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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4002352" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think you might be missing part of my point, which was (i) that Shemeska was (IMO) unfairly characterising 4e as a junking of complex and dynamic cosmology -  it is not relevant to the truth of this claim that planar adventuring is popular or unpopular - and (ii) that someone who wants planar adventuring to be more popular has a reason to support changes that achieve this - maybe Shemeska is not such a person, in which case I've got a mistaken impression.A little bit more about dynamism: I think a lightly-sketched cosmology that draws on real world myth and tropes (Greek creation myths, European faerie legends) is more dynamic for game playing than one which rests entirely on a (often obscure) backstory written primarily by some 2nd Ed game designers. Instead of telling players that have to read a whole lot of out-of-print game supplements to learn what is really going on in the gameworld, it invites them to engage with the gameworld drawing on their love of real-world myth and legend, which is probably what got them interested in fantasy RPGing in the first place.I find this implied attribution of malice to the 4e designers a bit bizarre. Maybe they just don't agree with you that the earlier material drew the relevant distinctions in an interesting and playable way. Maybe they agree with me that those distinctions will be more accesible in the course of game play, as opposed to when reading a whole lot of backstory, if they draw on more commonly recognised mythological and fantasy tropes.Well, it might render certain planes and monsters useable for them, which weren't useable before (because they brought in undesired Blood War considerations).I think the thought is that it is uninteresting for play, because (i) it is motivated independently of the PCs and goes on and on regardless of their actions; (ii) it prejudges a philosphical issue which players and GMs might want to explore and resolve for themselves. These claims are perhaps false (though as it happens I think them true), but they're not nonsense.Sure. There are also Wells of Many Worlds and Amulets of the Planes (both typically high level items), the intervention of high level NPCs, other random portals that are not Sigil, or being born into one of the Planescape-y outer planar towns or fortresses.4e won't take away any of the above for those who like them. It will also introduce low level rituals to help do the job. It will put the players more in control of their planar adventuring, and divorce it to a greater extent from specific Planescape-y tropes, and GM mediation through items/NPCs.If all the above is true, you might like 4e, which seems to agree with most of the above.Agreed. And surely, in a fantasy RP adventure game, it is desirable that world elements be potential settings for adventures.In addition, but perhaps more idiosynchratically, I like the idea that the game designers provide the setting, but give the players more scope to impose the philosophy/moral evaluation. This speaks to my own priorities as an RPGer.But as I said above, Sigil is a very specific trope which a lot of players (including myself, but I think not only myself) would not want in a fantasy RPG.It also makes it easier to have thematically interesting adventures there without buying into certain very specific tropes (like Sigil) and without having the designers already tell you how the moral and philosophical issues of the campaign are to be resolved (which I find Planescape does too much of).Given that (per W&M) access to other planes is via rituals, I'd be surprised if the rules don't support library research as a route to the planes for those that want it.For you or me, as individual players of the game, it is a matter of personal taste. But for commercial game publishers  hoping to sell lots of books, there is a real issue at stake: what sort of gameworld do more people want to play in and develop in the course of play: one in which the backstory is about the Gods of Law creating Devils to eliminate the Abyss, or one in which the Devils are fallen Angels and the Abyss is corrupted elemental matter?The answer to this question is not a matter of personal taste, and provides a perfectly good rationale for the changes. It's not that the 4e designers are incapable of writing the Blood War into 4e. It's that THEY DON'T WANT TO, because they don't think that (on the whole) it makes for good play for the bulk of their audience. For the reasons I have given above, I think they're probably right.For what it's worth, MoP is one of my favourite 3E books (I like it better than the 1st ed version) because it has a lot of interesting ideas in it (both mechanical and world element) which I can pick and choose from. Some of the stuff in the Appendix (Mirrors, Dreams, Time) is especially good, and fits well with a lot of Monte Cooke's interesting 3E planar stuff (Eldritch Might, Countless Doorways).</blockquote>

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