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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 9513604" data-attributes="member: 7023840">Good comment, and I don't disagree with any of it. I think you make good points about 4e, but I snipped them because I don't have anything to add to that.The one thing I did want to address is this- I think you are both correct and incorrect. Yes, the rigidity of the outer planes (to you, to me, and to all right thinking people- which are the people that agree with us) became a problem.But I'd argue (and I have, in a series of so many essays with so many words) that this may have been caused or started by Gygax, but it wasn't really his fault. Let me explain-To me, the beginning of the end of the Gygaxian Multiverse was, weirdly enough, the Manual of the Planes, which was devised and released after Gygax was ousted. A lot of people really liked it, but the problem with that book is that it was 128 pages of detail about the various planes .... and do you know what it devoted to the infinite multiverse of Prime Material Planes?.... three pages. In an APPENDIX. And it reduced the glorious diversity to three attributes that the DM would roll- The Physical Factor (things like sentience is impossible, because all matter reacts with other matter and explodes, or nonsentient items like chairs are fully aware).The Magical Factor- (from universal spell casting for all sentient beings limited only to their imagination, to no magic or imagination or creativity can exist).The Temporal Factor- (weirdly, not all about time! It's really how closely linked the plane is to your prime plane; so it can go from very different because things are all different colors and planets lack atmospheres to the plane is similar to your prime, but millions of years in the past).Importantly, it was boring, not helpful, and travelling to other prime planes had a decent chance of killing you from a random role of the dice. So the book was basically, "Look how cool the outer planes are, but the primes? They suck." And that carried on after that. I would argue that Gygax mainly thought of the outer planes as sources for stuff to come into the primes- devils, demons, solars, and so on. For him (and others at the time) the outer planes weren't interesting, because you had the infinite variety of the prime material multiverse. Both at his home table and in published adventures, he was constantly using the wild variety of the multiverse. So I think it's pretty clear that Gygax never intended it, and that the calcification can be traced back to a specific book that was published after he left. Anyway, this isn't arguing against what you're saying, so much as clarifying a small point. Like I wrote, good comment, no notes.</blockquote>

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