Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Because themes of good and evil, and where you go when you die, are actually mythological questions pondered by everyone, not just a tiny handful of adventurers. Thus, the cosmology includes everyone.
D&D General What is your favorite D&D cosmology?
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
Vaalingrade
Legend
None of that's missing in the world Axis.
Voadam
Legend
Its funny the 1e Great Wheel always felt very cosmic Marvel Comics to me.
While the World Axis feels very D&D Norse Nine Worlds
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That took me longer than it really should have. Well played, though.
Cosmologies are better when they don't include afterlives.
Aldarc
Legend
...for post hoc artificial and gamist reasons.
This is a fundamental difference to me. The World Axis feels mythic and organic. It feels like it actually taps into the historical human mythos and its stories. The Great Wheel feels more like an artificial construct that exists for the sake of its gamist conceits: i.e., alignment. IMHO, there's no real mystery and wonder with the Great Wheel.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Very much YMMV.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Whereas I feel the exact opposite, across the board. So I guess there's value in both cosmoligies.
Aldarc
Legend
You honestly feel that the Great Wheel taps into the historical human mythos and its stories more than the World Axis?
Well I like both versions....but to answer your question;
The Great Wheel certainly INCLUDES all those historical human mythos. But basically, unless playing Planescape itself, very very few beings "know" the layout of the wheel, so each world or Pantheon tells its own "mythic" story.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Yup. In large part due to it using actual myths and stories from RL. Also, unlike some posters, I like afterlives in my cosmology, and i can absolutely see D&D scholars finding a place for everyone's heaven and hell in a grand unifying theory. It feels a lot more real to me than the World Axis, which exists solely for the entertainment of game players and makes no bones about it.
Aldarc
Legend
The Great Wheel uses myths and stories from RL with the same regard for the source material as Marvel or DC does: i.e., with little regard. The World Axis, IMHO, taps into the spirit, themes, and motifs of these human myths and stories in a way that clearly harkens to these stories (i.e., Chaoskampf).
The Great Wheel is constructed around alignment. I dare you to name something more artificial and gamist than that. Go ahead, Micah. Adventuring in the cosmos isn't gamist. Alignment categorically is, and the Great Wheel made no bones about how it was filling-in the boxes for the sake of filling-in-the-boxes. It's difficult for me to see how anyone could argue otherwise once one removes their rose-tinted nostalgia goggles.
There's so much food for thought in this thread. Really excellent discussion.
A bunch of dimensions you can go to where "oh hey, my dead uncle jim lives here now" seem badly ill considered to me. Death and dimensional teleporting need work drastically differently--or, if they don't, have their implications be very deliberately followed a to logical conclusion.
You know, I always used to think the inner planes were silly and pointless. Why bother inventing a place for a game where, if players go to it, they instantly die or, if not, have nothing to do. But you blew my mind with this comment; I would never look askance at a setting where travel to the moon meant instant death. So, I guess, if there are a handful of interesting places set in, say, the plane of fire--that are enriched by being set there--then the existence of those planes is justified well enough.
Ya, great observation. That looks super clear now you've pointed it out.
This is a really interesting consideration. I think both approaches can work well. But for the afterlife to be made a gameable space, the non-afterlife parts of the setting really need to be set up with themes that make the afterlife feel important somehow.
A bunch of dimensions you can go to where "oh hey, my dead uncle jim lives here now" seem badly ill considered to me. Death and dimensional teleporting need work drastically differently--or, if they don't, have their implications be very deliberately followed a to logical conclusion.
Mind of tempest
(he/him)
currently, they all feel wrong to me somehow like they are not suitably awe-inspiring
Neonchameleon
Legend
Which Great Wheel. Because the 5e Great Wheel is not the Classic Great Wheel; the 5e Great Wheel is at its core the World Axis with a weird Astral Sea. If you look at the 5e Great Wheel you find that at the heart of it is the Feywild and the Shadowfell bordering on the Material Plane, and there's the Elemental Chaos surrounding that, and the Upper and Lower Planes surrounding the Elemental Chaos.
If we look at the World Axis we find it's more organic and more of a mess, but everything is there. The Upper and Lower planes are all part of the Astral Sea - and if you were to force a structure on it you could put it in the shape of the Great Wheel. Just about the only thing you don't find in the World Axis that you do in the modern Great Wheel is the Ethereal Plane.
The original Great Wheel was this accountant's design (you can tell really old versions because the LN plane is Nirvana not Mechanus; I think this illustration comes from the AD&D 1e DMG). It's symmetric and centered around cosmology. It looks as if there was an Overgod in control of it who would throw the Gods out of heaven if they didn't uphold this structure and uphold this artificial balance. (For those not aware this was the inciting incident of the Avatar Trilogy written to explain the changes between the Forgotten Realms of AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e). There was, of course, an intermediate set of planes (which is why the wheel is a square). The elemental planes and the planes like the "Positive Material plane" (a.k.a. the Positive Energy Plane) are sometimes noted as very rarely having inhabitants.
Where does it say that? As mentioned the Forgotten Realms cosmology at least used to be presented as objectively true and enforced. But then the Realms developed the World Tree... Honestly the World Axis reminds me of a map made by mortals for mortals in the old school style with the fantasy equivalent of "Here be Dragons" marked on it. And of course it focuses on adventurable areas. I don't understand what peoples' problem is with a map made for mortals focusing on the parts that are useful to mortals.
Meanwhile the TSR Era Great Wheel, which @Micah Sweet claims is mythology interpreted by mortal scholars is far too defined for that. It slots everything into an equal 16 point wheel or the inner hub. Mythology is messy. The "Everything necessarily fits this order" (as opposed to an Aarne-Thompson or Dewey Decimal approach of "We need some ordering to find anything in this mess and this order is very much imperfect but it is at least an order") isn't the work of good scholars or good mythologists. It's the approach of tin foil hat wearing cranks in which there can be no accident or coincidence and in which there is nothing that doesn't fit the pre-ordained pattern that the crank brought with them to the show.
Attachments
Quoted for Truth. Good words.
Storyteller Hero
Adventurer
Bottom of page 43, top of page 44 Dungeon Masters Guide, 5th edition:
"Sages have constructed a few such theoretical models to make sense of the jumble of planes, particularly the Outer Planes. The three most common are the Great Wheel, the World Tree, and the World Axis, but you can create and adapt whatever model works best for the planes you want to use in your game."
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
As I said, since I'm not the only person who likes the Great Wheel, clearly there is value to both cosmoligies, and we each have a preference. We're not going to change any minds here, so let's leave it at that.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Well, I'm glad that 4e's World Axis finally came along to show us how the previous 30 years of cosmology was garbage then. I dont recall any hew and cry about how terrible the Great Wheel was, and in fact a pretty cool and well-regarding campaign setting was based on it. I respect the World Axis, and appreciate the addition of the Feywild and the Shadowfell (although I don't really like either of those names), but I prefer the Wheel.
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