Certainy, no one in this thread is confused - you're not, I'm not, no other poster is either as far as I can tell. Where have you encountered all these confused people?
My players find it confusing (I know I've asked them). Editors I've worked with on the FR Wiki find it confusing (I know, I had to fight to work a lot of said confusing lore into the wiki). Random people I've encountered online have found it confusing. Need I continue?
Most people in this thread know a fairly significant amount about the lore of D&D, both pre- and post-4e. Hence the discussion. That isn't true of most players.
Of course it was avoidable, but for whatever reason the designers chose not to avoid it. My point is that this doesn't "muddy" anything. I have never met a person, either in real life or posting online, who thought that the elemental archons of 4e were intended as substitutes/an evolution of the LG archons of MotP and other pre-4e material.
And I have. Shall we weigh your anecdotal evidence against mine? Seems pointless to me. The truth is that
no on would have been confused if they hadn't used the same name.
What happens if WotC decides they want to use both pre-4e and 4e archons in 5e? Do they call them
both archons or do they rename one of them? It seems to me much more likely they'll rename one than keep the name for both. Which indicates the possibility of confusion.
I think the problem is that you're not recognizing the fact that - in pre-existing campaign settings like the Forgotten Realms -
both types of archons now exist. And they're
both called archons.
X-Men First Class combines the original X-Men story in which Magneto takes over a military base and launches its missiles with later Claremont-era material about the Hellfire Club. This is not "unnecessarily complicated" either. It's also an attempt at repackaging the old material as best it can be done.
That's not at all the same thing.
First Class is an adaptation of the comics, not a continuation of them. If you want to make an argument using the film a much more sensible argument would be that
First Class unnecessarily complicates the backstory of the first three films - by indicating a familial relationship between Xavier and Mystique never hinted at before, showing Xavier and Magneto meeting much later in their lives than the first film stated, and showing Hank turn blue well before his easter egg appearance in the second film, where he looked human. And those
are, all arguments that have been made, but they're not the one you're making, which is, frankly, a stretch.
(For the record I actually like
First Class more than the original trilogy and almost wish it was a reboot, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that adaptation =/= continuation.)
That's not in disupte. I am not misunderstanding what other people are doing. I'm expressing disagreement with it. For the sorts of reasons [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] articulated upthread, I think it is a detriment for the game to prioritise those sorts of details over theme and broad story function.
That eladrin come from the CG upper planes, and look like but are not elves, is part of an encyclopedia entry but it is not a guide to game play. That eladrin are mercurial, magical elven creatures who are aloof though generally benevolent tells me something about the role they can play in a game. I think it is a strength in RPG design to prioritise theme and story function over encylopedia-entry details.
I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree. These aren't just "encyclopedia-entry details." They're actually fundamental to a number of themes and metaplots that have been a part of D&D for decades. Whether or not you dislike such elements is a matter of opinion, but they aren't
just obscure details: the concept of celestials, fiends, the Blood War, and the Outer Planes are all part of a cosmological story that was a large part of 2e and 3e's worldbuilding. Just as the Dawn War, the World Axis, and the contrast between immortals and elementals was part of 4e's metaplot.
The Planescape cosmology was not a default in 1st ed AD&D, which had no Concordant Opposition until DDG was published (so there are two possible interpretations of the Great Wheel already), had no Sigil, no "Gate Towns" and no obsession with portals in the Planescape fashion.
I don't understand where you get the impression that I'm talking about Sigil, Gate Towns, or portals? I haven't mentioned them at all. We've been talking about the Outer Planes, devils, demons, and celestials, which all date back to 1st edition.
I have already posted upthread, and will post again, that I do not find any great change between AD&D and 4e. Demogorgon, Orcus, Graz'zt, the archdevils, are all there playing much the same role that they always did. The changes are no greater than the changes between 1st ed AD&D and Planescape, which entirely repurposes daemons from a form of demon that lives on Hades and has slightly obscure magic resistance rules, to Machiavellian masterminds of a Blood War that did not even exist prior to 2nd ed AD&D.
And that may be a reasonable argument. But the changes from 1e to 2e continued and evolved over a period of a decade before they were incorporated into 3e. Yes, 4e might not be a major alteration of 1e (I actually think it's a bigger alteration than you're crediting) but it was a
huge change to the lore that had existed throughout 2e and 3e, which were themselves built upon a foundation laid out by 1e. So it's kind of disingenuous to say that the change between 3e and 4e is equivalent to the change between 1e and 2e... because it's not.
4e's daemons - being treated simply as variant demons - is much truer to Gygax's use of them in D3 than the Planescape approach.
I have to question your judgment there. The
Fiend Folio, where daemons/yugoloths first made their appearance, explicitly states that daemons can enter the Nine Hells and the Abyss with equal amount of ease and that they will freely associate with either kind of fiend. Specifically:
Fiend Folio (1e) said:
[Mezzodaemons] freely associate with night hags and demons [see AD&D Monster Manual] and are not averse to devils' though they find devils' strict regulations very tiresome.
and
Fiend Folio (1e) said:
Like their cousins the mezzodaemons, nycadaemons are common to the planes of Tarterus, Hades, and Gehenna. Unlike their related creatures, they are able to enter the 666 Layers of the Abyss and the 9 Hells as they will. Nycadaemons are avoided by all lesser creatures - night hags, mezzodaemons, lesser and greater devils, and most demons (see AD&D Monster Manual) - for the race is totally wicked and domineering, caring not who or what they enslave or exploit, but always acting in an intelligent and carefully calculated manner aimed at maximizing personal power and safety. Thus, these creatures will co-operate with other evil beings and races whenever mutual actions are likely to prove beneficial to themselves.
That certainly doesn't sound all that far off from the "Machiavellian masterminds" you describe. Indeed, while 2e's treatment of yugoloths may be a change from 1e's, it's most definitely an evolution rather than a 4e-style rebranding.
I'm not touching on that at all. No where have I suggested that D&D is a generic fantasy game. 4e doesn't present a "generic" setting - it presents a very particular setting, designed to support a certain version of classic D&D play, which will also be able to handle practical matters like the perennial balance tensions between martial and magical PCs (eg by explicitly allowing martial PCs to become demigods).
What you seem not to realise is that, for me (and I believe not only me) 4e made good on, and deivered better on, D&D's assumptions than earlier presentations of the D&D cosmology.
Actually, I do understand that. I'm just not certain why. You seem to be holding D&D to a very particular standard, which is your interpretation of 1e's assumptions. Disregarding the fact that I don't think your interpretation of those assumptions are as accurate as you think, that doesn't even begin to account for 2e and 3e's assumptions, which were a firm part of D&D's legacy by the time 4e came along. By the time 4e was released, the themes and assumptions of D&D were not limited to those of the original Red Box. They'd grown and evolved.
I have no problem adding what 4e added into that box. Indeed, I hope 5e does incorporate some of 4e's lore into it. But 4e didn't add on to 1e-3e. It disregarded or rewrote large portions of 1e-3e, rendering a lot of previous information invalid. And that how the transition from 1e to 2e or 2e to 3e went (for the most part; there were exceptions).
1) here is not entirely true though. 2e had, obviously, no Planescape elements in the beginning until such time as they decided to create an over setting to unite all the settings TSR had published. 3e rejected all Planescape material from Core. All of it was excised from the game. There is not a single mention of the Blood War, or anything even slightly Planescape in nature in the 3e core books. It isn't until the 3e Manual of the Planes that anything Planescape'ish starts to make a come back. With 3.5e, now you have full bore Planescape in the core and in the supplements, but, for a few years anyway, and certainly in core, none of that was the "default".
I'm not quite sure why we're fixating on Planescape. Again, the Outer Planes, the Great Wheel, and the enmity between demons and devils is from before Planescape and it remained in 3e even though Planescape was dropped (for the record, I never D&D played until 3e, so I've never actually played a Planescape game outside of
Torment). The Blood War itself was first mentioned by name in the
Monstrous Compendium, Volume One for 2nd edition, four years before Planescape's debut, and is featured as an important component to 3e's cosmology especially if you look towards books dealing specifically with fiends or the planes more generally (both volumes of the
Fiendish Codex mention it prominently).
The Great Wheel, as others have mentioned, is first detailed in the original
Dungeon Master's Guide and is presumed whenever the
Monster Manual mentions the home plane of a monster. It was finally elaborated on in more detail in the
Manual of the Planes, again a 1st edition book, and at that point closely resembles its 2e/Planescape version:
Manual of the Planes (1e) said:
The conventional view of the outer planes is a great wheel divided into 16 pieces. Each piece is the upper layer of a plane and is joined to the upper layers of the two planes adjacent to it. Planes have an (sic) variable number of planar layers, also called levels. In the center of the wheel, joined to it by the Astral plane, are the Prime Material, Ethereal, and inner planes.
It also goes on to explain that each of the planes (and their layers) are infinite in size and shape, that there exists an additional outer plane "that does not fit into the wheel concept, but has strong connections with four mutually opposing planes," and that the outer planes are "roughly aligned according to good versus evil and Law versus Chaos," with the additional plane (Concordant Opposition) as a place of balance. That all sounds
very similar to the 2e/3e set-up for the outer planes.
Go back and actually read your 3e Monster Manual. There's nothing related to Planescape at all in there. Neither is anything referenced in the 3e DMG or PHB. Other than some very bare bones points about the Great Wheel, virtually all Planescape material was removed from the game for quite some time.
And the funny thing is, back when 3e came out, I remember that being hailed as a good thing. No more over settings intruding on supplements.
As I've stated earlier in the thread, I think WotC's best approach to take would be to try and A) incorporate as much of 4e and pre-4e lore as possible into 5e wherever they can and B) explicitly leave things open for DMs to change. I agree that the Great Wheel - like the World Axis - shouldn't be forced on anyone who doesn't want to use it. Eberron should get to keep the Orrery. The Realms should be able to go back to the World Tree if the writers like (though I expect it's getting the Wheel, which is fine because there's pretty good evidence it's what Greenwood prefers anyway). And if Nentir Vale ever resurfaces its head it should get the Great Wheel.
My own personal inclination is to look at all three of the major models - the Wheel, the Tree, and the Axis - as three different interpretations of a multidimensional system that even the most learned mages can't truly fathom on their own. So it doesn't really bother me overly much which system you prefer. The point I'm trying to make is that 4e forced its changes onto the existing lore, often in a lot of ways which were very jarring and upset a lot of people. And I think that could have easily been avoided.
2) Um, huh? Eladrin are elves. Says so right there in my 4e PHB. The only difference is now all elves are considered having fey origins. Not a really huge jump there is it? High elves and wood elves have a long history of being separated in the game and a long history of being separate in the genre. But, then again, I've seen how hard people will argue about the importance of a name, so, perhaps you have a point here.
Elves and eladrin are listed as separate races, and that's what most people pay attention to. That and the fact that the name was used by an angelic race prior. And while elves explicitly hang out in the Prime, eladrin primarily come from the Feywild and come with a lot of extra fluff that doesn't bear all that much resemblance to what existed for high elves prior.
When the change was originally made I thought it might be interesting. Separating drow, high elves, and wood elves
does make a certain amount of sense. But really, it mostly ended up causing (at least within the FR fandom) a lot of grief and arguments for very little reason.