D&D 5E L&L 1/7/2013 The Many Worlds of D&D

[Hussar]

I don't think that's very true. While 4e did and 3e did, 2e sort of did (The Prime Material world your games existed in wasn't very strictly defined, but it was clearly part of the greater planar structure), 1e only kind of did (if you consider things like assassin's guilds and druid circles to be world-specific), and OD&D pretty much purely didn't (the original boxed set references setting games on Mars/Barsoom and keeps monsters and PC's very generic, mechanically). And 3e's touch was light -- there were some Greyhawk proper nouns, but nothing very funcitonally "Greyhawk," and 3e was the only e so far to include alternate cosmologies and planar structures.

I think it's deeper than that. I notice you ignore Basic/Expert which did, very much, have a default setting. 1e was more than just some bits like assassins guilds and druid circles. For one, you had racial relations charts. You had the racial class/level limitations which were directly tied to the setting. You had all sorts of proper nouns. Every class was tied to a very strong archetype - beyond druids and assassins, you had rangers who HAD to be wanderers (couldn't own anything you couldn't put on a horse), you had thieves guilds and followers for various classes. You had the entire magic item section (which was a pretty heavy duty section of the DMG) which was 100% tied to Greyhawk - Hand or Eye of Vecna anyone? You had the demon lords - all straight from Greyhawk. On and on and on. 1e was extremely heavily tied to Greyhawk.

2e was about the only system like you are talking about where you kinda, sorta had a default setting, but more just examples. The kits were not really tied to anything. Very little was tied to any specific setting unless it was, well, from that setting.

3e was tied very strongly to Greyhawk again. Look at the modules. The magic system and the magic items. Lots and lots of proper nouns. The entire game was based on default settings. Wealth by level and Challenge Rating informed every aspect of world design and monster design. Those might not have been Greyhawk specific, but, it certainly gave 3e a very strong base setting. Deviate from those base assumptions and 3e has all sorts of issues. On and on.

4e obviously had a pretty strong base setting as well.

OD&D, I honestly don't know, so I cannot comment. But, AFAIK, every D&D version, save 2e, was pretty strongly tied to a default setting.

 

[Li Shenron]

No argument here. But they've said there is/will be a default...so there it is. To argue they shouldn't have one when they've already said they will is...well...pointless.

They have also said there won't be a default setting, and that Forgotten Realms (the cosmology of which is very different from the Great Wheel) will be the default setting, at different times.

At least some past editions of D&D did not have a default setting, and did not have significant problems because of that.

Anyway, the cosmology will most likely not be in the core books, only a mention to a few specific planes (especially transitive planes) will be there because of some spells and creatures, but the whole planes arrangement will hardly be presented in the core, like it wasn't in 3ed. This is material for a Manual of The Planes supplement, and what you get in supplements does not exactly set a "default".

 

[Li Shenron]

One thing I liked about Planescape was the impossibility of some of it. For example, each elemental plane was infinite, yet had borders with the other elemental planes. Why not say that each elemental plane is infinite, has borders, AND floats in the Elemental Chaos? Don't bother trying to define these regions "geographically" (cosmographically?), just let the impossible exist without worrying too much about it.

I told my players once, that if you can draw it or sketch it, or that if you can even picture it in 3D in your mind, then it's not another plane

 

[pemerton]

I'm also not convinced that this layout is really that useful for any purpose. What does a "border fire plane" do that a ring of volcanoes on the Prime can't do? Why can't the Prime have Basalt towers and Azers hanging out there?

There's also going to be a lot of doubling-up. 4e's Elemental Chaos was essentially Limbo, so it had Githzerai and Slaadi. It was also next to the Abyss, so we had elemental demons running around. So now we have Githzerai and Slaadi on the Elemental Chaos, and on Limbo on the outer planes, essentially doing the same thing in both places? And we have the Court of Stars in Arborea and the Court of Seasons on the Feywild? Shadowfell and Ravenloft and Border Negative Energy and also the Grey Waste?

when the books talk about extraplanar things, they don't have to be very specific. Okay, maybe the Demons are from Hell, but is this the Nine Hells a la Planescape, or Hell a la Christian mythology or Hel like Old Norse myths or Xibalba a la the Mayans or maybe Naraka from certain flavors of Buddhism. Maybe it's Hell as envisioned by comic books, or Hell like the Baha'i faith describes in which case, devils might just be creatures that were spiritually far from god -- humans, just twisted. Which one is it? Doesn't matter. It could be any of them. It could be ALL of them. It could be some of them and not others.

There are a lot of bits and pieces in D&D's planar lore that I quite like and would love to use. But I don't want to import the entire gargantuan edifice of Planescape just so I can have an adventure which involves Tartarus/Carceri. I would rather have each plane presented as its own thing, discrete from all others, and then we can have a chapter presenting cosmology options to hook them all together.

I tend to agree with these comments - in a "unification" edition it makes sense to present well-known planes in a self-contained fashion (The Hells, the Celestial Heavens, The Abyss, etc) and then assume that different settings/cosmologies/GMs will put them together for themselves.

4e had the barest gesture to this in its Great Wheel sidebar of the MotP, which explained how to recombine the 4e cosmological elements into a Planescape-y configuration. More of that sort of thing would be good.

I haven't seen any evidence that the existence of a "default" setting helps the game in any way. (There are games where it does, but I don't think D&D is one of them.)

a default setting dramatically lowers the bar for new entry into the game. If you have to build a world before you can play D&D, you've just turned off a whole lot of new players who simply don't have the time/energy/inclination to world build. There really are players out there who just want to sit down and play.

D&D should not come with a "Some assembly required" tag. You should be able to open the books, read the books and start playing. You should not have to invest dozens of hours developing a world before you can start play. Having a default setting gives you enough of a framework that you can jump right in.

I have quite a bit of sympathy for Hussar's point here, but a default setting doesn't require a default cosmology, given that the whole conceit of D&D is that you start at 1st level bound to the mortal world and only move into other realms once you have a few levels under your belt.

The idea that the game includes Hell(s), The Abyss, a Plane of Chaos, etc is enought default to kick things off, I think. Ie the game is helped by individual planer components, but doesn't need a default cosmological arrangement of them.

The issue of how much cosmological backstory there should be is trickier (and you can do this without metaphysical geography). 4e has a lot, and incorporates it fairly heavily into PC building, but is the only edition of D&D to do this, I think. For me that is core to the play of 4e (it takes it in a Glrorathan direction). Obviously many others didn't/don't like it. It seems to me fairly clear that D&Dnext won't have this.

I also think that linking all the worlds in some grand D&D metaverse isn't really that great a thing (either for Planescape or Spelljammer).

This I competely agree with. Metaversing just dilues the -verses. (And you can see that even in this thread, where we see non-Dark Sun products being held up as canonical from within the Dark Sun perspective itself. If someone wants to write a Ravenloft module with a Dark Sun element in it, fine, but that shouldn't create any default assumption that adventurers in Athas are only a mist (sandstorm?) away from a world of Gothic horror.)


Also, on border planes: I don't get them. If planes A and C need a border plane, B, then why isn't there a border plane between A and B, and B and C, and so on ad infinitum? Conversely, if planes can border one another without giving rise to an infitine regress of border planes, why do we need such comparatively lame planes as Dust, Salt, Ash, Mud, Smoke, Radiance, Minerals, and Steam? (Dust, Mud and Minerals all look to me like just parts of elemental Earth; Smoke and Ash like parts of Fire; Salt and Steam like parts of Water; and Radiance like part of the Positivei Material Plane.)

Lighting, Ice, Magma and Vacuum are more interesting, but Magma can still be part of Fire, and Vacuum part of the Astral or simply deep space. Lightning and Ice should be their own planes, given the preponderance of lightning and cold effects in D&D magic from the very beginning.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think it's deeper than that. I notice you ignore Basic/Expert which did, very much, have a default setting.

Possibly. I'm not very familiar with BEMCI. However, I think you're using the words "default setting" a little differently differently from me. Magic systems, race charts, wealth-by-level limits, challenge ratings, and race/level limitations don't seem very strongly linked to a specific setting. These are all mechanical elements for the game itself, not about a specific world -- defaults, but not about the setting. Modules, as extra things, don't strike me as very "default" -- setting material, but not an assumed part of the game for everyone.

My point there stands, though: that the history of a "default setting" (as I'm using the term) is pretty muddy.

And at any rate, the big idea there is that I think the books should provide compete examples without assumptions of use. When D&D has used a default setting (as I understand the term), it has sucked. 2e assuming everyone used the Great Wheel and Spelljammer, 4e assuming everyone used the World Axis, and even 1e assuming that all druids needed to fight other druids to gain levels and that fighters could make castles....great ideas, great examples, not great assumptions, not great defaults.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Isn't the big issue here not that there is a "default" cosmology per second (in other words, one cosmology that gets defined/described in the first DMG) but rather the idea that every campaign setting they create will use this first one?

Seems to me, if WotC was to just say that the adjusted Wheel will be described in the DMG to be available for new and unconcerned players, but that individual settings will describe their own (and players who make their own settings can rearrange to their hearts content), that solves the problem?

Because let's be honest, I suspect not enough players care or use the planes to warrant giving over large chunks of the DMG to illustrating MANY different options. That's a poor use of word count for that book. And besides, do experienced players that create their own settings (with their own cosmologies) really need it explicitly spelled out that they can repurpose the info in the DMG for their own uses? Hasn't that always been a given? We don't need to treat these players like they're stupid and can't figure it out.

 

[MarkB]

Isn't the big issue here not that there is a "default" cosmology per second (in other words, one cosmology that gets defined/described in the first DMG) but rather the idea that every campaign setting they create will use this first one?

Seems to me, if WotC was to just say that the adjusted Wheel will be described in the DMG to be available for new and unconcerned players, but that individual settings will describe their own (and players who make their own settings can rearrange to their hearts content), that solves the problem?

That's certainly the direction I'd favour. I see little useful purpose, from the players' perspective, in tying all settings together by default. Let each stand on its own and use its own take on planar cosmology (including, dare I say it, the possibility of some settings not using any of this planar weirdness at all), unless there is a good world-building reason to tie in with another setting.

 

[Alzrius]

They have also said there won't be a default setting, and that Forgotten Realms (the cosmology of which is very different from the Great Wheel) will be the default setting, at different times.

Fun fact, when Ed Greenwood decided to use the Forgotten Realms in conjunction with AD&D (prior to which it was just fiction that he was writing), he deliberately set it in the "Great Wheel" cosmology of First Edition. The departure from that in subsequent editions is therefore somewhat ironic in that it's less true to the original vision for the setting.

 

[the Jester]

...You had the entire magic item section (which was a pretty heavy duty section of the DMG) which was 100% tied to Greyhawk - Hand or Eye of Vecna anyone? You had the demon lords - all straight from Greyhawk. On and on and on.

Wait, what, now? All the DMG magic items were tied to Greyhawk? How so? How are robes of the archmagi, bracers of defense, rings of invisibility, potions of flying, frost brand swords, plate mail of etherealness, wands of fire, rods of absorption, figurines of wondrous power, tridents of fish command or any of the 95%+ of magic items without proper nouns GH-specific (or even tied in)?

And calling the demon princes "straight from Greyhawk" is kinda weird, unless you mean that their original appearance was in the little GH supplement back in the day. There's nothing Greyhawk-specific about Demogorgon, Orcus or Juiblex, AFAIK.

While you can make a strong case that the artifacts and relics, and a few "named" items (e.g. Murlynd's spoon, which actually doesn't appear until UA anyhow) are tied to GH, I think your statement contains more than a little hyperbole.

 

[Ratskinner]

On the topic of a default setting:

Well, for one, you've certainly got tradition in there. Other than 2e, every edition of D&D has had a default setting. D&D has always had one, so, for 5e not to have one would be a bit odd considering their stated design goals.

Secondly, a default setting dramatically lowers the bar for new entry into the game. If you have to build a world before you can play D&D, you've just turned off a whole lot of new players who simply don't have the time/energy/inclination to world build. There really are players out there who just want to sit down and play.

D&D should not come with a "Some assembly required" tag. You should be able to open the books, read the books and start playing. You should not have to invest dozens of hours developing a world before you can start play. Having a default setting gives you enough of a framework that you can jump right in.

I generally think this isn't true for two reasons:
(a) a strong setting can be as much of a turn-off as it is a time-saver. That is, if a person came to 4e and really didn't like the cosmology, that's a problem for them. There's plenty of games that I never played because I didn't like the setting.
(b) I don't think new DMs need an entire cosmology, or even a default "world" to get playing. (to some extent this gets into "what do we mean by setting" territory.) Certainly, the idea that planes X, Y, and Z interact or are connected inmanner A is unlikely to matter to the traditional "start at level 1" campaign. IME, the best way to build a campaign for new DMs is to simply start with a small adventure near a small town and build from there. Let all the grandiose cosmic things build up rather than trickle down.

And, considering the amount of love that D&D lore gets, I'm not sure how you can argue that there should be no default setting. After all, without a default setting, many of the creatures in D&D are left pretty much out in the cold. What's a slaad (not to dredge up that can of worms) without Limbo or any connection to the outer planes? What's a modron? What's any outer planar creature without some sort of default cosmology? Heck, without a default setting, what's an elf? or a dwarf? Or some of the less mythical style creatures like orc or dragonborn?

Sure, you can pass it off onto the DM and just tell him to build his own. But, again, that's dumping a heck of a lot of work onto the DM with the assumption that any DM who wants to DM also wants to world build.

Again, you don't need an entire world to get playing. On what world is Keep on the Borderlands set? AFAICT its on about 10 million different worlds where different games and campaigns got started. Many of those worlds probably don't have anything defined about them except the Keep and its environs.

Now, I know that works for some playstyles, and doesn't for others (sandbox?). However, I'm also pretty sure that any newbie DMs or groups who feel the need to play in those styles will discover it rather quickly. At least IME, writing those worlds is half the fun for the DM.

As for the lore, that's great stuff for us old-timers to sit around and chew the fat about, but I don't see it as a selling point for the game.