Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DMZ2112" data-source="post: 6156178" data-attributes="member: 78752">I actually have no bias on this point.  If D&D5 goes Planescape, I will love it, because it is Planescape.  If it goes Astral Sea, I will love it, because it is the Astral Sea.  The fact that Planescape was ham-handed about its incorporation of material from other D&D settings that wanted nothing to do with it is not bias, it's reality.  The Dark Sun material goes out of its way to cut the setting off from the then-established Great Wheel cosmology, and the Planescape material just keeps reeling it back in.That behavior is the source of most of the resentment the community feels toward Planescape and why the setting is so controversial today.  If they'd just left well enough alone maybe there wouldn't be such backlash today.That's not how I read it.  It's inarguable that the D&D4 cosmology destroyed more than it created, because of the sheer quantity of material published for Planescape, but to say that the cornerstone of D&D4 cosmology design was "invalidation" -- in your words -- really marginalizes the new content.The biggest example for me remains the divisions between the Ethereal and its coterminous planes and the Astral and its coterminous planes.  It has many consequences, but perhaps the most visible is spellcasting.  Playing a wizard or cleric in Planescape is a nightmare (admittedly, an entertaining nightmare for some), because there's this arbitrary (in my opinion) split between the two halves of the cosmology.  Ethereal spells don't work on the Outer Planes.  Astral spells don't work on the Inner Planes.  Elemental spells "work" on the Outer Planes (for some reason), but are /colored/ by the plane they're in.  Every Outer Plane has its own list of spell school effects.  Clerics lose an insane amount of power when traveling to the Inner Planes.  Powerful magic doesn't work, full stop, in the "center" of the Outlands.  And ALL of this can be hand-waved if your character is carrying the right "key."This entire system is incredibly thematic, which is great; unfortunately it is also monstrously and unnecessarily complicated.It's not necessarily a weakness, but -- again, in my opinion -- it means that there is nothing quintessentially **D&D** about Planescape.  A lot of AD&D2 settings had similar problems.  Dark Sun goes out of its way to throw out core D&D concepts.  Spelljammer, too.  Birthright is another good example.  In a lot of ways, the AD&D2 settings were about diversifying D&D, and that's not terrible, but I think it's a big part of what killed the brand.  I /like/ the idea of a universal D&D cosmology.  I /like/ the idea of an Athas with recognizable D&D races and class roles.  I like D&D as /D&D/.I honestly believe there is /strength/ there.I'm going to try to keep this brief because this post is already too long.  D&D has never handled elves well.  They're immortal, but they're not really.  They're accomplished woodsmen, but they're also powerful wizards.  They're fae, but they're also real.  Instead of embracing this dichotomy, every edition of D&D prior to 4th tried to solve the problem by introducing more subspecies of elf.  That's all the AD&D2 eladrin are -- super elves.  They're not just to elves what angels are to humans; they're strongly implied to be the same things elves are, just on the other side of whatever veil it is that separates PC elves from NPC elves.Now, I /liked/ AD&D2 eladrin.  I did.  They're some of my favorite extraplanar entities.  But the D&D4 solution of breaking the elf down into two parts -- its prime material mundane identity, and its extraplanar fae identity -- just /works/ for me.  Finally I see in the rules, on paper, the relationship between grey, high, and wood elves the way that I have always understood it in my mind.  The AD&D2 eladrin still exist in D&D4 -- but the division between them and their PC kin has been shattered.Anyway, that's it in a nutshell.  It's good metaphor for a lot of the design that went into D&D4: "we have two things that should be one."  See also succubus/erinyes for a situation where that logic failed them.I'm not having this argument with you, because OT shenanigans, but holy CRAP do I disagree.That's why I said, "By the same token."</blockquote>

Verification