Planescape was Handholding. Forked from Plane Next Door/

[Inez Hull]

No sentient being could actually be a solipsist. It wouldn't work for five seconds. It's a philosophical term intended to represent a position to be argued against, not actually held by a real being.

I hate it when that ultra-rational component of my consciousness stirs the pot - quiten down mind!

 

[doctorhook]

As opposed to the organic non-artifice of planes based off of platonic element combinations symmetrically repeated to utter bordeom, or the same for alignments? I'd say from my veiwpoint 4e's design choices are WAY less artificial than 1-3e's neat boxes.

Basically, I agree with you; I find 4E's "world axis" cosmology much more interesting and organic than the Great Wheel. Honestly, at time I found the symmetry sickening -- it's not the least bit unpredictable.

That said, the Great Wheel had lots of great places to include in your game. The problem was that it also had a heck of a lot of places to include in your game that weren't even remotely interesting, but which had to be there in order to keep your "wheel" from collapsing due to its missing spokes. Personally, I also dispute the notion that 4E's cosmology is based exclusively around places to adventure; that's a misunderstanding of what the devs meant. IMHO, what was meant was that the 4E cosmology is like the wilderness: full of interesting places just around every corner, rather than nearly homogenous infinite landscapes. To me, the difference between the World Axis cosmology and the Great Wheel cosmology is like comparing a colour wheel to a painting:

Great Wheel:

VS.
​

4E's World Axis cosmology:

 

[Gunpowder]

Not everything in the game is designed for the PCs and should be easy on them.

Except it was painfully easy on the PCs. They just had "You must have these spells cast to enter" signs. and if you didn't you died. Real easy.

Also the ability to put plot hooks in other planes is supposed to be a good thing. A trip to the feywild means negotiating with nobles of the Summer Court while trying to avoid the enmity of the Winter Court. What happens in the Plane of Vacuum? other than sucking? (I am curious though, what was the in-game reason for that plane to exist in the first place? Making sure straws worked?)

Lastly, I rather see planes based on mythology and other works of fiction than being orginial and being based on one of the worst systems in D&D (alignment)

 

[Barastrondo]

There's a big difference as I see it between the Great Wheel and the 4e default cosmology: a cosmology focused around in-game elements of that universe such as metaphysical alignments, versus a cosmology designed from a metagame notion of 'the planes must be places to adventure in and if they can't be adventured in, they have no reason to exist'. One cosmology is centered around in-game concepts, the other around a set of precepts that don't have anything to do with the in-game universe.

I can't help but think, though, that metaphysical alignments were also included out of metagame conceits. Now, I wasn't there for the genesis of it all, but most early wargames and video games that swirled around the concept of alignment treated it as "who you can ally with." Play an evil army if you want orcs and trolls, because you can't have them in a good-aligned army. I mean, I'm pretty sure that's why it was called "alignment" in the first place rather than something like "morality" or "ethics", much less why it became a game term — it was a metagame question of who or what you could ally with, rather than an organic need for a personal morality system. Alignment languages seem more like "how the entire army communicates" handwaves than a natural outgrowth of picking between law and chaos, good and evil.

Maybe it's on account of my game design experience (I think it was Gaiman who talked about how if you do enough writing it's really hard to just let go and read something without analyzing its craft), but I look at the way alignment developed in D&D and I can't help but see a metagame decision behind it. It's not the same "It should be something easy to get players kicking around in" decision, but it reflects metagame decisions of the time.

I'm pretty fond of the 4e cosmology; the Elemental Chaos isn't my ideal of elemental concepts, but damn if it isn't neat that it takes the old Greek myth of the earth forming out of Chaos and says "And you can go there." Of course, parts of it feel awfully familiar — I'm constantly tempted to call the Feywild the "Penumbra" — so there is some small chance of bias.

 

[Shemeska]

(I am curious though, what was the in-game reason for that plane to exist in the first place?

It was the metaphysical border between elemental air and the negative energy plane. It was the swirling current above a bottomless drain leading to physical oblivion. Individuals gathered there who were interested in solitude, utter seclusion, without the antithetical hostility of negative energy proper. The Doomguard had one of their four citadels located here, perched on the edge of oblivion, like monks in the wilderness contemplating the face of God.

It was also filled with mortal souls slowly being sucked towards negative energy, like stars caught in the pull of a black hole. Things abandoned and purposefully forgotten were simply dumped there, including an Abyssal fungus called Egarus that somehow, paradoxically managed to adapt to the plane, and literally subsisted through devouring the manifest concept of nothingness, and it reacted violently to anything that actually possessed physical form, clumping to it and dissolving it.

And then there was the undead... thing... known simply as Sun Sing. It might have been an incredibly powerful demilich, or an exiled archfiend, or a god of nothingness, or something worse. Nobody really knows. But it wasn't pleasant.

I've used the plane a few times, the one major time involving the Doomguard citadel there. I contemplated using Sun Sing in some capacity, but the plot never developed in that direction, so the idea was never fully developed.

I've used an inordinate number of crazy hostile planes in my campaigns (negative energy, positive energy, radiance, ash, dust, etc).

 

[Kunimatyu]

says cool stuff about the plane of vaccuum

And that sounds totally sweet. I don't see why it couldn't be a location in the Shadowfell, though.

I think 4e's planes get too much of a bad rap - they contain basically all the same actual locations(city of brass, etc) as the Great Wheel did (possible exception: deep ethereal?), even if the planes themselves aren't quite as divided.

In some ways, the new planes are actually *more* Moorcockian - the Astral Sea is basically "The Sailor on the Seas of Fate".

I will concede that the current Manual of Planes doesn't have as much of this stuff as it could, but there's still plenty of time yet.

(and Shem -- REALLY tempted on your new planes book! )

 

[nightwyrm]

Really, there is very little stuff from the old cosmology that you can't somehow insert into this new one. The only major difference is that the outer planes aren't fixed on a giant alignment pizza anymore so you can't walk from the Abyss to Carceri to Hades etc. all the way to Hell. Let's face it, without the 9 point alignment system, there would be no reason for the planes to be arranged the way it was.

As a DM I find the new cosmology to be easier to work with. If I wanted to insert a new outer plane of my own creation, I just plop it onto the Astral Sea or the Elemental Chaos. No need to figure out how to slot it into the too well-defined planar arrangement of the Great Wheel.

 

[doctorhook]

I'm pretty fond of the 4e cosmology; the Elemental Chaos isn't my ideal of elemental concepts, but damn if it isn't neat that it takes the old Greek myth of the earth forming out of Chaos and says "And you can go there." Of course, parts of it feel awfully familiar — I'm constantly tempted to call the Feywild the "Penumbra" — so there is some small chance of bias.

A good idea is a good idea; there's always a chance of creative minds converging upon the same conclusion.

Anyway, I think you're spot on with regards to why the 4E cosmology is so cool.

And that sounds totally sweet. I don't see why it couldn't be a location in the Shadowfell, though.

I think 4e's planes get too much of a bad rap - they contain basically all the same actual locations(city of brass, etc) as the Great Wheel did (possible exception: deep ethereal?), even if the planes themselves aren't quite as divided.

In some ways, the new planes are actually *more* Moorcockian - the Astral Sea is basically "The Sailor on the Seas of Fate".

I will concede that the current Manual of Planes doesn't have as much of this stuff as it could, but there's still plenty of time yet.

Agree. 4E's cosmology rocks because it can still have all the hostility of any planar location from the Great Wheel, but makes it more accessible and less homogeneous.

Personally, I suspect Shemeska's experiences with places like the Negative Energy Plane or the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Vacuum are not typical; Shemeska obviously lives and breathes Planescape and the Great Wheel, and it works for him (her?). Those with less attachment to it might find that the World Axis cosmology is at least as interesting and much more versatile.

 

[Banshee16]

A good idea is a good idea; there's always a chance of creative minds converging upon the same conclusion.

Anyway, I think you're spot on with regards to why the 4E cosmology is so cool.

Agree. 4E's cosmology rocks because it can still have all the hostility of any planar location from the Great Wheel, but makes it more accessible and less homogeneous.

Personally, I suspect Shemeska's experiences with places like the Negative Energy Plane or the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Vacuum are not typical; Shemeska obviously lives and breathes Planescape and the Great Wheel, and it works for him (her?). Those with less attachment to it might find that the World Axis cosmology is at least as interesting and much more versatile.

I don't think Shemeshka's experiences were so unique. I ran a Planescape campaign for eight years, and many of the things Shemeshka mentions remind me of things in my own games, or those of other Planescape DM's I've talked to online.

Some people just didn't "get" it......but there were a tonne of really interesting angles to the "old" multiverse. I'm not a big fan of the new one.....it's a lot more vanilla....but I do happen to like the inclusion of the Feywild, as a plane like that had never been incorporated into the Great Wheel previously.

Banshee

 

[fanboy2000]

There's a big difference as I see it between the Great Wheel and the 4e default cosmology: a cosmology focused around in-game elements of that universe such as metaphysical alignments, versus a cosmology designed from a metagame notion of 'the planes must be places to adventure in and if they can't be adventured in, they have no reason to exist'. One cosmology is centered around in-game concepts, the other around a set of precepts that don't have anything to do with the in-game universe.

To me, the World Axis Cosmology resembles the kind of cosmology found in various mythologies, without being a representation of any mythology. The Elemental Chaos is very much like the primordial chaos of ancient greek mythology. Also, the elemental chaos gives the elements a chance to mix.

The Astral Sea sounds like the kinds of explanations for what the stars are.

The idea of "another place" that looks like a twisted version of the real world is very old and I feel that the Shadowfell and the Feywild both do that concept justice.

That latter notion really strikes me as doing a disservice to making an immersive cosmology. It feels artificial, and seems to restrict many avenues of what should or shouldn't be in the game because of a 4e design law that everything in the setting should be designed to focus around the PCs. That seems to handhold in and of itself, because PC success and PC 'special snowflake' status seems to be written into the game as a primary point. I prefer to see a cosmology that exists on its own in a wider, more in depth universe, with the PCs accorded no special status by default. The planes exist independant of whether they want to or can survive going to one place or another to adventure in a more classical kill things and take their stuff manner. The PCs aren't mandated special status, the PCs make that status for themselves and they earn it, rather than see it as part of the design of the very cosmology surrounding them.

There seems to be two things going on here: the idea that the game setting be designed with PCs in mind, and the idea that such a design equals coddling the PCs.

Here is how I look at D&D, if you don't agree with this, I suspect you won't agree with anything else that follows: D&D is a game where the DM challenges the PCs to accomplish various tasks with different degrees of difficulty and complexity.

Thus, the game should be designed around the PCs. If the DM details an area of the world he or she doesn't think the PCs will visit, or even one he or she feels shouldn't be visited, then the time spent detailing it doesn't necessarily contribute to the fun to be had at the table, with the people who are playing the PCs. Now, it may be fun to read, without player involvement, or it might be fun to design, but it probably won't contribute to the fun at the table.

Personally, I've always enjoyed designing my own cosmology. If I include something I don't feel the PCs will ever encounter, I know that I'm doing it for my own personal satisfaction. The most such places will contribute to the fun at the table is a throwaway line where I say something like "The City of Glass once called itself Atlantis." The value of such lines shouldn't be underestimated, but I don't need to do a lot of work to come-up with them. Your milage may vary.

That such PC centric design equates to coddling is something I find curious. It's something I disagree with because I view the game as one of challenges. In my opinion, the World Axis Cosmology is dangerous in a different way than the Great Wheel. The World Axis is dangerous because powerful beings live there, the Great Wheel is dangerous because the geography is dangerous and powerful beings live there. The interesting danger, for me, is the dangerous denizens, not the geography. The geography rarely ever played a significant roll at my game table because the PCs simply used very powerful magic or went to a more hospitable (almost spelled that hospital, bad spell check!) location of the plane like the City of Brass or the City of Glass.

I think both cosmologies answer the same question: how can we make a cosmology that resembles the kind of cosmologies we grew-up reading about, but are accessible to DM and the Players?