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

[Hussar]

Just want to say I <3 Kamikaze Midget. He has perfectly encapsulated exactly what I want to say and has done so far better than I could. I'm just going to become his sock puppet on this issue from now on.

 

[Quickleaf]

The fact that WotC wants to over-define and over-specify this doesn't bode well for the MM, IMO.

Well, first off we have no idea what they're going to do. "Multiverse" could simply be a way to talk about the worlds of D&D, not necessarily imply a common connected cosmology in game (e.g. the term "multiverse" might never see in-character use in many D&D games). The Great Wheel will be a default cosmology (according to James Wyatt in the January 2014 article). That doesn't mean that default will be used for Eberron. Or that Sigil will be stripped of its glorious Planescape-ishness.

There is a difference between "keeping Planescape it's own thing" and "cutting out everything that might remind some people of Planescape".

Nicely put.

Here's what I'd like to see...

Great Wheel is the default cosmology. It is used for Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and perhaps other settings.

Settings like Eberron have their own unique cosmologies.

The DMG provides guidelines for a DM to invent his or her own cosmology, and the DMG/MotP expands on variant cosmologies.

Sigil, the factions, the unique themes of Planescape, the really weird abstract planar stuff, and perhaps the Blood War are included in the MotP *only* if the unique Planescape flavor is preserved. Otherwise, if this is not possible, they instead appear in a Planescape product (whether an official WotC release, a licensed product, or an official fan site Planewlaker.com creation).

But once you put in the cosmological machinery in which the lower planes are as real as the upper planes, their gods as real, their afterlives as real, etc, then it becomes much harder to write off evil priests as "invalid" or otherwise in error.

Ok, I see your perspective. I'd always DMed it that planars, more than primes, know just what the eternal rewards for compassion and avarice and hate are. In other words, knowing that for being tyrannical one in life is likely to end up in Baator in death (or traitorous and in Carceri, etc.) Thus, planars (not speaking about fiends here) are more likely to (a) tend toward Goodness or Neutrality, or (b) justify their Evil beliefs to themselves in a way that makes them appear not Evil in their own minds. After all, eternity as lemure or larvae (even with a slim chance of becoming a fiend) isn't attractive to most planars.

A providential conception of morality leaves plenty of room for moral complexity. What it doesn't have room for is the objective cosmological truth of the parity of good and evil. Which is what you get in the Great Wheel and Planescape.

That's interesting. I've always had providential morality, moral complexity/ambiguity, and the Great Wheel side-by-side in my Planescape games. Maybe I'm misunderstanding providential morality, but basically "goodness is the better way & it's more satisfying to be a hero" was part of my Planescape group's style (with some gnarly moral dilemmas & lots of planewalking the Great Wheel).

It's the symmetry of the setting which leads to "Football team morality". Evil is just as valid a part of the wheel as Good and you just happen to be on different sides.

That those people are the bad guys you kill because they support a set of Gods on a different place on the Wheel to yours. And the Gods of Evil are just doing their part in the universe, as are their supporters. Balance is king means (as the Great Wheel implies) means that you can't meaningfully change things in the long run.

I guess I tend to be influenced by Ed the pathologist's blog Li Po's Guide to the Multiverse which has a Christian bent to it. To say that "all morality is relative" or "the Gods of Evil are just doing their part" or "my contribution is small and insignificant in the face of Chaos vs. Law and Good vs. Evil" misses the point.

When an angel and a devil share a drink at a tavern none of their cosmological opposition goes away. The devil is still evil to its core, seeking to corrupt, subvert, and dominate all that it touches. The angel is still good to its core, seeking to uplift, redeem, and purify all that it touches. They just learn to do this in a subtler way that outright violence when in Sigil. They're not opposed because of the geographic positioning of Mount Celestia and Baator; they're opposed because their ideals/beliefs are fundamentally opposed (and *then* everything else evolves out of that). The devil isn't some kind of anti-hero; it is evil incarnate. Yet it being evil incarnate doesn't mean that your PCs won't end up relying on that devil for information or help at some point.

Good is not depicted as a monolithic force in PS, and even within each plane there are conflicts among similarly aligned creatures. There were some good examples of that in the "Planes of..." boxed sets.

One of the conceits of PS was that things *do* change dramatically. Factions rise and fall, gods die, planes shift and lose realms to each other, the Lady of Pain didn't always have control over the Mazes, and the Blood War has nearly been won in the past. Maybe an adventurer's impact is small in the grand scheme of things at low- and mid-levels, but that doesn't mean it's not meaningful to the PC, the player, and the small part of the setting they do impact.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I guess I tend to be influenced by Ed the pathologist's blog Li Po's Guide to the Multiverse which has a Christian bent to it. To say that "all morality is relative" or "the Gods of Evil are just doing their part" or "my contribution is small and insignificant in the face of Chaos vs. Law and Good vs. Evil" misses the point.

When an angel and a devil share a drink at a tavern none of their cosmological opposition goes away. The devil is still evil to its core, seeking to corrupt, subvert, and dominate all that it touches. The angel is still good to its core, seeking to uplift, redeem, and purify all that it touches. They just learn to do this in a subtler way that outright violence when in Sigil. They're not opposed because of the geographic positioning of Mount Celestia and Baator; they're opposed because their ideals/beliefs are fundamentally opposed (and *then* everything else evolves out of that). The devil isn't some kind of anti-hero; it is evil incarnate. Yet it being evil incarnate doesn't mean that your PCs won't end up relying on that devil for information or help at some point.

Good is not depicted as a monolithic force in PS, and even within each plane there are conflicts among similarly aligned creatures. There were some good examples of that in the "Planes of..." boxed sets.

One of the conceits of PS was that things *do* change dramatically. Factions rise and fall, gods die, planes shift and lose realms to each other, the Lady of Pain didn't always have control over the Mazes, and the Blood War has nearly been won in the past. Maybe an adventurer's impact is small in the grand scheme of things at low- and mid-levels, but that doesn't mean it's not meaningful to the PC, the player, and the small part of the setting they do impact.

There are two separate things at play here - Planescape as Sigil, which I consider excellent (although not always a good match for D&D) and The Great Wheel. And the two did not always gel to the point that the Great Wheel meshed with Planescape as yet another odd philosophy. No one said the Dustmen were a good idea either. Except the other Dustmen.

With the Great Wheel cosmology things can't change - the Wheel is in balance and in symmetry. Breaking the symmetry is a bad thing. For that matter in Dragonlance or any other setting where Balance is King (Realms? - I seem to remember that's what started the Avatar Storm?) you have real problems changing things. The point of Dragonlance is to get back to Status Quo Ante. And it's explicit in the setting and mentioned by Paladine that the problem that caused the Cataclysm was that good held sway over the pendulum.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] I agree that we disagree

Btw, for anyone interested, I've started a 5e Planescape conversion thread. It will be awesome!

 

[pemerton]

I've always had providential morality, moral complexity/ambiguity, and the Great Wheel side-by-side in my Planescape games.

<snip>

To say that "all morality is relative" or "the Gods of Evil are just doing their part" or "my contribution is small and insignificant in the face of Chaos vs. Law and Good vs. Evil" misses the point.

I don't think you've misunderstood what I meant by "providential morality".

This is more evience that you've got stuff out of Planescape that I've never really seen there, at least in the material I know!

 

[pemerton]

The distinct tone of PS is one with that moral ambiguity.

<snip>

It is a thing that PS delivers that PS WANTS to deliver and that is distinct about PS in a way that it isn't distinct about FR (or Dragonlance or Greyhawk or Birthright...).

Just a small point - it used to be that a lot of people thought that moral ambiguity was one of the distinctive things about Greyhawk ("What puts the 'grey' in Greyhawk?" and all that).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Just a small point - it used to be that a lot of people thought that moral ambiguity was one of the distinctive things about Greyhawk ("What puts the 'grey' in Greyhawk?" and all that).

Sure. Again, not a claim of exclusivity. I'm not as familiar with GH as a distinct setting, so I can't really speak to what its tone is with much authority. (Though I get a bit of a "Military Fantasy" vibe from it, with great wars and large armies and such. With, as I mentioned upthread, a "neutrality is the only valid stance" moral viewpoint, and a "lost age of magic" bit thrown in.)

But one of PS's selling points certainly is the fact that it is shades of grey with devils and angels.

 

[Quickleaf]

I don't think you've misunderstood what I meant by "providential morality".

This is more evience that you've got stuff out of Planescape that I've never really seen there, at least in the material I know!

I may be a Planescape fanboy, but I'm objective enough to see flaws in lots of the material, which I tend to think of in 3 groups:

• It wasn't clear how you used lots of the material at the game table, like the idea of the power of belief, or certain setting descriptions, or what if there was party tension along faction lines.
• The adventures offered little player agency, many were obsessed with their own meta-plot agenda, and they didn't do the setting justice IMHO.
• Many of the adventure sites were dropped in with very little development, and too much was left up to the DM to improvise.

Despite these flaws I still think it's an incredible setting. Then again I was in my teens when I DMed my long PS game, so I may be looking thru rose-colored glasses.

 

[fanboy2000]

Y'know, Dark Sun doesn't NEED the rest of the multiverse to be awesome. Ravenloft just needs to vaguely reference worlds beyond the mists. Spelljammer ships don't need to be docking in orbit outside Krynn to be relevant or useful. Dragonlance doesn't need to be swirling around next to Birthright to make those settings interesting. Eberron doesn't need FR's Drow.

In fact, when those things abut each other, it can really harm both of the settings. If you feel the need to smash Eberron into FR, you're not taking seriously the awesomeness that Eberron can offer in itself. You're selling it short.

I love selling D&D settings short. And I will continue to sell them short for my own fun as long as I roleplay.

I'm surprised you don't have more fun smashing them up, actually. Allowing PCs to hop settings is a thing I've liked since since I started playing back when I was in the Navy.

One of my favorite memories is from a few years ago (3e days) when I had the PCs travel through to FR. One of my players wanted a familiar from the Monsters of Faerun book. I could have just given it to him, but I had them use a portal in the Etheral Plane to go to Faerun and get it. It was a fun adventure.

 

[Yaarel]

I really don't have a stake in any of the cosmological discussions going on here, other than to say the following: I love the inclusiveness of the Basic D&D rules, where characters from all over the D&D fiction (FR, Dragonlance, etc.) are liberally called upon to illustrate something in the text, or the way excerpts from the novels are employed to introduce different sections. This is the "all in" approach to the foundation levels of the game that I never knew I wanted, and I'm very happy to see it.

When Basic explicitly requires all clerics to serve deities, it fails inclusiveness of different D&D settings.

For example, many clerics in Eberron are impossible in Basic.