D&D 5E Wandering Monsters 1/15/14: Reinventing the Great Wheel

[MarkB]

Why do you honestly need a guide? Creating a cosmology would be considered an advanced level task amd by then, you shouldn't need a book to tell you how.

As Eberron and other settings illustrate, planar cosmology can have a fundamental effect on the material plane in some settings, influecing campaigns right from first level - it doesn't need to be something you leave until higher levels to implement.

And some GMs, and players, prefer to start a campaign at higher levels, where plane-hopping may start to become a factor, or at least an option.

So no, creating a planar cosmology is not something that only well-practised GMs will do, and even if it were, the rulebooks are not purely a beginner's guide - they can, hopefully, provide useful advice for more experienced players as well.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

As Eberron and other settings illustrate, planar cosmology can have a fundamental effect on the material plane in some settings, influecing campaigns right from first level - it doesn't need to be something you leave until higher levels to implement.

And some GMs, and players, prefer to start a campaign at higher levels, where plane-hopping may start to become a factor, or at least an option.

So no, creating a planar cosmology is not something that only well-practised GMs will do, and even if it were, the rulebooks are not purely a beginner's guide - they can, hopefully, provide useful advice for more experienced players as well.

So if you're jumping to high level campaigns then you aren't a beginner and therefore do not need help in creating one. If you are using a specific campaign setting then use what it's default. If you want to use your own then it doean't matter how it reacts to the material plane because you have control over it.

 

[MarkB]

So if you're jumping to high level campaigns then you aren't a beginner and therefore do not need help in creating one.

Plenty of inexperienced players and DMs go for higher-level campaigns. Sometimes they want to get straight to the 'good stuff', sometimes a low-level start just doesn't suit the style of campaign the DM is aiming for.

If you are using a specific campaign setting then use what it's default. If you want to use your own then it doean't matter how it reacts to the material plane because you have control over it.

As any driving instructor will tell you, having control over something won't prevent it from going wrong if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[TerraDave]

My opinions are quite positive!

.....


The Blood War isn't an important element of D&D. It's an important element of Planescape (and possibly by extension Greyhawk).

Demons coming from the Abyss isn't a D&D trope, it's a Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms and Planescape trope.

Yes. Yes. and NO.

Saying abysal demons are not a D&D trope is like saying chromatic dragons are not a D&D trope. Or the nine alignments are not a D&D trope. Its a quintessential D&D trope, versus say orcs, which are a more general fantasy trope, or kender, which are dragonlance specific.

Demons in the first monster manual come from the the abyss. Thats what they are, abyss creatures. Every monster book afterwords that has demons has said the same thing. (The 2E/PS history of blood war is of course more confusing, as demons were not in the core rules, and the blood war was not originally fought by "demons".)

And demons were of course abysal years before any settings has been published for D&D.

A particular campaign world can say something else. fine, but then that is specific to that setting.

 

[Sage Genesis]

Experience is not some sort of monolithic block of knowledge. You could run a dungeon-crawling game for years and still not know a damn thing about crafting your own cosmology. A book with advice, tips, examples, and rules can be a helpful product to get people started. Just being "experienced" doesn't magically inspire people to build a good cosmology. The 3e Manual of the Planes had all sorts of ideas for planes that were kind of clever, including plenty ideas that not everyone would've thought of themselves (experienced or otherwise).

Besides, how will a new-ish DM know when he's ready for such an "advanced" task? People are notoriously bad at judging their own competency. (See also: the Dunning-Kruger effect.) Having a book around is helpful.

Why is this even a point of discussion anyway?




As for the article itself... I kind of agree with Kamikaze Midget, except that it's really hard to disentangle "generic D&D" elements from "Greyhawk" elements. TerraDave brings up some good points, but let's muddle the issue even further by pointing out that dragons in Dark Sun and Birthright aren't neatly divided into chromatic/metallic subtypes, yet they're still D&D settings. So, are chromatic dragons a D&D thing? I'd say yes, but with the caveat that they're not mandatory in individual campaigns. To extend this line of thinking to demons, they're probably from the Abyss in default D&D but not necessarily so in every game. As KM said, it wouldn't make sense in an Egyptian-themed game.

For these reasons I think Next should only offer a very vague picture of what the planes are like, with two optional fleshed out examples. One of them the Great Wheel, the other a more 4e/Eberron kind of style. Demons are from some hellish realm, probably called the Abyss. Which might be set in a certain place along the alignment-cycle or it might be a truly independent realm floating through the astral somewhere. For a basic, introductory text it doesn't need much more detail than that. As long as bad guys get to summon demons and heroes get to vanquish them, it's good enough for starters. (All IMO anyway.)

 

[Mistwell]

So if you're jumping to high level campaigns then you aren't a beginner and therefore do not need help in creating one. If you are using a specific campaign setting then use what it's default. If you want to use your own then it doean't matter how it reacts to the material plane because you have control over it.

Where is this idea coming from that an experienced DM doesn't want help creating an advanced thing like how the planes work? Why is it you seem to think "Experienced" = "Doesn't want help" ?

I've played D&D since 1977. And I've never once, not one single time, run a game in a plane other than the prime material plane. I'd really like the DM's guide to help guide me through the process of creating my own planes. And yet, I am plenty experienced in terms of being a DM.

 

[Li Shenron]

The article is right on every accord, in practice it's rediscovering warm water...

The poll result... the vast majority wants a default but they are split between the 3e and 4e defaults, however the vast majority also want plenty of examples. This really tells me, that there shouldn't be a default. Otherwise, those parties who wanted a default are going to fight each other again because one of them "won" over the other.

People should realize that "default cosmology" almost only has cosmetic meaning that are always easy to adjust to your needs, and as such it's not worth fighting over it.

As Eberron and other settings illustrate, planar cosmology can have a fundamental effect on the material plane in some settings, influecing campaigns right from first level - it doesn't need to be something you leave until higher levels to implement.

Story-wise it can have a truly massive effect, but mechanically the only effects are on how a small bunch of spells work (typically travel spells using the planes), but normally all of them can be "fixed" by changing their description.

For example, who really cares if a "Shadow Jump" spell used for teleporting between two shadows really takes the caster through another plane called "Plane of Shadows" or achieves the effect in another way, not even necessarily fully explained?

Because of that, you don't really need to design your cosmology until you actually use it, i.e. until you take your PCs to other planes. And even then, you can still changes.

A published setting is another matter, of course they want to decide the cosmology early on, just like they also decide the world layout (which is by the way another example of something you don't really need to design beforehand).

So no, creating a planar cosmology is not something that only well-practised GMs will do, and even if it were, the rulebooks are not purely a beginner's guide - they can, hopefully, provide useful advice for more experienced players as well.

Yes. Designing a cosmology is dead easy, it doesn't take a well-practised GM. Manual of the Planes-types book don't so much provide necessary "how to", but rather inspiration, ideas to steal, tricks to make planehopping interesting etc. As such, they are certainly useful to experienced gamers too!

 

[am181d]

My sense is that Wizards (and presumably their Hasbro overlords) want to use D&D Next to consolidate the brand around the Forgotten Realms, to create a platform for TV, films, more books and video games, etc.

I am 100% okay with this, because it's smart business and I can happily ignore all of that stuff.

Hopefully the DMG (or equivalent product) will do a good job of saying "If you want to design your own world, here's how you do that.

 

[tangleknot]

In most games I play, we never leave our home plane; angels from heaven, demons/devils from hell (we keep it simple). With that said I've Dm'ed 2; 2+ year planescape games, and have played in 3; 2+ year games as well. 10 years of planescape and I'm no where near close to running out of material.
I think the great wheel design works pretty darn good and unless WOTC wants to publish a whole new plane hopping campaign setting I'll just continue to ignore any changes to this already well designed cosmetology. Why reinvent the wheel?

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Why do you honestly need a guide? Creating a cosmology would be considered an advanced level task amd by then, you shouldn't need a book to tell you how.

I've got my algebra book, why would I want a calculus book to teach me an advanced level math task?!