D&D 5E (2014) L&L 1/7/2013 The Many Worlds of D&D

[JeffB]

I guess it is more profitable to brand THE GREAT WHEEL (tm).

I have been seeing this throughout NEXT,.especially in the Monster columns. They are trying hard to define D&D in terms of story and lore...and for me it is a huge turn-off.

 

[Alzrius]

I would rather Ravenloft be a region in the Shadowfell than vice-versa. Ravenloft is its own unique world, much like Greyhawk or FR. And it's a big prison. Not one where anyone other than occasional PCs should be jaunting in and out.

There's also the issue that Ravenloft is just over four hundred years old, in terms of its in-game history (the whole "temporal fugue" thing with Arak/The Shadow Rift notwithstanding), which makes it a very young plane, in contrast with its standardized position in the presumably-much-older planar structure.

 

[1of3]

I don't like it. I don't see the need for a geometry or structure of planes. Plane is to me "interesting place, get there via portal". I don't need inner or outer planes, planes adjacent to one another or anything like that.

 

[Warbringer]

Edit: Though Mearls is a heathen for using the term "ring" in reference to the Inner Planes, since (as Monte Cook tells us in The Inner Planes) they're more of a sphere.

Technically, they're an n-sphere I guess

 

[gyor]

"When it comes to the outer planes, we're treating Planescapeas our default assumption. It's a much-beloved setting and one that's fairly easy (by design) to integrate into existing campaigns. That means the return of the Great Wheel, the Blood War, and other classic elements of the D&D cosmos. The same process for the inner planes applies to the outer planes, with our intent to add elements to the cosmos to increase storytelling opportunities and make the Wheel as flexible as possible for different settings and different DMs."

I'm curious what they'll be adding to the outer plannes. The difference between the great wheels outer planes and the Astral Sea was no where near as different from each other as other parts the two cosmologies, really not much more then orginization.

I'm also curious if the Forgotten Realns planes and the like will be orginized into the great wheel some how.

Maybe the Astral Sea will be a location within the transitive Astral Plane. The Astral Sea or Seas will be dotted with Divine Dominions, Demiplanes, Dead Gods, and assorted other stuff, including the remains of the living gate and the boarder plane to the far realms.

Then on top of the Astral Plane would be the Outer Planes of the Great Wheel. Dieties could decide to have thier domains in the Outer Planes or in the Astral Seas depending on setting and preference, and there could even be portal between the two regions. Heck border planes to the outer planes could exist drifting in the Astral sea.

Maybe the Astral Sea\plane


Also I agree about reversing the shadowfell and Ravenloft, it makes more sense.

 

[Warbringer]

Biggest news in this for me was "Azer are iconic" ... who knew

 

[Leatherhead]

I really do not understand why WOTC (and post Gary TSR) feel the need to have a very detailed default cosmology as core and published settings must conform. AFAIC, Each campaign setting should have its own,.and be detailed in the respective setting book.

Well, when you buy the Forgotten Realms setting, its given that you are going to be playing on Faerûn. The newer setting books don't give more than a few paragraphs on any plane, because you aren't really going to be using them other than as a fluff piece:
"The sages at the wizard college say there is a plane out somewhere, beyond where mortals can travel, called Bumblefelldale that influences how strong fireballs are."
"Whatever, can we go get that pie from the orc near Shadowdale now?"

Calling the depictions in the setting books "detailed" is rather generous. By having all the external planes wrapped up in some other book, they can save even that minimal amount of space for more relevant information. And from a potential new DM standpoint, the idea of a combined meta setting allows people to more easily incorporate any of the setting books they could buy into their campaigns.

 

[Dausuul]

But I'm a little bewildered that they didn't go with a more inclusive, modular idea: here's a BUNCH of planes for your game, weave them in and out as yous see fit, include or exclude or roll together planes that work for you or whatever.

This. Exactly. 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. Great Wheel is one option, World Axis is another, Eberron's system of "orbiting" planes is a third.

This solution allows fans of both the Great Wheel and the World Axis to get full value out of the Manual of the Planes; it allows people like me to easily incorporate planar material in our homebrew cosmologies; and it gives the Wizards design team a chance to exercise their creativity and design whole new cosmologies without being hindered by pre-existing lore. Seems like a win all around, much better than trying to create One Cosmology to Rule Them All.

(And I really don't like the idea of using Ravenloft as the negative-energy border plane. Ravenloft is both too limited in scope and too specialized in character for that. It should remain a distinct entity; I can see the argument for making it a location in the Shadowfell, but I'd rather have it be a "pocket plane," hanging off the side of the main cosmology. It could even serve as a model for other such pocket planes.)

 

[Morrus]

Heck, Ravenloft doesn't even have to be a plane. Just make it a collection of horror themed places, like Transylvania is depicted in Stoker. I'm not sure the whole mists thing really adds to it for me.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I'll just repost what I posted in the comments:

I certainly in support of Planescape as the default assumption of the D&D Next cosmology. The Great Wheel was a very flexible cosmology, and even in Planescape which assumed a bunch of truths on many topics, also brought up many mysteries and uncertainties on other subjects. And philosophically in terms of Planescape itself, one could simply say that the Great Wheel is a theory on how the multiverse is mapped, one of many theories, but the most popular and most proven theory.

I'm actually alright about the concept of border elemental planes, but I feel there needs to be something to conceptually distinguish the Elemental Chaos from the Outer Plane of Limbo which 4e tried to throw in a blender with other places. Feywild was an element of 4e I liked, but I'm skeptical making Ravenloft the border between Negative Energy and many Prime Material worlds. I know a lot of reconceptializing to Ravenloft which to me is a demiplane with a continent containing Barovia, Darkon, Falkovnia and other places surrounded by "the mists". Simply put, it might be better to use Shadowfell as the border concept instead.

On the subject of Spelljammer I never liked how they tried too hard to fit the other campaign settings in, they got as far as FR, GH and DL, and every other setting they came up with excuses for why it doesn't fit. Things like the campaign homebase the Rock of Bral which I always insisted existed in it's own sphere independent of the other settings. Spelljammer I felt was at it's best when it was more about strange worlds and ancient spacefaring civilizations.