The Great Wheel Cosmology as an "assumed part of a D&D world"

[The Little Raven]

In my 19 years playing D&D, I used the Great Wheel cosmology twice... sorta.

Once was for a Greyhawk campaign, and the players only entered the Astral for a short time.

The second was for a Planescape game, and the players never actually left Sigil.

 

[Jack99]

In 18 years of campaigns, we have used the great wheel once, when i ran a sigilbased planescape campaign. Else it really hasnt mattered if the planes were connected in some odd way or not.

But as someone else mentionned, we have always used the bigby (and other) spells.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

I normally homebrewed to get away from the great wheel. The proposed version for 4th Edition makes me want to include it in my homebrews.

I did use it for Greyhawk campaigns...and perhaps a couple 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms games...

 

[Jackelope King]

Most of my group will hear "Mordenkainen", Bigby", "Vecna", "Llolth", etc. and a little bell will go off. "Oh, isn't that some person some spells are named after?" or "Oh, the guy who the eye and hand came from!" or "Isn't she like a spider-monster?" These things people have heard of.

The "Great Wheel Cosmology"... not so much. Oh, the components (Astral Plane, Ethereal Plane, the Hells) will ring a few bells, but since my group has never actually used the Great Wheel (and I question whether we've ever even used that term while gaming), they'd probably just stare blankly.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

The "Bigby" spells and whatnot can have the "Bigby" left on or sawn off with little to no impact my campaign.

Using or not using the Great Wheel can fundamentally alter the actions, feel and play of my campaign.

The two can't really even be used as a comparison, IMHO.

I seem to recall back in '80, I looked at the Great Box in the appendix in the Player's Handbook and thought: "Whhaaaa? What the hell? ... OOOOooooo, the Abyss has 666 levels and Hades (?) has 9! Cool, I can use that!" But I've *never* used the Great Box/Wheel even in my Greyhawk Campaign.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

I have done a little planar hopping in my 1st edition days... and what was important was the destination not where it was placed in the wheel

who cares that near 7 heavens you have this or that????? are you going to lead an army of solar to wreak havock to the nearest plane? and even in this case who cares if they are adiacent or you have to make a little travel in the astral sea (seems even more interesting than just an infantry war)?

every time my players had to find the means to get there and then to get back (and the sooner the better)

maybe it was my fault in not using the full potential of the Great Wheel

on the other hand in my campaigns the planes where nevere a "sure" thing, only very few sages and wizard knew something and each one told a different version of the tale (and the geography of the planes

 

[Kurotowa]

Just let me say that for the last few years Eberron has been my setting of choice. So as far as I'm concerned, a new cosmology is nothing special.

As for the Great Wheel being an essential part of the D&D experience, that's a subjective call. It certainly hasn't been true of my 16 years with the game. Heck, I remember going through my spiffy new AD&D 2e books, making a list of planes and the gods that resided there and trying to figure out what the pattern was. But even then it didn't make much sense, there was all sorts of duplication and asymmetry, and it never came up in a game.

So, goodbye confusing and overly large list of planes. The best of you will be saved, and the rest won't be missed.

 

[Glyfair]

From WotC at Gen Con we heard it reported about 4e that:

You missed the second, qualifying statemnet.
[BQ]However, we also want to call upon the great mythology that is more commonly known such as Thor, etc.[/BQ]
I read the combination as "we want to use the names that are classic D&D, but also want to have more classical mythology as well." They want to have a more flexible cosmology to better be adaptable to other campaigns that DMs might want to design, without scrapping everything from the original.

1e DMG (PHB?), IIRC.

Dragon #8 (July '77). Interestingly, in this version only the Seven Heavens and Nine Hells have extra layers. After this they would destroy D&D history by retconning extra layers to the Abyss (and later give other planes more layers). Later they would even try to add more planes (Concordant Opposition/Outlands, Para-Elemental, Quasi-Elemental).

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

Personally, I don't believe it really even matters if they're in a wheel-like shape, arranged in a dodecahedron or stacked on an ethereal slice of cheese.

It doesn't really matter, as the idea of planar bountries are an abstraction.

 

[resistor]

I think a lot of people's misgivings about the changes to the cosmology is because they make some major planar conflicts and plotlines unlikely at best, or invalidated at worst.

For me, the new planar layout makes the Blood War highly illogical (why would the devils bother fighting the demons when there are other astral dominions that would be vastly easier to invade?). And, since the BW is a major element of my campaign, I have no plan of ever updating.

I suspect other people who object to it hold similar views, replacing the Blood War with their own favorite conflict/theme from the Great Wheel.