Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Dausuul 09-26-07, 09:32 PM	(Originally posted on the Order of the Stick forums...) One thing that I've noticed about 4th Edition, particularly with today's article on the new standard cosmology, is a distinct shift in the overall "atmosphere" of D&D, away from the original, slightly science-fictiony, cosmopolitan flavor of Gygaxian D&D and toward a more mystical, high-fantasy feel. Fey, which were something of an afterthought in previous editions, now get a whole plane of their own. Likewise, the dead no longer traipse off to be distributed about the Great Wheel, but linger in a stygian shadow world for a while before they fade away forever. Elves are getting a makeover with a lot more forest wildness and a lot less secret door detection (at least, I'll be highly surprised if that bizarre 1E relic carries over). Pure elemental and energy planes are out, the Elemental Tempest is in. The whole "points of light" thing is very much at odds with heavily populated settings like the Forgotten Realms. And Vancian magic, with its quasi-technological overtones, is being, if not entirely eliminated, then scaled way the hell back. Personally, I'm ecstatic over this. It's the exact feel I've been trying, with varying levels of success, to achieve in my own games for the last twenty years. For the first time ever, I'm planning to use the standard D&D cosmology for my game worlds instead of a homebrew one, and I might even keep the D&D races, too. My personal feelings aside, it occurs to me that this may be an effort to broaden the appeal of the game. The old-school D&D setting and cosmology don't mesh thematically with much of anything outside of D&D. In fact, they don't even mesh with themselves, since so many people have tried to jam so many different themes into them over the years. The 4E setting seems like it may be a lot more accessible to people who love fantasy fiction (a HUGE demographic, at least judging by book sales) but who haven't tried RPGs. What do other people think?
AAB 09-26-07, 11:01 PM	What do I think? That with every little tidbit that comes out I get more excited for May.
Board_Rider 09-26-07, 11:03 PM	I think that it is high times for a glimpse, actual stuff, of what is coming out and less hype.
someonelse812 09-27-07, 12:58 AM	I dont like it. I preffer the Planescape cosmology.
Grumman 09-27-07, 01:19 AM	What do other people think? I'm for it. Worst case scenario, we can always Frankenstein stuff from 3rd Edition to replace anything which turns out to be a mistake.
RuinousCreation 09-27-07, 08:01 AM	Worst case scenario, we can keep playing 3.0. But from what I can glean from the trailers and teasers and sneak peaks, I like where this is going. I want a game that I can invite my non-gamer friends to without worrying that they're going to get frustrated and bored at the rules. I can't tell you how many of the 3.0 rules I just discarded in favor of simplicity.
Zousha_Omenohu 09-27-07, 09:53 AM	I agree that the more I hear the more I want to check it out. If my library picks up the books, then I'll probably literally check them out to sample them. If I like what I see, then I'll definately lay down cash for 'em!
Ariakus 09-27-07, 10:28 AM	I think that it is high times for a glimpse, actual stuff, of what is coming out and less hype. Here Here! Okay...we know it there are going to be a few core rulebooks, (released like cliffhangers for suspense) and software for tabletop games with laptops...woohoo...what are the changes is what I want to know...rumor has it there are very few changes and that you can use 3.5 books and still get by just fine, as if 4th were more of an addition than a replacement. Several gamers I play with can't afford laptops as well as their desktops (well you know, their kids will have to have one if the parents get one....) and wont be able to utilize the new software...kinda leaving out a financial class of gamer that way. I myself make just over the median salary for my state and I own 2 desktop PC's, so going 4th Ed. for me will be a little more expensive for me than most since it seems nearly everyone has laptops anymore.
Drammattex 09-27-07, 11:59 AM	(Originally posted on the Order of the Stick forums...) One thing that I've noticed about 4th Edition, particularly with today's article on the new standard cosmology, is a distinct shift in the overall "atmosphere" of D&D, away from the original, slightly science-fictiony, cosmopolitan flavor of Gygaxian D&D and toward a more mystical, high-fantasy feel. Fey, which were something of an afterthought in previous editions, now get a whole plane of their own. Likewise, the dead no longer traipse off to be distributed about the Great Wheel, but linger in a stygian shadow world for a while before they fade away forever. Elves are getting a makeover with a lot more forest wildness and a lot less secret door detection (at least, I'll be highly surprised if that bizarre 1E relic carries over). Pure elemental and energy planes are out, the Elemental Tempest is in. The whole "points of light" thing is very much at odds with heavily populated settings like the Forgotten Realms. And Vancian magic, with its quasi-technological overtones, is being, if not entirely eliminated, then scaled way the hell back. Personally, I'm ecstatic over this. It's the exact feel I've been trying, with varying levels of success, to achieve in my own games for the last twenty years. For the first time ever, I'm planning to use the standard D&D cosmology for my game worlds instead of a homebrew one, and I might even keep the D&D races, too. My personal feelings aside, it occurs to me that this may be an effort to broaden the appeal of the game. The old-school D&D setting and cosmology don't mesh thematically with much of anything outside of D&D. In fact, they don't even mesh with themselves, since so many people have tried to jam so many different themes into them over the years. The 4E setting seems like it may be a lot more accessible to people who love fantasy fiction (a HUGE demographic, at least judging by book sales) but who haven't tried RPGs. What do other people think? QFT. I don't think it's been very science-fictiony, though. If anything, the internal logic of 4e makes it much more adaptable to sci-fi. I mean, it just makes a lot more sense to me. I tried explaining the Great Wheel to my girlfriend yesterday. Failed. She had no problem understanding the new cosmology.
Artifact 09-27-07, 07:48 PM	My personal feelings aside, it occurs to me that this may be an effort to broaden the appeal of the game. The old-school D&D setting and cosmology don't mesh thematically with much of anything outside of D&D. In fact, they don't even mesh with themselves, since so many people have tried to jam so many different themes into them over the years. The 4E setting seems like it may be a lot more accessible to people who love fantasy fiction (a HUGE demographic, at least judging by book sales) but who haven't tried RPGs. What do other people think? I have to agree. The Great Wheel has its appeal but it is exclusive to the D&D cosmology. Most other fantasy cosmologies don't rely so heavily on the effect of alignment on and between the planes, I guess. Re-imagining the D&D cosmology to mak it more accessable to a wider audience (especially fantasy fans in general) may be one of the things I end up really liking about 4E. I tried explaining the Great Wheel to my girlfriend yesterday. Failed. Yeah, I tried that once, didn't work so well either. Me: "'Kay, now try to imagine the cosmos as a giant wheel . . ." Her: "This is make-believe, right? Like Marvel Universe stuff." Me: "'Course-- sorta!" Her: :rolleyes: "Why won't you use that big brain of yours for something useful . . . blah, blah, blah . . ." Obviously, some people will never fully understand the significance of the D&D cosmology . . . or the impact of Marvel Universe ;).
ArgulFraster 09-27-07, 08:25 PM	...Uh. I don't like the idea, personally. I love the Great Wheel, and personally the only thing that deserved to get removed from previous editions that I hear people griping about was THAC0. I intend to snap up 3.0 and 3.5 books on the cheap.
VagrantWhisper 09-28-07, 01:50 PM	Personally, although in some cases I appreciate the mechanical changes I'm not at all excited about the flavour changes. In alot of ways I'm worried that they're trying to make the game so mainstream that it will eventually have no choice but to get lost in the mix of all the other games on the market. I'm not interested in D&D being an "every-persons game" any more than I'm interested in the same thing happening to Risk, or Monopoly, or Halo 3. In all honesty I'm getting tired of the gaming industry's (video, table and board) need to simplify just for the sake of simplifying - because somehow complexity at any task is a sin, and people are sheep who refuse to master anything more complex than a light switch. I don't want a World of Warcraft Elf feeling like a D&D Elf feeling like a Lord of the Rings Elf. The Great Wheel to me is a fundamental flavour of D&D and taking it away is like removing Virtues from the Ultima Series of CRPGs, or John Mclean's one-liner's from Die Hard. It is a part of D&D that is fundementally recognizable across all generations. I can only guess at what is actually going to be 4e when it hits the market, I just hope its "better" flavour, and not more generic flavour. Sorry to rain on the positive vibe of this thread, but I just don't find I've ever felt the frustrations with the flavour, theme or sacred cows you all seem to.
HermitIX 09-28-07, 02:05 PM	If that bit about the souls of the dead fading away is true then I am very disappointed. I always liked the idea that souls went off to be with their gods. As a personal house rule I always said that Souls could never be destroyed. They could be tortured or imprisoned or even ripped apart but they never stopped existing. I felt that even if the heroes died, their souls pulled in to hell and all sorts of nasty things get done to them, because their souls were eternal they could still have a happy ending eventually. What are a few billion millennia of demonic torture when you finally reach paradise? I know its really just a small flavor change but it would bother me a lot.
Maclovius 09-28-07, 02:30 PM	4th edition sounds like garbage so far. I may change my mind in the future but only time will tell. 3.0 for life.
Puggins 09-28-07, 02:33 PM	The Great Wheel to me is a fundamental flavour of D&D and taking it away is like removing Virtues from the Ultima Series of CRPGs, or John Mclean's one-liner's from Die Hard. Yes, I know it's a typo. But I got an image of some sort of Miller-inspired combo-commercial where a guy cleans your bathtub using Uzis and blood-soaked foot rags. Anyway... I'm with the OP. Anything that makes the setting more mystical and less.... categorical? Scientific? Whatever... throw it out. 4e is looking pretty good to me.
Decoy_Lockbox 09-28-07, 03:15 PM	I thought this "new cosmology" of theirs was an effort to remove Greyhawk as the standard setting, since it was never really explained in the core books despite using it's gods and whatnot. I don't think they are changing the cosmos for all settings, just making a new default setting with a new cosmology.
Man in the Funny Hat 09-28-07, 03:31 PM	What do other people think?I go with oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere every time.
Einvaldurinn_mikli 09-28-07, 05:00 PM	I go with oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere every time. That's a really cheap one.
Ramses III 09-28-07, 06:23 PM	The fey world brings a lot of old European folklore into the game, and I've always loved the flavor of a "faerie realm." Those squirrelly fey need someplace to spirit people away to, right? The change to the elemental planes is excellent IMO. The elemental planes as they stood up to now could not have been more boring. They're about as exciting as if there were, say, a plane of infinite cardboard. I've never run or played in an adventure that took place or even so much as went to an elemental plane, but the Elemental Tempest is a setting I could actually use in a game -- especially with the Abyss looming in the middle of it. I like the shadow realm as a sort of mingling of the Plane of Shadow and the Ethereal Plane. The two pretty much served the same purpose in previous game versions anyway, and the Ethereal, much like the old Elemental planes, was way too boring to use for anything but magical travel. Now the two are apparently a single plane more akin to the old plane of Shadow than the old Ethereal, a dark and deathly reflection of the lands of the living, full of the spirits of the dead (and ghosts, undead shadows, and nightshades, to be sure). Again this presents a much more fun setting for adventures, a creepy alternate world the players can get drawn into or have to visit to vanquish some dire foe. Dumping the Great Wheel of the Outer Planes is a mixed bag for me. On one hand, I loved Planescape and thought it made for a great way to handle adventuring in the Outer Planes. On another hand, the two biggest supported D&D published settings didn't actually use the cosmology of the Great Wheel! The Astral Sea is apparently set up to be inclusive of whatever divine realms any given world uses, and is thus a better tool than a default cosmology that doesn't fit the two main published worlds. Besides, if a DM really wants to use Sigil in a campaign, there's nothing to stop him or her from putting Sigil in the Astral Sea as a pocket realm that's only accessible through its portals. Heck, in a way it gives more options to a Planescape campaign, since using the 4e model a DM could run an Eberron/Planescape or Realms/Planescape campaign without nearly as many continuity problems as would crop up using the 2e and 3e models. In closing, I give the 4e cosmology the Pharaoh's Stamp of Approval.
Tanegar 09-29-07, 10:20 AM	Having just read the article on 4e cosmology, my immediate reaction is profoundly negative. I quite like the cosmology outlined in the Manual of the Planes. Like HermitIX, I object to the idea that the spirits of the dead simply fade from existence. It undermines the whole concept of religion in D&D, insofar as religions attract followers with promises of eternity beyond the life of the flesh. Lumping all the Elemental Planes plus the Abyss into a single realm also strikes me as particularly silly. I don't share Dausuul's concern that 3.5e cosmology doesn't "mesh thematically" with other sources; why should it? I'm perfectly happy with D&D as a stand-alone, self-contained product.
navar100 09-29-07, 10:38 AM	Yet again I'll prefer a DMs own world than published flavor text. Just because flavor text is in the book doesn't mean you have to use it. My warlock, for example, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with demons or devils. They can keep piling on and on with more demon/devil fluff for more warlock invocations or prestige classes, but that will never make my warlock resemble any of it as a character. I like the warlock for its mechanics, not flavor text. I would tend to prefer a DM who creates his own world than rely on flavor text.
AAB 09-29-07, 10:10 PM	Having just read the article on 4e cosmology, my immediate reaction is profoundly negative. I quite like the cosmology outlined in the Manual of the Planes. Like HermitIX, I object to the idea that the spirits of the dead simply fade from existence. It undermines the whole concept of religion in D&D, insofar as religions attract followers with promises of eternity beyond the life of the flesh. Lumping all the Elemental Planes plus the Abyss into a single realm also strikes me as particularly silly. I don't share Dausuul's concern that 3.5e cosmology doesn't "mesh thematically" with other sources; why should it? I'm perfectly happy with D&D as a stand-alone, self-contained product. Let's remember that they are still only giving vague hints. Perhaps these souls that fade out are those who are unclaimed by any deity, since they all still have personal realms.
TmonsterD 09-30-07, 07:52 PM	the article says that souls "fade beyond all ken". Ken means knowledge, not existence. It means that no one really knows where souls go. I think this adds a much needed bit of mystery to the whole cosmology thing.
LordPasty 10-01-07, 12:15 AM	(Originally posted on the Order of the Stick forums...) One thing that I've noticed about 4th Edition, particularly with today's article on the new standard cosmology, is a distinct shift in the overall "atmosphere" of D&D, away from the original, slightly science-fictiony, cosmopolitan flavor of Gygaxian D&D and toward a more mystical, high-fantasy feel. Fey, which were something of an afterthought in previous editions, now get a whole plane of their own. Likewise, the dead no longer traipse off to be distributed about the Great Wheel, but linger in a stygian shadow world for a while before they fade away forever. Elves are getting a makeover with a lot more forest wildness and a lot less secret door detection (at least, I'll be highly surprised if that bizarre 1E relic carries over). Pure elemental and energy planes are out, the Elemental Tempest is in. The whole "points of light" thing is very much at odds with heavily populated settings like the Forgotten Realms. And Vancian magic, with its quasi-technological overtones, is being, if not entirely eliminated, then scaled way the hell back. Personally, I'm ecstatic over this. It's the exact feel I've been trying, with varying levels of success, to achieve in my own games for the last twenty years. For the first time ever, I'm planning to use the standard D&D cosmology for my game worlds instead of a homebrew one, and I might even keep the D&D races, too. My personal feelings aside, it occurs to me that this may be an effort to broaden the appeal of the game. The old-school D&D setting and cosmology don't mesh thematically with much of anything outside of D&D. In fact, they don't even mesh with themselves, since so many people have tried to jam so many different themes into them over the years. The 4E setting seems like it may be a lot more accessible to people who love fantasy fiction (a HUGE demographic, at least judging by book sales) but who haven't tried RPGs. What do other people think? Totally with you here, and it's the thing that's making me so ecstatic about 4th edition. It might help a lot of people feel a little bit more comfortable making stories, instead of simple dice fests (not that I hate dice or anything). :)
Artifact 10-01-07, 07:13 PM	I just read the Design and Development article which detailes the re-do of the D&D cosmology. It does seem to be very different from what I'm used to . . . but I really like it. It kinda makes me feel all fluffy inside :cloud9:. By the same token, this dynamic level of change and apparent abandoning of the Great Wheel has me concerned. For better or worse, D&D has always had its "sacred cows" (no need to elaborate, most of you know what I'm referring to). Obviously its *good* to eliminate some of this treasured bovine meat now and again; keeps things from becoming stagnant. I'm just nervous that the designers could get carried away and change some things that don't need changing. What's good and what's bad is all subjective of course, so I speak only for myself. Some cows are sacred for a reason, yes? ;). Ah, well! Wait and see, I guess. I just wanted to share my satisfaction with this aspect of the 4e design. Some things I'm far from excited about (and a few I'm even aprehensive about), but this new cosmology is cool by me.
Thevail 10-03-07, 01:45 PM	Yippeee! I love the flavor of planescape, but ooh the teleporting and the headaches.. and the freaky weapon modifiers. All on one plane you say, happy happy DM! I already pre-ordered the PHB so..I'm not exactly unbiased here, but if what people object to is the flavor changes. Um..change 'em back. We've all been houseruling this and that forever anyway.Creating our own pantheons, etc. If the new D&D system has more streamlined rules, it'll just make Frankensteining anything we want into it that much easier. Especially the astral sea thing, don't like it, just put the Great Wheel into the sea. Plop...there..all wet.
Dreamstryder 10-03-07, 02:34 PM	What I understand is the Astral Sea is basically a world for "put your own pantheons here," so using the old 1-3e is fine. From reading the article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070926a) again, if you're keeping the Great Wheel, it looks like the article kept the wheel but took out the spokes (elemental planes are one, Astral Sea is one); which says wonders for revamping alignment. Personally, I don't use present alignment even for guidelines, so why would I want several worlds where the system's taken to extremes? As they said, it's for adventure; assuming every dimension door takes you into the faerie realm or Shadowfell (I saw no mention of the Ethereal Plane), escaping an enemy troop by skirting thru the land of the dead seems fun. As for sci-fi, I run a science-fantasy campaign, and think appraoch away from alignment, toward more mysterious & adventureable playgrounds will aid it, but then similar changes have been in my homebrew for years. :)
Grod_The_Giant 10-03-07, 03:12 PM	You know what? I don't know much about the changes being made, but I'm more worried about mechanical changes then flavor. I mean, I find Vancian magic a lot simpler, if harder to explain flavor-wise, then the SRD spell-point varient. But worrying about flavor is like worrying about the default desktop background on a computer- pointless. If you don't like the flavor, change it. There, problem solved! No, what I'm most worried about in 4e is having to spend MORE money on the new books and internet stuff (and the paper to print the online things, since d&d is fundamentally a TABLE-TOP game) that will replace the ones I've got.
Thevail 10-03-07, 09:06 PM	I agree that the part that sucks is the buying everything again, but whatcha gonna do? Personally looking forward to actually carrying the books I need in a backpack again, as opposed to a truck.
bone_naga 10-03-07, 09:33 PM	I love the 4ed changes (at least what little I've seen so far). I don't live Vancian magic and I only used it for a few games before switching to the 2ed Player's Option: Spells and Magic system, and then later to the Elements of Magic: Revised system. Much of the changes to the planar cosmology I had already implemented (except the feywild, that one I hadn't thought of, and interesting though it is, I haven't decided whether or not I will use it). Yes I will need to buy 3 new books, but the world will go on, and most of my old material can probably be converted. I check every couple days to see if there is any new information available about 4th. It looks very promising, and I can't wait for it.