Alternatively, you define how people see the outer planes in terms of what their particular cultural religion sees them. that way one culture can worship the norse gods and see the meta-world in the way that implies, another can worship the Egyptian pantheor and see the world that way. In which case Set is a part of the world, regardless of whether the Norse recognise him or not.
D&D 5E Wandering Monsters 1/15/14: Reinventing the Great Wheel
Alternatively, you define how people see the outer planes in terms of what their particular cultural religion sees them. that way one culture can worship the norse gods and see the meta-world in the way that implies, another can worship the Egyptian pantheor and see the world that way. In which case Set is a part of the world, regardless of whether the Norse recognise him or not.
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
KM: "Chaotic neutral" is greyhawk specific? You really believe that?
I would say chaotic neutral is D&D because its in a bunch of D&D books that are not greyhawk specific. And used in a bunch of peoples campaigns that are not greyhawk. And pre dates greyhawk as a publication and as a world, at least as we would now think of it. Its hard actually understand your argument. But you keep saying the same thing over and over again. In fact there is a good chance that you will just repeat exactly the same thing again after this post.
But I am trying to understand the various errors that seem to lie behind you saying it over and over again. I will make one last attempt.
1) You seem to conflate Gygax with Greyhawk. Gygax was a person who co-created D&D and created many of the things that remained core to it. Greyhawk was a castle, dungeon, and city were he set his games, and later became a "world" so that TSR could publish and make money from it. It had no cosmology specific to it, but used what was then the D&D cosmology, eventually. Its true that Gygax created that cosmology, with some input from others, because he was the main designer on the game at that time. Its not true that he just had this home campaign were he did this stuff in and then just stuck it into D&D. From what we know about planar and other worldly matters in his own game that is definitely not the case.
2) You seem to conflate a bunch of campaign worlds with Greyhawk. Lots of campaigns where the words Greyhawk, Oerth, or Flaennies (sic) were never ever used have had abyssal demons. Some were official settings. More importantly, most were peoples home games. They were not playing "Greyhawk". They sure as
were not playing FR. Its offensive to say that they were. Or using its specific cosmology. They had abyssal demons because they were playing D&D.
3) You don't seem to understand the liberty people have with their own D&D games. Now, when I mentioned this above, you ignored it so you could just repeat yourself, but I will elaborate. You can play D&D without demons, or blue dragons, or gnomes. Duh. You always could. Some of the most widely used sets of D&D rules do not have the word "demon" in them. You can always say demons of the outer darkness or Fresno or whatever. But when when demons have appeared, in the core rules, they were abyssal. Thats the default. It could be changed in a particular campaign--including published ones, which you seem to be obsessed with, but if someone uses the D&D defualt, demons are from the abyss.
4) Given 3, you seem to think D&D is a generic FRPG, without elements more specific to it and created from it. This is patently untrue.
I would say chaotic neutral is D&D because its in a bunch of D&D books that are not greyhawk specific. And used in a bunch of peoples campaigns that are not greyhawk. And pre dates greyhawk as a publication and as a world, at least as we would now think of it. Its hard actually understand your argument. But you keep saying the same thing over and over again. In fact there is a good chance that you will just repeat exactly the same thing again after this post.
But I am trying to understand the various errors that seem to lie behind you saying it over and over again. I will make one last attempt.
1) You seem to conflate Gygax with Greyhawk. Gygax was a person who co-created D&D and created many of the things that remained core to it. Greyhawk was a castle, dungeon, and city were he set his games, and later became a "world" so that TSR could publish and make money from it. It had no cosmology specific to it, but used what was then the D&D cosmology, eventually. Its true that Gygax created that cosmology, with some input from others, because he was the main designer on the game at that time. Its not true that he just had this home campaign were he did this stuff in and then just stuck it into D&D. From what we know about planar and other worldly matters in his own game that is definitely not the case.
2) You seem to conflate a bunch of campaign worlds with Greyhawk. Lots of campaigns where the words Greyhawk, Oerth, or Flaennies (sic) were never ever used have had abyssal demons. Some were official settings. More importantly, most were peoples home games. They were not playing "Greyhawk". They sure as
were not playing FR. Its offensive to say that they were. Or using its specific cosmology. They had abyssal demons because they were playing D&D.3) You don't seem to understand the liberty people have with their own D&D games. Now, when I mentioned this above, you ignored it so you could just repeat yourself, but I will elaborate. You can play D&D without demons, or blue dragons, or gnomes. Duh. You always could. Some of the most widely used sets of D&D rules do not have the word "demon" in them. You can always say demons of the outer darkness or Fresno or whatever. But when when demons have appeared, in the core rules, they were abyssal. Thats the default. It could be changed in a particular campaign--including published ones, which you seem to be obsessed with, but if someone uses the D&D defualt, demons are from the abyss.
4) Given 3, you seem to think D&D is a generic FRPG, without elements more specific to it and created from it. This is patently untrue.
Good post. With the success of the LotR movies and the launch of 3e, the ranger also became a potential master archer, with some of those archery feats doing things straight from the movies... (hard to believe it's been over 12 years since the first LotR movie came out.)
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Well, the Nentir Vale doesn't have it. And that's still D&D, right?
So CN might be used by a lot of settings. But just because a game is D&D doesn't mean that you can expect that Chaotic Neutral will be welcome in it. On the other hand, because it's in so many, it's probably an option you should provide (looks like a lot of folks find it useful!).
I don't think you're understanding the fact that Gygax was writing about a specific castle/dungeon/city/world when he wrote things. They didn't clearly label themselves as such, but it's pretty evident that they *are* (all druids belong to the same worldwide club in every world?). When Gygax was writing, there wasn't a distinction between his world and his game. When other people came along and put more worlds in the game, this distinction started to grow. In 2014, you can't really say that something that exists only in many of the worlds is synonymous with the game as a whole. That "rounding up" ignores and over-writes some of the awesome diversity that I feel is the true brand identity of D&D. CN doesn't exist in all instances of D&D, so it's not equal to D&D. There's a diversity there. That's awesome.
2) You seem to conflate a bunch of campaign worlds with Greyhawk. Lots of campaigns where the words Greyhawk, Oerth, or Flaennies (sic) were never ever used have had abyssal demons. Some were official settings. More importantly, most were peoples home games. They were not playing "Greyhawk". They sure as
You can be using demons from the Abyss and not be playing in Greyhawk. It's a Greyhawk invention, but there's no law against grabbing it and using it in your games (and breaking off a piece of Greyhawk as you do). Again, that kind of appropriation is foundational to the game -- it's what Gygax himself did!
The important distinction is that you can't be playing D&D and thus assume that demons are from the Abyss. Because unless you're playing in a setting where they explicitly are, they might not be.
You seem to believe that the Core Rules are somehow neutral. This has never really been the case, either because the distinction wasn't relevant (in early D&D) or because of a specific choice (3e or 4e).
It has become true. D&D isn't a specific world or a specific playstyle anymore. There's much within the umbrella of D&D. When you talk about D&D as a whole, you need to take into account all that diversity. So you can't say that demons are from the abyss in D&D, even if they're from the Abyss in 80% of D&D.
KM is trying to assert that D&D can somehow claim [and, I suppose] brand and claim as IP, "all things to all people" since that, to KM, is what D&D "is." It covers it all...and so, somehow, D&D should be trying to make any and all fantasy stuff that anyone could ever come up with as relevant and specific to "D&D."
That "All D&D is local" shmutz.
It's a great, nice, all inclusive, shiny happy people holding hands vision...it is not at all relevant, or even possible, from a business (let alone branding/claiming IP) standpoint. They can not [tm] everything someone might want to use in their [local] D&D game. To try, or suggest they should try, is the height of folly.
The game is all inclusive...given. They can not claim all fantasy imagination as theirs by [some kind of copy-] right.
That "All D&D is local" shmutz.
It's a great, nice, all inclusive, shiny happy people holding hands vision...it is not at all relevant, or even possible, from a business (let alone branding/claiming IP) standpoint. They can not [tm] everything someone might want to use in their [local] D&D game. To try, or suggest they should try, is the height of folly.
The game is all inclusive...given. They can not claim all fantasy imagination as theirs by [some kind of copy-] right.
I'm fairly sure that among the things Robin Hood was, Master Archer fits in somewhere. There were Ranger kits in 2e that fitted that exact archetype, as well.
Desdichado
Hero
Greyhawk was, originally, an OD&D supplement published in February 1975. The Monster Manual for AD&D was first published in December of 1977. Greyhawk predated (in print, at least) the MM by almost three years.
You may be right (I'm not very familiar with the treatment of demons prior to the Monster Manual, or at least I don't remember what they did) but you may also be ignoring an awful lot of D&D that wasn't specifically AD&D.
And the AD&D DMG where, and correct me if I'm wrong here, the Great Wheel was first published, wasn't until August 1979. So Greyhawk would predate the Great Wheel (again, in print--in EGG's mind and home games it could have been very different) by more than four years.
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Non "A" D&D does not have the great wheel and does not have demons, or at least B/X or RC does not have demons. So true.
Greyhawk was a rules supplement that had practically no setting info. It had the thief, the paladin, high level spells, new monsters. etc. But again, there was no real "setting" at that point to publish, mostly just rough notes on a big dungeon. Blackmore (also a campaign) would be similar, assasin, monk, hit location rules...but also have a module, so that is closer to "setting".
Desdichado
Hero
To be nitpicky, that's actually untrue. D&D had chaotic, neutral and lawful as alignments. AD&D had the nine alignment system.
And as I pointed out earlier, Greyhawk as a published entity (albeit, admittedly lacking in very many setting details) predates AD&D entirely.
It wasn't until 3e that D&D and AD&D conventions were finally and truly merged officially.
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