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<blockquote data-quote="Savage Wombat" data-source="post: 6331622" data-attributes="member: 1932">A fair question.&nbsp; My opinion is that the 1e version of the planes presented the idea that there existed a &quot;plane of absolute lawful evil&quot; without particularly explaining what that meant.&nbsp; It was just a thing, like the existence of a plane that was &quot;fire&quot;.2e attempted to develop the personalities and stories of all the monsters - and most of those hang on in some form today.&nbsp; For the planar creatures, they created the idea that the natives of the planes of alignment were exemplars of that alignment, and worked to promote that alignment throughout the universe.&nbsp; I personally think the Blood War is a great contribution to the nature of the planes - the story being that evil frequently undermines itself by being unable to work together.&nbsp; (Very 2e - think Dragonlance.)&nbsp; Now, you can say &quot;I just want a bare-bones world&quot; - but that's precisely what WotC doesn't want.&nbsp; They know that some DMs will, regardless of what they write, do whatever they want.&nbsp; But they also know that some DMs will want a story that fires their imaginations and gives them adventure ideas.&nbsp; And a coherent storyline is better for that, and for WotC.&nbsp; They've worked very hard to come up with identities for their creatures, as we've seen in last year's articles.&nbsp; They don't want to say &quot;this is a Vrock, and it has these powers&quot; - they want to say &quot;this is a vrock, this is what it wants and why, and this is why it has the powers it does&quot;.&nbsp; Explaining that a Vrock is a soldier of destruction in a bloody conflict works well for that.And when we have people like Shemeska who have written material for - what, three editions now? - with a singular view of the planes, it makes a strong case for &quot;this is traditionally what the Vrock is like.&quot;&nbsp; And you generally need a strong argument for changing tradition, just to get enough people to agree with you.I'm OK with you not liking elements such as these.&nbsp; I'm OK with having WotC change how the story goes, and then exercising my right to gripe about it here.&nbsp; But I strongly defend the right of people who like these elements to stand up and say &quot;this is how it's been, and I don't want it to change&quot; - and that's the primary thing I see you arguing about.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Savage Wombat, post: 6331622, member: 1932"] A fair question. My opinion is that the 1e version of the planes presented the idea that there existed a "plane of absolute lawful evil" without particularly explaining what that meant. It was just a thing, like the existence of a plane that was "fire". 2e attempted to develop the personalities and stories of all the monsters - and most of those hang on in some form today. For the planar creatures, they created the idea that the natives of the planes of alignment were exemplars of that alignment, and worked to promote that alignment throughout the universe. I personally think the Blood War is a great contribution to the nature of the planes - the story being that evil frequently undermines itself by being unable to work together. (Very 2e - think Dragonlance.) Now, you can say "I just want a bare-bones world" - but that's precisely what WotC [I]doesn't [/I]want. They know that some DMs will, regardless of what they write, do whatever they want. But they also know that some DMs will want a story that fires their imaginations and gives them adventure ideas. And a coherent storyline is better for that, and for WotC. They've worked very hard to come up with identities for their creatures, as we've seen in last year's articles. They don't want to say "this is a Vrock, and it has these powers" - they want to say "this is a vrock, this is what it wants and why, and this is why it has the powers it does". Explaining that a Vrock is a soldier of destruction in a bloody conflict works well for that. And when we have people like Shemeska who have written material for - what, three editions now? - with a singular view of the planes, it makes a strong case for "this is traditionally what the Vrock is like." And you generally need a strong argument for changing tradition, just to get enough people to agree with you. I'm OK with you not liking elements such as these. I'm OK with having WotC change how the story goes, and then exercising my right to gripe about it here. But I strongly defend the right of people who like these elements to stand up and say "this is how it's been, and I don't want it to change" - and that's the primary thing I see you arguing about. [/QUOTE]

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