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| Andyr09-21-07, 08:13 PM | From http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=906394 The D&D cosmology — largely unchanged since 1st Edition — is receiving its share of scrutiny as well. We're making revisions to the cosmology so that the planes work better as adventure sites. Case in point, the individual Elemental Planes (as described in 2E and 3E) aren't the most interesting adventure locations; their inhospitability, vastness, and uniformity discourage exploration, and the creatures that dwell there are predictable and easy to thwart if you're packing the right spells. (Of course, these planes don't hold a candle to 2E's hilarious Plane of Vacuum, which is truly the antithesis of fun.) In the Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters book, we'll present in more detail 4th Edition's alternative to the Elemental Planes of Water, Fire, Earth, and Air. My hope is that the cosmological changes will excite players and actually encourage DMs to set adventures in these far-flung locales. I liked the fact that inhospitable, vast planes existed--I think they helped to put the individual in their place in the grand scheme of things; that no matter how important you were, the multiverse was a big place. And I liked the various para- and quasi-elemental planes. :( I think that I will use the Great Wheel cosmology in 4E, as this combined with the changes to fiends sounds like a lot of changes which will not suit my games. |
| Shemeska the Marauder09-21-07, 08:39 PM | (Of course, these planes don't hold a candle to 2E's hilarious Plane of Vacuum, which is truly the antithesis of fun.) Though I said this in another thread, it's worth saying again I think. The above quote was a truly strange thing to say, given that the plane has a number of rather interesting creatures living (and thriving) there, a major fortress of a planar faction (Citadel Exhalus), and some planar mysteries (ie Sun Sing). Compounding the situation, many of those 2e things have actually appeared in 3.x books as well, so it's not like only people who played 2e might know about the things, persons, and locations that might make them want to go there in a campaign. For a place that's the antithesis of fun, it's odd then that they're included in the 3.x Planar Handbook (Citadel Exhalus and the Doomguard faction there), or in the Fiendish Codex I (Sun Sing and overt description of quasielemental vacuum as a border between Air and Negative Energy). |
| Return of the Flumph09-21-07, 10:38 PM | The elemental planes do need a bit more variety; they all have interesting things in them, but not nearly to the same extent as, say, the Outlands or the Abyss. Adding some new terrain and landmarks sounds like a good idea. |
| Taeldrin Laesrash09-21-07, 10:47 PM | This could go either way. I do agree that the Inner Planes could be made a bit more exciting. However, seeing them call the Plane of Vacuum the antithesis of fun worries. |
| Ryltar Thamior09-21-07, 10:53 PM | Ok, that's it! :mad: :thumbsdow WIZARDS!! THIS MEANS WAR!!!! :mad: :mad: Yes, I'm rather annoyed, obviously. I think the PS community has put up with a fair ammount from WotC in the past ("Die, Vecna, Die!", and the Lady now being LN, etc.) - but changing the Elemental Planes just feels like they've crossed the final line. I'll admit they were 'inhospitable', and often difficult for a low-level party to work in, but wasn't that the point? They definately were interesting, as-is, as I'd assume everyone was aware. This is part of some dumbing-down trend I think - making it more brainless for PCs and DMs. Right. [/rant] Yeah, if I make the move to 4th edition, i'll be making it WITH the Great Wheel et al. |
| Witch09-22-07, 06:47 AM | My latest news is that 4th Edition will not include the north pole or deserts, because such desolate regions are the antithesis of fun, and every area is meant to be fun. No region should exist that is not fun. Therefore, we are also removing the bottom of the oceans, where no humanoid life can thrive due to pressure. We are also removing clouds, because, let's face it, there's just nothing fun to do when walking on clouds. The moon will also be gone, as will the sun. Pelor just turns light on and off, now. His new holy symbol is a light switch. |
| Palindrome09-22-07, 08:20 AM | Yes, but is it an evil light switch? |
| EvilVegan09-22-07, 08:37 AM | You know what I'd like to see? Mechanics. I'm tired of them changing all this fluff to make the game "more fun", while at the same time their advertising campaign focuses on "easier to play". Which is it? I don't even use the fluff in the 50 3.x books I currently own, nor the 2 editions before that! |
| ElvenOutlaw09-22-07, 09:50 AM | So help me.....if they ...if they mess with my Elemental Planes in the Great Wheel. If they go and destroy the Quasi or the Para-elemental Planes completely.... :mad: :censored: You don't go to the Elemental Plane of Fire for a fun time. You don't go to the Plane of Ice for a sking trip, or the Plane of Water for a pleasure cruise. This "antithesis of fun" line really irked me. Sure they want to add something equivalent to the City of Brass into every plane or something sure. Sure I can deal with that. So help me though if a Pikachu shows up on the Quasi plane of Lightning to make things more "Fun" I'll freakin pop someone's head off. The more and more things I hear the more and more I strengthen my stand against buying anthing 4e. |
| Neutronium_Dragon09-22-07, 01:09 PM | I could readily see the elemental planes being reworked to have more variety, and in the process the para-elemental and quasi-elemental planes in the old cosmology might get folded into those rather than staying separate. I mean, is it really necessary to have one "earth" plane and one "mineral/gem" plane and one "salt" plane all separate from one another, nevermind the magma and dust ones? They're basically variants on the same theme which might just as well be rolled together into a single, more complex plane with a wide variety of related features intermingled together. |
| BOZ09-22-07, 01:27 PM | man, am i glad we got the archomentals in print before Wizards got around to changing things! |
| sciborg209-22-07, 04:23 PM | i think we should wait and see. i hope they are providing more possibilities without removing the basic fact that a trip to a landscape of infinite fire isn't a holiday jaunt... |
| Ryltar Thamior09-23-07, 02:16 AM | Right, well I'm glad I'm not alone out here. I'll reserve judgement about any mechanics until I see them and get a chance to test them out. But yeah. Is anyone reading this actually enthusiastic about seeing what OUR planes'll be like in the new edition? |
| yrogerg09-23-07, 03:11 AM | I liked the fact that inhospitable, vast planes existed--I think they helped to put the individual in their place in the grand scheme of things; that no matter how important you were, the multiverse was a big place. You do recognize that the irrelevance of the PCs and their causes is a very odd approach to what's ostensibly a heroic fantasy game, even if it is significantly the implication of the Great Wheel cosmology. I'm irrelevant and unimportant enough in the real world, I don't need to play a character in a fantasy game to have them "put in their place" in this regard. |
| ArcTan09-23-07, 04:11 AM | You can have a great big world that makes your PCs sometimes feel small, without gratuitously dumping huge "infinitely large" swathes of it everywhere in order to emphasize the fact, while at the same time making the cosmology more irregular, annoying to memorize and difficult to understand. (To be honest, I had to look up the Quasielemental and Paralemental Planes for the sake of this discussion just to remember what they were. I still can't for the life of me understand some of them, especially the decision to have Ice be Air + Water.) |
| ArcTan09-23-07, 04:13 AM | So help me.....if they ...if they mess with my Elemental Planes in the Great Wheel. If they go and destroy the Quasi or the Para-elemental Planes completely.... :mad: :censored: They already did. Notice that Perkins refers to the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum as "back in 2e". None of the Para's or Quasi's ever got anything close to an official writeup in any 3e product. The fact that a random freelancer *mentioned* them in Fiendish Codex II doesn't change that. There wasn't actually a way to play in Vacuum in 3e without houseruling in yourself how it worked -- and if you're okay with doing that, why not houserule in all the rest of the Great Wheel, too? |
| ElvenOutlaw09-23-07, 08:20 AM | They already did. Notice that Perkins refers to the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum as "back in 2e". None of the Para's or Quasi's ever got anything close to an official writeup in any 3e product. The fact that a random freelancer *mentioned* them in Fiendish Codex II doesn't change that. There wasn't actually a way to play in Vacuum in 3e without houseruling in yourself how it worked -- and if you're okay with doing that, why not houserule in all the rest of the Great Wheel, too? Well the Manual of the Planes atleast mentioned the para-elementals and the Elemental Plane of Cold (Ice). Given the Plane of Cold was in the variant section. No write up is better than changing it atleast to me. Yes I've houseruled alot of stuff with the planes and will continue to do so. All the changes I see being made now with 4e just seem to be for shock value. "Look what we can do!" The ignoring of alot of my beloved Planescape material and all with 3e/3.5 was upsetting but I survived. I was hoping that maybe they could change my mind with new kick-ass planes material for 4e. with the "antithesis of fun" comment though I'm not seeing that really now. |
| Andyr09-23-07, 09:41 AM | You do recognize that the irrelevance of the PCs and their causes is a very odd approach to what's ostensibly a heroic fantasy game, even if it is significantly the implication of the Great Wheel cosmology. I'm irrelevant and unimportant enough in the real world, I don't need to play a character in a fantasy game to have them "put in their place" in this regard. Perhaps it is a little odd, but it's the approach I take, and it works well for me. :) Maybe my games are not as escapist as those of some others. I get a little discouraged when designers call something I like a lot the "antithesis of fun" and tell me I will like their new alternative more. |
| yrogerg09-23-07, 09:53 AM | Perhaps it is a little odd, but it's the approach I take, and it works well for me. :) Maybe my games are not as escapist as those of some others. It's not really so much escapism as letting the heroes be the heroes, really. Small, insignificant, and inconsequential kinda run counter to the idea that the PCs, the protagonists, the heroes, actually matter, or are actually capable of making a difference. Like I said, though, it's a pretty integral message of the Great Wheel cosmology, so some people must like it. Me, I kinda doubt that it's a compatible message with most peoples' games, where the things the PCs do are supposed to actually *matter*, however. So, no, I'm not super-sorry to see things like this cease to be the default. I'm sure the current cosmology will get adapted for 4e, either by WotC or fans, because there's always lots of people who hate change. But I am glad that WotC is taking a hard look at things and asking themselves, "does this make sense as the default in what's ostensibly a heroic fantasy game?". Maybe one day, if I'm ever playing an existentialist campaign, I'd use it. Otherwise, meh. |
| Witch09-23-07, 01:41 PM | It's not really so much escapism as letting the heroes be the heroes, really. Small, insignificant, and inconsequential kinda run counter to the idea that the PCs, the protagonists, the heroes, actually matter, or are actually capable of making a difference. A hero can be made by saving a little town from destruction. It need not always be saving a planet or even the multiverse. Like I said, though, it's a pretty integral message of the Great Wheel cosmology, so some people must like it. Me, I kinda doubt that it's a compatible message with most peoples' games, where the things the PCs do are supposed to actually *matter*, however. When PCs want to matter significantly in the multiverse, they should be epic. In the meantime, before becoming epic, they can matter significantly in their homeworld. And before mattering significantly there, they can matter significantly in their province/city/village. |
| EvilVegan09-23-07, 02:03 PM | The ignoring of alot of my beloved Planescape material and all with 3e/3.5 was upsetting but I survived. Just as the inclusion of this conglomeration of crap was upsetting when I saw it survived into 3.x. Don't get me wrong, it was/is great for Planescape. For other settings (or more importantly a default setting) there is no reason to have a Great Wheel or infinite worlds of infinite deific beings grouped together. Apollo and Bragi shouldn't necessarily be living in the same plane with Lathander and Pelor, nor should there necessarily be the option that they would even meet. It is an out-dated and poorly executed meshing of things that need not be meshed. Unless you really want to play a Stargate (or any other planet/plane jumping sci-fi) RPG. . . |
| Salla09-23-07, 03:30 PM | I like it. There's nothing all that interesting about 'infininte rock' or 'infinite fire'. |
| Kain Darkwind09-23-07, 05:05 PM | Just as the inclusion of this conglomeration of crap was upsetting when I saw it survived into 3.x. Don't get me wrong, it was/is great for Planescape. For other settings (or more importantly a default setting) there is no reason to have a Great Wheel or infinite worlds of infinite deific beings grouped together. Except that these concepts were around long before Planescape. The Wizards Three was around long before Planescape. Planescape was a setting that focused entirely on the planes, but those planes and their inhabitants existed since 1e. The planes' flavor has grown since 1e, and everyone likes that. When there are drastic and seemingly arbitrary changes made to them, it seems to stir up irritation from the fans and a strange glee from others. If you have hated the DnD planar system for so long, yet have remained a fan of D&D for equally as long....what have you been doing all this time? How have you gotten around it? And assuming you have gotten around it....what prevents you from doing so now? For those that have enjoyed the flavor that was begun in 1e and has been expanded on over the years, seeing something like WotC is announcing is tantamount to the end of that flavor, forever. I don't see that a brand new WotC given flavor is going to sit so much better with those that didn't like the Great Wheel. Perhaps at the moment you say so because it isn't the Great Wheel, but once that novelty has worn off, I wonder. Most probably, you'll go back to using whatever cosmology you created to use in lieu of the Great Wheel. Which means the GW-haters won't be getting much benefit from this change. The GW-lovers obviously get no benefit from this change. Who does? |
| goldomark09-23-07, 05:33 PM | Good question Kain. |
| ArcTan09-23-07, 05:59 PM | A hero can be made by saving a little town from destruction. It need not always be saving a planet or even the multiverse. In which case the planet and the multiverse don't *matter* for the sake of this story, and shouldn't be talked about. There's a reason d20 Modern doesn't spend much time talking about the enormous uninhabitable depths of the planet Jupiter (or, indeed, mention them at all.) When PCs want to matter significantly in the multiverse, they should be epic. In the meantime, before becoming epic, they can matter significantly in their homeworld. And before mattering significantly there, they can matter significantly in their province/city/village. In other words, the planes only exist for the sake of Epic campaigns, and for other campaigns, their inclusion is a waste of space. Okay. So what if I want to take this *concept* -- the planes -- and make it more *useful* and less of a waste of space? It's not some great big philosophical issue. It's a question of getting maximum bang for your buck when you devote page space and time to writing about something. At best, the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum is a nice background feature, something to mention offhandedly and then drop. Kind of like saying "Oh, and by the way, the Earth is surrounded by an enormous uninhabitable vacuum of such vast distances that nearly no human technology can traverse it". But having rules for it and giving it its own little section is gratuitous. |
| Witch09-23-07, 06:17 PM | In which case the planet and the multiverse don't *matter* for the sake of this story, and shouldn't be talked about. There's a reason d20 Modern doesn't spend much time talking about the enormous uninhabitable depths of the planet Jupiter (or, indeed, mention them at all.) If aliens came from Jupiter to Earth, Jupiter would be mentioned. It's still there. It's still vast. Yet the PCs don't need to go there or dominate it. Neither need it be particularly interesting for it to be there. In other words, the planes only exist for the sake of Epic campaigns, and for other campaigns, their inclusion is a waste of space. Did I say that? Should I go back and look? No, I should not, because I know I did not say that. ArcTan, you are exceedingly talented in answering to what people did not say. There is a name for that - it is called a "straw man". The planes can be used just fine before epic levels. You can say you go to the Abyss to save a friend of yours whose soul was imprisoned by demons; you can say you go to hell to negotiate with a minor noble about a contract your father made, and you wish to undo. You can go to Acheron to find an ancient weapon that once belonged to your ancestors. And all of this can be done while you a very big player in the planes. You go there. You don't rule there, nor are you a major player. The fact that you go there already makes you a hero on the material plane, just for being able to go to these places and survive. Okay. So what if I want to take this *concept* -- the planes -- and make it more *useful* and less of a waste of space? "Lowlevel" does not mean "more useful". People can play higher levels, as well. Not every place should be hospitable for low level characters. At best, the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum is a nice background feature, something to mention offhandedly and then drop. Kind of like saying "Oh, and by the way, the Earth is surrounded by an enormous uninhabitable vacuum of such vast distances that nearly no human technology can traverse it". But having rules for it and giving it its own little section is gratuitous. Tell me. How many rules have there been published on that plane? Perhaps half a page? Do you own the book? Have you read about it? Are you aware of how many books have been written about the enormous uninhabitable vaccuum of such vast distances that nearly no human technology can traverse it? |
| Rania09-23-07, 07:37 PM | For some ridiculous reason this thread amuses me; in our game, of which we've only played two sessions so far, the DM said that all the outer planes exploded and don't exist any more. :) (It's also pretty low-magic, AND we started as 0-level characters.) |
| yrogerg09-23-07, 07:57 PM | "Lowlevel" does not mean "more useful". People can play higher levels, as well. Not every place should be hospitable for low level characters. Actually it *does* mean "more useful for more players and DMs". See, making something accessible and habitable at low and mid-levels means it's still accessible and habitable at high levels. At that point it's only a matter of making sure that there's level-appropriate encounters available. In the converse case, it's simply inaccessable. Therefore, it's useful to fewer players and DMs, and useful in fewer campaigns. Thus, *Less Useful*. |
| Bob the Efreet09-24-07, 01:53 AM | In which case the planet and the multiverse don't *matter* for the sake of this story, and shouldn't be talked about. There's a reason d20 Modern doesn't spend much time talking about the enormous uninhabitable depths of the planet Jupiter (or, indeed, mention them at all.) But if there was a d20 Modern space explorer campaign, they might mention the enormous mostly-uninhabitable depths of Jupiter, and give them some detail, inhabitants, and adventure hooks. And you could still play your normal Earth-based d20 Modern campaign without using the Jupiter sourcebook, or even knowing it exists. |
| ArcTan09-24-07, 02:26 AM | The planes can be used just fine before epic levels. You can say you go to the Abyss to save a friend of yours whose soul was imprisoned by demons; you can say you go to hell to negotiate with a minor noble about a contract your father made, and you wish to undo. You can go to Acheron to find an ancient weapon that once belonged to your ancestors. And all of this can be done while you a very big player in the planes. You go there. You don't rule there, nor are you a major player. The fact that you go there already makes you a hero on the material plane, just for being able to go to these places and survive. However, when it comes to the Plane of Vacuum, which we were talking about, you have to be fairly high-level to even *survive* in the plane for short periods of time. The reason we're talking about Vacuum, and not the Abyss, or Acheron, is that Vacuum is one of those planes where *you can't even go there* until you're a high-level character, and once you're a high-level character going there is still tedious and annoying (because the *environment itself* kills you, as opposed to actual threats in the plane) and the plane itself is largely empty and you have to go searching around for whatever it is you're looking for in a huge expanse of nothingness. This does, yes, make Vacuum less useful than other planes, like the Abyss or Acheron. Tell me. How many rules have there been published on that plane? Perhaps half a page? Do you own the book? Have you read about it? Are you aware of how many books have been written about the enormous uninhabitable vaccuum of such vast distances that nearly no human technology can traverse it? There are a lot of books in real life about space in real life because in real life interstellar space is real. Not so much in a gaming context, no. Even science-fiction settings don't talk that much about space -- they get space out of the way and talk about the planets you get to by going through space. The game is, after all, a *game*. Every game pretends (or *should* pretend) that the only part of the world that exists is the part that you're playing the game in. |
| EvilVegan09-24-07, 08:21 AM | Except that these concepts were around long before Planescape. The Wizards Three was around long before Planescape. Planescape was a setting that focused entirely on the planes, but those planes and their inhabitants existed since 1e.Sorry, I forgot to mention the history of the planes from 1st edition like I did in my other post in another almost identical thread. The planar set up, originally designed for a specific campaign world and later modified for planescape, works fine for both of those settings and several others, I'm sure. What I was saying was, there is no reason to force this to be the default campaign setting. The planes' flavor has grown since 1e, and everyone likes that. When there are drastic and seemingly arbitrary changes made to them, it seems to stir up irritation from the fans and a strange glee from others. If you have hated the DnD planar system for so long, yet have remained a fan of D&D for equally as long....what have you been doing all this time? How have you gotten around it? And assuming you have gotten around it....what prevents you from doing so now?Well, for one, I've not been purchasing any planar material books (which may influence WotC's decision to start from scratch). Two I've been making up my own cosmologies and ignoring large portions of the DMG, which as I recall I paid full price for. I would have instead preferred to have all the flavor be written as optional side bars. Especially with regards to setting material. There should be no meta-setting default. RPGA uses set campaign worlds, Forgotten Realms in the upcoming run, and these always have their own standard cosmology (which is different from that in the Core Rules). Other than these "official" games, there is no reason to have a set cosmology, and these games have their own cosmology determined by the actual setting, not by the default meta-setting. IE, it is a waste of time/space/money to include material as "canon" that many people don't like (some who don't even understand). For those that have enjoyed the flavor that was begun in 1e and has been expanded on over the years, seeing something like WotC is announcing is tantamount to the end of that flavor, forever.I'm sorry. This is 100% wrong. http://www.planewalker.com There you go. This will probably be around (in some form) for as long as people play D&D. Your flavor will remain. Get over the need to have your personaly favorite setting be the default setting for everyone. I don't see that a brand new WotC given flavor is going to sit so much better with those that didn't like the Great Wheel. Perhaps at the moment you say so because it isn't the Great Wheel, but once that novelty has worn off, I wonder. Most probably, you'll go back to using whatever cosmology you created to use in lieu of the Great Wheel. Which means the GW-haters won't be getting much benefit from this change. The GW-lovers obviously get no benefit from this change. Who does?Who benefits from new material? New players. Not haters, not lovers. New people who don't have to learn a confusing, piece-mail meshing of disparate parts of infinite worlds with left over, poorly-hinted-at concepts from a defunct setting of an out of print edition. I'd rather have the Core books be setting neutral, with optional/sidebar flavor. I would then love to see, and would probably even purchase, a Planescape specific setting. I don't mind Planescape as a campaign style, I do mind the incorrect assumption that everyone wants to play it. Honestly, if you separate and focus (using different/freelance writers even) you'll get better material. If they remove alignment (which it looks like they might be at least reducing in importance) then the planes don't need to be in a stupid wheel. If they aren't in a wheel or alignment based, then do they really need to be separated in the same way? If they don't have a reason to be the way they are, what do they have a reason to be like? I'm interested in their take on what things will look like, but yes, most likely I'll continue using my own cosmologies. I like plane-building just as much as world building, having the same old crap to pull from for 3 editions is not too helpful. So a new edition with new planar settings will at the very least give me something new to compare my cosmologies to. And that is good. You, on the other hand, still have all the flavor you could want from the past 3 editions. There is more than enough to make a 100% faithful fluff conversion to any game system you wanted to, from 4E to Vampire to Rolemaster to Battletech to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And honestly I'm 100% certain that anyone who is smart enough to play and enjoy Planescape for any length of time enjoys it for the flavor reasons, not the mechanical reasons; and also is fully capable of making their own conversion. So far I've yet to hear any praise for official 3rd edition conversions of Planescape material, so I don't see why they'd want them trying (and failing to please the extremely hard to please sub-culture you belong to) with 4E. If anything, them letting the people who love the setting convert it, rather than making a poorly converted "corporate" version seems like a good thing for the Planescape lovers. I'm sorry you want to be lazy and not work on making a setting that works for you. Can I be lazy now? Or at least get something new to work with while I'm not being lazy? |
| sciborg209-24-07, 09:32 AM | I guess I just see the idea of planes as being alien and in some cases hostile. The Plane of Vacuum plays the role of the a vast amoral void, perhaps the original void from which all things came before the planes were reshaped into the current configuration. I loved the idea of being in the Doomguard fortress, knowing that just outside was the Void in all its mystery and terror. I wouldn't want to spend an entire campaign wandering through it, but then I wouldn't want to spend any campaign merely wandering through an infinite expanse no matter what filled it. The whole point of the planes is that they are supposed to be varied environments, which is more than changing the type of monsters you fight...that's like using the same skeleton and adding new textures to make a "new" creature. I pray to the Panda D&D isn't going to just become a table-top CRPG... |
| EvilVegan09-24-07, 09:51 AM | I guess I just see the idea of planes as being alien and in some cases hostile. The Plane of Vacuum plays the role of the a vast amoral void, perhaps the original void from which all things came before the planes were reshaped into the current configuration. I loved the idea of being in the Doomguard fortress, knowing that just outside was the Void in all its mystery and terror. I wouldn't want to spend an entire campaign wandering through it, but then I wouldn't want to spend any campaign merely wandering through an infinite expanse no matter what filled it. The whole point of the planes is that they are supposed to be varied environments, which is more than changing the type of monsters you fight...that's like using the same skeleton and adding new textures to make a "new" creature. I pray to the Panda D&D isn't going to just become a table-top CRPG... So reusing a cgi sprite with a different color scheme and different abilities is bad, but having multiple, effectively identical "infinite, inhospitable, extreme" planes is good? Interesting. I don't disagree. |
| BOZ09-24-07, 09:52 AM | Every game pretends (or *should* pretend) that the only part of the world that exists is the part that you're playing the game in. ahh... things are starting to make a lot less sense, now! |
| Kain Darkwind09-24-07, 09:53 AM | Sorry, I forgot to mention the history of the planes from 1st edition like I did in my other post in another almost identical thread. The planar set up, originally designed for a specific campaign world and later modified for planescape, works fine for both of those settings and several others, I'm sure. What I was saying was, there is no reason to force this to be the default campaign setting. Not true. There is 'no reason you like' to make it the default cosmology. However, there are plenty of just plain reasons to do so. One being that it has been the cosmology of DnD since its inception. Well, for one, I've not been purchasing any planar material books (which may influence WotC's decision to start from scratch). Two I've been making up my own cosmologies and ignoring large portions of the DMG, which as I recall I paid full price for. I would have instead preferred to have all the flavor be written as optional side bars. Especially with regards to setting material. There should be no meta-setting default. RPGA uses set campaign worlds, Forgotten Realms in the upcoming run, and these always have their own standard cosmology (which is different from that in the Core Rules). Other than these "official" games, there is no reason to have a set cosmology, and these games have their own cosmology determined by the actual setting, not by the default meta-setting. IE, it is a waste of time/space/money to include material as "canon" that many people don't like (some who don't even understand). You aren't going to ever get that. DnD isn't just a mechanical ruleset or the release of the SRD would have been commercial suicide. Its is a given that you are going to have flavor. The game has had flavor since the beginning. Which brings us back to you doing something of your own for the cosmos and not liking anything the official design is going to produce. And you can keep doing that regardless of what the official flavor is. So then why do you support ruining/scrapping the old stuff if you aren't going to like the new stuff either? I'm sorry. This is 100% wrong. http://www.planewalker.com No. Much like canceling a favorite TV show without giving a decent ending, or ending a long running book series without wrapping up the plots, pulling the plug on the Great Wheel effectively ends any official support. Planewalker is a great site and I visit there often, but they amount to history and really well written fanfiction. Which is why even the big names over there are invested in the official books and articles that deal with the planes. There you go. This will probably be around (in some form) for as long as people play D&D. Your flavor will remain. Get over the need to have your personaly favorite setting be the default setting for everyone. You talk about it like I'm pushing some sort of drug, like its some crazy fix to keep the planar structure (that have been the planar structure since the game began) the same. This has nothing to do with my 'favorite setting' (where the hell did you come up with that idea anyway?). The tarrasque is hardly my favorite monster, but I'd still argue against taking away his invulnerable and destructive nature. DnD dragons aren't my favorite monsters and I still'd argue against making them all fire breathing and single colored. The fighter isn't my favorite class and I'd still object to him being made into a magic flinging mook. So there is no need. You're just creating this because your own argument lacks merit on its own. Who benefits from new material? New players. Not haters, not lovers. New people who don't have to learn a confusing, piece-mail meshing of disparate parts of infinite worlds with left over, poorly-hinted-at concepts from a defunct setting of an out of print edition. I disagree. I began the game with 3rd edition and eventually went back and checked out the older editions. I've never played a 1e game and only barely played a 2e one. But I never was confused on the planar setup. Not before I checked out older editions and not after. It was something to learn about in the game. Just like finding out what a beholder and an illithid were. So I tend to view this 'new players' line of thinking as a strawman. If I was capable of jumping in twenty-thirty years after it began, and I didn't have an issue...why will these legions of other new players have an issue? I'd rather have the Core books be setting neutral, with optional/sidebar flavor. I would then love to see, and would probably even purchase, a Planescape specific setting. I don't mind Planescape as a campaign style, I do mind the incorrect assumption that everyone wants to play it. Honestly, if you separate and focus (using different/freelance writers even) you'll get better material. While you aren't ever going to get your wish regards to sidebar flavor (and all flavor is optional when it comes down to it), it does seem to be moving in the direction that the Great Wheel is being totally ignored in 4e, leading to the possibility of a PS book. Or maybe not. However, when someone claims that the game is remaining the same only getting better, actions like dismantling the Great Wheel, which perhaps I haven't mentioned before but has been around since the earliest days of the game, are going to be seen in a poor, almost offended light. As if I'd told you I was making a chocolate cake (your favorite!) for your birthday and decided to make you an angel food cake instead. And kept telling you that the angel food cake was the chocolate one, and that there would be no more 'chocolate' cake anymore because angel food was the new chocolate. And then thousands of people screamed at you for saying that you liked the old chocolate cake and told you to shut up and eat the angel food cake which is what they had always wanted from chocolate cake in the first place. An entirely new cosmology isn't a bad thing, perse, but it is very misleading to claim the game is the same old DnD you grew up with when it isn't. [quote]If they remove alignment (which it looks like they might be at least reducing in importance) then the planes don't need to be in a stupid wheel. If they aren't in a wheel or alignment based, then do they really need to be separated in the same way? If they don't have a reason to be the way they are, what do they have a reason to be like? I'm interested in their take on what things will look like, but yes, most likely I'll continue using my own cosmologies. I like plane-building just as much as world building, having the same old crap to pull from for 3 editions is not too helpful. So a new edition with new planar settings will at the very least give me something new to compare my cosmologies to. And that is good. I can see this point. I like looking at different planar setups myself. (Didn't care for FR's new one, Eberron's are quite interesting, Green Ronin uses a simpler version of the Great Wheel, Scarred Lands uses something partially alignment based but very different from GW.) I'm still not seeing the benefit of killing something, as rip is fond of saying, it is a negative contribution to the game rather than a positive one. You, on the other hand, still have all the flavor you could want from the past 3 editions. There is more than enough to make a 100% faithful fluff conversion to any game system you wanted to, from 4E to Vampire to Rolemaster to Battletech to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And honestly I'm 100% certain that anyone who is smart enough to play and enjoy Planescape for any length of time enjoys it for the flavor reasons, not the mechanical reasons; and also is fully capable of making their own conversion. So far I've yet to hear any praise for official 3rd edition conversions of Planescape material, so I don't see why they'd want them trying (and failing to please the extremely hard to please sub-culture you belong to) with 4E. If anything, them letting the people who love the setting convert it, rather than making a poorly converted "corporate" version seems like a good thing for the Planescape lovers. See, you've lumped me in as a PS fanatic when I simply enjoy the planar system the DnD game has built up over the years. You make these arguments assuming you know where I'm coming from, when you clearly do not. I'm sorry you want to be lazy and not work on making a setting that works for you. Can I be lazy now? Or at least get something new to work with while I'm not being lazy? Ah, and the required ad hominem, just in case I forgot I was online for a minute, having a conversation with someone who could make their points without name calling and judgement passing. |
| Witch09-24-07, 10:10 AM | I'm sorry you want to be lazy and not work on making a setting that works for you. Can I be lazy now? Or at least get something new to work with while I'm not being lazy? I spilled my drink through my nose, there. You may want to actually find out something about people you call lazy, EvilVegan. |
| EvilVegan09-24-07, 11:36 AM | Not true. There is 'no reason you like' to make it the default cosmology. However, there are plenty of just plain reasons to do so. One being that it has been the cosmology of DnD since its inception. That is not a logical reason. That is an emotional reason. "This feels like home". Bleh. You aren't going to ever get that. DnD isn't just a mechanical ruleset or the release of the SRD would have been commercial suicide. Its is a given that you are going to have flavor. The game has had flavor since the beginning. Which brings us back to you doing something of your own for the cosmos and not liking anything the official design is going to produce. And you can keep doing that regardless of what the official flavor is. So then why do you support ruining/scrapping the old stuff if you aren't going to like the new stuff either?Because it's new. I support innovation. I don't support holding to outdated and illogical traditions for the sake of tradition. No. Much like canceling a favorite TV show without giving a decent ending, or ending a long running book series without wrapping up the plots, pulling the plug on the Great Wheel effectively ends any official support. Planewalker is a great site and I visit there often, but they amount to history and really well written fanfiction. Which is why even the big names over there are invested in the official books and articles that deal with the planes.This isn't TV. The nature of D&D causes the majority of the game to be created by the audience, not the writers of the setting. Roleplaying scenarios and storyline are not (typically) determined by the writers of the game. You talk about it like I'm pushing some sort of drug, like its some crazy fix to keep the planar structure (that have been the planar structure since the game began) the same. This has nothing to do with my 'favorite setting' (where the hell did you come up with that idea anyway?). The tarrasque is hardly my favorite monster, but I'd still argue against taking away his invulnerable and destructive nature. DnD dragons aren't my favorite monsters and I still'd argue against making them all fire breathing and single colored. The fighter isn't my favorite class and I'd still object to him being made into a magic flinging mook. So there is no need. You're just creating this because your own argument lacks merit on its own.Nostalgia is effectively addicting. I don't recommend taking away the tarrasque's abilities either. I wouldn't mind if they didn't put it in the monster manual though. It's godzilla and it's stupid. I wouldn't mind major changes to dragons. Eberron didn't explode when it took away set alignments, Dark Sun didn't explode when it removed them almost completely. Changes don't always hurt. They don't always help, but in this case the only thing that changes is they're dropping something unnecessary and replacing it with something else unnecessary. In a fantasy game this isn't a problem, for reasons I've stated. I do want to point out that while I am replying to you, the points I'm making are for the broader spectrum of nay-sayers against change. Don't take everything I say personally. I disagree. I began the game with 3rd edition and eventually went back and checked out the older editions. I've never played a 1e game and only barely played a 2e one. But I never was confused on the planar setup. Not before I checked out older editions and not after. It was something to learn about in the game. Just like finding out what a beholder and an illithid were. So I tend to view this 'new players' line of thinking as a strawman. If I was capable of jumping in twenty-thirty years after it began, and I didn't have an issue...why will these legions of other new players have an issue?Because they aren't you? You may, in fact, be smarter than a lot of people. I know I am. Judging by your writing style and ability to form logical arguments in complete sentences, I would say you're probably at least 120 IQ, probably 130+. That puts you in the upper 10% of the United States and probably the upper 1-5% of the world. We're cool like that. And while D&D will always appeal to smart people, for the hobby to become truly popular it needs to appeal to. . . slightly less smart people. It probably won't ever appeal to stupid people. But who cares about stupid people? While you aren't ever going to get your wish regards to sidebar flavor (and all flavor is optional when it comes down to it), it does seem to be moving in the direction that the Great Wheel is being totally ignored in 4e, leading to the possibility of a PS book. Or maybe not. However, when someone claims that the game is remaining the same only getting better, actions like dismantling the Great Wheel, which perhaps I haven't mentioned before but has been around since the earliest days of the game, are going to be seen in a poor, almost offended light. As if I'd told you I was making a chocolate cake (your favorite!) for your birthday and decided to make you an angel food cake instead. And kept telling you that the angel food cake was the chocolate one, and that there would be no more 'chocolate' cake anymore because angel food was the new chocolate. And then thousands of people screamed at you for saying that you liked the old chocolate cake and told you to shut up and eat the angel food cake which is what they had always wanted from chocolate cake in the first place. An entirely new cosmology isn't a bad thing, perse, but it is very misleading to claim the game is the same old DnD you grew up with when it isn't.They aren't exactly claiming it's the same old D&D. It's a new edition. They really need to consolidate their ad campaign. It focuses on keeping the game the same and changing mechanics to ease playing, but everything we've seen has been flavor-based changes. I'll freely admit there is a disconnect between "word and deed" (really its a disconnect between the advertising department and the Research and Development blogs, but that's typical in a corporate setting), but it doesn't worry me. I know I won't ever get a flavorless D&D with suggested flavors, but a guy can dream. About cake, I can only say I'm vegan so I'm used to baking my own cakes. I can see this point. I like looking at different planar setups myself. (Didn't care for FR's new one, Eberron's are quite interesting, Green Ronin uses a simpler version of the Great Wheel, Scarred Lands uses something partially alignment based but very different from GW.) I'm still not seeing the benefit of killing something, as rip is fond of saying, it is a negative contribution to the game rather than a positive one.Negative in that it removes something, but not in that it detracts from the fun of the game. It doesn't affect me negatively, it gives me more to work with, a minor positive. It doesn't really hurt people who like planescape/great wheel/whatever, because they can still use it fine, so a minor negative. It may or may not help new people, neutral. So. . . meh. No need to get all upset (extremely not directed at you). See, you've lumped me in as a PS fanatic when I simply enjoy the planar system the DnD game has built up over the years. You make these arguments assuming you know where I'm coming from, when you clearly do not. Fair enough. You're implying that I insulted you, that was not my intent. Planescape fans (not fanatics) and more importantly intelligent people in general are hard to please when it comes to updating fiction they consider "canon". There is absolutely nothing wrong with being hard to please, so I didn't think it was offensive. I don't like it when there are inconsistencies in my fiction, I assume other people don't as well. In addition to this I have seen people (not you of course) complain about the "updates" to planescape that were officially made in 3.x (Planar handbook, Manual of the Planes), and I had problems with it as well. I do want Planescape done well as I enjoy the setting. I just want separate settings. The Planar Handbook had just enough Planescape material to make it terrible. I would prefer a separate Planescape campaign setting, and also a book of source material for various planar options. But due to the nature of Core assumptions in D&D holding on to things from 1st/2nd edition the splat books based on it the Core books, also assumed the same and I've read it all before! I still have my 1st edition manual of the planes. It's better than the 3rd edition one. Part of the reason I don't want new material rehashed from old material is that if they're trying to generalize it, they will invariably/inevitably do something wrong, which will anger me and the even more polarized target audience. People were MAD at Die Vecna! Die. Because new people did a spin that implied Vecna (a mere demigod) had the capacity to interact with the Lady of Pain (an unstatted, indeterminate primal force, possible overdeity, "nobody knows", boogey-woman), in a bid to become a more powerful deity, and he succeeded where no one was ever capable of succeeding before because of the nature of her spiky-ness :lop:. Oh no, don't mess with canon it makes the geeks mad (again, not you). Horribly, crazy, ripping their hair out mad. Boycotting, not spending their money on new material, affecting the corporate entity in a negative way mad. They instead took the alternate route of "abandoning" the source and creating a new source. It avoids inconsistency. Ultimately this can be good or bad. As I've said so many times before (again, not to you), everything remains to be seen! We don't know what the end product will be. World peace might erupt from the new edition of D&D, with tears of joy falling on the unwashed mountain-dew-guts of fat, geeky gamers everywhere. Or it might suck and people will go back to playing 3rd edition and the 3rd party vendors will step up to the plate. Ride the wave. Ah, and the required ad hominem, just in case I forgot I was online for a minute, having a conversation with someone who could make their points without name calling and judgement passing.. . . ok, I'll leave humor out. I apologize for calling you lazy (though I meant it humorously). There's nothing wrong with wanting to be lazy. You're paying someone to make a game for you. Personally, I'd probably be better off making my own game system, but. . . I'm too damn lazy. |
| EvilVegan09-24-07, 12:05 PM | I spilled my drink through my nose, there. You may want to actually find out something about people you call lazy, EvilVegan. Well at least you got the intended humor out of it. Sorry about the drink, though. |
| Ornum09-24-07, 01:18 PM | I'm still trying to figure out where they get their information from. Are these planar changes really something that there was a great public outcry for? I don't recall that there was. I don't remember seeing complaints about the elemental planes, the succubus/erinyes perceived "similarities", or even arguments that devils don't look human enough. It seems to me these are simply "changes for the sake of change" or "designer's whim", and only now do some come forward in their defense. Personally, instead of making all these changes, I'd rather the planar setup just be left without mention, one way or the other. The new MotP would have rules for creating your own cosmologies, with examples of different types. Would the Great Wheel be an example? Yes, of course. There's too much already out there for it not to be, but in such a book, it wouldn't be given any more attention than the two or three other examples (Eberron and the Realms I would include, as well). All would have equal coverage. They could detail individual planes as they see fit (Hell, Heaven, the Abyss), but just leave the exact setup of the planes undefined so that each DM could alter them as necessary to fit where they are needed. |
| EvilVegan09-24-07, 01:24 PM | I'm still trying to figure out where they get their information from. Are these planar changes really something that there was a great public outcry for? I don't recall that there was. I don't remember seeing complaints about the elemental planes, the succubus/erinyes perceived "similarities", or even arguments that devils don't look human enough. It seems to me these are simply "changes for the sake of change" or "designer's whim", and only now do some come forward in their defense. Personally, instead of making all these changes, I'd rather the planar setup just be left without mention, one way or the other. The new MotP would have rules for creating your own cosmologies, with examples of different types. Would the Great Wheel be an example? Yes, of course. There's too much already out there for it not to be, but in such a book, it wouldn't be given any more attention than the two or three other examples (Eberron and the Realms I would include, as well). All would have equal coverage. They could detail individual planes as they see fit (Hell, Heaven, the Abyss), but just leave the exact setup of the planes undefined so that each DM could alter them as necessary to fit where they are needed. There wasn't a public outcry for change. There was a minor public outcry for updates to the old material and then major public outcry when they updated it and "didn't get it right". They can't release a book without some planar meta-setting and they can't please the grognards with any update that isn't 100% true to the source (despite there being like 4 different/contradictory sources). Additionally, even if they were capable of pleasing the grognards, they would alienate some new players who may not want this level of history and complexity. |
| sciborg209-24-07, 01:34 PM | i've been thinking about this. On some level it makes more sense to me to just provide options with some good example planes thrown in than to trump the Great Wheel with something, near as I can tell, is substandard in my honest opinion. (at least as far as Devils and Demons are concerned) But do I really need such a product? Perhaps it will prove a boon to new players, but without any centralized cosmology it just seems D&D is nothing more than a bunch of rules....and I've never been convinced D&D has the best rules out there. As Kain said, without some binding cosmology for at least the core, D&D loses it's sense of being something shared. And for me, that would mean keeping things more open ended. One-size-fits-all solutions to the planes don't sit well with me, which is why theories like the Serpents of Law or the Baern created all fiends really irritated me. The Great Wheel has been around for decades, and lots of people loved it. I don't find it nearly as illogical as the new ideas for demons/devils being given to us in 4e. I admit at times it was hard to justify things like the Plane of Dust or Salt, but I liked wrapping my head around those ideas. Without the Great Wheel, it just seems 4e is not D&D for me |
| EvilVegan09-24-07, 01:55 PM | i've been thinking about this. On some level it makes more sense to me to just provide options with some good example planes thrown in than to trump the Great Wheel with something, near as I can tell, is substandard in my honest opinion. (at least as far as Devils and Demons are concerned) But do I really need such a product? Perhaps it will prove a boon to new players, but without any centralized cosmology it just seems D&D is nothing more than a bunch of rules....and I've never been convinced D&D has the best rules out there. As Kain said, without some binding cosmology for at least the core, D&D loses it's sense of being something shared. And for me, that would mean keeping things more open ended. One-size-fits-all solutions to the planes don't sit well with me, which is why theories like the Serpents of Law or the Baern created all fiends really irritated me. The Great Wheel has been around for decades, and lots of people loved it. I don't find it nearly as illogical as the new ideas for demons/devils being given to us in 4e. I admit at times it was hard to justify things like the Plane of Dust or Salt, but I liked wrapping my head around those ideas. Without the Great Wheel, it just seems 4e is not D&D for me So summing up (completely inappropriately, of course): The snippets of very limited information on minor changes to separating demons from devils makes people, who already don't want a change and didn't like the last change, upset. One-Size-Fits-All solutions are bad, but All-Planes/Gods-Are-Forced-Into-Our-Example-Setting solutions are ok. Being around a long time is a good reason to stay around, all by itself. Using real life religion, mythology, and fantasy as a source is less logical than "making it up" and "rehashing the same old stuff every edition even if it doesn't make sense". Did that appropriately misrepresent you? I think it did a pretty good job. |
| ripvanwormer09-24-07, 06:23 PM | Okay, for the record, I don't necessarily have a problem with changes to the elemental planes. Where, with the succubi and other things, I could point to specific reasons why these were poorly considered and unimaginative - really, irrational - changes in themselves, I don't have enough information to judge here, and I don't see where it would necessarily harm the game if I can still fit everything i liked about the old elemental planes into the new ones. That said, I do have some problems with some of these posts, so I'm going to respond. That is not a logical reason. That is an emotional reason. You're drawing a false dichotomy. Logic and emotion aren't mutually exclusive. Emotional reasons are perfectly valid criteria - it's not logical to support something that makes you unhappy, is it? If we begin from the premise that the purpose of the game is enjoyment, it seems that anything that enhances the enjoyment is to be valued. Many of us, who enjoy the shared world that's been laboriously and lovingly built up by many hands over the years, would appreciate seeing more of it. This is easily as valid and reasonable a desire as yours for innovation, and not at all incompatible with it. There are many innovative things that can be done without throwing out the delicious bathwater along with the useless babies. This is not the same as nostalgia. I have no nostalgia for, for example, Shami-Amourae in Dungeon #5, since I didn't even know what Dungeon Magazine was when that issue came out. Yet I love the idea that older ideas can be preserved, reimagined slightly, and used to enrich the tapestry of current ideas, as James Jacobs, Eric L. Boyd, and Erik Mona did recently to great effect. Older game resources are a treasure trove of interesting ideas, and the more current things remain compatible, the more this trove can be made use of. This is one of the techniques I use when I want to generate ideas, which is why I like to find used and out-of-print games and magazines. I also like to look at newer material, which also often has interesting ideas. Even better when I can find some synergy between new and old. The less compatible the new is with the old, the harder that is. If you believe that newer ideas will always be better than older ones, then this is less of a concern. But this belief is not logical or reasonable. Because it's new. I support innovation. That's not a logical reason. That's an arbitrary, emotional reason. Tradition and innovation are both valuable things, and favoring one over the other is merely a matter of personal preference. Innovation allows us to potentially (though not necessarily) improve things, while tradition allows us to keep things that are of value. Both are important. Certainly, innovation in the sciences would mean little without all the work of the past that it's been built on - can you imagine where physics would be if every new physicist had to reinvent advanced mathematics? Of course, we're talking about art here, not science, but it still applies in many respects. All great artists and game designers take inspiration from other sources, and they'd be foolish to ignore interesting IP that their company owns. So much, I think, we can agree on. The question is how much of the old should be preserved and how much should be discarded? Different people will, naturally, have different tolerances and different tastes, which is why I think it's best to at least leave the door open so that different designers can try different approaches. Speaking from a pragmatic position, will discarding older continuity bear so much more fruit that limiting the ability to mine past continuity will be worthwhile? Are the current designers so much better than the previous ones? Certainly, there are an infinite potential number of future designers, and we can probably assume that at least some of them will be better (more imaginative, more logical, more prolific, more flexible - any criterion you choose to name) than previous or current ones. If we assume that these future designers will do better starting from a new base, perhaps it'd be better to create a new base for them to work from. We can assume with equal validity that these future designers will do better with the fertile soil of past material to work from, giants standing proudly atop a mountain of dwarfs. Surely a giant standing on a pile of dwarfs is as good as a pile of dwarfs atop the hunched-over shoulders of a giant, and both better than the giant standing all alone in a hole where the building's foundation should be, if I can mix the metaphor ever so slightly (or perhaps just stretch it further). Supporting something purely because it's new (and you don't have enough information to have another reason to support it) is irrational. It might turn out that you'd hate the new version more than the old one. It might turn out that you like or dislike them equally. You may decide that the new version is less "logical" than the previous one. It may have less story hooks and adventure locales. It's certainly true that there will be many ways to be new and innovative without discarding or changing the older continuity. You seem to be convinced that either the continuity must be abandoned or innovation can be accomplished, but this is another false dichotomy. I don't support holding to outdated and illogical traditions for the sake of tradition. And I don't support unnecessary and untested change merely for the sake of change. You may disagree with my descriptors (unnecessary and untested), but I disagree with yours (outdated and illogical). Sounds like an impasse to me. |
| Japan_the_cougar09-24-07, 10:31 PM | Just to add my thoughts to an excellent debate: The DM has the ultimate say, not WotC. If you want to play 3 or 3.5, go right ahead; Wizards isn't going to send 4E police to your house and force you to convert. Everything is a matter of preference: if you like the old stuff, go nuts. If you like the new stuff, go nuts when it comes out. Personally, I like the great wheel for the concept that all the planes are connected, yet also apart. I also like the elemental planes for the fact of having a land of pure force and power. I'm partial to the para-s because elements bleed and mix, but the quasi-s kinda stretch the realms of imagination. This isn't to say I wouldn't use them, but only if it were appropriate to whatever story I was concocting at the time. In short: Do things how you want. This is why house rules are an accepted evil: There may be something you don't like about something and you change it. Probably half the threads on the board came into being because there was something that some DM didn't like and decided to change for his preference. [/rant] |
| ArcTan09-24-07, 11:05 PM | I guess I just see the idea of planes as being alien and in some cases hostile. The Plane of Vacuum plays the role of the a vast amoral void, perhaps the original void from which all things came before the planes were reshaped into the current configuration. Seems a weird choice to say that the vast void from which all the planes came is just one of the minor Quasielemental Planes that serves as a border region between two of the other planes. FWIW, I differentiate the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum from the Wildspace described in Spelljammer, because Wildspace, unlike Vacuum, was flavored to just be *there* (as opposed to being there because of the interaction between Negative Energy and Air) and existed in a setting that explicitly gave everyone who was supposed to be playing in that setting a way to travel through it (some kind of vessel). I loved the idea of being in the Doomguard fortress, knowing that just outside was the Void in all its mystery and terror. The fortress seems to do just as well in the Negative Energy Plane -- or, indeed, in any number of "inhospitable" climes. It's not just the idea of an inhospitable clime that inspires a negative reaction from me, it's the gratuitous nature of creating multiple infinitely large inhospitable climes that are all inhospitable for slightly different reasons. |
| ArcTan09-24-07, 11:10 PM | So much, I think, we can agree on. The question is how much of the old should be preserved and how much should be discarded? Different people will, naturally, have different tolerances and different tastes, which is why I think it's best to at least leave the door open so that different designers can try different approaches. What does "leave the door open" mean? The surest and simplest way to "leave the door open" is to say "Nothing is canon; everything written stands on its own". That, indeed, leaves the door entirely open -- it makes it possible to write supplements where no Outer Planes exist at all, where the Outer Planes are ruled by one, monotheistic god, where there's only one plane besides the Material, where all planes are created and destroyed in an instant by the wandering thoughts of mortals at any given time, etc. However, having *one big meta-setting* that everything implicitly has to fit into is not an open door. It *looks* open, but it's really not -- many ideas don't make sense if they must be integrated with the Great Wheel, or at least become cheapened or incoherent. It's the same issue as with the gigantic meta-universes of DC and Marvel Comics. It is always, in theory, possible to make up some random new superhero and have her exist in the Marvel Universe. But because her story has to take into account *everyone else's story*, what she can do without stepping on other people's toes becomes really limited. I can't ever write a story about someone who's the only superhero in her world, or the most powerful superhero in her world, or whatever, and still have it take place in the Marvel Universe. Every door opened so that the X-Men and the Avengers and Thor and Spider-Man can exist *closes* the door to another possible concept. Supporting something purely because it's new (and you don't have enough information to have another reason to support it) is irrational. I don't know about that. I like novelty for its own sake. That's no more or less rational than liking tradition for its own sake. I like new things *just because they're new*, yes. I like my house a lot but if I'm in it too long I will go crazy just from being in it too long. Sure, you can talk about how the human urge for novelty is bad and shallow and whatnot, but it is one of the major things that makes people go out to buy stuff. |
| yrogerg09-25-07, 12:37 AM | [quote] Sure, you can talk about how the human urge for novelty is bad and shallow and whatnot, but it is one of the major things that makes people go out to buy stuff. In particular, with regard to buying newly published books, movies or games. You don't really buy them for old ideas. |
| EvilVegan09-25-07, 02:05 AM | I just want to point out in advance that most of this is a general rant, framed within a reply. Most of it is not even directed at you. :cool: That is not a logical reason. That is an emotional reason. You're drawing a false dichotomy. Logic and emotion aren't mutually exclusive. Emotional reasons are perfectly valid criteria - it's not logical to support something that makes you unhappy, is it? If we begin from the premise that the purpose of the game is enjoyment, it seems that anything that enhances the enjoyment is to be valued. To be fair, let me put myself back into context: The full sentence was: 'That is not a logical reason. That is an emotional reason. "This feels like home." Bleh.' In other words, I'm not saying it isn't a reason, I'm saying it isn't a reason I appreciate. It's grognardism plain and true. "I don't like change because I like what we had before, even though I haven't actually seen anything about the new stuff, but it has to suck, because the last time they actually did update the stuff I like for my benefit, they messed it up even worse, so I hate them, twice" That's what I see when I see the complaints. Complaints from complainers. Not in this particular thread specifically, but on the whole its what comes across. Many of us, who enjoy the shared world that's been laboriously and lovingly built up by many hands over the years, would appreciate seeing more of it. This is easily as valid and reasonable a desire as yours for innovation, and not at all incompatible with it. There are many innovative things that can be done without throwing out the delicious bathwater along with the useless babies.And what exactly does writing new material while leaving the old, deliciously tasty bathwater still sitting there with the exact same babies in it, just like it has been for the past 15 years, do to hurt what you love? Nothing. This is not the same as nostalgia. I have no nostalgia for, for example, Shami-Amourae in Dungeon #5, since I didn't even know what Dungeon Magazine was when that issue came out. Yet I love the idea that older ideas can be preserved, reimagined slightly, and used to enrich the tapestry of current ideas, as James Jacobs, Eric L. Boyd, and Erik Mona did recently to great effect. Older game resources are a treasure trove of interesting ideas, and the more current things remain compatible, the more this trove can be made use of. This is one of the techniques I use when I want to generate ideas, which is why I like to find used and out-of-print games and magazines. I also like to look at newer material, which also often has interesting ideas. Even better when I can find some synergy between new and old. The less compatible the new is with the old, the harder that is. If you believe that newer ideas will always be better than older ones, then this is less of a concern. But this belief is not logical or reasonable. I don't believe that new ideas will always be better. I BELIEVE THEY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO EXIST. If you just create 4 versions with the same meta-setting, you don't have any new ideas. That's the problem with what I'm seeing from people who actively deride 4E! "I don't like new stuff being hinted at, the old stuff works for me." OF COURSE IT DOES, KEEP :censored:ING USING IT! There is nothing stopping me from playing 3.5 valid D&D using my 1st edition Dragonlance setting. Nothing stopping me from using my Darksun books. It isn't 100% already done for me, but it isn't like one involves all that much different from the other. Because it's new. I support innovation. That's not a logical reason. That's an arbitrary, emotional reason. Tradition and innovation are both valuable things, and favoring one over the other is merely a matter of personal preference. Innovation allows us to potentially (though not necessarily) improve things, while tradition allows us to keep things that are of value. Both are important. Certainly, innovation in the sciences would mean little without all the work of the past that it's been built on - can you imagine where physics would be if every new physicist had to reinvent advanced mathematics? Of course, we're talking about art here, not science, but it still applies in many respects. All great artists and game designers take inspiration from other sources, and they'd be foolish to ignore interesting IP that their company owns. So much, I think, we can agree on. The question is how much of the old should be preserved and how much should be discarded? Different people will, naturally, have different tolerances and different tastes, which is why I think it's best to at least leave the door open so that different designers can try different approaches. Personally, I think all of the old should be preserved. All of it. I have it, it's in my library, preserved. What's more, I think that it should be regularly updated, with it's own, separate book, detailing it fully for all the crabby grognards who may not have the time to go look at a 2nd edition book and take the flavor out of it. Also, ArcTan specifically addressed the open door issue, and (as per normal) I agree with him. No, we aren't the same person. I'm guessing he eats meat. Unlike other people I don't see new editions leaving old campaign settings perfectly alone as them closing a door. It doesn't bring new players to the fold, but it also doesn't offend old players. There will always be a door to play whatever setting you want. Some might need a bit of oil to open all the way, but they aren't locked. Try it. Go find a 2nd edition planescape book, open it up, read from it. The words are still there, honest! :D Speaking from a pragmatic position, will discarding older continuity bear so much more fruit that limiting the ability to mine past continuity will be worthwhile? Are the current designers so much better than the previous ones? Certainly, there are an infinite potential number of future designers, and we can probably assume that at least some of them will be better (more imaginative, more logical, more prolific, more flexible - any criterion you choose to name) than previous or current ones. If we assume that these future designers will do better starting from a new base, perhaps it'd be better to create a new base for them to work from. We can assume with equal validity that these future designers will do better with the fertile soil of past material to work from, giants standing proudly atop a mountain of dwarfs. Surely a giant standing on a pile of dwarfs is as good as a pile of dwarfs atop the hunched-over shoulders of a giant, and both better than the giant standing all alone in a hole where the building's foundation should be, if I can mix the metaphor ever so slightly (or perhaps just stretch it further). Supporting something purely because it's new (and you don't have enough information to have another reason to support it) is irrational. It might turn out that you'd hate the new version more than the old one. It might turn out that you like or dislike them equally. You may decide that the new version is less "logical" than the previous one. It may have less story hooks and adventure locales. It's certainly true that there will be many ways to be new and innovative without discarding or changing the older continuity. You seem to be convinced that either the continuity must be abandoned or innovation can be accomplished, but this is another false dichotomy.I may decide that it is less logical. I don't care. They're probably both going to ultimately be useless crap to me. I'd like to let them give it a go, since if I don't like it I can still read through my old books just fine. I would like to see new material though. Yes, this is very much an opinion. My opinion is also that new material does not invalidate old material, especially in a game built on unlimited options featuring interactive/typically intelligent mediators. I don't support holding to outdated and illogical traditions for the sake of tradition. And I don't support unnecessary and untested change merely for the sake of change. You may disagree with my descriptors (unnecessary and untested), but I disagree with yours (outdated and illogical). Sounds like an impasse to me.Fair enough. Outdated and illogical work for me, as does unnecessary. Tested works for the old stuff, but still, how are we ever going to test new stuff if they don't release new stuff? I fully agree with most of what you're saying, I hear that you aren't opposed to innovation and would like to see new material. I would just love to know where it is supposed to be officially presented. Planescape still exists. I have numerous books on it. I don't have any books on the famous "yet to be written" setting, or an official "coming soon" planar meta-setting. |
| ripvanwormer09-25-07, 03:50 AM | What does "leave the door open" mean? To not make silly limitations, like "succubi aren't demons anymore," or (random example, not that this is exactly what they've done) "all elementals come from an ever-shifting Limbo-like plane of endlessly transforming chaos." Things that openly contradict the material from previous editions in ways that are hard to reconcile. The surest and simplest way to "leave the door open" is to say "Nothing is canon; everything written stands on its own". That, indeed, leaves the door entirely open -- it makes it possible to write supplements where no Outer Planes exist at all, where the Outer Planes are ruled by one, monotheistic god, where there's only one plane besides the Material, where all planes are created and destroyed in an instant by the wandering thoughts of mortals at any given time, etc. In some respects, it's always been possible to do that, and always will be possible to do that. In 2nd edition there were many stand-alone sourcebooks (particularly the Historical Reference series) with no particular connection to the default cosmology. In 3rd edition there was Ghostwalk, Eberron, various alternate cosmologies described in places like the Manual of the Planes and the Book of Vile Darkness, etc. What you're really looking for, however, is not going to happen, at least not in 4e. The 4th edition core books are based around an assumed world and an assumed cosmology. The assumed world is one of vast tracts of dangerous wilderness with tiny specks of civilization and safety, one where dozens or more humanoid races rub shoulders, where various historical and fictitious deities are worshiped, where other planes exist from which demons, devils, yugoloths, celestials, and elementals can be summoned. It's a world where clerics can raise the dead, where Shao-Lin monks come from the same cultures as armored knights, and where subterranean ruins are filled with the vanished treasures of lost civilizations. It's a world where tieflings inherit their fiendish ancestry from a vanished culture. It's a world where dwarves are gruff creatures that mine the deep earth and elves are emotional beings who dwell in the forests. In theory, they could release any number of adventures and sourcebooks that contradict these basic assumptions. They could release a module that assumed that dwarves were flighty, emotional creatures who ruled the broad river plains and halflings were chaotic evil bogeymen who haunted the mountains. They could assume the Outer Planes didn't exist or that there was only one god. But they won't. Defaults are valuable. It's good to have a shorthand so that players can get into an adventure immediately without having to relearn everything every time. There simply isn't enough space, or enough demand, to justify every new thing - or even many new things - flying blind, containing entirely new assumptions and new rules. There needs to be a default, for real and practical reasons. As I've said before, the existence of a default doesn't mean they can never introduce exceptions or individual campaign settings where things work differently. It does mean there won't be many. It's simply too confusing to do that too often. However, having *one big meta-setting* that everything implicitly has to fit into is not an open door. Nobody suggested such a thing. Pay attention. My argument is a narrow one about the extremes of tradition and innovation, and how one can improve the other. This is not a thread about metasettings. I like novelty for its own sake. That's no more or less rational than liking tradition for its own sake. That's exactly what I said. Both tradition and novelty are valuable - a preference to either is emotional, rather than logical. Myself, I like novelty that builds on tradition. I think that's more sensible, and it's certainly more valuable to me. Sure, you can talk about how the human urge for novelty is bad and shallow and whatnot Either your reading comprehension is very poor, or you're deliberately building straw men, or perhaps some of each. I didn't say anything like that, any more than the human urge to preserve and compile is bad or shallow. I said both were valuable, and I meant it. |
| ripvanwormer09-25-07, 04:09 AM | In particular, with regard to buying newly published books, movies or games. You don't really buy them for old ideas. I want to see new ideas that are compatible with the old ideas. I'm not saying, and have never said, that I don't want to see any entirely new ideas. But I also want to see some older ideas continued and elaborated upon. We've barely scratched the surface of so many. And I want to see them introduced to the new generation, so it's not just a diminishing and aging group that remembers or cares. It may be true that some creation is impossible without destruction. It's also true that some destruction makes further creation impossible, or at least a thinner, lesser thing. For reasons of space alone, an entirely new 4th edition cosmology will never be as rich and full of potential as one built over the course of 30 years, elaborated on by hundreds of fans. I like innovation. But innovation is inevitably stunted when those who are doing the innovating have to start over from scratch, when instead they could have a head start. I value creativity more than almost anything else in the world. But when I see ideas (and the elemental plane ideas that this thread is ostensibly about, which we know nothing about, don't count) that are less imaginative, less clever, less rigorous and logical, less wild and free-form, less paradoxical and mind-bending than what came before, then I - as a lover of creativity, as an archivist and curator - am saddened. Creativity and continuity are not mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite. The existence of continuity allows a clever mind to be more creative, to go to places their minds wouldn't go unaided. |
| ripvanwormer09-25-07, 04:51 AM | Planescape still exists. I have numerous books on it. This isn't about Planescape. Planescape is a red herring. Planescape works well with any cosmology, or with all cosmologies at once. To me, games like Mage: The Ascension, In Nomine, and Nephilum were all Planescape supplements. I'm trying to make a narrow argument about the nature of creativity and tradition. I'm trying to make a pragmatic point about how it's more useful to be able to use older sourcebooks with the newer ones. I'm probably making several other arguments as well, but it's five o'clock in the morning and I no longer remember what they were. |
| Corrin09-25-07, 02:58 PM | Not necessarily responding to either side here - I love the Great Wheel, I've used it as the base cosmology for every one of my campaigns (all of which were homebrews of one variety or another). However, based on some of the snippets in the designer blogs, the changes they're talking about sound intriguing and well thought out. If alignment is going to finally ease its way out of the 3x3 grid straight-jacket its been in, then a lot of the basis for the Great Wheel disappears. I'm excited about the idea of a well-thought out alternate cosmology coming packaged with the 4E core books that I'm going to buy anyway. If I like it more than the Great Wheel, I'll switch to it. If I don't like it, I'll stick with the Wheel. Most likely, I'll like both, and create a mish-mash of the two for my homebrew world. (postscript - I didn't start D&D until 5 years ago - I dream of the day that someone releases a series of professional source books for Planescape that are incorporated with a current rule-set - PDFs of old 2E material are a pain to convert. Here's hoping we see 4E PlaneScape in 2009/2010) |
| ArcTan09-25-07, 03:06 PM | What you're really looking for, however, is not going to happen, at least not in 4e. The 4th edition core books are based around an assumed world and an assumed cosmology. The assumed world is one of vast tracts of dangerous wilderness with tiny specks of civilization and safety, one where dozens or more humanoid races rub shoulders, where various historical and fictitious deities are worshiped, where other planes exist from which demons, devils, yugoloths, celestials, and elementals can be summoned. It's a world where clerics can raise the dead, where Shao-Lin monks come from the same cultures as armored knights, and where subterranean ruins are filled with the vanished treasures of lost civilizations. It's a world where tieflings inherit their fiendish ancestry from a vanished culture. It's a world where dwarves are gruff creatures that mine the deep earth and elves are emotional beings who dwell in the forests. This is inevitable, yes. It's a necessary evil, though. And in order to prevent crufting they need to make sure that the "basic" default world really is as "basic" as possible. They're doing exactly what I would do and what I've frequently said I would do if I ran content control at WotC. They're stripping away all the cruft -- all the D&D-specific stuff that you'd only know about if you already played D&D -- and making the D&D world as generic a "fantasy RPG" world as one could plausibly make it. And they're sitting with their fist jealously hovering over the reset button so that, in 7 or 8 years, D&D 4e will itself be rebooted and revised into a new setting that does not *necessarily* share any of the preconceptions of the last one, just the ones they think will be useful. This is what I wish Marvel and DC would do, and other franchises groaning under the weight of their own continuity. Yes, you need some kind of "default" setting, but you keep it *simple* and *basic* -- you make up a world that has only the contrivances you need for the sake of the stories you want to tell. Like Marvel's New Universe or DC's Static Shock universe -- a world where the only important divergence from the real world is "Superheroes exist, and they *all* exist because of this one event", and you throw out all the crap about the Celestials and the New Gods and the parallel universes and the Beyonder and Krypton exploding and all that BS. And you have a universe with a limited shelf life, that ends after it's had a good run, and then you make up a new one. That's how I think most franchises should work -- it's how *most* franchises *do* work -- TV and films and such, which rarely go beyond a few seasons or a few movies -- and it's the lone exceptions where fans hang on, clawing and scrabbling to keep alive an outdated concept, that stick out as being particularly alienating to new audiences. (Star Trek, comic books, D&D, etc.) |
| ripvanwormer09-25-07, 10:16 PM | There are many ways to simplify the default setting without outright contradicting it. Something like three lower planes (one for each major fiendish race: Hades, Hell, and the Abyss), a vague mention of "the upper planes" (or even "the heavens"), a plane of law, a plane of chaos, and six inner planes would be eminently simple. They could go simpler still: refer vaguely to the lower planes, the upper planes, and the inner planes. No need for any detail at all apart from this, at least not at first. Simply put, a default setting which requires a minimum of re-imagining and restructuring to be usable with older materials is more useful to more people than one that requires a great deal of this. It's more useful to older gamers who want to be able to use newer material with their older material, and it's more useful to new gamers who want to be able to look at older material to supplement the new. People like Kain and Shemeska got into D&D in 3e and have found 2e stuff inspirational in their 3e games. That could still happen, if WotC lets it. If the goal was really to eliminate the D&D-specific stuff, they'd turn demons and devils into synonyms for the same race, eliminate D&D-specific monsters like illithids and githyanki, and probably change the names of tieflings into something more readily understandable like "demonborn" or whatever. Obviously, this isn't their intention. The new cosmology is far too quirky and idiosyncratic for that. D&D is remaining its own thing, and not really something that can easily be used to model things that aren't D&D. Unfortunately, it seems a bit too quirky and idiosyncratic to easily be used to model things that are D&D, as well. They simplify things every time a new edition comes along. In the 2e DMG, the planes were painted in the vaguest of terms, with admonitions that they'd be completely different depending on the campaign, and early 2e products referred to planar matters in an extremely hazy way. The Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix restructured the fiendish hierarchies dramatically in a way that took years to unravel and reconcile. But by the end of the edition, the planes were more detailed than ever. In 3.0, once again, the first three core books only referred to the planes vaguely, saying formians came from "planes of law" and slaadi from "planes of chaos." The Manual of the Planes simplified some elements of the 2e cosmology and introduced contradictions that again took years for competing designers to reconcile. But by 3.5, there was a complex cosmos in the DMG, and by late 3.5 most of what was in 2e had been restored in one form or another. Every time they change something arbitrarily, they end up regretting it, because there will always be designers who want to bring back older material - perhaps they even worked on it - and it becomes difficult. It was awkward when they wanted to reintroduce the archdevils into the Nine Hells, awkward when they wanted to reintroduce paraelementals and quasielementals into the 3e inner planes (ice paraelementals always stuck out like a sore thumb in a cosmology with no real place for them) and it's going to be awkward when someone inevitably tries to justify putting tempter demons back in the Abyss (Exiled devils or fallen angels, warped by millennia of exposure the Abyssal forces? Probably something like that). However, given the personalities of many of the frequent freelancers, it will happen eventually. |
| ArcTan09-26-07, 02:13 AM | If the goal was really to eliminate the D&D-specific stuff, they'd turn demons and devils into synonyms for the same race, eliminate D&D-specific monsters like illithids and githyanki, and probably change the names of tieflings into something more readily understandable like "demonborn" or whatever. Yes, but considering the degree of backlash they're already getting for the comparatively tame changes they've already made, I think they're trying to walk some kind of middle ground, to accomplish their goals of making the cosmology more basic and universal while ticking off the grognards as little as possible. This has proven, as it usually does, to not really work. They simplify things every time a new edition comes along. In the 2e DMG, the planes were painted in the vaguest of terms, with admonitions that they'd be completely different depending on the campaign, and early 2e products referred to planar matters in an extremely hazy way. The Monstrous Compendium Outer Planes Appendix restructured the fiendish hierarchies dramatically in a way that took years to unravel and reconcile. But by the end of the edition, the planes were more detailed than ever. In 3.0, once again, the first three core books only referred to the planes vaguely, saying formians came from "planes of law" and slaadi from "planes of chaos." The Manual of the Planes simplified some elements of the 2e cosmology and introduced contradictions that again took years for competing designers to reconcile. But by 3.5, there was a complex cosmos in the DMG, and by late 3.5 most of what was in 2e had been restored in one form or another. Yeah. That's annoying. It's like how Ultimate Marvel is starting to inexorably build up the same cruft as Earth-616 Marvel. The mind builds up habits that are hard to break. It's why continuity exists in the first place. Doesn't make it a good thing. Every time they change something arbitrarily, they end up regretting it, because there will always be designers who want to bring back older material - perhaps they even worked on it - and it becomes difficult. It was awkward when they wanted to reintroduce the archdevils into the Nine Hells, awkward when they wanted to reintroduce paraelementals and quasielementals into the 3e inner planes (ice paraelementals always stuck out like a sore thumb in a cosmology with no real place for them) and it's going to be awkward when someone inevitably tries to justify putting tempter demons back in the Abyss (Exiled devils or fallen angels, warped by millennia of exposure the Abyssal forces? Probably something like that). However, given the personalities of many of the frequent freelancers, it will happen eventually. Which is why being able to head them off at the pass by simply saying "X Doesn't Exist!" at least decreases the possibility of such. They tried to walk the middle ground between some-continuity and no-continuity before, using "vague language", but that gets you nowhere. That's not a middle ground -- that's a *wide* open door to let various freelancers waltz right back in and say "Planar Handbook! Pshaw! This is going to be my attempt at a 3rd edition Planescape Player's Handbook!" (to the applause of people from the boards). It's basically keeping the same doors jammed shut to keep the same doors jammed open. Vague language will always snap back to the original continuity, as you say, because designers are lazy, because it's easy to fall back on the familiar, for a lot of reasons. That's why reboots have to be hardcore reboots if they're going to be reboots at all. D&D 4e is being much tamer with this than I would like, but they *are* at least putting their foot down on certain things. They're making it *possible* to re-write everything for your Great Wheel 4e campaign while making it difficult enough to do so that freelancers can't just walk in and say "This is gonna be the Planescape Player's Handbook for 4e!" by default, and sneak in Great Wheel stuff under the pretense of a "default". This was what I really disliked about the 3e MotP and Planar Handbook, and the general extreme reluctance to give me anything useful for homebrew planes -- when that would actually be more *useful* and *interesting* than, say, a big book of not-very-good rules for how to run nautical battles. (It was a decent attempt with MotP... sort of. It was galling to have one chapter on the Spirit World and several chapters on the Great Wheel, but at least it was there. Planar Handbook, the supposed continuation of MotP for the sake of 3.5 and for players-rather-than-DMs, was so Great Wheel and so Planescape that buying it for anything else was a great big waste of money. It was so egregiously non-neutral it made me want to scream.) |
| sciborg209-26-07, 10:23 AM | was so Great Wheel and so Planescape that buying it for anything else was a great big waste of money. It was so egregiously non-neutral it made me want to scream I didn't find the Planar Handbook to be anything like Planescape. In general I still don't see the point in buying generic planar books. Most of the rules are okay at best. A bunch of generic information I can come with myself isn't worth the money. As such, I can at least look forward to saving cash once 4e is out since all I do is planar stuff. |
| ArcTan09-26-07, 06:45 PM | In general I still don't see the point in buying generic planar books. Most of the rules are okay at best. A bunch of generic information I can come with myself isn't worth the money. As such, I can at least look forward to saving cash once 4e is out since all I do is planar stuff. There's more of a point to it than reams and reams of setting-specific material, much of which I could also have come up with myself if I cared about the setting in question. (Oh, PrCs for all the Factions! There's a challenge.) |
| EvilVegan09-27-07, 09:11 AM | I didn't find the Planar Handbook to be anything like Planescape.That was part of the problem. It wasn't planescapey enough to be a good Planescape source, but too planescapey to be a generic reference. I don't need 6 planescape faction PrCs if I'm not playing a planescape game.In general I still don't see the point in buying generic planar books. Most of the rules are okay at best. A bunch of generic information I can come with myself isn't worth the money. As such, I can at least look forward to saving cash once 4e is out since all I do is planar stuff.They're only "okay at best" because they are simultaneously trying to stick to canon and to develop something new (in my opinion). |
| EvilVegan09-27-07, 10:55 AM | I just read the Design and Development for the cosmology changes. Here's what I gathered: Devils are still lawful evil. They live in the 9 hells. They're ruled by Asmodeus in a heirarchy. Demons are still chaotic evil. They live in the abyss. They're still not ruled so much as forced into doing things. The infinite elemental planes connected by conduits are now a single infinite elemental plane separated by distances between the various elements. So instead of having 4 infinite realms separated but connected, they have 1 infinite realm containing all 4 infinite realms separated but connected. There are still outer planes, they're just within the astral sea instead of separate but connected to the astral plane and each other. It seems to me that the only way the great wheel doesn't work any more is that they moved the abyss to the inner planes and instead of everything that formerly was separate but connected they put that they were all in the same plane (etheral or astral) but still separate and still infinite. Wow, I can hardly contemplate how to fix this back to the canon. Oh wait no, just move the abyss to the astral sea and then make the demons fight the devils. VIOLA. Personally I like the new changes. Demons and Devils should be separate entities instead of mirror images of each other (in my opinion). Demons should be a primal force of destruction (like evil entropy elementals, or void mephits if you will) and devils should be fallen angels (representing the corruption/fall of good). Evil incarnate versus good going bad. I already had the Feywild (in the form of the Wildlands) and the Shadowfel (in the form of the Twilight Realm). Almost identical in flavor and likely mechanics as well. |
| sciborg209-27-07, 10:58 AM | That was part of the problem. It wasn't planescapey enough to be a good Planescape source, but too planescapey to be a generic reference. Excellent point. |
| Calestin Kethal09-27-07, 03:01 PM | Just my 2 cents... I never understood the argument that it was impossible to travel and adventure in places like the plane of vacuum and what not. In fact, there were a whole chain of spells and magic items scattered throughout Planescape to deal with the fact that these planes are inhospitable. In 3.x it's even easier than ever with the way magic items and spells work. To me the justification is just that. A justification for a change that really isn't being honest. Sure it was difficult. Part of the difficulty was tracking down what you need to survive there. And in some ways, as much as an adventure as traveling there in the first place. Heh, we play adventurers. The journey is just as important as the destination (if not more so). As always, your mileage may vary. |
| EvilVegan09-27-07, 03:19 PM | Just my 2 cents... I never understood the argument that it was impossible to travel and adventure in places like the plane of vacuum and what not. In fact, there were a whole chain of spells and magic items scattered throughout Planescape to deal with the fact that these planes are inhospitable. In 3.x it's even easier than ever with the way magic items and spells work. To me the justification is just that. A justification for a change that really isn't being honest. Sure it was difficult. Part of the difficulty was tracking down what you need to survive there. And in some ways, as much as an adventure as traveling there in the first place. Heh, we play adventurers. The journey is just as important as the destination (if not more so). As always, your mileage may vary.I don't think it was difficult. It just wasn't as inspiring as the other planes. It wsn't fun. It was easy to exist on with magic support and when you got there there were 1)mephits, 2)mold, 3)elder evil, and worst of all 4) doomguard. Why? He just said it wasn't fun and indicated that in a game, fun may be a design consideration. |
| Tanegar09-30-07, 12:34 PM | Every game pretends (or *should* pretend) that the only part of the world that exists is the part that you're playing the game in. Forgive me for bringing up an old point, but this statement is so patently absurd that I cannot let it stand. If we take your proposal to its logical end, a low-level party adventuring in and around Neverwinter (to pick a city at random) should never hear about or encounter NPCs from Waterdeep, or Thay, or any other locale in Faerun, let alone other planes of existence. As far as the PCs are concerned, the world ends a few miles outside the city walls. They have nothing to aspire to, no great journeys to make, no quests to undertake once the possibilities in Neverwinter are exhausted. This does not make for an immersive, or even interesting game. It's a cul-de-sac, a way for the DM to paint himself into a corner. |
| EvilVegan09-30-07, 02:03 PM | Forgive me for bringing up an old point, but this statement is so patently absurd that I cannot let it stand. If we take your proposal to its logical end, a low-level party adventuring in and around Neverwinter (to pick a city at random) should never hear about or encounter NPCs from Waterdeep, or Thay, or any other locale in Faerun, let alone other planes of existence. As far as the PCs are concerned, the world ends a few miles outside the city walls. They have nothing to aspire to, no great journeys to make, no quests to undertake once the possibilities in Neverwinter are exhausted. This does not make for an immersive, or even interesting game. It's a cul-de-sac, a way for the DM to paint himself into a corner.The quoted text is specifically referring to game worlds, not campaigns set in specific locales within that world. The logical end is that a party of no level from Waterdeep should know anything at all, ever, about Sharn: City of Towers or the Dragonkings of Darksun, unless they are presented as works of fiction within said campaign world. "Between this adventure and the last, the party caught an opera in Cormyr, about the near ascension of the Dragon King stopped by a lowly slave-gladiator in a 'far-away' desert where magic destroys life." That's about as much as they should ever know, and even that is silly to include. Amusing, but silly. For a more active thread on the same topic look: here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=915311). |
| Tanegar09-30-07, 03:14 PM | The quoted text is specifically referring to game worlds, not campaigns set in specific locales within that world. That's certainly a novel interpretation. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but it's not what I got out of the post or the thread up to that point; could you point out the clauses and/or prior posts which support your claim? The logical end is that a party of no level from Waterdeep should know anything at all, ever, about Sharn: City of Towers or the Dragonkings of Darksun, unless they are presented as works of fiction within said campaign world. This is self-evident to the point of being a tautology, unless the DM cares to use Darksun or Eberron as alternate Material Planes (parallel worlds, essentially) in his or her campaign. |
| EvilVegan09-30-07, 04:06 PM | Well, there's the context of the original post. I may have interpretted what you stated a little differently than I first should have. But here's my new point: Not so much in a gaming context, no. Even science-fiction settings don't talk that much about space -- they get space out of the way and talk about the planets you get to by going through space. The game is, after all, a *game*. Every game pretends (or *should* pretend) that the only part of the world that exists is the part that you're playing the game in. The space (campaign world) still exists. It isn't useful if you aren't using it and therefore doesn't add to the game. If you have the detailed backstory of 30 NPCs on the other side of the campaign world they aren't useful. Kind of a Schrödinger’s Cat of gaming. Nothing exists until it is useful. Knowing about other parts of the world is useful for immersion, so if they have proper knowledges they'll get the immersion they need. Because at the point that they need to know something, it is known and fully exists. Before that it doesn't matter if it did or did not exists, adding nor subtracting anything to/from the game. Certain things expand the definition of "the part that you're playing the game in", you gave good examples of things that do. |
| ArcTan09-30-07, 05:36 PM | Forgive me for bringing up an old point, but this statement is so patently absurd that I cannot let it stand. If we take your proposal to its logical end, a low-level party adventuring in and around Neverwinter (to pick a city at random) should never hear about or encounter NPCs from Waterdeep, or Thay, or any other locale in Faerun, let alone other planes of existence. As far as the PCs are concerned, the world ends a few miles outside the city walls. They have nothing to aspire to, no great journeys to make, no quests to undertake once the possibilities in Neverwinter are exhausted. This does not make for an immersive, or even interesting game. It's a cul-de-sac, a way for the DM to paint himself into a corner. If I've met someone from Waterdeep, then Waterdeep exists for my campaign. Of course, it only exists in the sense of being a place this NPC is from, and it only "exists" in the game text proper as a sketched-out "faraway location". What I mean is that the game *text* -- the stuff that we read and use to prep with and such -- should not get carried away filling in layers and layers and layers of background detail that will never be needed in the *game*. Of course Waterdeep exists, but if the concept of the core game that the designers expect people to play is that Waterdeep will never be traveled to or experienced firsthand, then putting a great big map of Waterdeep with detailed stories about Waterdeep's history in the game is a *waste of time*, and it takes focus away from where it should be, on the PCs. Obviously Waterdeep is a bad example -- the Realms are set up so that Waterdeep is a quite common place to travel to. However, the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum is not. This is similar to how I feel about setting backstory. I have very little patience, after years of life in fantasy geekdom, for elaborate creation stories involving pantheons of gods who do this and do that and get killed by the other thing and explosions and cataclysms and other BS that serve no purpose but to make us feel like the maker of this game is the best mythmaker since Tolkien, which he never actually is. If my character doesn't know or care about what happened 10,000 years ago in history, then the game text shouldn't mention it. If the "lost continent to the East" is a lost continent, then there shouldn't be details about what's there or why it got lost. Etc. The critical error people make is getting really, really excited about worldbuilding, and building the world and building the world until you have that all-too-common phenomenon, the setting that it's way more fun to talk about than to actually play in. This is what has slowly and gradually but inevitably happened to the Forgotten Realms over the years, as stuff has gotten filled in by cruft as more and more novels get published, and it seems like all the coolest things in the world are things you read about, not things you get to participate in or affect. (The old World of Darkness was a hundred times *worse*, even, which is why they felt the need to reboot it.) |
| ArcTan09-30-07, 05:41 PM | The space (campaign world) still exists. It isn't useful if you aren't using it and therefore doesn't add to the game. If you have the detailed backstory of 30 NPCs on the other side of the campaign world they aren't useful. Right. Obviously, in any game whose conceit is "It takes place in modern, real-world Earth", things like the planet Jupiter, the star Alpha Centauri, the Andromeda Galaxy, and whatnot exist. The world has not been magically defined to totally end at the limits of the upper atmosphere. However, THOSE THINGS AREN'T IMPORTANT and therefore aren't DESCRIBED in the game text, and the game's focus is not placed on the near-infinite reaches of the physical universe where you *can't* go, but on the relatively small corner where you *can*. This is bleeding obvious for real-world games, because we know that real things don't stop existing if we don't describe them so we don't feel the need to be completists about worldbuilding. Hell, we can feel comfortable making a gamebook like "Vampire Citybook: Boston" and saying that for the purposes of this text the only important place is the city of Boston, and regarding everything outside of Boston as irrelevant, even though obviously stuff outside of Boston *exists*. But in fantasy worlds the worldbuilding bug begins to take over. It's not enough just to have our little fantasy Earth -- we have to describe what "planes of existence" our fantasy Earth floats around in and we have to describe the byzantine, overcomplex creation story that's our fantasy Earth's equivalent of the Big Bang and fill in every corner of the map with random nations and tribes and islands and such. I mean, it's *fun*. It's a natural instinct. But it runs counter to the goal of simply providing the world as an environment to *have a good game*, and for someone making a game the *game* must always be the first priority and the *backdrop* of the game must always remain a backdrop, or the game *sucks*. |
| ripvanwormer09-30-07, 11:36 PM | ArcTan, you're naive if you think the "cruft" is gone, or even rebooted in any substantial way. This is a retcon, not a reboot, and it's barely that. The preview articles mention things like Pandemonium, Vecna, the Abyss, and the Nine Hells, all of which are loaded with decades of material that future designers will continue to reference (or not, depending on their preference - and this has always been the case). For the Forgotten Realms setting, it's not even a retcon, just an advance in the timeline that invalidates nothing that came before. |
| Tanegar10-01-07, 12:26 AM | If I've met someone from Waterdeep, then Waterdeep exists for my campaign. Of course, it only exists in the sense of being a place this NPC is from, and it only "exists" in the game text proper as a sketched-out "faraway location". What I mean is that the game *text* -- the stuff that we read and use to prep with and such -- should not get carried away filling in layers and layers and layers of background detail that will never be needed in the *game*. Of course Waterdeep exists, but if the concept of the core game that the designers expect people to play is that Waterdeep will never be traveled to or experienced firsthand, then putting a great big map of Waterdeep with detailed stories about Waterdeep's history in the game is a *waste of time*, and it takes focus away from where it should be, on the PCs. Obviously Waterdeep is a bad example -- the Realms are set up so that Waterdeep is a quite common place to travel to. However, the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum is not. This is similar to how I feel about setting backstory. I have very little patience, after years of life in fantasy geekdom, for elaborate creation stories involving pantheons of gods who do this and do that and get killed by the other thing and explosions and cataclysms and other BS that serve no purpose but to make us feel like the maker of this game is the best mythmaker since Tolkien, which he never actually is. If my character doesn't know or care about what happened 10,000 years ago in history, then the game text shouldn't mention it. If the "lost continent to the East" is a lost continent, then there shouldn't be details about what's there or why it got lost. Etc. The critical error people make is getting really, really excited about worldbuilding, and building the world and building the world until you have that all-too-common phenomenon, the setting that it's way more fun to talk about than to actually play in. This is what has slowly and gradually but inevitably happened to the Forgotten Realms over the years, as stuff has gotten filled in by cruft as more and more novels get published, and it seems like all the coolest things in the world are things you read about, not things you get to participate in or affect. (The old World of Darkness was a hundred times *worse*, even, which is why they felt the need to reboot it.) You talk a great deal about your character and your campaign, and I can't help getting the impression that you're assuming all campaigns are similar to yours. What if I'm playing a campaign in which the party does traverse the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum on a regular basis? (Admittedly unlikely, but surely a plausible reason could be invented - perhaps the party's patron is a powerful wizard who has constructed a stronghold there.) This may simply be (in fact, there's a very good chance that it is) personal bias on my part - I freely admit to being a detail junkie - but I think settings should be as fully fleshed out as possible. You can always change or ignore the bits you don't like, want or need, as I will almost certainly ignore the 4e cosmology. I just plain like the Great Wheel. It makes far more sense to me than this Astral Sea nonsense, and it especially makes more sense than lumping Limbo, the Abyss, and all four Elemental Planes into a single Realm. |
| ArcTan10-01-07, 12:42 AM | You talk a great deal about your character and your campaign, and I can't help getting the impression that you're assuming all campaigns are similar to yours. What if I'm playing a campaign in which the party does traverse the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum on a regular basis? (Admittedly unlikely, but surely a plausible reason could be invented - perhaps the party's patron is a powerful wizard who has constructed a stronghold there.) Then such a motivation should be built into the setting, just like a sci-fi game that gives detailed rules for interplanetary space should be one that's set up so that floating around in interplanetary space is a natural consequence of the stuff you do in the game. That's just common sense. Good design means *focus* -- it means understanding exactly what you mean to accomplish by putting something in your game and not putting in anything that doesn't accomplish that specific goal. |
| EvilVegan10-01-07, 08:11 AM | You talk a great deal about your character and your campaign, and I can't help getting the impression that you're assuming all campaigns are similar to yours. What if I'm playing a campaign in which the party does traverse the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum on a regular basis? (Admittedly unlikely, but surely a plausible reason could be invented - perhaps the party's patron is a powerful wizard who has constructed a stronghold there.) This may simply be (in fact, there's a very good chance that it is) personal bias on my part - I freely admit to being a detail junkie - but I think settings should be as fully fleshed out as possible. You can always change or ignore the bits you don't like, want or need, as I will almost certainly ignore the 4e cosmology. I just plain like the Great Wheel. It makes far more sense to me than this Astral Sea nonsense, and it especially makes more sense than lumping Limbo, the Abyss, and all four Elemental Planes into a single Realm.You can continue to use the Greatwheel. Just make the planes static in location and that pretty much does it. You have to pull abyss back to the outer planes though. . . But if you were playing in a campaign that involved travelling to a citadel on the plane of vacuum how much info do you need and when do you need it? It sounds to me like the plane of Vacuum is outside of where the party will be and that there is very little chance of them being affected by it. Like a biodome. A little info would be great, but it doesn't need to be lengthy. Like "This is what happens when your protections fail . . . " and maybe a monstrous entry to give a little threat. |
| BOZ10-01-07, 08:35 AM | ArcTan, you're naive if you think the "cruft" is gone, or even rebooted in any substantial way. This is a retcon, not a reboot, and it's barely that. The preview articles mention things like Pandemonium, Vecna, the Abyss, and the Nine Hells, all of which are loaded with decades of material that future designers will continue to reference (or not, depending on their preference - and this has always been the case). exactly - it seems to me more now that things just got merged together rather than totally thrown out. you may have only four planes now, but how many sub-planes are wedged into them? i suspect that before long, you may have even *more* planes/subplanes than we did before, *because* the planes are no longer tied to the alignment wheel, not *in spite* of it. |
| Alas10-01-07, 10:28 AM | What if I'm playing a campaign in which the party does traverse the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum on a regular basis? (Admittedly unlikely, but surely a plausible reason could be invented - perhaps the party's patron is a powerful wizard who has constructed a stronghold there.)Hi, Tanegar! Your statement helped me articulate what I want from a cosmology. Instead of inventing plausible reasons to visit a plane, I want to invent plausible planes (more precisely, planar locales) when my party gives me a reason to. Somewhat like the metaplanes that initiates travel to in Shadowrun (anybody remember those?), they exist as required. With that understanding, the relationship between two planes (if there is one at all) is not as important to me as the relationship between a plane and the party. It's just a minor observation, personal preference, all that. |
| sciborg210-01-07, 11:23 AM | The critical error people make is getting really, really excited about worldbuilding, and building the world and building the world until you have that all-too-common phenomenon, the setting that it's way more fun to talk about than to actually play in. Or it's both, and you can ignore things that you don't need. As someone who doesn't have time to play a lot (or recently ever), I enjoy discussing the settings of interest. I also think there is a difference between adventures and setting publications. The former really doesn't need extraneous info, whereas the latter is about presenting ideas to use. |
| Tanegar10-01-07, 09:27 PM | I also think there is a difference between adventures and setting publications. The former really doesn't need extraneous info, whereas the latter is about presenting ideas to use. That hits the nail on the head. It's better to have too many ideas than too few, even if some of them don't get used very much. |
| ripvanwormer10-05-07, 10:17 PM | Oh, haha, I was just reminded of a really interesting use of the Quasielemental Plane of Vacuum: it was a player character in a game I ran. The player did a very good job roleplaying it, too. Lots of fun. I remember he had a chat with Neth, and it gave me an opportunity to describe what was happening in the adventure from a "plane's-eye perspective." |
| BOZ10-05-07, 10:20 PM | this unit requires more information, please. |
| EvilVegan10-06-07, 10:12 AM | this unit requires more information, please. Seriously! What? (sounds neat) |