D&D 5E The Multiverse is back....

[The Shadow]

In reading the last few pages of this thread as it has evolved, it strikes me that the 'problem' is that everyone is (partly) right.

Default lore can be a big help to new GM's. To a newbie, the prospect of creating a whole world from scratch can be very daunting and a barrier to entry. The 'official' lore gives them a base to start from, and sparks ideas toward fitting it all together in their own way. (Also, the newbie likely won't have all these old campaign settings from the past to draw from, either.)

The problem arises when players absorb the default as being 'The Way Things Are'. Experienced GM's don't need the defaults, and at most mine it for a few ideas, so can find it a hindrance when their players have mismatched expectations.

And while experienced players can generally roll with the punches if the GM tells them things are different, there's people who don't do it as well. The highly amusing post above that described halfling worship of Yondalla as 'generic' is the poster-child for this.

 

[Nellisir]

Reading this thread backward (looking for that Yondalla reference) made me realize that you people have been arguing the same thing for about 10 pages now.
Also that, despite arguing the same thing for 10 pages, everyone has been civil and decent and generally magnificent people.

I can see the appeal of no-fluff writeups for monsters, but that's what makes them interesting to me. Is there a certain amount of conflict that comes with that? Sure. It does create, at minimum, an "assumed" reality; a setting made of often disconnected details rather than broad strokes, but I'm OK with working against that on occasion. It's the price to pay for the inspiration. Personally, I think details help ground a creature, and even if you don't use the details, they've often given you a starting point. Alignment, at bare minimum. I put little setting details in my creatures and adventure hooks to keep things interesting and point out unconventional ways to use a monster.

A lot of people buy D&D products to read for pleasure.

Edit: I read The Shadow's post above, and then skimmed through 10 pages of this thread, and then wrote this post, unintentionally repeating or rehashing some of the things he said, but I said them less fluently.

 

[SkidAce]

In reading the last few pages of this thread as it has evolved, it strikes me that the 'problem' is that everyone is (partly) right.

Default lore can be a big help to new GM's. To a newbie, the prospect of creating a whole world from scratch can be very daunting and a barrier to entry. The 'official' lore gives them a base to start from, and sparks ideas toward fitting it all together in their own way. (Also, the newbie likely won't have all these old campaign settings from the past to draw from, either.)

The problem arises when players absorb the default as being 'The Way Things Are'. Experienced GM's don't need the defaults, and at most mine it for a few ideas, so can find it a hindrance when their players have mismatched expectations.

And while experienced players can generally roll with the punches if the GM tells them things are different, there's people who don't do it as well. The highly amusing post above that described halfling worship of Yondalla as 'generic' is the poster-child for this.

Well said.

 

[Hussar]

That's not necessarily a bad idea actually and IIRC that's pretty much what the 3rd edition Manual of the Planes did: it presented the core cosmology, which represented about 80% of the book, but it also had an appendix devoted to presenting some alternative cosmological models. I wouldn't mind if WotC's inevitable planar sourcebook for 5e (whether it's a 5th edition Manual of the Planes or a new iteration of Planescape) did the exact same thing. It would even make sense from a Planescape-centered POV, given the emphasis on how little Primes really know about the multiverse and how strongly belief shapes everything.

In other words, keep the core cosmology, because it's clear a lot of people really do like it, but make it clear it's just a model and that there are other ways of looking at the same material.

This I could certainly live with. In my perfect world, that 20% would also get a bit of loving in later publications as well. Maybe not as much as the 80%, since let's be honest, most people really dig that 80%, but, at least a little bit of loving. So, once in a while, you might see a Dragon article with a big "ALTERNATIVE IDEAS" plastered across the top that talks about different planar elements. Or a Dungeon module with, again, "ALTERNATIVE CANON" emblazoned across the top that allows for different takes on canon.

 

[Hussar]

This is still the crux that I'm not really understanding. What exactly is light and heavy in this regard? To use a few examples that have been common in the discussion so far, if the demons and devils entries make a few references to the Blood War, and if in the dwarf entry it says that they were once enslaved to giants, how is this not a light touch? They're just throwaway references. They have no impact on play. If you don't want to use them, there's literally no implication to your game if you make the change.

Whereas, on the other hand, if my game rules say that dwarves gain a bonus against giants in combat, then I've got something that I actually have to either houserule or figure out how to accept in game. That, to me, is a heavier touch.

Again, for me at least, it's not the table that's the issue. As Nellisir below points out, it's pretty easy to make the players aware of what's been changed. And, it might even be fun to work against expectations from time to time too. Fine and dandy.

But the issue, for me, is support.

While I don't disagree with what you're saying, I think you're making a mountain of a molehill.

• I've always used a homebrew campaign.
• I've never used standard D&D cosmology.
• I've never used halflings or half-orcs.
• I've never had the "Blood War" thing going on.
• I've never done a lot of other generic "D&D" things.

Even when that sort of thing has mattered, it's been the work of a moment to explain how things are different. I'm not "competing" for headspace; things are just different in my world. When they vary from standard D&D I point it out and we move on.

Now, that all being said, how often do you use modules, or Dungeon or Dragon magazine articles or buy support stuff (outside of class specific splats)?

For example, when I tried to run the Savage Tide Adventure Path, I very quickly slapped into the wall of Planescape for about the last third of the AP. I wound up ending the campaign before getting to the higher levels specifically because of that. I'm not sure that I should have expected my Isle of Dread remake adventure path to include pages upon pages of Planescape adventures complete with traveling to the Eladrin Court, dealing with Orcus and Charon as a Yugoloth, complete with lore detailing how his place in the Blood War.

That's what chaps my buns.

 

[aramis erak]

The 5e cosmology isn't presented as an option, it's just The D&D Cosmology.

Actually, the D&D Cosmology has been firmly in place since AD&D 1E, in the appendices of the DMG. It really is "The D&D Cosmology" (which initially appears in the AD&D 1E PH, on page 121)... it got expanded in 2E, and in 3E, mostly ignored for 4E. There are a few subtle hints in late OE, too. So, Yes, it REALLY is the D&D cosmology. Not Planescape, not Greyhawk's, not Spelljammer's (tho' spelljammer tweaks it a bit)...

The thing is, for the MM fluff text, the PBR/PHB deities lists, and the PHB great wheel .

Sure, the name 'The Great Wheel" is later - especially since the outer planes were shown in 1E as rectangles on the periphery of a large central rectangle (the Astral), but it's the same sequence as the later, round, appearance. And it was expanded first in the AD&D 1E Manual of the Planes.

And the PBR, v2, on page 3, has a less hostile version of the so-called Gygaxian Rule 0.

This version reads:

Your DM might set the campaign on one of these worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you should check with your DM about any house rules that will affect your play of the game. [HI]Ultimately, the Dungeon Master is the authority on the campaign and its setting, even if the setting is a published world.[/HI]
​

Note the highlighted text... Don't want the outer planes arranged in the great wheel? Fine - in your campaign, the PBR gives you explicit permission, right there on page 3, if you're clued in enough to read it, to make changes.

Whinging on about it being what's in the rules is not likely to change a thing, as the rules have, for 37 years, used the same cosmology, and many of the same deities. And didn't present them as "optional" back in 1977, and there's really no need to now, either. It's always presented them as "the Cosmology"... and left it up to DM's to change it if they saw fit. And still, it's that way.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Even when that sort of thing has mattered, it's been the work of a moment to explain how things are different. I'm not "competing" for headspace; things are just different in my world. When they vary from standard D&D I point it out and we move on.

Sure, that's your group. Some players easily accept that things are different. Others, it's a struggle. And whenever it is a struggle, it's an unnecessary struggle -- the game doesn't need One True Way to function (again, 3e did better than other e's in this regard...and 5e could still follow that model, hypothetically maybe possibly we'll see).

Whinging on about it being what's in the rules is not likely to change a thing, as the rules have, for 37 years, used the same cosmology, and many of the same deities. And didn't present them as "optional" back in 1977, and there's really no need to now, either. It's always presented them as "the Cosmology"... and left it up to DM's to change it if they saw fit. And still, it's that way

Ah, but there is a better way. We don't need to resign ourselves to mediocrity in our favorite game, or have ourselves limited by what seemed like a good idea 40 years ago. We can advocate for improvements. Perhaps nothing comes of that advocating, but certainly nothing comes of stewing in silence.

Default lore can be a big help to new GM's. To a newbie, the prospect of creating a whole world from scratch can be very daunting and a barrier to entry. The 'official' lore gives them a base to start from, and sparks ideas toward fitting it all together in their own way. (Also, the newbie likely won't have all these old campaign settings from the past to draw from, either.)

The problem arises when players absorb the default as being 'The Way Things Are'. Experienced GM's don't need the defaults, and at most mine it for a few ideas, so can find it a hindrance when their players have mismatched expectations.

It's my contention that there's a way you can get both things -- multiple bits of lore for newbies to have ideas sparked and to figure out how to fit them together, and this multiplicity making it obvious to anyone reading the books that one truth is impossible outside of an individual game.

 

[Nellisir]

Now, that all being said, how often do you use modules, or Dungeon or Dragon magazine articles or buy support stuff (outside of class specific splats)?

Use, or buy? I bought probably 80-90% of everything D&D related from 1992 or so onward (I bought a lot before then too, maybe 50%?). I mostly didn't buy modules because I thought, and think, that Dungeon was a better use of my money. Most of the adventures I ran were reskinned from Dungeon. I'm running Phandelver right now, except broken up, rearranged, and with the names changed to protect the guilty.

 

[Desdichado]

Even when that sort of thing has mattered, it's been the work of a moment to explain how things are different. I'm not "competing" for headspace; things are just different in my world. When they vary from standard D&D I point it out and we move on.

I agree; while I understand the concept in theory, I disagree that it's actually a problem in real life with real people at a real gaming table.

If it were, I'd have bigger issues with my group than I would with the game anyway.

 

[Desdichado]

And while experienced players can generally roll with the punches if the GM tells them things are different, there's people who don't do it as well. The highly amusing post above that described halfling worship of Yondalla as 'generic' is the poster-child for this.

I agree; it's not often that someone so haplessly demonstrates the problem in real time for us on the internet like that. But I still have to wonder how much of that ends up being theoretical except in the case of very unusual outliers.