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Wandering Monsters 1/15/14: Reinventing the Great Wheel
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<blockquote data-quote="Sage Genesis" data-source="post: 6245920" data-attributes="member: 6706099"><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect" target="_blank">Dunning-Kruger effect.</a>) Having a book around is helpful.</p><p></p><p>Why is this even a point of discussion anyway?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>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 <em>mandatory</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>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.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sage Genesis, post: 6245920, member: 6706099"] 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 [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect]Dunning-Kruger effect.[/url]) 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 [I]mandatory[/I] 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.) [/QUOTE]
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