D&D 5E The Multiverse

[LuisCarlos17f]

I don't mind the canon too much if I can change in the way I want, but I worry about WotC making an mistake and we have got a "jummping the shark". We don't know the future plans by Hasbro about the franchise, and this is very important, because if they want official crossover between D&D and other franchises, we are going to need a really good explanation.

Some times in the past I was kidding about a future event, the multiverse secret crisis wars, causing a reset and reboot of all the D&D franchises. You can bet Hasbro would dare to do it if they think it's necesary. Don't say "That is not possible, that would be like if Marvel Comics kills Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, or Thor becomes fatter and... oh wait!

* The crossover is possible, but the lore by both lines aren't linked yet.

* There is an option: old D&D lines could be recycled to be possible future planes as places of adventures by the planewalkers. A planewalker from Hollow World(Mystara), Jakandor or Cerilia(Birthright)? Never say never.

* The time travel and creation of a new timeline is official in a Magic: the Gathering plane, and also possible in D&D, but very, very rare. I guess this a joker card they are keeping until the right time if later they need a too radical reboot.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The D&D Multiverse is entirely a meta construct. Every D&D game ever played is a part of the Multiverse, and is connected to every other. Because they all use the same rules, the same game physics, the same game references, the same identities showing up again and again and again across millions of D&D games since Dungeons & Dragons was first invented. And no "character" within any game world knows "the truth"... the same way none of us in the real world know the truth about our own potential Multiverse. It's all just theory, it's all just philosophy, it's all just stories with no method of proving it real or not.

Even if "characters" within a world think they know the truth about the Multiverse because they can travel to other planes of existence... like a Faerunian character from a person's FR game travels to Eberron or Theros, or whatever... they don't know the whole truth of the D&D Multiverse because they ain't travelling to MY Forgotten Realms game worlds. And mine are just a handful of the other millions those characters will never know about or experience.

 

[Marandahir]

Forgotten Realms and it's Inner and Outer and Transitive Planes are entirely within a Crystal Sphere. If you've got a Spelljammer, you can sail from that Crystal Sphere to the ones around Theros, or Ravnica, or Eberron, or Athas, or Greyhawk, or Krynn, or Mystara, or Blackmoor, etc etc etc.

In that case, you'd be a Planeswalker in MtG terms or a the helm of a Spelljammer, in D&D terms.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I dislike the concept of a D&D multiverse of connected settings. I don't use it in my games.

 

[Hatmatter]

Forgotten Realms and it's Inner and Outer and Transitive Planes are entirely within a Crystal Sphere. If you've got a Spelljammer, you can sail from that Crystal Sphere to the ones around Theros, or Ravnica, or Eberron, or Athas, or Greyhawk, or Krynn, or Mystara, or Blackmoor, etc etc etc.

In that case, you'd be a Planeswalker in MtG terms or a the helm of a Spelljammer, in D&D terms.

I don't want to be a "fantasy cop" because anyone can run their games or envision their fantasy environments however they would like. But, as someone who ran Spelljammer at my table when it first came out and who has listened to all of the Dragon Talk interviews over the years wherein Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Matt Cernak, and others communicate how they think about these things, I would merely offer that I am reasonably sure (I could always be wrong) that this is not the way the multiverse was conceived in either 2nd edition or in 5th edition. In those editions, I am reasonably certain that the position expressed in either the products (Spelljammer) or the Wizards of the Coast-sanctioned interviews with the current creative team, is that the worlds of Athas, Krynn, Mystara, etc. are all part of the same Material Plane and are separated in distinct crystal spheres. The Inner Planes are not unique to each crystal sphere. So, at least from these official sources that I mention, the Elemental Plane of Fire that might be accessed from Krynn is the same one that might be accessed from Oerth or Abeir-Toril. The same would be said of any of the Inner Planes or Transitive Planes.

Again, I am not meaning to step on how you run things. It's a fantasy game and everyone is free to imagine it how they might, but this is my understanding about how the crystal spheres were conceived in the 1990s and by the current creative team at Wizards of the Coast.

 

[Coroc]

everything is possible with d&d. The only headache i get is, if people try to make fluff of one setting compatible with fluff from the other , by using the crowbar method, while claiming said fluff is mechanical rules and the game be broken if it does not work their way.
other than that, specifically considering mtg and d&d, it seems to be quite easy in that case, unless you plan crossovers to some of the other official settings.
the latter requires some more thought and work to make it run smoothly.

 

[Coroc]

I don't want to be a "fantasy cop" because anyone can run their games or envision their fantasy environments however they would like. But, as someone who ran Spelljammer at my table when it first came out and who has listened to all of the Dragon Talk interviews over the years wherein Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Matt Cernak, and others communicate how they think about these things, I would merely offer that I am reasonably sure (I could always be wrong) that this is not the way the multiverse was conceived in either 2nd edition or in 5th edition. In those editions, I am reasonably certain that the position expressed in either the products (Spelljammer) or the Wizards of the Coast-sanctioned interviews with the current creative team, is that the worlds of Athas, Krynn, Mystara, etc. are all part of the same Material Plane and are separated in distinct crystal spheres. The Inner Planes are not unique to each crystal sphere. So, at least from these official sources that I mention, the Elemental Plane of Fire that might be accessed from Krynn is the same one that might be accessed from Oerth or Abeir-Toril. The same would be said of any of the Inner Planes or Transitive Planes.

Again, I am not meaning to step on how you run things. It's a fantasy game and everyone is free to imagine it how they might, but this is my understanding about how the crystal spheres were conceived in the 1990s and by the current creative team at Wizards of the Coast.

it is not the fact in your example that the plane of fire would be a possible transitional plane between otherwise incompatible worlds, it is the primes themselves, especially with 2e special rules for some game worlds which could cause problems here.
5e unfortunately does not help much by its unifying approach.
see, of course you can place saltmarsh into fr, but it has nothing to do at all with greyhawk anymore then in your personal approach. But to initiate some planeshift in the case of saltmarsh seems not very feasable, just to leave it in its original surroundings whilst making it accessible from fr.

 

[Coroc]

Forgotten Realms and it's Inner and Outer and Transitive Planes are entirely within a Crystal Sphere. If you've got a Spelljammer, you can sail from that Crystal Sphere to the ones around Theros, or Ravnica, or Eberron, or Athas, or Greyhawk, or Krynn, or Mystara, or Blackmoor, etc etc etc.

In that case, you'd be a Planeswalker in MtG terms or a the helm of a Spelljammer, in D&D terms.

yeah, nice thing for a planescape or spelljammer campaign, but for your standard campaign? Fetch the rod of seven parts from seven different worlds or so , is the about the only purpose i can see then.

 

[Hatmatter]

it is not the fact in your example that the plane of fire would be a possible transitional plane between otherwise incompatible worlds, it is the primes themselves, especially with 2e special rules for some game worlds which could cause problems here.
5e unfortunately does not help much by its unifying approach.
see, of course you can place saltmarsh into fr, but it has nothing to do at all with greyhawk anymore then in your personal approach. But to initiate some planeshift in the case of saltmarsh seems not very feasable, just to leave it in its original surroundings whilst making it accessible from fr.

Thank you Coroc. I would love to respond to what you are adding to the conversation here, but I am not quite able to follow. Could you explain what you mean by this:

it is not the fact in your example that the plane of fire would be a possible transitional plane between otherwise incompatible worlds...

In responding to Marandahir's contribution to this discussion, I was merely pointing out my understanding of how the crystal spheres operated in the TSR Spelljammer line and how the current Wizards team seems to regard crystal sphere viz a viz the Material Plane. I did not attempt to suggest that the Elemental Plane of Fire, or any of the Inner Planes, are regarded as a Transitive Plane (I think that is what you mean by "transitional plane"?). Beyond that, I simply did not understand your response.

To be clear, the only real idea that I was responding to from Marandahir's post was in relation to the notion that the Inner Planes and Transitive Planes were within a crystal sphere. I never saw that in print and I never heard that from any of the Wizards people interviewed on Dragon Talk. That's it.

As I indicated, my post is dangerously close to playing fantasy cop...it is all make believe, so I am going to simply keep it there. In some situations when people may not have played Spelljammer or read the Spelljammer material, some clarifications can be useful. But, sometimes they simply rub people the wrong way. Hopefully I have not offended anyone.

 

[Iry]

I also use the cloud concept. The D&D cosmology is one Galaxy, while MG is a second, and Eberron is a third. It's possible to go from one Galaxy to the next, but the metaphysical distances are vast.

Or to use a similar example: D&D is Stargate. MG is Stargate Atlantis.