Planescape, 4e, and the problem of worlds without history

[FourthBear]

Anyhow, it's not my intent to argue that it's simply too hard to change things back, but rather that they didn't need to be altered in the first place.

Obviously, nothing ever *needs* to be altered. The cosmology of 4e differs from the default of 1e-3e for pretty specific and reasonably transparent design goals.

1) Create a more open cosmology that allows for the easy addition of new planes and regions. This is the reason the Great Wheel was broken up: to eliminate a structure that led to a question for every new plane: where does this one go in the predefined alignment Wheel?

2) Eliminate the cosmological axes of alignment. No more explicit LG, CN or NE(chaotic tendencies) planes. This allows more easily for heterogenous planes. Many planes inspired by mythology (in fact, pretty much all of them) fit extremely poorly into the alignment grid. The various realms of the Norse, Greek and Egyptian gods, for example. Now Olympus can be a simple, single realm with a philosophically diverse population of gods, monsters and spirits without having to wonder why it's on a plane with the CG tag.

3) Addition of the Feywild and Shadowfell, as planes which roughly parallel the World, as featured in fantasy stories too numerous to mention.

4) To eliminate highly homogeneous elemental realms in preference to a mixed Elemental Chaos, allowing for both huge regions of "pure" elements as well as the mixed regions where most of the action of previous editions took place in practice.

Frankly, I believe that if the current cosmology had been presented back in 1e, the various past authors of D&D (both official and third party), would have created even more marvelous realms for campaigns and adventures.

 

[TwinBahamut]

As is change for the sake of change. My argument is that much of that tradition became both color and background, and thus was something other than the route application of past ideas.

However, a lot of both that tradition and the "color and background" of it was awful.

I have never liked a lot of the Planescape and Great Wheel concepts and ideals. There are countless things in there that were bad from the start, and holding on to them for tradition's sake doesn't change the fact that they can use improvement. It is not change for change's sake if you are changing something for the better.

I mean... the Blood War is contrived and pointless. The Great Wheel absolute order and symmetry lead to nothing but a huge excess of redundant and overly similar planes, as well as even more redundant and meaningless things like Yugoloths. We don't need a planar set-up with half a dozen variations on "the place where evil souls go". We needed half a dozen of variations of "where good/lawful/chaotic souls go" even less. The utter pointlessness of the Inner Planes was bad enough, but even hearing that things like the Para- and Quasi-Elemental planes even existed at some point is more depressing than I can bear. Don't even get me started on the boring stuff like the old Astral, Ethereal, or Deep Ethereal. The distinction between Evil Gods and Archdevils/Demon Princes is weak at best, and the entire concept behind the Lady of Pain is terrible beyond reckoning.

Now that I am probably done making every Planescape fan hate me, I think I may as well mention that I dislike the 4E Manual of the Planes in large part due to how it forces a lot of this old tradition and heritage back into a 4E cosmology that I was hoping would distance itself more from such old ideas (the other part I dislike is that a lot of the newer stuff isn't developed anywhere near as well as I would have liked). The changes they made, like redefining the nature of demons and devils somewhat, getting making the Succubus a Devil in order to match the new definitions, getting rid of the Great Wheel, and other such things, were all good steps towards cleaning up D&D's overly convoluted and messy cosmology and turning into something presentable and usable. However, the 4E MotP just ignores a lot of that and fits in older concepts straight back into the new cosmology like a square peg in a round hole.

Still, I really do like a lot of the elements of the 4E cosmology. Unlike the meaningless Inner Planes, the Elemental Chaos is very good. It embodies the idea of a primal sea of chaos that is seen in real-world myth and literature (it is practically taken straight from things like Greek creation myth and Milton's Paradise Lost), and embodies a true place filled with the "stuff of creation" rather than a stratified and sometimes limiting system of "pure elements", where anything that exists for more than a second has to fight to protect its right to continue existing. The Astral Sea is great for more reasons that I can list here. The Feywild and Shadowfell fill incredibly valuable roles that the Great Wheel never properly touched upon. The new cosmology isn't perfect, and the material that covers these places right now is far from adequate, but the changes in 4E are an important step forward.

Nothing is ever good enough that it can be left unchanged indefinitely, so we should constantly look to see how things should be improved.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm a huge PS fan, so let me try to tease out your actual points and see if they bug me, too, in 4e...

simplified core

Kinda. But simplified core is, overall, a positive thing. The didn't go too far with the planes, because you still have a field where everything can exist -- the 4e model is only a model, just as the Wheel was, as mentioned, only a model.

removed many of the particular rules associated with planar travel.

Positive thing. More fiddly rules means more annoying things I have to remember when I'm trying to run amazing plane-hopping adventures. It sacrificed some of the flavor, but there are other, more constructive ways to convey things like "Plane of Fire is Hot!"

there should be one great wheel to rule them all

Why? I have issues with 4e making there be one Cosmic Sandwich to rule them all. Every DM should have the tools to define their own cosmology -- WotC should not tell you where your gods live, it's not for them to decide.

The complex histories and ecologies of outerplanar beings served as the backdrop for some of D&D's most impressive features, such as the Blood War

I'll agree, but, dude, PS isn't a church, and you don't need to worship at the Shrine of Monte or anything.

Is there really a good reason for all of this amazing material to be either redacted or cut completely?

There's a few things they gain from that. Whether its worth it or not is kind of subjective.

Was trashing most of the multiverse (as it was constituted) worth it to "maximize playability"?

I honestly don't think they've trashed most of the multiverse. Seriously. Just 'cuz they don't have the pagecount to detail Bytopia (for instance) in the MotP doesn't mean it's not still hanging around somewhere, waiting to crop up when it would make sense to be used. I think they did a pretty good job in preserving (and even expanding on) most of the multiverse, actually.

I don't think significant chunks of lore should be dropped because they are measurably less convenient during play, especially when they form the backdrop of established creature ecologies

What was dropped that was inconvenient? Spell keys from 2e? "Plane of Forging" rules for magic weapons? These are all very good things to drop.

As a side note, why the hell is the succubus suddenly a baatezu?

To make demons and devils more distinct, so that when I'm fighting a devil, it is clearly a different experience from fighting a demon. Thematic. That said, alignments are very flexible. Make her CE and a tanar'ri if you want. 4e doesn't want that, but 4e and you have some different goals. That's fine. You can go your own way, and 4e can go its, and it'll be okay.

Still, I will no longer be able to purchase new gaming materials about the multiverse I had come to understand.

Tell ya what. Get yourself and 500 people who agree with you together. Then each of you gimmie $20. Within a year, I'll give all of you a 96 page pdf about the multiverse that you understand, brand new, referencing old stuff, all produced under the OGL, with new art, maybe up on Lulu so that you can print it/order it bound, and the most you'll hafta do is file some serial numbers off so I can dodge Wizard's IP Police.

I'd be happy to do this as many times as you and those 500 friends want to give me $20 apiece.

Heck, I might even do it for $10 apiece!

 

[Herremann the Wise]

However, a lot of both that tradition and the "color and background" of it was awful.

I mean... the Blood War is contrived and pointless. The Great Wheel absolute order and symmetry lead to nothing but a huge excess of redundant and overly similar planes, as well as even more redundant and meaningless things like Yugoloths.

I mean are you like trying to goad Shemeska onto this thread or what!? Damn it if that's not throwing the gauntlet straight into the face.

As for the OP, I'm really split on this one. I think it was time to try something new as good as Planescape was and is. If they had changed it to something different, I would have been screaming but I think WotC have done a good job on this one as FourthBear has carefully pointed out. Some of the changes are jarring for some of us, but on the whole the direction and style of the change was pretty good in my opinion.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[TwinBahamut]

I mean are you like trying to goad Shemeska onto this thread or what!? Damn it if that's not throwing the gauntlet straight into the face.

That wasn't really the intent, but I admit that I am somewhat prepared for the possibility, and the part of me that loves debates and discussions wouldn't mind the opportunity.

Hey, if Shemeska can be so passionate about defending the Great Wheel and Planescape, then I can be passionate about not liking it, right? Well, as long as we don't get personal about it, but that goes without saying...

 

[Hussar]

Herremann - I was thinking the same thing. Shemeska, Shemeska, Shem...urk!

I do want to focus on one line from the OP because, for me, it's the best argument I can come up with for the changes:

Was trashing most of the multiverse (as it was constituted) worth it to "maximize playability"?

In a word, absolutely. 100% yes. It was worth ejecting useless fluff that you couldn't use in game to inject useful fluff that can be used in actual adventures. Traveling to the "plane of fast burning death" is pointless. Either the PC's have the protective spells to counter it, making it pretty much just like the Prime, or the PC's don't and they die.

I'd much, much rather have the Elemental Chaos, where you have areas which are "fast burning death" but, the vast majority are areas where I can set an adventure.

I'm a huge, HUGE fan of the practical. If it isn't practical, I don't want it in the game.

 

[underthumb]

I mean... the Blood War is contrived and pointless. The Great Wheel absolute order and symmetry lead to nothing but a huge excess of redundant and overly similar planes, as well as even more redundant and meaningless things like Yugoloths.

I doubt I can convince you that Planescape is actually cool, but I do want to comment on a few of your criticisms.

I think your points about some design decisions being driven by symmetry are correct. I also agree with you that the blood war feels contrived. My argument, however, is that the actual implementation of these aspects of Planescape is significantly more than their one-line descriptors. For example, the blood war, while given a weak premise, was fleshed out to become a viable campaign setting unto itself. Its value was in its ultimate execution, not simply its initial premise. The same goes for planes built to satisfy a symmetrical alignment system. Reading the original Planescape boxed sets, it's hard not to be impressed with how expansive and interesting these places really were.

Note that this is very common in D&D. No one is impressed if you say that you wrote an adventure about a death cult that must be stopped by the PCs. The payoff is almost always in the details.

 

[DandD]

The only thing I like about the Planescape setting was the artwork in the 2nd edition for it. Wotc didn't use the Great Wheel anyway for its two best-selling campaigns, the Forgotten Realms and Eberron.

I am glad to know that we won't get to see the return of the Blood War, one of the most stupid things proving how eternally stupid the demons must be, for being incapable of conquering Baator with their limiltless numbers... I want demons to be a threat, not a cosmic joke everybody in the multiverse hearing about that gets to laugh at.

 

[Hussar]

The trick is, Underthumb, is when you start looking at those boxed sets and examine where they actually place the adventures. Sure, Elemental planes are really bad for you. But, they don't set adventures there usually. Sigil is basically just another fantasy city. You don't need any specific protections to wander around, you don't have weird gravity or non-Euclidean surfaces (by and large).

In other words, what sets Sigil apart from say, Waterdeep or Greyhawk, isn't the fact that it's a Planar City, but that because of its planar nature, you get to create adventures that you really couldn't create in Waterdeep or Greyhawk. That doesn't change with the new cosmology.

 

[underthumb]

I'd much, much rather have the Elemental Chaos, where you have areas which are "fast burning death" but, the vast majority are areas where I can set an adventure.

I'm a huge, HUGE fan of the practical. If it isn't practical, I don't want it in the game.

Here's a (half-serious) question: why should most campaign settings have a "sky" if most PC races cannot fly? After all, being in the sky means being in the place of "fast falling death". The same goes for the ocean, a place of "fast floating death".

I suspect that most answers to my above question would center on the idea that people find the ocean and the sky familiar, and we take it for granted that we'll need something extra to survive there. I suggest that it's just one small hop from that idea to the idea that the plane of fast burning death is no different. You'll need something special to survive there, just as you would underwater or in the sky.