Post/Author/DateTime	Post
goldomark 09-25-07, 02:53 AM	They finally annonced what are some of the changes in the new DnD cosmology: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070924 . We already knew that Devils are (again) fallen Angels, now we know that Demons are more or less corrupt primal forces of the elements, spawned by Tharizdun. Devils are calculating and Demons are bent on mindless destruction. Aside from the major change in origines, it just seems like more of the same. The nature of Devils and Demons is basically the same. So was the change necessary? But to make the change look more significant, Demons and the Abyss are now in the Elemental Tempest (inner planes) and Hell is is the Astral Sea. I think the idea is to separate them, to end the Blood War and accentuate the distance between them. But they just seem to be the same monsters. Was all this change needed just to end up with this? Seeing the Astral plane as a sea isn't such a big mental leap (from the little info we have). It was a vast place to « float » in and I can see the Outerplanes as « islands ». The Elemental Tempest, well that just look like a hostile place to me, not very fun (I had to make a reference to Chris Perkins :D ).
ArcTan 09-25-07, 03:07 AM	We know they're not the same monsters. For one thing, the Succubus is now a Devil, not a Demon. Certain Demon Lords' schtick no longer makes sense and these characters will likely be phased out or switch teams -- Malcanthet and Grazz't are notable ones. (And yes, I think this makes sense. Tell me in what way it was obvious that Malcanthet's schtick was in any important way distinct from Fiera's schtick or Glasya's schtick.) And whatever the Elemental Tempest is, it's probably more survivable than the Plane of Vacuum, which was what Chris Perkins was complaining about. My guess is that they're combining the concepts of the Inner Planes and Limbo, so that the Elemental Tempest is a place where pure pockets of "elemental" regions -- solid rock, empty air, raging fire, huge watery seas -- coexist, but all shifting and melding with each other. That makes the Tempest as a whole a more useful and usable adventure location than the original Inner Planes' schtick of being literally *infinite spaces* filled with fire or rock. Really, that always bugged me. D&D authors seemed very willing to liberally toss around the word "infinite" and say that this or that or the other thing was infinitely large or had no boundaries or whatnot, without really taking in the implications of what this means. (The concept that there are literally an infinite number of Devils and Demons both hurts the brain and makes a lot of things about the Blood War and the hierarchy of Hell and such make zero sense.) And it's hard to preserve the flavors of planes that "border" each other on the one hand but are "infinitely large" on the other.
goldomark 09-25-07, 03:21 AM	Well, first of, they did not say that the Elemental Tempest is not infinite. Same goes for Hell and the Abyss. I looks like there will be a infinite amount of elemental substance, but all mixed together. But I agree with your theory on Limbo and the elemental planes, the Abyss being some gapping aberration in the maelstrom of it all. Second, yes the planes bordered each other and where in a certain order, but only when you had to represent them on a map. Making it simpler to understand visually. They where all seperated by the Astral plane. At least, the Astral plane was in the space between the Outerplanes and between the different layers of the planes. Its difficult to explain.
MerlintheTuna 09-25-07, 04:25 AM	Well, first of, they did not say that the Elemental Tempest is not infinite.While true, I think most things default to the status of not being infinitely large when no clarification is given. But then, it may be wishful thinking on my part.
Deacon Liadon 09-25-07, 08:49 AM	*mutters* We had better being seeing the Planescape campaign setting in the future. Ah well, I'll still be using the Great Wheel and all therein for my games.
sciborg2 09-25-07, 09:56 AM	i never had much of a problem with infinity, whether in regards to the planes, the blood war, etc. these changes quite frankly seem to be a dumbing down of the game. and the elemental planes already had safe regions, perhaps more safer than a giant tempest. these ideas are far less creative and interesting, playing to the idea that chaotic evil = angry killer and likely removing such great figures as Grazz't and Pale Night. Many of us have spend a lot of time thinking about what it means to be evil touched by either Order or Chaos. The idea that the motivations of both were the same or no clear distinction existed is insulting because many, many people could have presented a coherent argument for why this was not the case. at least have the decency to admit that this is not a universal opinion. all in all, a disappointing step down.
Andyr 09-25-07, 10:54 AM	It looks like quite a different cosmology... I still think I will use the Great Wheel in my games; although I don't like the changes proposed given all the history and lore we have accumulated, I can see it having potential were it presented as being a completely new cosmology for a new setting. Perhaps it could exist as an alternate cosmology accessed through the Deep Ethereal, which diverged from the Great Wheel far in the past due to some cataclysmic event... perhaps the binding of Tharizdun? So, yeah, I don't think I will use it as default but if I ever needed to send players to an alternate cosmology for a while, I might pick it.
goldomark 09-25-07, 12:23 PM	I did wonder why they placed the Demons in the elemental planes. At first, I thought that they wanted to get them as far as they could from the Devils. But then I rememebered the war between Law and Chaos. The Queen of Chaos, an Obyrith, fought the Vaati, beings of the plane of Air and defenders of Law. The different Princes of Elemental Good/Evil chose one of the two sides. Putting the Abyss in the Elemental Tempest makes more sens and explain why an Outer plane being fought elemental beings. Of course this is a theory, and I could be wrong, but if you ask me, all of this change is just more of the same. Its just dumbing every thing down.
nabuchadnysarIII 09-25-07, 02:41 PM	Dumbing everything down? Its just making more sense out of an unusable big pile of trash. :P
ElvenOutlaw 09-25-07, 02:55 PM	So are all Demons poised to get a elemental subtype now then? Seeing as Demons apparently are spawned from this Elemental Tempest Thinga-ma-jiggy and are corrupted elementals. Likewise what about my mephits, genasi, genies and other elemental plane residents? If the Inner planes are all now a tempest of miss-mashed primal forces where'd the City of Brass go? Or the Coral Throne? No place for Yugoloth and Gehenna. I'll be sticking with the Great Wheel. This 4e stuff is crazy....I'd say that essense and insanity of the Far Realms is bleeding into the Material Plane but they'll probabily go and kill that off too.
ArcTan 09-25-07, 03:09 PM	Well, first of, they did not say that the Elemental Tempest is not infinite. Yes, but an infinite expanse of random crap all mixed together is at least more interesting than an infinite expanse of solid rock. There's the chance that you can just head off in one direction and find something interesting to do.
ArcTan 09-25-07, 03:10 PM	So are all Demons poised to get a elemental subtype now then? Seeing as Demons apparently are spawned from this Elemental Tempest Thinga-ma-jiggy and are corrupted elementals. If you were okay with the Genie races being intelligent, aligned, and acting more or less like Demons and Eladrin and whatnot anyway even though they had Elemental Subtypes rather than Aligned Subtypes, then this is really the same thing.
Corrin 09-25-07, 03:12 PM	They aren't talking about your fiction or your homebrew when they talk about demons and devils being indistinguishable. They're talking about published 3.5 material. And in that, there isn't much difference between and imp/quasit, lemure/whatever, etc. 4E devils and demons sounds like a continuation/outgrowth of FC I & II, and I like the way they're going with it - yes, in your world an erinyes and a succubus may have acted very differently, but the monster designers didn't really do a good job of distinguishing them. I like the idea that I can be flipping through 4E's version of MM2/3/4/5 and pick out a devil or a demon just by the art - the one uses tools and looks nefarious, and the other is busily ripping the heads off of a flock of sheep it came across because it's easily distracted. You call it dumbing down - I call it thinking through monster design from a new perspective instead of blindly inserting things that are shoe-horned in from previous editions.
BOZ 09-25-07, 03:33 PM	i'll really miss the Slaad most of all. :( (not that i've heard anything about them going away, but it doesn't take a big judgement leap to see where things are headed...)
sciborg2 09-25-07, 03:37 PM	Dumbing everything down? Its just making more sense out of an unusable big pile of trast Let's see...DiceFreaks...Planewalker...Planesc ape...Greyhawk AND FR from 2e...the hundreds of monsters/stories/etc from this board alone... Doesn't seem so unusable to me if so many people have used it to make incredible material. As for demons vs devils, this superficial basing of Order vs Chaos on appearance just takes out the intelligent examination of what chaotic + evil means. Dumbing the game down to MMORPG levels of intelligence is pointless as I can just go play NWN for eternity via modules and such. As for the Elemental Tempest being more interesting, it's just Limbo as far as I can tell. The Inner Planes have a rich history from Dragon to Planescape even into 3e...and that's not counting the major sites mentioned above
ArcTan 09-25-07, 03:42 PM	Let's see...DiceFreaks...Planewalker...Planesc ape...Greyhawk AND FR from 2e...the hundreds of monsters/stories/etc from this board alone... The fact that there's a lot of fanwork surrounding something doesn't mean that the majority of people treat it the same way the fans treat it. (Notice that the original Star Trek was cancelled due to terrible ratings despite the fact that it was the show that basically created what we think of as "fandom". Notice that if much of Harry Potter fandom had its way with the Harry Potter series, much of it would be about gay sex, Draco Malfoy would be the main character, and J.K. Rowling wouldn't be writing it.) Doesn't seem so unusable to me if so many people have used it to make incredible material. I myself don't think it was "unusable". It just seems doubtful that the average D&D fan gets that much use out of it, or at least the same kind of use that Planewalker addicts get out of it. As for demons vs devils, this superficial basing of Order vs Chaos on appearance just takes out the intelligent examination of what chaotic + evil means. Does the fact that Modrons look nothing like Slaadi take away from the intelligent examination of what Lawful Neutral vs. Chaotic Neutral means? Does the fact that Archons look nothing like Devils take away from the intelligent examination of what Lawful Good vs. Lawful Evil means?
ElvenOutlaw 09-25-07, 03:46 PM	Dumbing everything down? Its just making more sense out of an unusable big pile of trash. :P One person's trash is another person's treasure. Just because someone deems its unusable doesn't mean it is. I agree and think that 4e is dumbing alot of things down. People complain about the problems with alignment within D&D. Personally I've never had much a problem running any alignment. I've never had a problem telling demons and devils apart. Even the original name gave a indication of how simple it was to understand. :D Wheel = a simple machine;mechanism by which something is steered now we have Tempest = Furious agitation, commotion, or tumult; an uproar :D Joking aside, I can't just say I'll use the great wheel with 4e because its not that simple. That's what has me heated. They kill the Inner Planes that means changes to every single creature that use to call them home. That means every single elemental, genie, etc gets a revamp in the 4e MM, and thats assuming they even make it there. If they all live in this tempest debacle, as I see it, their abilities change and their interaction with their environment changes. Changes for the sake of change. A step down Dumbing down Whatever you want to call it, I don't just see it as a new coat of paint and fuzzy new set of dice on the mirror with the same smooth running machine under the hood. I see it as ripping the entire engine block and guts out and putting in something lower grade. The car might still get you from point A to Point B but the ride isn't as smooth, the thing is a gas guzzler now and the handling is either to loose or to tight. I'll take the 57 Mustang muscle car over the new foreign sports car any day of the week.
ElvenOutlaw 09-25-07, 04:08 PM	They aren't talking about your fiction or your homebrew when they talk about demons and devils being indistinguishable. They're talking about published 3.5 material. And in that, there isn't much difference between and imp/quasit, lemure/whatever, etc. 4E devils and demons sounds like a continuation/outgrowth of FC I & II, and I like the way they're going with it - yes, in your world an erinyes and a succubus may have acted very differently, but the monster designers didn't really do a good job of distinguishing them.. So what your saying is because the designers of 3e/3.5 mucked up, and its their fault people can't figure out the difference, that they again get to have the say on changing 30some odd years of D&D basic cosmology history?? The cause of the problem is also the solution ?? :confused: I like the idea that I can be flipping through 4E's version of MM2/3/4/5 and pick out a devil or a demon just by the art - the one uses tools and looks nefarious, and the other is busily ripping the heads off of a flock of sheep it came across because it's easily distracted. I like the idea of reading my MM and picking the monster best suited for the campaign plot line based on CR and the monster's abilites and how they further being a pain in the parties' side. The rate things are going is the MM III going to have pop-ups ?? "Look Jimmy! The Umber Hulk is jumping out at me! Rawr! HAHA" You call it dumbing down Yes I do I call it thinking through monster design from a new perspective instead of blindly inserting things that are shoe-horned in from previous editions. I call it sticking with what works. There are plently of old-school monsters and things that DIDNT get transfers over. You can marinate a steak lots of different ways. You can change the flavor for whatever you. You change the steak to fish it's not always going to work the same way.
Bob the Efreet 09-25-07, 04:55 PM	Tell me in what way it was obvious that Malcanthet's schtick was in any important way distinct from Fiera's schtick or Glasya's schtick. Malcanthet is chaotic. Obviously. And whatever the Elemental Tempest is, it's probably more survivable than the Plane of Vacuum, which was what Chris Perkins was complaining about. I suppose at the least we can hope that it's less "hilarious". Likewise what about my mephits, genasi, genies and other elemental plane residents? If the Inner planes are all now a tempest of miss-mashed primal forces where'd the City of Brass go? Or the Coral Throne? No place for Yugoloth and Gehenna. Although I don't have full confidence in the 4E cosmology, I think we don't know enough to say that all these things are gone. In fact, we'll probably still have yugoloths, even if they get rid of Gehenna. We know this already because of the espoused change to gelugons (which, I'll add, is one of the coolest bits of 4e flavour I've heard so far). Notice that if much of Harry Potter fandom had its way with the Harry Potter series, much of it would be about gay sex That's actually true about anything with a fandom on the internet. There are probably D&D fans that write stories all about Halaster and Elminster being secret wizardly gay lovers.
BOZ 09-25-07, 05:05 PM	That's actually true about anything with a fandom on the internet. There are probably D&D fans that write stories all about Halaster and Elminster being secret wizardly gay lovers. Kirk/Spock
ElvenOutlaw 09-25-07, 05:30 PM	That's actually true about anything with a fandom on the internet. There are probably D&D fans that write stories all about Halaster and Elminster being secret wizardly gay lovers. Cue all the improper Mage Hand and Enlarge Person jokes here...
ElvenOutlaw 09-25-07, 06:04 PM	Although I don't have full confidence in the 4E cosmology, I think we don't know enough to say that all these things are gone. In fact, we'll probably still have yugoloths, even if they get rid of Gehenna. We know this already because of the espoused change to gelugons (which, I'll add, is one of the coolest bits of 4e flavour I've heard so far). While I agree its still very early, and we don't know all the facts, the ones I've seen thus far are not boding well on the horizon. The Tanar'ri have the Infinite Abyss still. The Baatezu have nine layers of Hell still. The Yugoloths at this point just got evicted from the cosmic scheme of things. The 'loths deserve better treatment than they've been getting their entire 3e lifespan. I'd rather not even begin to fathom what will be done with Celestia and Arborea. The Eladrin thing has me uneasy but I was willing to wait and see until the recent bomb dropping and the Great Wheel shattering. The Inner planes just got put into one big blender along with Limbo for some Elemental Soup Storm. Limbo is Chaos The Primal forces are not chaotic. They are harsh and unforgiving when at their worst. Comforting and nuturing at their finest. They don't judge you for your great deeds or vile acts. They Exist.
goldomark 09-26-07, 02:08 AM	So if Devils = planning and conquest, Demons = destruction, Yugoloth = what? Their are two funny consequenses to the end of the Blood War. 1) Demons and Devils are now free to conquer/destroy the multiverse. 2) Powerful Devils can now intimidate lower Demons into service. After all, Demons just fallow the strongest. So their is a possibility that a Devil boss has Demon shock troops under is service. Ironic.
ArcTan 09-26-07, 02:18 AM	One person's trash is another person's treasure. Just because someone deems its unusable doesn't mean it is. I agree and think that 4e is dumbing alot of things down. I'm beginning to really hate the term "dumbed down". Simplicity and elegance are not a sign that something is bad. Being able to be used by a lot of people is precisely what most game companies shoot for, rather than being usable by you and your "elite gamer" friends so that you can all chuckle at how much smarter you are than the newbs who don't like your system (while the company that makes it slowly and surely goes out of business). People complain about the problems with alignment within D&D. Personally I've never had much a problem running any alignment. I've never had a problem telling demons and devils apart. Good for you. I have. Looks like WotC cares about me. I'll take the 57 Mustang muscle car over the new foreign sports car any day of the week. And no matter how many more people like and buy the "foreign" cars (say, Japanese imports) and how much better they fare in crash tests and performance tests and emissions tests, the old-school drivers who started on the clunky, bad American cars will defend them to the death. Which is great. I'm not disputing their right to buy and use the old gas-guzzling solid-steel behemoths GM and Ford used to make. But GM and Ford can't keep on doing that if they want to actually stand a chance competing against foreign car companies in a fair, free market.
ArcTan 09-26-07, 02:19 AM	So if Devils = planning and conquest, Demons = destruction, Yugoloth = what? Being mysterious, creepy, cliched "shadowy figures" with no apparent rhyme or reason to their actions besides general malevolence. And getting tons of plaudits from fans for how "cool" and "unique" this schtick makes them.
ArcTan 09-26-07, 02:20 AM	So what your saying is because the designers of 3e/3.5 mucked up, and its their fault people can't figure out the difference, that they again get to have the say on changing 30some odd years of D&D basic cosmology history?? The cause of the problem is also the solution ?? :confused: Gary Gygax admitted *he* had a hard time telling the difference, sometimes, way back in 1e. Did you even read the article?
goldomark 09-26-07, 02:33 AM	And getting tons of plaudits from fans for how "cool" and "unique" this schtick makes them. ??? Gary Gygax admitted *he* had a hard time telling the difference, sometimes, way back in 1e. Did you even read the article? Maybe Gygax did have a problem back in the day, but the game evolved so much, that it is really easy to make the difference. And if you can't, make something up :) .
ArcTan 09-26-07, 02:53 AM	??? There seem to be two factions on the boards: One that thinks Yugoloths are the *awesomest* thing in the Great Wheel and that the single greatest flaw in 3.5 was too few Yugoloths, and one that thinks Yugoloths are one of the big superfluous things in D&D that should probably be removed to simplify the game. That's how it seems to be with lots of things. Maybe Gygax did have a problem back in the day, but the game evolved so much, that it is really easy to make the difference. And if you can't, make something up :) . Could've fooled me. The 2e Erinyes is *more similar* to the Succubus than in 1e, for instance.
goldomark 09-26-07, 03:17 AM	Most Devils, Demons and Yugoloth are awsome. Don't you like the Arcanaloth, Ultroloth and Nycaloth? And I'm not talking about the fluff around the race, just the creatures themselfs. I agree that you can like or dislike the fluff around the Yugoloths, but they don't complicate the game in anyway. How is having a bunch of mercenaries who play both sides against each other, complicates the game? Just view them as real life arms dealer, who sells weapons to both sides of a conflict and don't want that conflict to end. They were also their to give a face to Evil. It just made sense, when all the other alignments have their incarnations. I just wish I knew why you have such a grudge against he Great Wheel and its composants and rejoyce on the new fluff. But from the little info we have I don't think its going to change all that much in the long run.
ArcTan 09-26-07, 03:24 AM	Most Devils, Demons and Yugoloth are awsome. Don't you like the Arcanaloth, Ultroloth and Nycaloth? And I'm not talking about the fluff around the race, just the creatures themselfs. *shrug* They're okay. They're not so incredibly different from other monsters that they leap out to me as something awesome about D&D. I agree that you can like or dislike the fluff around the Yugoloths, but they don't complicate the game in anyway. How is having a bunch of mercenaries who play both sides against each other, complicates the game? By definition their whole "We have creepy secret goals beneath our mercenary status" schtick adds a layer of complication to how you choose to integrate them into a game. "Playing both sides against each other" is a simple thing to *say* someone does, but figuring out how exactly this would work -- on the infinite scale of the Blood War -- is kind of daunting. (Then again, the whole deal with the Blood War having infinite scale is a major obstacle to it making sense in general.) Just view them as real life arms dealer, who sells weapons to both sides of a conflict and don't want that conflict to end. But they don't get any material benefit from the Blood War, other than the handwavy "The conflict makes the world *more Evil*!" justification. (And they somehow *know* the conflict makes the world more Evil than it would be if, say, the Fiends all united and overthrew the Celestials.) They were also their to give a face to Evil. It just made sense, when all the other alignments have their incarnations. Well, yes. I know the justification behind making up the Yugoloths. I'm a bit annoyed with the flavor that intentionally both pushes them into the shadows ("We're secretive and creepy!") while trying to amp up the awesomeness ("And our creator-race is the inventor of *all Evil* and we're the ones who secretly manipulate *everything* to make *all Evil* happen!"). One of the annoying things about Planescape after you played in it a while was the pervasive feeling that *everything* had to be some kind of Secret Conspiracy controlled by Shadowy Figures, and the Yugoloths and their mysterious patrons the Baernoloths were one of the favorite Shadowy Figures to call upon. I just wish I knew why you have such a grudge against he Great Wheel and its composants and rejoyce on the new fluff. But from the little info we have I don't think its going to change all that much in the long run. I don't like sacred cows. It's a general thing. I don't like seeing the same old thing being repeated again and again in the name of tradition, especially when I feel like there are a million alternate ideas that are just as good or better that aren't being explored because of inertia.
metatheurgist 09-26-07, 03:51 AM	Simplicity and elegance are not a sign that something is bad. I totally agree. I completely applauded the change from thaco to BAB. But nothing I've seen of 4th ed. says "simple and elegant". All I've got so far is a large amount of stereotypical and bad fluff that seems to be welded to the game rules at the genetic level. I know I haven't seen the complete release yet so I'm still holding my breath. But each new release of info leads me to believe that I'll be suffocating soon.
ElvenOutlaw 09-26-07, 08:34 AM	I'm beginning to really hate the term "dumbed down". Simplicity and elegance are not a sign that something is bad. If i saw it as something simple and elegant I wouldn't be here complaining about it. It's more like its sterorotypical and change for the sake of change. Being able to be used by a lot of people is precisely what most game companies shoot for, rather than being usable by you and your "elite gamer" friends so that you can all chuckle at how much smarter you are than the newbs who don't like your system (while the company that makes it slowly and surely goes out of business). I have "elite gamer" friends? When did this happen? I never claimed to be smarter or superior to anyone. I've always been willing to take in a new player and teach them. This is something I can't say some of my former players would have done. Good for you. I have. Looks like WotC cares about me. And it looks like WotC doesn't about me. Very possible to have fixed the alignment issues and even Blood War problems without them taking the entire concept of it and putting it through the shredder. And no matter how many more people like and buy the "foreign" cars (say, Japanese imports) and how much better they fare in crash tests and performance tests and emissions tests, the old-school drivers who started on the clunky, bad American cars will defend them to the death. Which is great. I'm not disputing their right to buy and use the old gas-guzzling solid-steel behemoths GM and Ford used to make. But GM and Ford can't keep on doing that if they want to actually stand a chance competing against foreign car companies in a fair, free market. I can't pull Automotive tests and I'm certainly not an expert on cars. My comment was more in regards to comparing the Classic American car (D&D) to the new foreign models (4th). I want to drive a car not a computer.
ElvenOutlaw 09-26-07, 08:54 AM	Gary Gygax admitted *he* had a hard time telling the difference, sometimes, way back in 1e. Did you even read the article? Yes, I did read the article. Yes, the fact that Gygax himself had a problem telling them apart was a bad thing. Gygax however was also not involved with anything really, i believe after 1985? 2nd Edition came out in 89? He wasn't involved with creating the solution at the time.
ElvenOutlaw 09-26-07, 09:10 AM	If they wanted to make it simple - Get rid of the 9 layers of Hell. No Blood War. No connection to Archons, Angels or any other Celestial type being me might have in the future. There are no Devils, Demons or 'Loths. Only Fiends. Sure the terms could be used based on the creatures powers but they'll be under "F" in the MM. They are all just fiends from the Infinite Abyss. A plane of pure evil and suffering. Alignement is just a means as to how they go about their plans of spreading death and misery to those creatures less powerful and weaker than them outside the Abyss. Fiend - Baatezu: Manipulate and Corrupt Fiend - Tanar'ri: Carnage and Fear Fiend - Yugoloth: Greed and Betrayal
sciborg2 09-26-07, 10:19 AM	I have "elite gamer" friends? When did this happen? I never claimed to be smarter or superior to anyone. I've always been willing to take in a new player and teach them. This is something I can't say some of my former players would have done. :confused: of COURSE you have elite friends. that is the crux of ArcTan's argument, that we're elitist, that the planes as they stand are confusing and impossible to understand, that as a DM one will always be fighting players arguing about canon or what is core or some other random thing....
goldomark 09-26-07, 01:01 PM	Planescape isn't about elit, but maturity. My friends and I started playing when I we were 12, in 1992. Bashing monsters was our main interest. We discovered roleplay in our mid-teens. But we only discovered real storylines, complicated plots, forshadowing, etc, around 18. This is when we understood the potential of the fluff in the planescape setting, and got hooked. We had the intellectual maturity to understand the unwritten rules to make intrecate plots. I really think that the Planescape setting can be used by any player of any age. But the real potential is unleash at a later age, when you want character drive plots and vilains with a deep psycholagical motives. Something different from the last 8-10 years of play. Shure you don't need the planes to do that, but the Planescape settings offered that.
ElvenOutlaw 09-26-07, 03:51 PM	Just saw/read the new Design & Development article: Cosmology. :twitch: I honestly don't think I can say anything at this point.... I need some time to let things settle...
18DELTA 09-26-07, 04:58 PM	Just saw/read the new Design & Development article: Cosmology. :twitch: I honestly don't think I can say anything at this point.... I need some time to let things settle... Oh you mean,this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070926a)
ripvanwormer 09-26-07, 05:55 PM	Oh you mean,this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070926a) Not too bad actually. It restores the spiritual/physical dichotomy we saw in the 1e/2e cosmology, which was screwed with in 3e when they decided to nerf the Ethereal Plane (forcing the Inner Planes to flop around in the Astral like fish out of water). That change is a nice feature. The Outer Planes (in the form of the 'Astral Sea') are still the realm of belief and souls, explicitly not made of the crude matter that originated from the Inner Planes/Elemental Chaos. Ghosts evidently dwell in the new version of the Plane of Shadow rather than the Border Ethereal. It looks like eladrins are fey now. It looks like it should be possible to bring most of the previous material forward using this new structure. It looks like the Outer Planes are all intact except for the Abyss, with room for other realms stuffed in there as well (like the cordant planes (http://mimir.net/mapinfinity/cordance.html), or the 3rd-party semi-Hell of Infernus, or "Heck, realm of the Darned," and maybe they could integrate Eberron's cosmology in there now, too). The most arbitrary and uselessly limiting change is the one to demons, which we've already discussed. The lack of a Blood War is also a severe blow to the possibilities encompassed by the game - the Blood War, contrary to what certain unimaginative designers have opined, was an endless generator of plot hooks for PCs, all gone now. Whether something like a Blood War can be cobbled together there is yet to be seen. Oh, and the Rule of Threes still applies. The obvious trichotomy of Elemental/Material/Astral still exists, so there's that, and we don't even have to worry about how the transitive planes fit in. The Feywild and Shadowfell seem to stick out like sore thumbs, though, not having anything to do with the greater hierarchy of the multiverse, and not really having anything to do with one another. They're just like polyps or cysts growing on the Material Plane, I think. The Center of All premise still applies with a vengeance. Whether this multiverse has rings in it is unknown. Certainly, it has ring-givers.
ArcTan 09-26-07, 06:11 PM	:confused: of COURSE you have elite friends. that is the crux of ArcTan's argument, that we're elitist, that the planes as they stand are confusing and impossible to understand, that as a DM one will always be fighting players arguing about canon or what is core or some other random thing.... When people talk about something being "dumbed down", the implication is that the people for whom it's being "dumbed down" -- because they genuinely didn't like it the old way, because it was too complex or confusing -- are, well, dumb. I don't like that implicit assertion and I want to drag it out into the daylight and challenge it. Dumbing down is *always a good thing* -- i.e. removing unnecessary complexity and making something easier to understand so more people can enjoy it -- unless you can *prove* that the thing being "dumbed down" really, positively depended on the thing being removed. Otherwise, yes, the process of improving muddy and unclear writing and opening up elitist and alienating jargons is *always* to "dumb it down".
Ornum 09-26-07, 06:40 PM	Not too bad actually. It restores the spiritual/physical dichotomy we saw in the 1e/2e cosmology, which was screwed with in 3e when they decided to nerf the Ethereal Plane (forcing the Inner Planes to flop around in the Astral like fish out of water). That change is a nice feature. The Outer Planes (in the form of the 'Astral Sea') are still the realm of belief and souls, explicitly not made of the crude matter that originated from the Inner Planes/Elemental Chaos. That much I can handle. Ghosts evidently dwell in the new version of the Plane of Shadow rather than the Border Ethereal. It looks like eladrins are fey now. Can't say I'm a fan of the eladrin change, if there really is one. There's really not enough information to go by. It does *seem* as though that is the route they are now going, so it makes me wonder whether or not they are still somehow represented as being the chaotic good exemplar-type race. Also, what of the slaad? If they did indeed merge Limbo with the Elemental Planes to form "Elemental Chaos", did they also move the slaad, or totally eliminate them? It looks like it should be possible to bring most of the previous material forward using this new structure. It looks like the Outer Planes are all intact except for the Abyss, with room for other realms stuffed in there as well (like the cordant planes (http://mimir.net/mapinfinity/cordance.html), or the 3rd-party semi-Hell of Infernus, or "Heck, realm of the Darned," and maybe they could integrate Eberron's cosmology in there now, too). There are many possibilities, it would seem. The most arbitrary and uselessly limiting change is the one to demons, which we've already discussed. The lack of a Blood War is also a severe blow to the possibilities encompassed by the game - the Blood War, contrary to what certain unimaginative designers have opined, was an endless generator of plot hooks for PCs, all gone now. Whether something like a Blood War can be cobbled together there is yet to be seen. GRRR...very hard to "fix" the succubus, as I need them in their current, demonic form. However, I can still see the Blood War taking place, but it would be harder to justify. It would seem that the material plane (or whatever they call it now) would be the ideal location for most of the battles now. It would still be harder to give any reasons why they *might* be fighting in the evil planes, though. All in all, it seems workable, and I'm not as angry over all the changes. My final opinion on the subject will of course depend on the final version. Mostly, it is actually workable as currently presented.
ripvanwormer 09-26-07, 07:25 PM	If they did indeed merge Limbo with the Elemental Planes to form "Elemental Chaos", did they also move the slaad, or totally eliminate them? The githzerai are in the Elemental Chaos, so it seems likely the slaadi will be there, too. If some of the portals in Pazunia still lead directly to Pandemonium and Carceri, and the River Styx still flows through the Abyss, things will still be "close" enough for the Blood War and other interactions to work. If Malcanthet and her sisters are defined as outcast, chaos-infected devils (or angels) with an army of similarly outcast servants, I suppose things could still work. You'd get the chaotic tempter fiend versus lawful tempter fiend dichotomy going on.
Zaggotzoo 09-27-07, 01:26 AM	I think we can all agree that Tharizdun needs to be a Core god. Seriously, he's awesome. Best evil god, ever. Am I right!?
goldomark 09-27-07, 02:36 AM	The changes are surprisingly good. Everything can be transfered. At first glance only the Astral Sea and the Elemental Maelstrom are infinite now. I can live with that. I love the idea of abandonned/ruin realms of dead gods, floating in the Astral Sea, just waiting to be explored. Do I feel the urge to buy 4th? Dear god :eek: !
Bob the Efreet 09-27-07, 04:06 AM	It looks like eladrins are fey now. I noticed they mentioned a realm of Arvandor, with no hints as to Arborea. Maybe some Arborean themes can be transferred with the eladrin over to the Feywild, though.
The Serge7 09-27-07, 09:02 AM	Frankly, and this is more of an observation than a criticism, a large part of this motivation is to encourage folks to buy up new books. In essence, if you are continuing to play D&D and you intend to move your campaign along with the "official" material, what you've owned in the past is largely (or so it seems thus far) obsolete. A lot of this is economics and I can't entirely fault them for that. I do fault them for not allowing the story to progress... If that's what they end up doing. Since 1ed, even if things changed, most of the changes were a continuation from the previous edition in one way or another... Or, at least, a "reasonable" expansion upon established lore (and that does not mean that everyone liked the expansion). This time around from what's been released so far, it seems as if we're experiencing an entire overhaul that, with the exception of some references to FCI and FCII, is largely unique. I suspect that most older material will be, if not necessarily useless, irrelevant in this shift. I will say that I have never been convinced that allowing for a progression with established material is upholding a sacred cow. I don't believe in those. Rather, a continuation of established material that makes sense and, when certain things are purged, a storybased explanation for the change. To be fair, we don't know if this is going to happen or not and, in some past cases, the manner in which this was used was... poorly executed in some situations. A complete overhaul, though, without at least some indication of things as they were before would be, to me, a travesty.
sciborg2 09-27-07, 11:01 AM	I think we can all agree that Tharizdun needs to be a Core god. he seems more hungry than evil to me...
Skeptical Clown 09-27-07, 11:27 AM	Well hey, that makes sense. Everyone knows fat people are evil!
ElvenOutlaw 09-27-07, 03:34 PM	I just had a mental image of Tharizdun waddling after a screaming baby, laughing at it with a thick scottish accent. "Who's a tasty baby?! You Are!! Get in my belly!" It's been a long day at work....
18DELTA 09-27-07, 03:40 PM	I just had a mental image of Tharizdun waddling after a screaming baby, laughing at it with a thick scottish accent. "Who's a tasty baby?! You Are!! Get in my belly!" It's been a long day at work.... :eek: :uh-huh: :blink: :OMG! :looloo: :OMG! :rofl: :bow: :dancin:
Ornum 09-27-07, 05:24 PM	The githzerai are in the Elemental Chaos, so it seems likely the slaadi will be there, too. For simplicity, let's assume the following setup is correct. Elemental - Material - Thought With the move of the githzerai into one side of the planes (Elemental), that would still leave the githyanki in the Astral (what I'm calling Thought). Where does that leave their little conflict? Fighting on the Material, or using portals that *might* exist as direct conduits between the Elemental and Astral? If some of the portals in Pazunia still lead directly to Pandemonium and Carceri, and the River Styx still flows through the Abyss, things will still be "close" enough for the Blood War and other interactions to work. I guess direct links between the two "sides" of the planes (as I badly illustrated above) are still possible, but who knows? If Malcanthet and her sisters are defined as outcast, chaos-infected devils (or angels) with an army of similarly outcast servants, I suppose things could still work. You'd get the chaotic tempter fiend versus lawful tempter fiend dichotomy going on. Leave it to you to actually give me a way to actually use the succubus as it will be presented in 4e. Two branches of the same family (family = devil in this instance). It actually holds an interesting plot of possible future reunification. And I mean way in the future beyond the normal lifespans of the PC's (speaking for my players and myself, we see plotlines in the planes spanning generations, where PC's might stop the obvious danger, but they only alter the plans of something much bigger than them).
ArcTan 09-27-07, 05:33 PM	For simplicity, let's assume the following setup is correct. Elemental - Material - Thought With the move of the githzerai into one side of the planes (Elemental), that would still leave the githyanki in the Astral (what I'm calling Thought). Where does that leave their little conflict? Fighting on the Material, or using portals that *might* exist as direct conduits between the Elemental and Astral? I get the feeling that the idea of constant interplanar war is something they want to downplay. That's why they pointedly moved the Abyss and Baator into two completely different sections of the planes, to end the Blood War. But, of course, Limbo and the Astral Plane weren't particularly close to each other in earlier editions anyway. The Astral wasn't an Outer Plane, it was a Transitive Plane. It wasn't that much easier to get to the Astral from Limbo than it was to get to the Elemental Plane of Fire from Limbo -- either way you cast plane shift.
Ornum 09-27-07, 06:21 PM	I get the feeling that the idea of constant interplanar war is something they want to downplay. That's why they pointedly moved the Abyss and Baator into two completely different sections of the planes, to end the Blood War. But, of course, Limbo and the Astral Plane weren't particularly close to each other in earlier editions anyway. The Astral wasn't an Outer Plane, it was a Transitive Plane. It wasn't that much easier to get to the Astral from Limbo than it was to get to the Elemental Plane of Fire from Limbo -- either way you cast plane shift. It was a bit easier, as the Astral and Limbo actually touched each other (just as the Astral touched the first layer of every Outer Plane...though I think that 3e and 3.5 made the Elemental Planes and the Outer Planes less "distant", for lack of a better term, but I left the Ethereal and Astral the same as they were in 2e, so I didn't pay much attention to that). There were a few more options other than plane shift. Still, I never liked the idea of sticking the two warring races where they did. The githyanki had no interest in Limbo other than attacking the 'zerai, and vice versa. To me, it made the whole war pointless. Other than racial hatred, why would they bother if they weren't at least trying to expand into each others' territories? Some might find it perfectly logical, but it wasn't something I cared to explore in my games. Now, at least, there's the possibility of a neutral ground for them to fight on, which makes a bit more sense. The githyanki have an obvious use for the Material worlds (the hatching of their eggs), and even if the 'zerai philosophy is only "stop the expansion of our ancestral enemies at all costs", then it makes sense for them to do battle on those worlds. At least the Blood War, to me, made sense. Here we have two evil planar races that compete for the same resources...and I mean souls when I say that. In nature, when two species compete for the same resources, we get conflict. Of course, that's just one reason. Another is that they had an immediate hatred from the first time they ever saw each other. Or, as FC:II would suggest, the devils were created by the gods of law to stop the spead of the chaotic demons, and the fight continued even after the devils became evil and moved into Baator. When two immortal and innumerable races of roughly equal power know nothing but fighting and hatred for each other(whether it's instinctual or instilled), that war would last a very long time. I can see where they might want to stop most of these conflicts, as every world not isolated by the gods or some other powerful entities could very well become battlegrounds for all sorts of planar beings. Still, it's not something that I would throw away "just because". I'll still have to find a way to keep it limited to keep it from becoming world consuming in scope (and the fact that devils can only be summoned to the Material Plane now is one such way to do that for the Blood War), but that's just something I'll have to contend with.
BOZ 09-29-07, 02:17 PM	Being able to be used by a lot of people is precisely what most game companies shoot for, rather than being usable by you and your "elite gamer" friends so that you can all chuckle at how much smarter you are than the newbs who don't like your system (while the company that makes it slowly and surely goes out of business). now that sort of statement i just find contemptuous. i appreciate the variety and complexity of the planes for its own sake, because i find that interesting - not because people like you don't like it. it's ridiculous to say that someone appreciates it just because you don't, or do you find that people just seem to enjoy spiting you for its own sake? oh wait, i'm wrong. there was that one time when my gaming buddies and i were sitting around laughing saying, "hah hah hah, we love this system that this guy on the internet called ArcTan doesn't understand, hahahahaha he's so stoooopid, it's great! i wish it were more complex so we could enjoy his confusion even more! we're so eeeleeeet!"
BOZ 09-29-07, 02:58 PM	oh by the way, for those who DO want to have a CE succubus and a LE erinyes in your game, Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games promises that the 4E Tome of Horrors will make you happy: http://p208.ezboard.com/fnecromancergamesfrm31.showMessage?topic ID=978.topic
VedicDragon 10-04-07, 04:17 PM	Wow. . . we just had a topic identical to this. I’ll compile and repost my response here. Originally Posted by Ornum *shrugs* It's a bit of a change. Quite a bit, actually. I'm *not* a fan of the whole "succubus is a devil/no more erinyes", but the rest I'll probably ignore or use as simply yet another myth. I actually do like the bit about the gelugons (provided that they are entrapped 'loths and in no way demonic). Actually, I'm trying to be as positive as possible here. My initial reaction is lead a mob screaming for the death of the monster that is 4e, complete with torches and pitchforks. If this is the sort of thing that I can expect from the new edition, I'll stay firmly entrenched in 3.5 until I can no longer find a game, then simply be forced to stop playing the game I used to love. LOL Was wondering when this discussion would come up. First off, yes, I am with you Ornum. Let me know when the petition comes up. Ironically enough the problem inherent lies within the fact that most people really don't mind mechanics changes, as by and large those are improvements and or embellishments on existing expanded rules. "Players Option: Combat & Tactics & Player's Option: Skills and Powers" back in 2nd edition are clearly the evolutionary trilobyte that grew into the d20 ruleset. I never had -that- much of a problem with 3rd edition mechanics, save for the willy-nilly asinine retcons and cease of product support to some of the nearest and dearest delights of mine. I used to lead the mob against retcon and other such garbage when it would become obtrusively contradictory and made little to no sense. Hence, I have to admit to surpressing a rueful chuckle to see the same sentiments echoed in the 3.5 to 4 debates cropping up. Having seen this happen once, not too long ago, with both Elahdrin and Guardinals being retconned to hell, both in powers and background, I found myself nauseated by the whole affair, top to bottom. At the risk of sounding unpopular, allow me to demonstrate the futility of the tirade/debate/argument/protest strategem with the following points of insight. These are admittedly heavily biased, but nevertheless I found have helped me cope greatly with the demise of 2nd Edition. 1.) Change is not necessarily bad or good. However, change without temperance, for no other reason save to make something "new" bears little respect to the product in question, nor the fanbase who purchases. Wizards made quite a few goofs back in the day. Moreso after Hasbro took over. For the last few years, with some noteable exceptions, it seemed the quality kept spiralling downwards and the prices kept raising up.... a pattern ensues. The exceptions are wonderful little pieces to my library. But the fact remains they are qualified by just that word: Exceptions. 2.) Boycotts/Protests/Debates are ultimately futile save for the sheer joy of intellectual discourse. That being said, civility and respect for others' opinions are rare commodities on ANY discussion forum, let alone this one. This is why they have mods. Now, far be it from me to cry wolf, but I have yet to see a debate on this board, ANY debate, ever that did not entail someone being overly snide or snarky. Moreover, Wizards officials may peruse these boards for ideas or feedback on occassion, but the end result is Hasbro is in this thing to make MONEY. The new edition lasted less than a decade. And that's INCLUDING the 3.5 revision. IT is simply inconceivable that there is -that- much that needs dumbing down for the american public, unless catering to the lowest intellectual common denominator. I thought d20 pandered quite a bit. 3. Have fun. Play your version, but recognize there are always going to be others drooling at the chops for whatever Wizards squeezes out between two covers. Boycotts or debates will not change this. Love the game, love your group, and they will help you see this through. 4.) There are always going to be people that embrace the change, scream for change, approach it like a watery oasis in a parched desert. Try not to be insulted by them, no matter how outlandish their perspective might seem to you, for either they never grasped the nuances and subtleties of what you loved about Setting X, or subrace Y, or they comprehended but never really appreciated it in the first place. Agree to disagree. And when not in agreement, let them have their little jig. It may sound paternal and downright snooty, but honestly few can match the power of imagination exponentially factored by motivation, multiplied by multiple participants. You can always grab some friends and write it yourself, which becomes the be-all end-all exhaustive and time consuming answer that most end up relying on. I used to be far more skeptical of that as a solution, until having actually looked and SEEN what OGL has done for the creative atmosphere of the gaming community when it comes to D&D. Exhaustive and unprofitable ventures which would take years to collate and revise (Great Tome of Kits and Classes, Tome of Blades, Book of Races, Blue Troll’s Netbooks, anyone?) have now become privately owned ventures in bona-fide publication, and volunteer Not for profit ventures are on the rise everywhere as well. Heck, one can look at Rip Van Wormer (sp?), Shemeska’s and various other contributors across the board and see the massive input that fans have had on the settings. Take for example the Kargatane website in 2nd edition and then the massive impact they had, when many of those members were hired on with White Wolf and Sword & Sorcery press to do up Ravenloft d20! Again, just one of many examples how fan-created work can change things grealy. I myself, from other posts I have had over the years, was trying to map out a Mahasharpa-esque but religiously sound Vedic Indian campaign setting based on the historical, mythological and fantasy stories of my own culture, that could dovetail nicely with the Kara Turian setting and Oriental Adventures rules. That being said, it’s been put on hold (so that I can pursue other concerns, like shooting a Star Wars fanfilm) but the point, obnoxious though it may seem, is valid, that original and personalized work is twice as rewarding that anything Wizards will put out. To be a good DM one kinda has to be a good storyteller, director, producer and administrator. All things that groom one for writing their own supplements. Heck, at the time, I was trying to put together a design team of amateur writers for neglected “nooks” of the D&D multiverse . . . Hrmm. More on that in a separate thread. 5.) This is for you “youngsters” and retcon hippies (just kidding, calm down!) :-) . If you want to be heard in forum of peers where people are having the sacred cows of their hobby being turned on their head, it generally helps not to insult or incite the locals, as it were. Now, you may see them/us as fossils holding back progress (I know I felt the same way at a certain LARP when the “status quo” was throwing their weight around and doing a lot of chest-thumping “I’ve been here, playing this game for blah blah blah number of years”). Consider perhaps that there are some that LIKED the old way things were, and for them, change for its own sake is a gross mistake. For instance, don’t get me wrong, I LIKE Inevitables. I think they are the shizzy, and yes I believe Modrons were a little silly for a plane based entirely on clockwork precision of Lawful Neutrality. HOWEVER, I am sure there are a host of people out there who found that a travesty and were horrified that this could not be dealt with internally, with previously as-of-now unforeseen new models in Modron caste-structure. Formians puzzled but amused me. Bugs are very organized (and would squish and crunch so satisfyingly when attacked by Slaadi)! Consider this as an allegory/metaphor: I am a new Sci-fi buff. I LOVE the new versions of Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who and Flash Gordon. However, many (including my GF’s Dad) are fans of the –old- versions of those series’. Now, I may think that in some cases the originals were hokey, outdated and may be thoroughly enthused to have the new versions along to enjoy, but I generally am respectful to the old-guarders whose hobbies have essentially been shat on to make the new versions. It’s called salting the wound. Don’t do it. And when someone from said old guard has a problem or just wants to complain about some of the new changes, attacking their viewpoint with appellations like “silly” just invites this to become center-stage for a flame war, and then NOBODY communicates, everyone just states their views with rebuttals and japes, if that. 6.) Modern Day Messageboards are HIVES for flamewars and kvetching circles as it is. . . . Ancient Romans had a Vomitorium for a reason. It may behoove some who are getting frustrated with response and counter-response to go, cool off, take in a movie, that sort of thing. Come back to a debate with a cool head and you may find that the results are enlightening. Heck, I took a month before deciding to come back to these boards, as it were, after hearing about 4th Edition. Many of my friends have said they would not pick it up. But then, these are the same who were supposedly in the same camp as I when they spoke of playing 2nd edition forever. Eventually I know they will succumb to this inevitability. 2nd Edition had plenty of books too, and we COULD have conceivably played it forever. Heck, I avoided d20 til 3.5 . . . and I guess that’s really the point. To those frustrated with 4th because it’s not 3.5 d20, relax. There are PLENTY of resources for you to continue with d20 at this point for the next decade or so. Do what I did with 3rd, cannibalize new supplements for plot and story and continue to write your own adventures .Wait and see what happens. Like Windows Vista, I think I’ll look at 4th and then wait for all the patches and upgrades. 7.) More on Writing- If you find you’ve applied #4 and still not satisfied with the impact . . heck. Apply for the job. You know the one I’m talking about. Yeah. Apply for it. There’ll be some stiff competition, but if you’re motivated and talented enough, I am sure you’ll succeed. And then, ahh even in a position of influence, you will still have to bow to the inevitable. 8.) Old timers, Remember! You can ALWAYS say “no”. So wait before exercising that right. Give the new edition a try. Take it out for a spin. Cannibalize it for parts. Heck, I did with 3rd for FIVE YEARS. Feats became expanded proficiency-allocated techniques for Martial Arts styles, as per Complete Ninja’s handbook. Sure enough, my ideas became applied as maneuvers in Tome of Battle. Who’d have thunk it? Youngbloods and newcomers, check out WHAT the old guard is talking about, and REALLY research it before saying “It’s better this way, anyways”. I have single-handedly been responsible for over 40 individuals going back and researching 2nd edition when they tried to preach to me about 3rd. Consequently they have a far more profound understanding of game design, the persistent worlds that we play in, and the nuances of the topics they were discussing. This wasn't directed at anyone in particular, but is simply a general overture on the topic. So, anyone want to start a new 5th Edition thread? :cheer I think the sum of the topic and it’s nuances, at least in this specific thread, seem to fall into two points. 1.) There is the argument that things need to be streamlined and simplified. 2.) There is the statement that this is in order to make money and that’s okay. Originally Posted by ArcTan Simplicity and elegance are not a sign that something is bad. I totally agree. I completely applauded the change from thaco to BAB. But nothing I've seen of 4th ed. says "simple and elegant". All I've got so far is a large amount of stereotypical and bad fluff that seems to be welded to the game rules at the genetic level. I know I haven't seen the complete release yet so I'm still holding my breath. But each new release of info leads me to believe that I'll be suffocating soon. To quote Mugato from the Ben Stiller film, “Zoolander” “I feel like I’ve been taking crazy pills here . . . am I the only one who notices this?!?!?!” 3rd Edition in and of itself was a needlessly streamlined and dumbed-down version of the game. Granted yes, it made the franchise more accessible, but honestly how much more simplification does this game need? Should 3 year olds really be able to play it? No offense to the truly mentally challenged or those who have near and dear ones who are, but it feels like the level of constant simplicity is getting ready to have this product packaged for the most severely mentally challenged dolts and morons on the planet. I mean heck, as is thac0 was simple high-school algebra! Now, my crusading days for 2nd edition are long gone and done and I intend to at least look at 4th edition like everyone else, but to say that the game needs further dumbing down or simplicity is a thematically inbred logic that I feel demands justification… Who is the target audience? The senile? The elementary school student? The Casual gamer? Or is it just “anybody who’s not you, junkie. We know we’ve got you hooked!” *insert manic corporate cackling in some boardroom somewhere* Hasbro marketing has already proven themselves inept when it comes to this product. They had a profitable venture in the Wizards of the Coast boutique. When Hasbro acquired Wizards, they flooded these boutiques with a slew of boardgames and similar “status quo” products for the average American audience, seeking to ever drag in new clientele whilst shooting the existing clientele in the foot. Hence, when they pulled the sales of Magic Cards and started canceling tournaments in the stores on the eastern seaboard, after ditching most of their roleplaying products, it came as little surprise that the entire venture started to circle-the-drain. No. Really. I worked for them, at the time. I have to marvel at this situation. Here we are, the latest edition barely a half-a-decade old (I’m counting 3.5 separately) and already we’re planning a new version. And most of the logic to justify this is the same garbage spewed to accredit the last series of revisions. 1.) We need to simplify so this game is “streamlined” 2.) We need to make this reach a broader audience, because we’re a corporation and want your money. Another quote from the prior thread, just to make this very clear: Are any of you out there familiar with theShip of Theseus Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus) (or also the Grandfather's Axe Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus)). It deals with whether a ship which has, over the decades, had every board, nail, and piece of rigging in structure replaced, remains still the same ship (the grandfather's axe paradox is summed up by the statement "This is my grandfather's axe; it's had three new heads and four new handles but it's still the same old axe.") I think that that sort of dilemma is starting to apply to Dungeons and Dragons. What remains of the original game in the recent and upcoming editions? Setting? No. Game Mechanics? No. Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson writing official material? No. Et cetera... How many revisions are truly necessary here. Could the cosmology and party roles be encompassed in separate splat-books? Is a new series of mechanics and all the retcon for the various aspects of the already damaged-to-hell-rewritten-three-times-over source material REALY necessary? I find the implication that this game is difficult to grasp, and that we as consumers who’ve paid and paid and paid for supplements that continually shrink in size, shirk on quality and increase in price to be highly insulting. When White Wolf did this level of sweeping changes I turned and said “I cannot in good conscience continue to support this level of consumer-abuse”. I am more and more inclined to say the same with 4th edition. But hell, I am a long standing and loyal customer and product supporter. What do I know? ;-) http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=915311&page=13 Now I recognize I got impassioned in my response, but I take great exception and offense to the reasoning "Well at Least Wizards cares about me". It's snide, and more than a little insulting. There are alot of playstyles out there. Pandering to one cripples the very versatility of the game. And who knows, maybe there may come a day where some of you who champion this outlook of "Yay!! Change!" might want to try a different aspect, having done the "same ol same ol" enough times. Dumbing things down would rob you of that option. Just some, y'know, food for thought.
VedicDragon 10-04-07, 04:35 PM	Planescape isn't about elit, but maturity. My friends and I started playing when I we were 12, in 1992. Bashing monsters was our main interest. We discovered roleplay in our mid-teens. But we only discovered real storylines, complicated plots, forshadowing, etc, around 18. This is when we understood the potential of the fluff in the planescape setting, and got hooked. We had the intellectual maturity to understand the unwritten rules to make intrecate plots. I really think that the Planescape setting can be used by any player of any age. But the real potential is unleash at a later age, when you want character drive plots and vilains with a deep psycholagical motives. Something different from the last 8-10 years of play. Shure you don't need the planes to do that, but the Planescape settings offered that. THANK YOU. A voice among several, the last vestiges of reason. We should form a Wizards' Council or something to plot scenarios against the coming 'Breaking of the World'. :-P Seriously though, I couldn't have put it better. Good show. Originally Posted by ArcTan Being able to be used by a lot of people is precisely what most game companies shoot for, rather than being usable by you and your "elite gamer" friends so that you can all chuckle at how much smarter you are than the newbs who don't like your system (while the company that makes it slowly and surely goes out of business). now that sort of statement i just find contemptuous. i appreciate the variety and complexity of the planes for its own sake, because i find that interesting - not because people like you don't like it. it's ridiculous to say that someone appreciates it just because you don't, or do you find that people just seem to enjoy spiting you for its own sake? oh wait, i'm wrong. there was that one time when my gaming buddies and i were sitting around laughing saying, "hah hah hah, we love this system that this guy on the internet called ArcTan doesn't understand, hahahahaha he's so stoooopid, it's great! i wish it were more complex so we could enjoy his confusion even more! we're so eeeleeeet!" Yeah I have to state I take exception to this too. Now, while I may not agree with the response, another round of kvetching about second edition's complexity . . . please. That's a cheap shot. Those that enjoy complexity don't need to be elite. It just means we have an appreciation for a hobby that might require a high school education level. I am sorry if that makes me sound like a snob, but there are PLENTY of dumbed-down simple roleplaying games or even monty-haul-esque hack-and-slashers for those that want that. They've veritably flooded the market. May I suggest "Ninja Burger" or "Kobolds Ate My Baby!" for that variety of fun? I don't think it's elitest in the slightest to maintain a minimum standard of intelligence for our hobby that requires at least SOME cognitive reasoning above the gutter, do you? Really? :(
ArcTan 10-04-07, 08:07 PM	To quote Mugato from the Ben Stiller film, “Zoolander” “I feel like I’ve been taking crazy pills here . . . am I the only one who notices this?!?!?!” 3rd Edition in and of itself was a needlessly streamlined and dumbed-down version of the game. Granted yes, it made the franchise more accessible, but honestly how much more simplification does this game need? Should 3 year olds really be able to play it? No. However, 20-year-olds who have busy schedules and a lot on their minds should be able to pick up the rules, read them, and then immediately start using them to have fun without going through a long and frustrating learning period. No offense to the truly mentally challenged or those who have near and dear ones who are, but it feels like the level of constant simplicity is getting ready to have this product packaged for the most severely mentally challenged dolts and morons on the planet. I mean heck, as is thac0 was simple high-school algebra! It's not how simple the *individual calculation* is that matters, it's that having to do *many* calculations *over and over again* that follow *no logical pattern* (i.e. 2e's seemingly totally haphazard system for figuring out which numbers you subtract and which ones you add) is a recipe for breeding frustration and eventually introducing errors. I mean, yeesh, yes, I have no trouble adding up and subtracting numbers as a task in and of itself. But if you forced me to sit there with a pad and pencil and add and subtract numbers all day I would inevitably 1) make a mistake somewhere, and 2) hate you. Now, my crusading days for 2nd edition are long gone and done and I intend to at least look at 4th edition like everyone else, but to say that the game needs further dumbing down or simplicity is a thematically inbred logic that I feel demands justification… Who is the target audience? The senile? The elementary school student? The Casual gamer? Ordinary people? Who don't like having to add and subtract numbers randomly in no pattern and look things up in tables and so on for "fun"? Hasbro marketing has already proven themselves inept when it comes to this product. They had a profitable venture in the Wizards of the Coast boutique. When Hasbro acquired Wizards, they flooded these boutiques with a slew of boardgames and similar “status quo” products for the average American audience, seeking to ever drag in new clientele whilst shooting the existing clientele in the foot. Hence, when they pulled the sales of Magic Cards and started canceling tournaments in the stores on the eastern seaboard, after ditching most of their roleplaying products, it came as little surprise that the entire venture started to circle-the-drain. No. Really. I worked for them, at the time. I'm kind of surprised you refer to WotC's current profit status as "circling the drain". They're doing really well, by gaming company standards. I have to marvel at this situation. Here we are, the latest edition barely a half-a-decade old (I’m counting 3.5 separately) and already we’re planning a new version. And most of the logic to justify this is the same garbage spewed to accredit the last series of revisions. 1.) We need to simplify so this game is “streamlined” 2.) We need to make this reach a broader audience, because we’re a corporation and want your money. Well, yes. Because the goals of 3.5 were incompletely realized. 3.5 is *easier* than 2e, by a long shot, but still not very easy. 3.5 has a *broader audience* than 2e, also by a long shot, but is still firmly a niche product. Now I recognize I got impassioned in my response, but I take great exception and offense to the reasoning "Well at Least Wizards cares about me". It's snide, and more than a little insulting. There are alot of playstyles out there. Pandering to one cripples the very versatility of the game. And who knows, maybe there may come a day where some of you who champion this outlook of "Yay!! Change!" might want to try a different aspect, having done the "same ol same ol" enough times. Dumbing things down would rob you of that option. Just some, y'know, food for thought. There's a lot of things I want to try with RPGs, but purposely making the game difficult to learn and difficult to run isn't one of them. It's the one thing that gets in the way of everything else, actually.
ArcTan 10-04-07, 08:15 PM	Yeah I have to state I take exception to this too. Now, while I may not agree with the response, another round of kvetching about second edition's complexity . . . please. That's a cheap shot. Those that enjoy complexity don't need to be elite. It just means we have an appreciation for a hobby that might require a high school education level. *Being able to handle complexity* is not the same thing as *enjoying* complexity. Enjoying complexity in and of itself for its own sake is, yes, elitism. I am perfectly capable of reading and understanding text that uses college reading-level language like "autodidact" and "syzygy" and "grandiloquence". However, I do not *like* doing so for its own sake. While sometimes this language is necessary for precision of meaning or a certain writing style, often it is not, and many of the things I like reading are indeed written at around a high-school reading level, at least in terms of vocabulary. That doesn't mean it's "for high school students" or that I'm "too stupid" to "understand" hard words. It means that I understand there's a difference between a novel I'm reading for fun and the Great American Novel and a college paper on particle physics. And that I understand that things that are sold as *recreations* by *businesses* like publishing houses are trying to appeal to the masses, and that there's *nothing wrong with that*, and if I let that in and of itself push me away from something I'm being an elitist snob and an ass. I am sorry if that makes me sound like a snob, but there are PLENTY of dumbed-down simple roleplaying games or even monty-haul-esque hack-and-slashers for those that want that. They've veritably flooded the market. May I suggest "Ninja Burger" or "Kobolds Ate My Baby!" for that variety of fun? They haven't really "flooded the market". D&D continues to maintain a death grip on its monopoly power over the RPG market as a whole. The number of people who will even get a chance to *hear* of the existence of the game "Kobolds Ate My Baby!" is relatively small. And, again, there's a difference between making a game simple and accessible and making it not take itself seriously and be a "beer & pretzels" party game. There's a prejudice in the RPG community that if I make my game have simple rules I must want to make the *story* the game tells stupid and funny and dumb, which is nonsense. It's like saying that in order to tell a serious, adult story you must use jawbreaker sentences packed with five-dollar words or else it's just a cheesy story for kids. (Guess all those critics were wrong about Hemingway.) I don't think it's elitest in the slightest to maintain a minimum standard of intelligence for our hobby that requires at least SOME cognitive reasoning above the gutter, do you? I think that "maintaining a minimum standard of intelligence to keep us above the gutter" is the *definition* of elitism. *Requiring* a minimum level of *anything* for *any* reason that you can't give a solid, strong argument for being necessary to the game being *fun* is elitism. If THAC0 isn't actually necessary to make the game more fun or run better -- and if you seriously argue that it was, COME ON -- then it's a useless mechanic. It serves no purpose but to be this kind of gatekeeper -- "How facile with calculations are you? How much are you going to let me annoy you with random signs changing back and forth before I let you play this game?" -- then screw it. Dump it. I don't want gatekeeper mechanics whose job it is to keep the riffraff out. That whole *concept* is what I hate about the RPG community.
sciborg2 10-05-07, 08:47 AM	Enjoying complexity in and of itself for its own sake is, yes, elitism. That isn't even close to true. In everything from athletics to mathematics, raising the bar can, for many people, raise one's enjoyment. Though I agree with you about Thac0 (i never got it) and negative AC....
Frobojoe 10-05-07, 05:15 PM	I think there is an important point that needs to be made here (and apologies if someone already brought this up). Complexity, in and of itself, isn't an inherently good thing. Simplicity is generally more desirable then complexity. For example, given the choice between a computer program that uses a thousand lines of code to complete a task and one that does the same task with only a hundred, I think nearly everyone would choose the simpler one every time. Basically, if you can accomplish the same thing in a simpler manner, this is a good thing to do. Applied to D&D, this means that simpler rules are a good thing, provided they can accomplish the same tasks as a more complex rules set. There are reasons for making complex rules (model reality better, cover corner cases, etc), but adding complexity for the sake of complexity is generally a bad idea. Of course, it's possible to go too far in the other direction and make the game too simple, losing realism or needed rules in the process. In short, the game shouldn't be any more complex then it needs to be, and simple, streamlined rules are probably a good thing.
ArcTan 10-05-07, 05:22 PM	That isn't even close to true. In everything from athletics to mathematics, raising the bar can, for many people, raise one's enjoyment. Though I agree with you about Thac0 (i never got it) and negative AC.... D&D is not a game about doing math. The fun does not come from doing calculations. Increasing the complexity of calculations *for fun's sake* is not the same as increasing it for complexity's sake. If D&D were actually a game about doing math, and the math was *interesting* math -- say, modelling different topological surfaces and predicting their properties -- that would be one thing. Forcing someone to do lots and lots of little sums, and having signs change back and forth in different contexts for different numbers that you have to add up, is not the fun kind of complexity. It *isn't* fun for its own sake. It just makes things harder to do. Every time I've heard someone seriously try to defend THAC0 the argument comes down to "If it's harder to do things in the game, then smarter people will play the game, and the gaming community will be better". That's the definition of elitism.
goldomark 10-05-07, 06:16 PM	Thaco was not hard to understand. It worked like BaB, but you substacted instead of adding bonuses. To hit a creature, you just had to substact the AC from the thaco and the number you came up with was what you needed to role on your d20. Not hard really. So with a thaco of 10 and a creature with -1 AC, you need to roll a 11 or a higher number to hit. I think they just changed it because its easier to for some people to add then substact. We learn how thaco worked at 12 years old, couldn't be to complecated.
ArcTan 10-05-07, 06:22 PM	"Complicated" is the wrong word. "Annoying" is better. It was annoying to have a system where sometimes you add and sometimes you subtract, and sometimes higher is better and sometimes lower is better, and no real rhyme or reason as to why. There was no good reason not to standardize it so that everything worked the same way (higher is better, add things up to try to get higher than a certain number).
goldomark 10-05-07, 06:39 PM	Sometimes you add and sometimes you substract in 3.5 too. Just an exemple; the party's cleric cast a prayer spell so you add and then the goblin cleric also cast a prayer spell, then you substarct. This is easy, but with so many bonuses and maluses spells, 3.5 is way more annoying in therms of keeping up with all the numbers. Maths are going to be part part of the game, until DM arbitrarily decide the outcome of a fight or computers do it all for you. Both options are boring.
ArcTan 10-05-07, 06:50 PM	Let me rephrase it. In 3.5, adding and subtracting have *consistent meanings*. Yes, sometimes you add numbers to your AC, and sometimes you subtract numbers to your AC, but adding is always GOOD and subtracting is always BAD. You always remember that if someone's doing something GOOD to you they're doing something that makes you add to your AC, and if someone's doing something BAD to you they're making you subtract from your AC. Sure, there's still a lot of damn sums to do. I do think of that as kind of a problem. But at least now they're all the same *kind* of sum -- it's always "I want to get my number to be higher than his number so I win", not "I want to get my number lower so that when you add it to his number it makes the total less than this other number".
pratputajao 10-06-07, 09:01 AM	Thaco was not hard to understand. It worked like BaB, but you substacted instead of adding bonuses. To hit a creature, you just had to substact the AC from the thaco and the number you came up with was what you needed to role on your d20. Not hard really. So with a thaco of 10 and a creature with -1 AC, you need to roll a 11 or a higher number to hit. I think they just changed it because its easier to for some people to add then substact. We learn how thaco worked at 12 years old, couldn't be to complecated. There is a really good point here. Most of the people I know who Played DnD learned at about the 12-14 year old mark. My group and I learned to play the entire DnD system at 12 years old. That includes seperating the differances between ADnD from regular DnD. I dont buy that simplifying things is always what most people want. I know many people who would play rolemaster over DnD becouse it had more complete (Complicated) rules. We would play RM often as well....
ArcTan 10-06-07, 10:03 PM	There is a really good point here. Most of the people I know who Played DnD learned at about the 12-14 year old mark. My group and I learned to play the entire DnD system at 12 years old. The issue is not how many of the people who learned to play D&D were 12 years old, but how many 12-year-olds learned to play D&D. 12-year-olds are more open to fantasy and games and such as a hobby than older people, and are likely to have lots more free time. *For the subset of geeky people who are willing to put up with this stuff*, 12 is a totally reasonable time to start learning these things. It is, however, a small, small subset. (I learned to start programming in C when I was 12 years old. It does not mean that C is appropriate for ages 12+.) That includes seperating the differances between ADnD from regular DnD. Bah. You know, actually having a well-designed stratification between AD&D and BD&D was one of those things that TSR never actually successfully did. I wouldn't mind the concept of BD&D and AD&D brought back. I would want the "advanced" part of AD&D to actually mean introducing options that *meant* something and complexity that *added stuff to the game*, not just extra layers of annoyance in the interface for no good reason. I dont buy that simplifying things is always what most people want. I know many people who would play rolemaster over DnD becouse it had more complete (Complicated) rules. We would play RM often as well.... There are always people who like complexity for complexity's sake. They are usually in the minority. (You know, the people who think that Linux is a better OS than Windows *because* you have to spend 24 hours configuring it for your computer, and therefore think Slackware and debian and such are inherently better than Red Hat and Ubuntu.)
Bob the Efreet 10-07-07, 03:56 AM	I don't buy that simplifying things is always what most people want. I know many people who would play rolemaster over DnD because it had more complete (Complicated) rules. We would play RM often as well.... Is there actually a game to play in Rolemaster, or do you just roll dice and cross-reference charts?
pratputajao 10-07-07, 09:54 AM	Is there actually a game to play in Rolemaster, or do you just roll dice and cross-reference charts? Our group happened to love RM. We played a campiegn set in second age Middle earth. Great fun. We've tried damn near every kind Role playing game out there (yes we were mega nerds..But cooool mega nerds hehe ;) ) and RM was one that we stuck with. But I would say as far as the amount of rules I would say that Todays DnD is MUCH closer to RM than ADnD ever was as far as the amount of rules.
Tovec 11-02-07, 11:05 AM	How did this thread, which was supposed to be about Changing the Great Wheel devolve into a fight about if complexity is elitism. Not even if complexity is a good thing, no, but if complexity is elitism. As to the second, I agree that complexity in DnD is needed but not anymore then IS needed. "Dumbing it down" to try and get a new audience interested in something because its easier to use is stupid. I think that a certain level of elitism is required, although I don't feel I am elitist. That level of elitism is what separates people who want to run around killing anything they can from the people who actually have an interest in the game. But I don't think that DnD should be more complex to try and keep these people out, I think the game shouldn't try to appealing to these people in the first place. Now onto the first, I like the wheel. I started playing when I was 18, not 12. That was about 2 years ago, deep in the middle of 3.5 and for this reason when I saw all the changes to the planes I was quite angered. Not angry at the new layout, which seems interesting, but to how they betrayed all resemblance and ties to earlier versions. They more or less say that 4.0 is a new game onto itself and any connection between it and earlier versions of DnD is merely a coincidence. I feel betrayed because I have spent a fair bit of time learning this "complex" game and learning the earlier versions looking for things I can alter and recreate from the past. In the evolution from the previous generations to 3.5 there are many similar ties and you can obviously see where things come from. Yes they made some obvious changes, especially in the deities, but they gave a - all be it crappy - explanation as to how changes were made. In 4e they didn't even try and what is worse they say that its always been like that when I think anyone who has played DnD from before 4e and then plays 4e will say that it sure as hell Didn't! All this being said, if I had started with 4e, I think I would have been okay with the planes, probably even liked them. I find them interesting and feel like they solve a lot of problems I had with the old planar setup. I would have looked back at the older versions and wondered why they were so foreign to me. But I didn't start with 4e and it feels like the game producers care more about gaining more players instead of respecting their base.
ArcTan 11-02-07, 10:37 PM	Now onto the first, I like the wheel. I started playing when I was 18, not 12. That was about 2 years ago, deep in the middle of 3.5 and for this reason when I saw all the changes to the planes I was quite angered. Not angry at the new layout, which seems interesting, but to how they betrayed all resemblance and ties to earlier versions. They more or less say that 4.0 is a new game onto itself and any connection between it and earlier versions of DnD is merely a coincidence. I feel betrayed because I have spent a fair bit of time learning this "complex" game and learning the earlier versions looking for things I can alter and recreate from the past. In the evolution from the previous generations to 3.5 there are many similar ties and you can obviously see where things come from. Yes they made some obvious changes, especially in the deities, but they gave a - all be it crappy - explanation as to how changes were made. In 4e they didn't even try and what is worse they say that its always been like that when I think anyone who has played DnD from before 4e and then plays 4e will say that it sure as hell Didn't! How would you know? You weren't even around for the 3.0->3.5 transition, by your own admission, much less an actual edition change like 2e->3e or 1e->2e. Who are you to say that the 3e->4e transition is a much bigger deal than any transition has ever been?
sciborg3 11-03-07, 02:58 AM	it's the biggest change in some time actually, for better or for worse.
ArcTan 11-03-07, 03:36 AM	The transition from 2e rules to d20 is what I'd say the biggest transition was. Not knowing anything about 4e directly, I'd still say that changing from the original d20 to something like Star Wars Saga Edition isn't that big a deal, for all the *important* things about the game.
sciborg3 11-03-07, 11:13 AM	important seems like a subjective term - i was referring to cosmology. The redefining of fiends, the removal of the Blood War and the inner planes might feel to some that D&D is being gutted of all past cosmological history. I've decided to wait and see though I find myself largely uninterested in the 4 planar stuff so far save for the Astral Sea concept. Thopugh some things might be interesting to use in a Great Wheel game. I may even incorporate the Elemental (as opposed to Shakespearean) Tempest in a planar time traveling campaign as the Pangea of the Inner Planes... edit: sorry, when i say uninterested i mean for use in a campaign as written. I don't mean to say the material is boring.
Tovec 11-03-07, 07:26 PM	How would you know? You weren't even around for the 3.0->3.5 transition, by your own admission, much less an actual edition change like 2e->3e or 1e->2e. Who are you to say that the 3e->4e transition is a much bigger deal than any transition has ever been? First I just want to say, you are an ass. Even when I partially agree with you and try to find common ground you fight with me, trying to get me to fall into name calling and back and forth. I have put thought and research - as much as I have been allowed in the short period that I have gotten the older books - into this and you treat me like I'm a new comer who knows nothing. Besides by your own admission I am the kind of person that they want to recruit. Someone they are remaking the planes for. I have long had a problem with the planes, not because I don't understand them but because I find them too big, too cluttered, too "infinite" yet touching and generally not my cup of tea. Now, I didn't say that the change from 3e to 4e will be the biggest change ever, that its the beez-neez, its not. I'm saying I READ the freaking 2e + 1e sourcebooks for stuff on the planes to see things that were dropped and comparing it to THAT it seems like 4e is changing the most. I don't care about the d20 vs. other systems because honestly I'll use a d4 if I choose. I'm saying that it seems like they are dropping the standard of the great wheel - after many remakes - for something VERY foreign. This change betrays the old players who have used all their own homebrews and the DnD campaign settings for something that will have to redo all of those just to sell some new books. I tried to point out that I didn't find all about the new cosmology bad, in fact I like many things about it. I think that there are still areas that need work but for my purposes I'll probably start altering my games to fit the new cosmology. If I had been exposed to the new cosmology first I think that I would like it and that a great wheel would seem stupid. I however was introduced to the great wheel and therefore find many faults in the new system. In either case, you are still an ass.
Return of the Flumph 11-03-07, 07:45 PM	So far, it has both advantages and disadvantages compared to the great wheel. Not sure which I like better (or perhaps, I'm not sure which one's flaws I can overlook more easily). Something to keep in mind is that the Great Wheel is not neccesarily being destroyed. Rather, it has simply ceased to be the default cosmology. While I suspect most old DM's will continue using it (on account of all the stuff its accumulated over the decades), I don't especially care if it becomes the default cosmos or not.
ZeroSD 11-03-07, 08:49 PM	i these ideas are far less creative and interesting, playing to the idea that chaotic evil = angry killer and likely removing such great figures as Grazz't and Pale Night. Agreed. Chaos should be more interesting to me than law, since by definition Chaos will be more about change and *stuff happening*. And when done right, ala Savage Tides, Expedition to Demonweb Pits, Hordes of the Abyss, it <i>is</i> very interesting and I can't think of a devil-oriented product that has grabbed me as much. Losing some of what's cool about the Abyss is a big blow, more-so than if the same happened to Law. LE needed an upgrade CN also needs an upgrade, IMO. Hungry frogs neither screams chaos (maybe slightly CE, but not embodiments of purest chaos. The only other alignment critter as lame were the Formians) nor were on a level with Fiends and Celestials and Modrons in coolness. Nor was limbo particularly playable- it was an elemental plane of random stuff appearing, not anything to do with freedom and acting without boundries (heck, you could even impose law on the plane via will and had big strongholds of LNs as one of the most interesting and major inhabitants. What other plane benefits the opposing alignment?).
Alpha_Moose 11-03-07, 10:30 PM	First off Tovec, don't call people an ass on the forums. ArcTan may be blunt about what he says and enjoys debates, but that doesn't mean you can insult him. Second, most of your comments seem to stem from the idea that you need to change your current campaign to conform with the new cosmology. This is wrong. You can and should keep your current game the same, even possibly using the 3.5 rules. Wizards has decided to not use the Great Wheel as a default cosmology and they decided to make a new one. They realized that trying to change a cosmology to fit with what they want is bad because all that does is mess with people who liked the cosmology as it is. This is the problem with even the title of this tread. They are NOT changing the Great Wheel. Would you feel this way if they produced a new campaign setting that used its own cosmology, but used a couple of the names from the Great Wheel? If not, then you shouldn't be bothered by the 4e cosmology. Now there may be other problems with the new cosmos, but not keeping with older cannon is not one. Personally, I like many of the ideas that they have shown. Devils and Demons are actually different and not just a Red vs. Blue type of thing. They seem to have merged the Plane of Shadows and the Ethereal Plane together. They are also making Fey important, or at least as important as something like Demons or Undead.
sciborg3 11-03-07, 11:30 PM	Devils and Demons are actually different and not just a Red vs. Blue type of thing. How were they Red vs. Blue previously? After Faces of Evil in 2e, I can't see how this argument stands. Even before Planescape examined the alignment system (not that I liked all of the ideas) I never thought this or simply didn't have a problem with the forces of Law and Chaos, as Moorcock points of in War of Angels, ultimately becoming indistinguishable...though Moorcock's ideas aren't ultimately comparable with the fiends imo.
ArcTan 11-04-07, 01:03 AM	For people who wanted to simply use them *as monsters* without all the crap about what their motivations are -- which is *campaign-specific* flavor -- then yeah, they were Red vs. Blue. Notice how once you strip out the fluff, a setting like Eberron immediately puts Pit Fiends and Balors together on the same plane (Fernia), because it's pretty obvious that aside from the Law/Chaos thing (which is talking about their *objectives*, not what they are) they're two subspecies of the same monster.
ArcTan 11-04-07, 01:06 AM	Now, I didn't say that the change from 3e to 4e will be the biggest change ever, that its the beez-neez, its not. C'mon. You said that compared to all the previous versions 4e is a "new game" as opposed to a new edition, which is nonsense. Are you really saying the core mechanic of the game has less to do with what "makes D&D D&D" than some fluff that a lot of campaigns never even touch? Was Eberron a "new game" because it didn't use the Great Wheel? Was Dark Sun a "new game" before it used the Great Wheel? Criticize 4e whatever way you want, but don't say it's so much more radical compared to previous edition changes. It isn't. I'm saying that it seems like they are dropping the standard of the great wheel - after many remakes - for something VERY foreign. This change betrays the old players who have used all their own homebrews and the DnD campaign settings for something that will have to redo all of those just to sell some new books. It doesn't "betray" anyone. Who says you have to redo anything to match 4e? It was annoying in the first place that they implied something that *ought* to be as idiosyncratic to individual campaigns and campaign settings as how the planes work is something that you had to write to match the Great Wheel in the first place.
sciborg3 11-04-07, 01:10 AM	Eberron has a plane where CE/LE/LG slug it out, so you can't really say they are ignoring the alignments of these creatures. Yes demons and devils are the same kind of monster is so far as they are fiends...but then you could say any lower planar creature is a 'fiend'. To me, the demons vs. devils reclassification is perhaps the most ridiculous/annoying thing about 4e's new cosmology. But part of that is the idea that prior to 4e the distinction between devils and demons made no sense, a slap in the face to makers of FCI and FCII, authors of Faces of Evil and several other works dealing with devils/demons....
ArcTan 11-04-07, 01:15 AM	Eberron has a plane where CE/LE/LG slug it out, so you can't really say they are ignoring the alignments of these creatures. Yes demons and devils are the same kind of monster is so far as they are fiends...but then you could say any lower planar creature is a 'fiend'. The Demons and Devils on Shavarath are picked to all be things that look and act very different from each other and can be clearly divided into "species" (Bone and Chain Devils vs. Mariliths and Vrocks vs. Hound and Trumpet Archons is how I remember it off the top of my head). The fact that it's those three alignments rather than four is kind of novel, and reinforces the idea that these are three basic forces that happen to be roughly described by the terms "LG", "LE" and "CE", not that Law/Chaos and Good/Evil are real, fundamental forces that define the whole universe. To me, the demons vs. devils reclassification is perhaps the most ridiculous/annoying thing about 4e's new cosmology. But part of that is the idea that prior to 4e the distinction between devils and demons made no sense, a slap in the face to makers of FCI and FCII, authors of Faces of Evil and several other works dealing with devils/demons.... How about that it didn't make *much* sense and that books like the Fiendish Codices were a valiant attempt to *make* them make sense, but that shouldn't have been necessary from the beginning? Planescape is cool because it's a postmodern take on the nonsensical D&D alignment and Great Wheel system. It's cool because it acknowledges that it doesn't make sense and tries to find fertile ground for debate and conundrums in the nonsensicality of it all. That doesn't mean its being nonsensical was a good thing to start with. I really admire people who can *make* interesting, adult dramatic fiction out of the Harry Potter universe. I honestly do. They're a minority among fanficcers, but they uplift the whole pursuit by existing. That doesn't mean that I actually think that Harry Potter was interesting, adult dramatic fiction to *start* with, or even that Harry Potter was very good.
sciborg3 11-04-07, 01:34 AM	That doesn't mean its being nonsensical was a good thing to start with. Okay, I can go with that - but even recalling the 1e MotP I find it hard to see it as nonscensical. That aside, Ppart of what I liked about the Great Wheel was how on the surface it seems simple but unfolds in complexity, (I still think the Astral Sea is a better core concept that provides more options) subdividing into layers and then again into divine realms and planar sites. This is paralleled by the realization that the overarching classification of four alignment axes is, if not flawed, than more of a question/puzzle than answer/fact.
Furryhowler 11-04-07, 05:52 AM	Sounds like they are going with the idea that Chaotic is the primal alignment (out of which Order rose) and so CE is primal destructivity....
Return of the Flumph 11-04-07, 06:20 AM	Sounds like they are going with the idea that Chaotic is the primal alignment (out of which Order rose) and so CE is primal destructivity.... That's a lot more in sync with...every mythology I've ever heard of.
Furryhowler 11-04-07, 09:29 AM	That's a lot more in sync with...every mythology I've ever heard of. Indeed. They could even have a "fountain" notion of the planes/alignment where chaos is the primal and coming out of it comes law and eventually good.
Taeldrin Laesrash 11-04-07, 10:28 AM	Indeed. They could even have a "fountain" notion of the planes/alignment where chaos is the primal and coming out of it comes law and eventually good. I think they wrote something like that in a book already, about how a chaotic plane was the chaos from which the multiverse sprang. I think it might have been the FCI. I don't particularly like the idea, since it gives a certain alignment the higher ground due to being the first.
Furryhowler 11-04-07, 11:10 AM	I think they wrote something like that in a book already, about how a chaotic plane was the chaos from which the multiverse sprang. I think it might have been the FCI. I don't particularly like the idea, since it gives a certain alignment the higher ground due to being the first. No more so than evolution gives higher ground to fish than it does to humans because fish turned up first.... ;) In fact, if anything, its the other way around; roses growing out of dirt :)
sciborg3 11-04-07, 01:46 PM	I think this is why no one theory should canonical dominance. The DM can pick the one he likes most - Baernoloth created the fiends, Twin Serpents, Abyss the place of origin, etc. Personally, I find it more interesting to see which theories planars, paricularly exemplars, hold to to give their lives meaning. But then most of my D&D sessions disintegrated into philsophical/theological discussions. ;)