Why Isn't Planescape the Default Setting?

[Nivenus]

Curiously, that's the (officially stated) position taken during the 3.x era.

And I didn't find 4e's planes approach dull or uninteresting at all. In fact, I thought it was one of the few things that 4e managed to do quite a bit better than D&D had ever done before. What in the world is the point of all these planes if they really aren't effective adventuring areas? Or, at least, what's the point of detailing anything about them?

Oh, I don't mind the 4e cosmology all that much (I particularly like the mirrored Astral Sea and Elemental Chaos). I just mind how it was implemented.

And the idea of making the planes playable is a good one - I just think that the way 4e did it ended up losing the mysticism and exoticness that made the planes interesting in the first place. You want to travel to the Elemental Plane of Fire? Well it makes sense you're going to come prepared with loads of flame-retarding spells and equipment. You want to visit the Nine Hells, be prepared for some really nasty stuff. You want to go to Celestia? It's a nice resting stop between other planes so long as you aren't evil or chaotic.

 

[Jawsh]

It seems to me as if Spelljammer is the natural core and default setting. For one thing, Spelljammer leads to all other settings, so if you really wanted One Setting to Rule them All, Spelljammer would be it.

With all these other default setting worlds, you kind of have to do some maneuvering to shoehorn in all the core races and classes. Ie. if you want eladrin to play a part in the Forgotten Realms, you need to come up with a story about how the Eladrin suddenly became prominent. Spelljammer is the Mos Eisley of D&D, and you can literally find every race and class in it. Including giant, fire-breathing hamsters.

Annoying, but I see your point. And I half agree. I think one of those two settings should be touted as the core setting for D&D. I just happen to like Planescape better.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Planescape is the most popular of all D&D settings as ranked on the RPG.net Gaming Index. I don't necessarily think this is conclusive, but there is some imperical evidence of it's popularity there.

For the record, I don't think that we need a default setting in the core books (I'd like to see DMs encouraged to create their own settings). However, the core gamebooks could imply a particular setting as Traveller does with the Imperium setting. If this were the case, then I'd think Planescape would be a good option, as it is a flexible multi-verse setting in any case, and it is already implied as such by the Alignment system. Moreover, it would be good to see it back in print and supported in the new iteration.