Mercurius
Legend
I want to emphasize one aspect of the Grubbian Amendment. It essentially states that every DM has their own Prime Material Plane, which means that every DM can decide what is in the "true" PMP. The Gygaxian model implies that your world is within my PMP, because all alternate realities are part of the multiverse.
No offense, but what if I don't want that? What if you have wombats as a race in your world and I think that's silly? (Though I love wombats). What if I, as the DM, want to exercise my creative control over my creation? Of course this was always the case, but the Grubb Amendment just codified it.
Now did this slight shift impact the product line? Who knows, but I don't think so. Or rather, it is correlative, not causative. The examples of "weird alternate realities" that you cited are Gygaxian settings, or at least part of the Gygaxian ethos. The reason we didn't see more of that sort of thing after Grubb is not because of Grubb's Amendment, but because Gygax was banished from the realm. Note:
1986: Gygax leaves TSR
1987: Manual of the Planes; Forgotten Realms gray box
1989: AD&D 2E; Spelljammer
1990-97: Hollow World, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Birthright, Council of Wyrms, Planescape, Jakandor, Greyhawk: From the Ashes
What followed after Gygax left was an explosion of (non-Gygaxian) worlds, as well as a shift away from Gygaxian fantasy as the default assumption (for better or worse). What I see your real issue being is just that: D&D became further de-centralized from Gygaxian fantasy (and this really started in 1984, with Dragonlance).
So again, correlation, not causation.
No offense, but what if I don't want that? What if you have wombats as a race in your world and I think that's silly? (Though I love wombats). What if I, as the DM, want to exercise my creative control over my creation? Of course this was always the case, but the Grubb Amendment just codified it.
Now did this slight shift impact the product line? Who knows, but I don't think so. Or rather, it is correlative, not causative. The examples of "weird alternate realities" that you cited are Gygaxian settings, or at least part of the Gygaxian ethos. The reason we didn't see more of that sort of thing after Grubb is not because of Grubb's Amendment, but because Gygax was banished from the realm. Note:
1986: Gygax leaves TSR
1987: Manual of the Planes; Forgotten Realms gray box
1989: AD&D 2E; Spelljammer
1990-97: Hollow World, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim, Birthright, Council of Wyrms, Planescape, Jakandor, Greyhawk: From the Ashes
What followed after Gygax left was an explosion of (non-Gygaxian) worlds, as well as a shift away from Gygaxian fantasy as the default assumption (for better or worse). What I see your real issue being is just that: D&D became further de-centralized from Gygaxian fantasy (and this really started in 1984, with Dragonlance).
So again, correlation, not causation.
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