D&D 5E (2014) The Multiverse is back....

[Hussar]

/snip

Whoops, I'm wrong. My bad.

 

[Hussar]

You just summed up a vast number of people's objections to 4e Eladrins, Archons, and Devas...

And that's probably fair enough. I have to admit, before 4e came out, I would have never, ever, in my wildest imagination, thought that repurposing some esoteric, almost never used critter like an eladrin into something that became one of the most popular races for the game would have caused that much angst.

 

[I'm A Banana]

And that's probably fair enough. I have to admit, before 4e came out, I would have never, ever, in my wildest imagination, thought that repurposing some esoteric, almost never used critter like an eladrin into something that became one of the most popular races for the game would have caused that much angst.

Yeah, WotC didn't really consider the people who were already happily using the 2e/3e eladrin as part of their intended audience there, as they did not consider what such an audience would want.

Kind of interesting aside: Recently attended a game design class that talked a bit about the business side of it -- specifically about the Inverted Pyramid, and why it's worthwhile to keep your most dedicated and ardent players happy even if it takes a lot of effort to make content for them (what with their refined tastes), because those are the people that build the community of players for your game. They'll never be the majority of your players, but spending 50% of your resources on stuff that only 10% of your audience will see or care about is worthwhile in this scenario because that 10% creates more demand if they like what you're doing -- they expand the game. If they leave in a huff, you lose the lower, bigger sections of the community, too, because while they're not hardcore, they see the "experts" departing for other games, and since they want to play the best, they'll follow them.

Experts, of course, could just be kind of spoiled children who need to be coddled to be appeased, but that doesn't matter, since they are the early adopters and evangelists.

Arguably, 4e learned that lesson the hard way. The people with the most invested in eladrin lore (for instance) were the most dedicated fans of the game up until the launch of 4e. When those people think you're not selling to them (because you're kind of not), they leave...like for Pathfinder.

...and then Pathfinder grows to become bigger than D&D by the end of 4e (though I bet WotC has flipped those numbers again recently!)....

I mean, I dunno if it's gospel, and I'd take it with some salt grains, but I find it a pretty interesting angle to look at this from, anyway.

 

[TerraDave]

Deep Ignorance?

You haven't ever cracked the covers of a book called "Manual of the Planes," have ya?

Have you?

You know that big metal cubes were not really explicit? And actually contradicted?

It was probably changed to that?

Post apocalyptic? Not that far off.

But what was your point again? Some kind of irony?

 

[Hussar]

Have you?

You know that big metal cubes were not really explicit? And actually contradicted?

It was probably changed to that?

Post apocalyptic? Not that far off.

But what was your point again? Some kind of irony?

To be fair, looking at the 1e MotP, it does say that you get nation sized slabs of rusty metal shifting around on each plane, so, big metal cubes clashing isn't a really big change in the canon. Certainly my version, which leaves any mobile landscape on the wayside, is a bigger change than what Planescape did.

 

[Nellisir]

Have you?
You know that big metal cubes were not really explicit? And actually contradicted?
It was probably changed to that?
Post apocalyptic? Not that far off.
But what was your point again? Some kind of irony?

You know, you could just say no, you haven't read it.

 

[Nellisir]

To be fair, looking at the 1e MotP, it does say that you get nation sized slabs of rusty metal shifting around on each plane, so, big metal cubes clashing isn't a really big change in the canon. Certainly my version, which leaves any mobile landscape on the wayside, is a bigger change than what Planescape did.

You guys must have a different version. Mine has the word "blocks" in just about every sentence. Not slabs or slices or pieces. They're "black and hard as metal" in the first plane; unclear in the second; "grey volcanic stone" in the third, and "razor-thin squares" in the fourth plane (mea culpa; not blocks there; "squares").

 

[I'm A Banana]

You guys must have a different version. Mine has the word "blocks" in just about every sentence. Not slabs or slices or pieces. They're "black and hard as metal" in the first plane; unclear in the second; "grey volcanic stone" in the third, and "razor-thin squares" in the fourth plane (mea culpa; not blocks there; "squares").

I mean, how small is the nit you want to pick? It's largely the same in 2e and 3e aside form developing "black and hard as metal" to being explicitly iron, and turning the "squares" into "shards" (which is sort of academic at a certain point anyway), and in either case it clearly isn't a place of post-apocalyptic cities.

You could have post-apocalyptic cities on it if you wanted, even a whole CONTINENT of them, layered in dust and earth with on an isolated surface somewhere out in the void far away from any others, so that the distinction is largely one of perspective. I believe the intent was to show how PS-specific lore limits creativity in the current age of D&D, and "I can't make Acheron a plane of post-apocalyptic cities" doesn't show that very well since the lore that limits that isn't PS-specific.

Maybe there's something else that shows it, I dunno. I've never found PS lore to be any more limiting than general "generic" D&D lore (which I do find to be limiting if one is made to play within its bounds). My own case is that I'd like a more 3e-Manual-of-the-Planes approach to cosmology that embraces difference and presumes nothing is sacred rather than a 4e-One-True-Story approach to it where every setting needs to have a Feywild because D&D always has a Feywild. And the 5e PHB is a little disappointing in that respect (though maybe the 5e Manual of the Planes will be even better! ).

 

[Quickleaf]

( @Quickleaf, on these boards, has set out ideas for play in Planescape that don't fall foul of my serious objection. I'm sure if Quickleaf was GMing a Planescape game I'd enjoy it. Unfortunately Quickleaf is half-way across the Pacific Ocean from me. And I have no independent motivation to turn Planescape to my purposes when there is other D&D material much more readily available that doesn't need turning.)

Hah, thanks! Well if you ever end up in the islands, look me up

I think your criticisms of Planescape are entirely reasonable. There are lots of campaign settings out there, no reason everybody has to like one in particular.

 

[pemerton]

you don't like Planescape based on the snippets and tidbits you've pieced together.

Planewalker's Handbook is a "snippet and tidbit"? That's not how it markets itself. It markets itself as an everything-you-need-to-get-started-guide-for-players-in-the-setting.

Kamikaze Midget addressed this much better than I could

In his reply upthread, [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] doesn't offer any reasons against my petty reasons, other than to note that they're probably particular to me as a professional philosopher fluent in Commonwealth English. That they're particular to me is already implicit in my characterisation of them as petty.

Here is the substantive bit of KM's reply:

IMXP, the experience of play in Planescape is one of re-shaping reality according to the ideals you hold. "Exploration" in terms of "go somewhere cool, do some goal there, come home" is best used in service of that ideal, meaning that the context for "lets go visit a dead god" should be, for instance, "to discover the source of its power and use this for our own purposes."

Which might be, "Distribute it among the people so that they have no cause to worship false gods."

Or might be, "Use it to make me more powerful so that I can lead my very own cult of loyal sychophants."

Or might be, "Poke a hole in Limbo and see if it all drains out."

Or other things. The idea is that these are player-defined purposes. Infinity is their plaything.

None of this contradicts my reasons for not liking Planescape as an RPG setting. It reaffirms them. "Poking a hole in Limbo and seeing if it all drains out" is setting exploration. "Leading my very own cult of loyal sycophants" is setting exploration.

"Distributing [X] among the people so that they have no cause to worship false gods" is perhaps starting to move away from exploration, but as presented there is still no conflict. Why does it matter that the people worship false gods - especially if, per standard D&D rules, the false gods answer and provide them with spells and a planar afterlife?

I'm not trying to persuade anyone else that they shouldn't play Planescape. Many D&D players obviously enjoy setting-exploratory play. But if you think that by reading the Planescape boxed set I would suddenly see the genius of a setting that I've hitherto wrongly set aside, I think you're wrong. I'm not ignorant of it; I just don't particularly care for it.

Better question: why would you?

Seriously; Is there a specific reason you need the name Acheron?

I don't know what [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] had in mind, but perhaps the goal is to present an alternative interpretation of Appendix IV of the PHB? As someone who first learnt about Acheron's cubes and shards in Jeff Grubb's MotP, I thought that it made the eternal battle between orcish and goblin spirit-hordes considerably less compelling, by making their battleground rather silly. (The description of the earthmotes in Asgard/Gladsheim struck me the same way.)

Instead of Hussar's version of Acheron, then, I might want to publish a version that is better suited to the orc-goblin conflict than the canonical version.