D&D General Which material planes do you like in your cosmology?

[Stormonu]

Travel between the various worlds such as Toril and Athas is... troublesome to me. And this is because in my vision, things work drastically different. Magic is not the same. So a wizard from the Realms who shows up in Athas is not going to be able to use the weave to cast a spell.

I have no idea how, or if I would even want, to work out a system to have a Realms wizard learn defiling or preservation magic.

Things are not as bad with Greyhawk or Eberron, but still. To me, it's best to use different characters to explore the different worlds.

Now, planes, such as the material planes and shadowfell etc, that's fun.

The Gith have penetrated to Athas, so it is at least reachable by Astral. There was an article in Dragon back in the day that hinted Athas might be a future version of Greyhawk or FR, before the novels took the setting in another direction.

As for why interconnect these worlds, why not? Blackmoor was connected to Greyhawk and Mystara officially, The Wizards Three articles connected Oerth Toril and Ansalon, we even have connections to Star Frontiers and Oerth via Barrier Peaks, and even Gary did some scenarios of WW2 nazis (our Earth) vs. Oerth wizards.

Crossovers via multiverse have been a thing for years, and there’s nothing wrong with them for some crossing of the streams, so long as everyone has fun.

 

[LordEntrails]

It's perfectly up to the DM to determine whether magic from one Sphere functions in another sphere, which could leave travellers stranded and powerless.

Hence why my qualifiers of "to me" and "I" etc.

 

[Li Shenron]

Yea, you can. But why? Why have a cosmology so large that a single campaign could never adequately explore it? Why not just each time you run a campaign you pick a cosmology to run it in?

Well I think each world/setting is already too large to cover in one campaign

 

[Voadam]

The show Sliders could be used as an inspiration.

 

[Voadam]

I had great fun going world to world on a spelljammer (homebrew world to Krynn to Faerun), then later taking the character into different DMs' campaigns. Worldhopping can be fun.

 

[Voadam]

I am not sure if it's Athas case or one of the other settings, where a Wizard's spells wouldn't work but magic items would. So while adventuring there, a party would have to lend as many magic items as convenient to their Wizard to protect her. It's also an incentive to try and end your quest and cone back quickly to your base world.

By the rules AD&D going to different worlds and planes can really handicap different characters in different ways.

A big one is a cleric going to a world where their god does not have a presence which used to mean no cleric spells above 2nd level unless they made accommodations with local gods.

Going into a fully anti-magic area can be a serious pain.

These things can be an interesting challenge and change of pace or a purely frustrating experience, I would advise proceeding with the possibly frustrating aspects as a consideration.

 

[Voadam]

Yes, that is its own topic. Originally I thought I might add an extra hierarchy level on top and have an "ultraverse" made of multiverses, maybe also adding higher level spells to travel between cosmologies. But it sounds too obvious, the usual boring nerdity, so I might just decide I don't care and let things be more oblique.

D&D is very flexible on stuff like cosmology and multiple worlds. You could make a dozen non-D&D fantasy worlds part of your D&D planet options and have them all work by similar baseline D&D rules or modify things to be different on each one. D&D works with Eberron and Rokugan having their own local planar cosmology in a multi-world campaign or using the same baseline D&D applied to them instead of their unique one. You can come up with a grand theory, or have it be unexplained and mysterious, you just need to decide as DM how things work in the moment like what an FR weave tapping wizard needs to do to use magic on Athas where there is defiling and preserver techniques for dealing with local (possibly) non-Weave conditions.

 

[Li Shenron]

These things can be an interesting challenge and change of pace or a purely frustrating experience, I would advise proceeding with the possibly frustrating aspects as a consideration.

Sure, but it's not worrying me more than having to manage all possible "local" frustrations, like a seemingly unbeatable monster or a door that doesn't want to open or a stubborn guard that refuses to let you in.

I wouldn't take the party to a world where only one of them is seriously impaired, and force them to remain there for long.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

My recollection is that they explicitly said that Athas was within a crystal sphere, but it was completely impassible, going in or out.

Not all worlds should be connected by Spelljammer. Ravenloft and other Domains of Dread are not a planet, they are connected through the Shadowfell only. Athas is probably a planet in a crystal sphere. Eberron is considered "remote" but is probably inside a crystal sphere somewhere, as is probably the case with Rokugan as well.

I think doing a plane-hopping campaign that travelled through the MtG settings, Forgotten Realms, Oerth, and more would be fun. Run it sort of like Time Bandits.

 

[Mind of tempest]

My recollection is that they explicitly said that Athas was within a crystal sphere, but it was completely impassible, going in or out.



I think doing a plane-hopping campaign that travelled through the MtG settings, Forgotten Realms, Oerth, and more would be fun. Run it sort of like Time Bandits.

what is time bandits?