honestly, what purpose does it serve? The only time you (as the DM) need defined cosmology is if you plan to run an adventure or story that has it as a focal point. In which case, even the newbie DM has in mind how/what he wants to have in that campaign, because he's thinking about it already. If not, he's probably been attracted by the Planescape boxed set (or adventure path or whatever). And that's fine too. So long as that stuff stays there. If there is some kind of in-game crisis that one can organically stumble upon that relies on players knowing the relationships between Bytopia and the Elemental Chaos, I can't think of it. (Crises of that type which have been effectively written into the game by using a default cosmology don't count.) I, and presumably many other DMs, started running the game with little to no thought of cosmologies. I only tacked a very sketchy cosmology into my first world after the characters reached 8th or 9th level.

Basically, I just can't see any benefit to having a default cosmology permeate the rules. There are only problems that it can generate (even if small or peripheral problems). So why bother?

For me, the primary reason to have a cosmology set up has nothing to do with setting up an adventure -- it's for the PCs to figure out what/how they can interact with/take advantage of the "stuff" in the game world. A strong secondary reason is to act as inspiration for situations and NPC plans/actions.

Are there nearby transition planes like the Ethereal that allow covert intelligence gathering? Do some effects (bodily functions, ageing, poison, curses, divination magicks, etc.) cease on some planes and can the campaign movers factor that into their plans ? How easy/hard are the planes to traverse? Are there specific dangers stories speak of for traveling away from this world? About how difficult is it to "break free" of the base plane? What known magic exists that deals with planar traversal?

A default cosmology grants the basics for these answers and has me consider consequences and implications for the game world that I then use to introduce and evolve situations. The use of a default cosmology also gives me one less area I need to brief players on for knowledge the characters would have since I can tell the players to RTFM (or at least limit the briefing to what changes I've made to the default).

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Nope.

When there is a default cosmology, players come expecting that. So its not just a matter of my re-writing a few bits. Its players who expected something else. So, if I want a custom cosmology or universe that eschews the default, I effectively have to produce a mini-setting book for the experienced players detailing the differences.

And without the default, everyone who wishes to use the planes/cosmology needs to produce a not-so-mini-setting book from scratch. Way more work for everyone instead of a few.

As for "fluff-lawyers", there's always the old addage: Don't play with d**ks. Bad players are no excuse for leaving a relevant portion of DMs with no structure off which to build or use whole cloth.