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<blockquote data-quote="Nivenus" data-source="post: 6397604" data-attributes="member: 71756">So is Greyhawk canon to generic D&amp;D or isn't it? Because you seem to be going back and forth on this one. If it is, then setting material does encroach on &quot;core&quot; D&amp;D (and vice versa). If it isn't then this point seems irrelevant as my key point was that the MotP was considered &quot;canon&quot; in regards to 1e D&amp;D's &quot;assumed&quot; ideas about the planes, rather than to Greyhawk specifically.In any case you're mistaken: the Greyhawk deities were clearly placed among the Outer Planes of the Great Wheel in the original Dragon articles featuring them. Heironeous is set in the Seven Heavens, Hextor in Acheron, St. Cuthbert in Arcadia, etc. Greyhawk's made use of the Great Wheel since 1st edition.Sort of but not really. Here's the thing, law was presumed good and chaos was presumed evil, but the details were a little bit more complicated than that. Villains and heroes could each be &quot;neutral&quot; instead of lawful or chaotic (indeed orcs were as likely to chaotic or neutral) while certain creatures of &quot;law&quot; were pretty unconcerned with good (treants, for example, read more like an example of lawful neutral than lawful good). And again, Gary Gygax himself is on record as stating that his inspiration for the alignment system was Moorcock's Elric series, which similarly positions law as superficially good and chaos as superficially evil, whereas the truth is that both are kind of undesirable in their extremes.I'll grant you that the addition of good and evil as another axis distinguished law and chaos as a separate conflict more clearly, but it seems to me the idea was there from the beginning.I'm with others; I don't really get how you see this kind of storyline as incompatible with Planescape. If anything the fact that belief is a powerful force for shaping the universe seems to make the decisions people make all the more important.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Nivenus, post: 6397604, member: 71756"] So is Greyhawk canon to generic D&D or isn't it? Because you seem to be going back and forth on this one. If it is, then setting material does encroach on "core" D&D (and vice versa). If it isn't then this point seems irrelevant as my key point was that the MotP was considered "canon" in regards to 1e D&D's "assumed" ideas about the planes, rather than to Greyhawk specifically. In any case you're mistaken: the Greyhawk deities were clearly placed among the Outer Planes of the Great Wheel in the original [I]Dragon[/I] articles featuring them. Heironeous is set in the Seven Heavens, Hextor in Acheron, St. Cuthbert in Arcadia, etc. Greyhawk's made use of the Great Wheel since 1st edition. Sort of but not really. Here's the thing, law was presumed good and chaos was presumed evil, but the details were a little bit more complicated than that. Villains and heroes could each be "neutral" instead of lawful or chaotic (indeed orcs were as likely to chaotic or neutral) while certain creatures of "law" were pretty unconcerned with good (treants, for example, read more like an example of lawful neutral than lawful good). And again, Gary Gygax himself is on record as stating that his inspiration for the alignment system was Moorcock's Elric series, which similarly positions law as superficially good and chaos as superficially evil, whereas the truth is that both are kind of undesirable in their extremes. I'll grant you that the addition of good and evil as another axis distinguished law and chaos as a separate conflict more clearly, but it seems to me the idea was there from the beginning. I'm with others; I don't really get how you see this kind of storyline as incompatible with Planescape. If anything the fact that belief is a powerful force for shaping the universe seems to make the decisions people make all the [I]more[/I] important. [/QUOTE]

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