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

[lin_fusan]

* That reminds me - someone (Gary Ray?) had a whole site dedicated to their Arborea campaign at Tales of the Bariaur. I'll have to dig around at archive.org and see if it still exists somewhere. That had some fascinating ideas. Update: Found it!

Hey! I played in that campaign! I thought it was a lot of fun until our group roster became unstable, and I had decided that my Mercykiller wouldn't be able to adventure due to belief differences.

My two coppers is that I am neutral about the new cosmology (which is good because I can mod, keep, or throw out whatever I like or don't like). Planescape to me is a setting with all of its own thematic assumptions, whereas cosmology is cosmology.

In all honesty, I've decided that a Planescape campaign might be better utilized with a different ruleset to reflect its design philosophy. For example, I've wanted to try and port over Dogs in the Vineyard's mechanics in a Planescape setting.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I suggest that this is the crux of the disagreement. The mental model being applied is one of implicit zero-sumness. You write that the inner planes took up space that could have been used by something else, something more fun to adventure in. But, as many have been quick to point out, the total amount of content devoted to the inner planes was much smaller than that devoted the outer planes. Further, as I stated, this didn't constitute a net loss in adventures, because the rest of the planes existed.

Someone beat me to saying this, but I may as well say it myself.

There is more than just "page space" (which is limited) and "adventure space" (which is indeed unlimited no matter what you do, since you can always adventure somewhere else if one place is bad), since there is also "conceptual space". This is a truly zero-sum realm, since creating too many things that fill the same conceptual space leads to redundancy, contradiction, and a general weakening of concept. The Elemental Chaos and the Inner Planes take up the same conceptual space, and are incompatible with each other. At the same time, one is superior to the other for a number of reasons (that you may or may not agree with, but are clear to me and many other people).

Also, while "adventure space" may indeed be infinite, the relative value of how much adventure you can get out of any given page count does have its own value, and in that case the Inner Planes are a total waste. Even if they have a small page count, that page-count is still vastly in excess of the usefulness of those planes.

As a note, I can use very similar arguments to describe why I don't a great many of the old Outer Planes. For example, most of the Outer Planes occupy the same conceptual space, even given the alignment wheel. Theoretically, the Great Wheel would work at its best with just eight or nine planes (one for each alignment), and could properly work just fine with as few as four (either one each for law, good, chaos, and evil, or one each for LG, LE, CG, and CE). If the Blood War is central to the Great Wheel, and the vast majority of evil outsiders are from either the Nine Hells or the Abyss, then why do the many other evil planes like Gehenna and Pandemonium even exist? If Celestia is the Lawful Good plane, and Mechanus is the Lawful plane, why do we need to have Bytopia sandwiched between them?

We didn't need to sweep away the inner planes, or turn up the volume on their coolness. Some things in the multiverse can just "be", like the Lady of Pain.

Actually, the Lady of Pain is one of those things that can severely alter a cosmology and the core assumptions of the game simply by existing. There is no way that she can just "be". I don't really want to get into the details, but the Lady of Pain is one of those elements of the Great Wheel and Planescape that leads to the "gods are just cosmic squatters" concept, in which the fundamental structure of the cosmos is presented as being more permanent and fundamental than the actual gods, who are often depicted as impotent and temporary with the greater cosmology and are certainly unable to effect real change upon the cosmology. This is one of my harshest criticisms and dislikes for the Great Wheel/Planescape cosmology, so I certainly won't let you say that you can just let it "be".

Nothing exists in a vacuum, so everything that exists has implications. Often, these implications are more important the the thing itself. This is particularly true for settings and cosmologies, in my opinion.

 

[Mokona]

The Great Wheel existed in my 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide.

Planescape didn't enter the scene until 1994! That's almost two decades later.

I think it's important to note that Planescape was written to take the Great Weel and finally make it interesting/work. Obviously Planescape succeeded to some extent at working around or with many of the problems of the Great Wheel. The Great Wheel led to the need for Planescape. If Planescape had come first (an admittedly odd thought) there is no reason that the Astral Sea & Elemental Chaos couldn't have been the cosmology created to support Planescape. As far as I can tell there isn't any conflict between different layouts of the planar structure and the core concepts of Planescape.

 

[underthumb]

Nothing exists in a vacuum, so everything that exists has implications

This seems to be the point of your post, and I never denied as much. You took my brief statement about letting something "be" and spun it out into an argument about whether something can exist in some conceptual space without affecting others things in that conceptual space, which is an incredibly detailed elaboration of a relatively brief statement. It was so elaborate, in fact, that I'm not quite sure why you didn't first seek clarification as to my meaning.

The way I see it, aspects of a cosmology can exist as justifications, building blocks, and leverage points for other aspects of the same cosmology, especially if your goal is to create a certain feel. The Lady of Pain, for instance, has little in the way of in-game influences, as her interactions with the PCs are supposed to be shallow. But her mere existence, as you point out, creates interesting effects. Similarly, the mere existence of the inner planes creates interesting effects. Letting something "be" is not tantamount to denying those effects, it is rather the willingness to embrace them.

Obviously, we differ as to what the full extent of all of these effects really are.

Separately, you note:

while "adventure space" may indeed be infinite, the relative value of how much adventure you can get out of any given page count does have its own value, and in that case the Inner Planes are a total waste. Even if they have a small page count, that page-count is still vastly in excess of the usefulness of those planes.

At some level, I think everyone agrees that these books are about generating cool places to adventure. The question is what tolerance you have for generating a "feel" or generating interesting and cool backgrounds that have no immediate utility. My tolerance is greater than yours, and my taste is clearly different as well.

 

[TwinBahamut]

This seems to be the point of your post, and I never denied as much. You took my brief statement about letting something "be" and spun it out into an argument about whether something can exist in some conceptual space without affecting others things in that conceptual space, which is an incredibly detailed elaboration of a relatively brief statement. It was so elaborate, in fact, that I'm not quite sure why you didn't first seek clarification as to my meaning.

Err, no. I didn't do that at all.

I had two points in that post. The first was a description of "conceptual space" meant to explain why it is impossible (or at least unsatisfying) to have both the Inner Planes and the Elemental Chaos in the same cosmology. I then expanded my use of the idea to explain one of my criticisms of the Great Wheel.

Only my second point was related to your offhand comment about letting something "be", and that point had nothing to do with "conceptual space".

I am fairly sure I understood your meaning quite well, really.

The way I see it, aspects of a cosmology can exist as justifications, building blocks, and leverage points for other aspects of the same cosmology, especially if your goal is to create a certain feel. The Lady of Pain, for instance, has little in the way of in-game influences, as her interactions with the PCs are supposed to be shallow. But her mere existence, as you point out, creates interesting effects. Similarly, the mere existence of the inner planes creates interesting effects. Letting something "be" is not tantamount to denying those effects, it is rather the willingness to embrace them.

Obviously, we differ as to what the full extent of all of these effects really are.

You misunderstood me. I was not denying that the Inner Planes and the Lady of Pain have effects upon the feel of a cosmology. My statements depended upon that assumption, actually. Rather, I was trying to make the claim that the Elemental Chaos has the exact same effect as the Inner Planes in this regard (and thus nothing is lost in the conversion, though there is a different feel, I admit), and I was claiming that I don't like the quite noticeable effect the Lady of Pain has upon the D&D cosmology. The Lady of Pain creates a certain "feel", but it is one I totally loathe (though I suppose it would be hard for me to persuade you about this part). I have no problem with something existing purely for the sake of flavor as long as it doesn't occupy the same conceptual space or page count of something that has both flavor and function, but I do have a problem with things that create a flavor I simply don't like.

At some level, I think everyone agrees that these books are about generating cool places to adventure. The question is what tolerance you have for generating a "feel" or generating interesting and cool backgrounds that have no immediate utility. My tolerance is greater than yours, and my taste is clearly different as well.

I think the difference really is more of a matter of taste than tolerance for things without utility. At the same time, I don't think that improving utility limits flavor, like you seem to. If something has flavor, there is no reason it can't also have utility, and vice-versa. Overall, there seems to be an inherent assumption in many of your posts and arguments that "Inner Planes = flavor but low utility, while Elemental Chaos = utility but low flavor", that I just don't agree with. For me, the Elemental Chaos has just as much flavor as the Inner Planes (though more to my taste), and also more utility.

 

[resistor]

Instead, I got treated to the 3E Manual of the Planes, which carried over all of the traditional concepts of Planescape, without whatever details you think redeems the setting/cosmology. After all, they didn't just reprint all of the old stuff and convert it. They held to the ideas of Planescape, like you are asking them to do again, but that is not the same thing as keeping Planescape alive. Ultimately, the only parts of Planescape that continue to persist past the 2E era are those "contrived one-line descriptors".

For what it's worth, it was leafing through the 3e Manual of the Planes in a Borders that convinced me to try this D&D thing. It was that awesomely cool. It wasn't until much, much later that I read a real Planescape book and discovered how much EVEN AWESOMER they are.

Just goes to show how much tastes can differ.

 

[avin]

As for why the Succubus is suddenly a baatezu, that was answered some time ago in the run up to 4th edition. Demons and Devils were too interchangeable for what they did. The off hand answer for which does what is now simpler. If you want a demonic chess master who has plans that take centuries to come about, who uses guile and corruption, you want a Devil. If you want a super natural force of destruction to appear and wreck up the place, sue a Demon.

The Succubus / Erinyes served the same role, so why waste the page space when one monster can fulfill the role just as well? The modeus operendi of both was to seduce and corrupt, so that made it a Devil. Succubus is the classic name for that kind of monster, so the Erinyes killed the Succubus, and took its stuff, and its name, leaving the demon version lying in a gutter bleeding to death.

Not 100% on topic but I particularly dislike motivations that fit a whole race.

See, we humans don't think the same way, disagree and act in different manners all the time.

Demons and Devils, in my games, are more *human* than in D&D, no matter what edition.

They are evil, check, but that doesn't mean they have a racial purpose, this is just silly in my opinion... they fight the blood war the same way a soldier is sent to a battle he doesn't understand and sometimes doesn't even want to fight

 

[glass]

Read some more threads talking about Planescape or core cosmology campaigns. No one throws the wrongbadfun vibe around more strongly than certain members of the First Church of Sigil.

Care to provide some links to back up your allegations?

Actually, don't bother. Even if you can cite a few instances, the fact that I have never seen it despite 6 years and over 3000 posts here puts a lie to the assertion that it is "every time".


glass.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Actually, don't bother. Even if you can cite a few instances, the fact that I have never seen it despite 6 years and over 3000 posts here puts a lie to the assertion that it is "every time".

Please do not accuse me of lying, especially when I never said the phrase you're accusing me of using in my alleged lie. (If nothing else, it makes it hard to argue your bonafides when it comes to six years of reading comprehension.)

In a thread where I've repeatedly defended Planescape fans' rights to keep on with their preferred version of the planes -- and recommended it, for fans who don't like the 4E cosmology -- and said that most fans are perfectly cool about people going their own way, I wrote the following in response to Underthumb, who said that he didn't believe the old structure was a big issue for anyone.

Well before 4E was announced, many times someone would write about their campaign that involved the planes, the Planescape militia here would crop up to explain what five PDFs they needed to buy immediately to get it right and how their stated campaign planes did not properly mesh with lore.

"Many." Not "every." And the point there was that there was a lot of material to new DMs to get their arms around. Wikipedia lists 30 2E Planescape products, not including stuff that doesn't appear like it was ever released, novels, the trading cards and the videogame. (I've never seen any Planescape fans cite any of that as canon, which certainly differentiates them from many Forgotten Realms fans.)

I don't think it's terribly controversial to suggest that some people might be intimidated by that, especially when they're just putting a cautious toe into Oceanus for the first time.

Now, when it comes to my assertion that there are certain Planescape fans who throw out the "wrongbadfun" vibe, if you haven't seen it, great. But I've certainly seen it and felt it. The Fiendish Codex discussion threads at times got incredibly shrill, with the idea that deviation from even the more obscure bits of Planescape canon was a slap in the face of fandom by WotC.

 

[avin]

(to be read in a light heart mode)

Great, now there's:

1. Edition Wars
2. Planar Wars