worlds and monsters is in my hands

[Lonely Tylenol]

And what is the problem with the big wheel anyway? alignements were part of the previous editions, they were pratically part of their laws of phisics, actually they were part of the natural world, it is just normal that the universe was structured around them, to complain that the Wheel seems artificial it is like complain that grativy or elettromagnetism feel artificial, things in previous edition works like that, period.(geez,I'm sure that in some parallel universe there is a fantasy RPG with rules that simulate gravity and people that complain that a thing like that is just too unrealistic )

There's an RPG in this universe with rules to simulate gravity that people complain are too unrealistic. It's D&D. Drop a 20th level fighter off a 200 foot cliff, and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I've read this whole thread, and I don't think anyone has espoused a MM full of nothing but stat blocks. Indeed, if this is the case, I'll be hopping mad also.

What most people object is the abilities like Blacksmithing +20 and "Casts animate dead once a week as a ritual." right in the stat block next to important things like HP and AC.

I'd be happy if they put "grab bag" abilities like that into the fluff text and saved the statblocks for combat-only info. Just because it's not in the statblock doesn't mean it's not there, and not important, it's just not important to the question of who dies at the end of the combat.

 

[Just Another User]

There's an RPG in this universe with rules to simulate gravity that people complain are too unrealistic. It's D&D. Drop a 20th level fighter off a 200 foot cliff, and you'll see what I mean.

Touche, my friend, touche.

But, of course, D&D simulate the gravity of a D&D world, that iit was never sadi to work the same as that of our world.

But now something that I've missed before

By comparison, 4E *is* a fix. You're "alignments as part of the natural world" was something that was a constant thump on the head to many players, saying "this is an artificial game construct"!

those player were wrong, then. Alignement in D&D is always been a natural law/force of the universe, something real and almost tangibile,you have spells that react to it, you have creature that can be considered alignements incarnate, and of course there are the planes, the phisical (for given values of phisical) manifestation of alignement. Alignement is as much real and concrete in D&D as electromagnetism is in the real world.

If you want to model your sun and sea bottoms after their real-world counterparts, go ahead. It probably does help players relate to your fantasy world better. (Though I would content that plenty of D&D adventures and fantasy literature in general ignore issues of water pressure.) But what real world counterpart is your elemental plane of fire replicating? Oh, wait. Nothing. So, if you're starting from scratch, why make the plane inhospitable rather than someplace you might actually be able to set an adventure? As a fantasy concept, there's suspension of disbelief in either model, but one happens to be actually useful in playing the game and coming up with stories.

what I'm trying to say is that the universe is not made "for human consumption" so to speak (i'm sure there is a better expression for what I mean, but I can't remember it), and that IMHO not even a game universe should be, not in a so obvious manner, at least. if it is then, as I said it give the impression to be fake, to be just a huge theme park, something that don't have a life of his own, but is just designed so that adventurers can go around fighting monster and having adventures. Now rationally I know that every setting is like that, but making is so obvious, like they are doing, ruin the magic for me.

 

[Incenjucar]

The trick with fantasy is that you can easily access otherwise inhospitable places fairly easily, and there's usually a non-dispellable method that the DM can cook up readily enough.

Visiting the Plane of Fire?

Why just swallow some air spores and put on your Hair of the Fire Rat robes and you'll be just fine.

Visiting the bottom of the sea, but worried about the pressure?

Don't worry, I have some pressure pills.

Look too big to be swallowed? Well good news!...

 

[Stilvan]

thanks for doing this, the arrival of worlds and monsters in my hands came just as i started a new job, so I've been super busy and was glad to let you do all the work just guessing that your in the GTA ?

No no I live in it's sawed-off half-brother, Ottawa I ordered mine from Chapters online. It was a bit of a stretch to find the time for me too - I'd put off work readying a resume to find a new job . I put up the TOC first hoping you'd put up the first of the meaty info - I didn't want to steal your fire. Anyhow grats on the new job!

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

The trick with fantasy is that you can easily access otherwise inhospitable places fairly easily, and there's usually a non-dispellable method that the DM can cook up readily enough.

Except nothing like that ever happens in any game I'm in. The DM looks through all the D&D books printed for a way to survive the heat of the Elemental Plane of Fire and only finds some really expensive magic items. In order to balance his game, he doesn't want to introduce non-magical items that the PCs can get for free or even for the same price that has the same effect of a magic item, since his players are sure to find a way to abuse it.

So, he uses the items in the book, which the PCs might not be able to afford and he doesn't want to just give them free items. So, he decides it's best to not use the Elemental Plane of Fire as a setting for an adventure and instead have it take place inside a volcano where it's hot, but the PCs can walk on solid ground, not go close enough to the fire to die, etc.

 

[Incenjucar]

Except nothing like that ever happens in any game I'm in.

Then you should probably be playing in one of MY games.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

hose player were wrong, then. Alignement in D&D is always been a natural law/force of the universe, something real and almost tangibile,you have spells that react to it, you have creature that can be considered alignements incarnate, and of course there are the planes, the phisical (for given values of phisical) manifestation of alignement. Alignement is as much real and concrete in D&D as electromagnetism is in the real world.

Why is this not an artifical game construct? Someone decided "In D&D, we have 4 alignment components and they are cosmic forces. Let's build our world around that idea!"
The problem is that this base assumption alone might seem wrong to many game(r)s. And even if the cosmic forces of evil/good/chaos/law exist, that doesn't mean that every world should follow the Great Wheel. Because the wheel is just one possible setup.

I don't know. Why the sun should be a big ball of nuclear plasma and the pression of the deep sea enough to crush a unprotected man? I suppose in 4E the surface of the sun is just luke-warm and you don't need to breath underwater or to fear deep pressure, how could you be able to have adventures there, else?

And I've read the articles, you don't need to explain them to me, I understand why they made the changes, i just disagree with their decisions.

and Eberron planes are still place hard to reach and very dangerous to visit, not the easily accesible place for an adventure that 4e planes seems to be.

Well, in 3E, the moon, the deep sea and the sun don't have any supplements describing how they look exactly to visitors.
But the elemental planes did.
The sun and the bottom of the seas are rarely (not never) an important part of a fantasy setting that the adventures get to explore or visit.

But that's not really to the point. The Great Wheel is probably even a step more artificial then the 4E Astral Sea & Elemental Chaos setup. From what I saw so far, the new cosmology supports a lot more variety and unpredictability into the whole planar travel thing.


On a said note:
What I don't understand is why there is even the assumption that either anew or the old cosmology is somehow more important then others. The Astral Sea & Elemental Chaos will be part of the implied setting (Points of Light) for 4E. But that doesn't mean that it has to be used in every campaign setting. In 3E, the focus on alignment as game-mechanic made it hard to shred the core assumption of good vs evil & chaos vs law out of a game or game world, but nothing really forced one to use the Great Wheel in its entirety. The Astral Sea seems even a bit more "forgiving" in this regard.

 

[Incenjucar]

The main thing with the Great Wheel is that they had to cram more complex real world mythologies into it.

It was, also, very specifically explained as not necessarily being a "Great Wheel."

Most of the planes were infinite, the Great Wheel was just a way to depict them for the sake of use, not an actual map.

 

[Gort]

There's an RPG in this universe with rules to simulate gravity that people complain are too unrealistic. It's D&D. Drop a 20th level fighter off a 200 foot cliff, and you'll see what I mean.

Ah, when I'm DMing and that's a likely occurrence, I just stick lava at the bottom to finish the job