Campaigns: All in the same multiverse? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Campaigns: All in the same multiverse? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
neobolts
03-08-06, 02:38 PM When you run Greyhawk, FR, homebrew campaigns, etc...do you set them in the same multiverse? (I.e., could the parties theorectically bump into eachother on an outer plane?) Does this even cross your mind? Have you done such crossovers?
Salty_Boy
03-08-06, 02:53 PM I've never run a campaign in anything other than a Homebrew setting, but in my experience crossovers are the greatest thing ever.

The Lord of Blades laughed aloud as his inter-planar conduit opened wide, the hapless adventurers able to do little more than watch as whatever abomination lay beyond the world of Eberron wormed its way through into their world to wreak havoc and destruction. What emerged, however, was not what any of them expected...

"What the...? Blast it, Bruenor, this is the last time I let you lead us back to Ten-Towns!"

I could so see that scenario kicking ass.
Darkuwa
03-08-06, 02:57 PM No no absolutly not. Becuase if Dragonlance and Eberron are connected that could lead to kender artificers and the would just be bad.

In all seriousness I was going to have a setting jumping campaign but just never got around to it.
dalantjen
03-08-06, 02:57 PM I ran a Dark Sun campaign for 6 years, involving 8 or 9 adventuring groups. There were two main groups, one for the first four years, and one taking up the reigns where the first left off, directly related to each other. However, the other 6 or 7 groups were running around the world at the same time, or at least in the same time frame, and yes, they did run into each other.

The different groups were comprised mostly of the same group of players, and differed based on who was going to be present. It worked out well in that three groups were working on the same project/goal, but from three totally different angles--one worked for the Dragon-King and was attempting to thwart the efforts of the main group, who was working for a new cult church. The third group was working for an interested third party observer, and was dealing with a whole slew of cults, not just the main one.

It really gave the player's involved a sense of an evolving game world. When one party did something of consequence, it would affect how things worked in the other groups.

Mind, you, this kind of inter-weaving of plots/timelines is extremely difficult to manage after a while, making sure timelines that already happened in one group's game did not get disrupted by what happened in another group's game that happened to take place some time after we played the first group.

It was a lot of fun, especially when player's got to role-play their characters interacting with each other. In fact, in the culmination of the first four-year segment of the campaign, the three main groups mentioned above all got together and stormed the Golden Tower together. Great fun!!!
Tomovasky
03-08-06, 03:17 PM I always like the idea of all worlds been connected. Not only the fun of cross over adventures, but also the idea of PC from all typs of worlds meting and adventuring togather seamed like alot of fun.
Also there proof that they all co-existed. I called Ravenloft, were evil from dragonlance, FR have met.
ranger76
03-08-06, 04:21 PM There used to be two campaigns in 2nd Edition that captured this topic perfectly. Starjammer and Planescape.
Bruunwald
03-08-06, 04:29 PM If you want to get mind-blowingly philosophically stardust about it, you could argue that the theoretical beginning (and likely duplicatable) origin of the Universe itself, coupled with its size and that of any possible duplicates or newer models, taking into account sheer size and number of galaxies, presents infinite possibility, and that infinite possibility and infinite size must eventually randomly generate probability, and likewise certainty. It goes beyond math into infinite combinations of unknowable numbers.

From that perspective, all Universes become a part of the same Multiverse; ours, the ones from our games, Star Wars, Star Trek, Middle-earth, even the events of 24 or The Matrix. And at the same time... they aren't!!!

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!
neobolts
03-09-06, 10:11 AM There used to be two campaigns in 2nd Edition that captured this topic perfectly. Starjammer and Planescape.

Our group use spelljamming and Planescape as a collective setting in ours too. Cool to see we're not the only ones.
Ryltar Swordsong
03-09-06, 10:37 AM I had an adventure arc for my group that took them through every published TSR setting and my homebrew. It lasted over a year and was quite fun.

No no absolutly not. Becuase if Dragonlance and Eberron are connected that could lead to kender artificers and the would just be bad. That's so scary, it's brilliant. I think I'll sick one on my players.
solandras
03-09-06, 12:53 PM I found something that basically said most campaigns are withing "the material plane"....so Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Ebberon, and most homebrews exist there. Granted some capaigns exist outside of it, most notable are Planescape and Ravenloft.
SinisterSeraph
03-09-06, 01:01 PM That type of setup was the defualt back in 2ed. Planescape and Spelljammer served to flesh out the behind the curtain aspects. If ya wanted to just play FR or greyhawk, then you could just ingore the Planescape stuff, but the default was that they were all in the Prime material plane. Think of the prime as an endless expanse of "stuff" this was called the Phlogiston, or the Flow. Within this phlogiston "hyperspace" floated crystal spheres, each one being a finite representation of an infinite universe within. The Spelljammer ships sailed from world to world through the phlogiston, using the spheres as a kind of portal system. Planescape fleshed out the rest of the planes. Check out the out of print forums for tons of cool info on these settings, both older stuff and newer updates for 3ed/3.5ed. The default for the new edition is that every setting is unique, but that doesn't have to stop you, and I've found most people I've met that play 3ed still use the old 2ed multiverse cosmology anyway.
igronimus
03-09-06, 04:47 PM If you want to get mind-blowingly philosophically stardust about it, you could argue that the theoretical beginning (and likely duplicatable) origin of the Universe itself, coupled with its size and that of any possible duplicates or newer models, taking into account sheer size and number of galaxies, presents infinite possibility, and that infinite possibility and infinite size must eventually randomly generate probability, and likewise certainty. It goes beyond math into infinite combinations of unknowable numbers.

From that perspective, all Universes become a part of the same Multiverse; ours, the ones from our games, Star Wars, Star Trek, Middle-earth, even the events of 24 or The Matrix. And at the same time... they aren't!!!

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!

I so wanna be there to see the look on Elminster's face after he takes the red pill and comes to the realization that he's just a flabby, weak bald-guy and his all powerfulness is just a computer generated fantasy.

Then I would punch him in the head.
Super Guy
03-09-06, 05:13 PM It's happened, sort of, in our games.

Once I played an old character of mine in a new campaign set 100 years later (the only reason I survived was because Tolaris, an old ally, brought me some sort of Water of Youth and I was able to return from my exile at the Astral Plane without dying. Yay, human!)

In our current campaign we needed some allies so my bard found some famous heroes that we had known in a previous campaign.

We've met the ghost of an old PC before. Oh, and one of my really old PCs, he made cameos in another campaign or two.
cwslyclgh
03-09-06, 05:19 PM when I was running my 3.0 FR game I continued using the 2e "great wheel" cosmology because I thought (and still do think) that the the 3e FR cosmology was/is stupid, my concurent 3.0 greyhawk game also used the great wheel cosmology, although characters never crossed from one world to the other during the course of play... (my current 3.5 greyhawk campaign uses the great wheel as well, which is the standard greyhawk cosmology).
Shemeska the Marauder
03-10-06, 04:10 AM Technically a lot of them still are set within the same prime material plane within the same multiverse, 3e just goes out of its way to avoid mentioning anything not specific to Oerth (Greyhawk).

Ravenloft is just a demiplane in the Ethereal, and might be mentioned in that proper context now that WotC has the rights back and is releasing the 'Castle Ravenloft' book.

Dragonlance was always within the common Great Wheel multiverse, but by virtue of being a 3rd party production now licensing issues prevent them from using the Great Wheel (unless they wanted to shell out the money for it, or unless WotC never offered them the option).

FR was always within the Great Wheel till Sean K Reynolds decided to retroactively remove it into its own bizarro, half-baked cosmology in 3e. I've never met a single person offline that actually uses the new setup; everyone with any interest in using the planes in their games seems to have ignored it and has continued to use the 1e/2e/3e Great Wheel cosmology.

Athas (Darksun) was just another world in the prime as well, though it lacked certain planar connections. It's out of print and not being published in 3e, but I don't see why it wouldn't still be within the Great Wheel. Again with WotC by design ideology just not making reference to non Greyhawk things if they can avoid it.

If you look at the 3e Manual of the Planes, you'll find references to other worlds and non Grayhawk deities, they just couldn't name them explicitely. Loki of the Norse pantheon is mentioned along with a description of his deific domain in Pandemonium, they just refer to him as 'an entity known as the Trickster'. The greek Titans are there in Carceri. And Hades is still there in the Gray Waste, they even detail his deific domain, they just conveniantly omit explicit mention of him by name.

The common multiverse has become 3.X's 900lb Gorilla they don't want to acknowledge despite the fact that most everyone at their house is asking about it standing there brachiating in the middle of the living room.
JulesCARV
03-10-06, 04:26 AM How 'bout this: there are multiple multiverses, which can't be reached from each other, but ONE of those multiverses happens to have planes and planets that look exactly like the planes from all the other multiverses combined.

Let's call this the "inclusive multiverse." Technically, it's just another multiverse, like the Eberron-only multiverse, the FR-only multiverse, etc. However, its distinguishing feature is that it has an exactly-similar planet called Toril in its prime material plane, it has its own Eberron, its own Athas etc.
Kerri_Evanwood
03-10-06, 05:55 AM I like the concept tha Manual of the Planes presents: alternate cosmologies (i.e. alternate campaign settings) are linked via one or more of the transitive planes.
kerveroc
03-10-06, 07:23 AM I like evolving my game and combining anything from past adventures, and since I play powered-up games it kinda gets out of ordinary gaming.
While I was DMing 2nd ed one of my players played a Demon Slayer for a few adventures, completely new race with new powers, sort of like an extraplannar construct bent on their destruction.
Another series of adventures concerned a wizard that got really high on the ladder and well I made him the replacement of Elminster, as the latter would destroy one of the main planets of the demons by self-sacrificing. (Here it got a lot out of hand, cause I gave him powers and prophesies that concerned Azuth and Savras and so on.)
Another adventure concerned a Klingon stranded in Faerun, where he made his stronghold and mated with a human Wild Mage.
All this happens simulatenously.
When 3rd came out, I combined all of the above. First the wizard that in turn wanted to destroy the devils as well totally failed, and so the planet went hay-wire and was swarmed by devils. The Klingon escaped because he was soul-trapped in a lich chamber. Time went by, the cosmos reformed, our 20th century era passed, and so I made a favor to another player of mine to play a Predator, and he was soul trapped in archaeological discovery. So I made a party of a Klingon, a Predator, and a new wizard in a very very young alternative reality of Forgotten Realms. Hmm... the Klingon died, but Jergal made him deathless, the wizard became the incarnation of Mystryl and the predator became Warrior King of his now-extinct race and ascended to divinity. They killed the arch-devil god that reigned the young planet.
The next campaing concerned a new era, where after the evil god was overthrown a new civilization sprout forth, and this was the alternative Masters of the Universe, where they are currently fighting Keldor (Skeletor), Hordak and King Hiss. All of them have souls of Elders inside them, one is destined to become Dragon King, another has the demon-slayers abilities, and the other has denied ascending to the Illumian pantheon (whose grandmother is the female partner of the Klingon (she too was trapped in the lich's soul crystals and became an immortal epic chaos mage))
Talk about cross-over!
DPStorm
03-10-06, 09:48 PM I consider the material plane not to be one world (as the DMG and PHB seem to suggest) but the mortal universe (sort of like the real one), and the planes semi-paralel dimensions around it that are linked to it. (Forgive me if that's the way it is)
I consider all the settings to be planets in the same material plane/universe, which is part of the multiverse. I have considered doing a trans-setting campaign for a while... my group just doesn't like epic stuff like that.
Shemeska the Marauder
03-10-06, 10:20 PM I consider the material plane not to be one world (as the DMG and PHB seem to suggest) but the mortal universe (sort of like the real one), and the planes semi-paralel dimensions around it that are linked to it. (Forgive me if that's the way it is)
I consider all the settings to be planets in the same material plane/universe, which is part of the multiverse. I have considered doing a trans-setting campaign for a while... my group just doesn't like epic stuff like that.

The DMG and PHB only give explicit mention to Grayhawk as the prime material, but plenty of material makes it clear that it's an infinite universe much like our own, with stars, planets, solar systems, etc. What isn't really clear is just how much of the detail of the Prime that was developed in the Spelljammer material has been directly continued over. Spelljamming is still around in various books, but the spelljammer concept of the Phlogiston has been largely glossed over.

But regardless, each of the various prime material campaign settings has traditionally been viewed as a planet or solar system set within the single common prime material plane. Many folks still consider that the case, and recent books have made mention of other planets out there in the prime, they've just technically tried to divorce some of the pre-3e campaign settings out of that common multiverse (I'd say that they've failed to connect with their buying audience on that matter, but that's neither here nor there).

And FWIW, no need to be Epic to go planeswalking or cross various campaign settings. I've done it in campaigns as of level 8 or so.
JulesCARV
03-10-06, 10:53 PM And FWIW, no need to be Epic to go planeswalking or cross various campaign settings. I've done it in campaigns as of level 8 or so.

Depending on your view of how the astral plane functions (is it still a transitive plane that links the outer planes?), a Nomad can do it by level 5, with the "Astral Caravan" power, although having a higher enough knowledge (the planes) check to actually navigate it well might be a challenge, since he has at most 8 ranks of knowledge (the planes).

Though, I'm sketchy on my cosmology, and I think that in 3.5th edition, the Astral plane serves some different function: what is it, again?
Shemeska the Marauder
03-10-06, 11:33 PM Though, I'm sketchy on my cosmology, and I think that in 3.5th edition, the Astral plane serves some different function: what is it, again?

They pretty much nerfed the ethereal, making the deep ethereal (which bridged the metaphysical gap between the Prime and the Inner planes) optional, and putting the Astral plane in the position of bridging the gap between all of the planes.

Unfortunately this makes no sense given the definitions of the Astral and Ethereal, and the change was admittedly done only because the game mechanics governing certain spells had been changed. The actual in game flavor of the planes' roles seemingly wasn't taken into account.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
neobolts 03-08-06, 02:38 PM	When you run Greyhawk, FR, homebrew campaigns, etc...do you set them in the same multiverse? (I.e., could the parties theorectically bump into eachother on an outer plane?) Does this even cross your mind? Have you done such crossovers?
Salty_Boy 03-08-06, 02:53 PM	I've never run a campaign in anything other than a Homebrew setting, but in my experience crossovers are the greatest thing ever. The Lord of Blades laughed aloud as his inter-planar conduit opened wide, the hapless adventurers able to do little more than watch as whatever abomination lay beyond the world of Eberron wormed its way through into their world to wreak havoc and destruction. What emerged, however, was not what any of them expected... "What the...? Blast it, Bruenor, this is the last time I let you lead us back to Ten-Towns!" I could so see that scenario kicking ass.
Darkuwa 03-08-06, 02:57 PM	No no absolutly not. Becuase if Dragonlance and Eberron are connected that could lead to kender artificers and the would just be bad. In all seriousness I was going to have a setting jumping campaign but just never got around to it.
dalantjen 03-08-06, 02:57 PM	I ran a Dark Sun campaign for 6 years, involving 8 or 9 adventuring groups. There were two main groups, one for the first four years, and one taking up the reigns where the first left off, directly related to each other. However, the other 6 or 7 groups were running around the world at the same time, or at least in the same time frame, and yes, they did run into each other. The different groups were comprised mostly of the same group of players, and differed based on who was going to be present. It worked out well in that three groups were working on the same project/goal, but from three totally different angles--one worked for the Dragon-King and was attempting to thwart the efforts of the main group, who was working for a new cult church. The third group was working for an interested third party observer, and was dealing with a whole slew of cults, not just the main one. It really gave the player's involved a sense of an evolving game world. When one party did something of consequence, it would affect how things worked in the other groups. Mind, you, this kind of inter-weaving of plots/timelines is extremely difficult to manage after a while, making sure timelines that already happened in one group's game did not get disrupted by what happened in another group's game that happened to take place some time after we played the first group. It was a lot of fun, especially when player's got to role-play their characters interacting with each other. In fact, in the culmination of the first four-year segment of the campaign, the three main groups mentioned above all got together and stormed the Golden Tower together. Great fun!!!
Tomovasky 03-08-06, 03:17 PM	I always like the idea of all worlds been connected. Not only the fun of cross over adventures, but also the idea of PC from all typs of worlds meting and adventuring togather seamed like alot of fun. Also there proof that they all co-existed. I called Ravenloft, were evil from dragonlance, FR have met.
ranger76 03-08-06, 04:21 PM	There used to be two campaigns in 2nd Edition that captured this topic perfectly. Starjammer and Planescape.
Bruunwald 03-08-06, 04:29 PM	If you want to get mind-blowingly philosophically stardust about it, you could argue that the theoretical beginning (and likely duplicatable) origin of the Universe itself, coupled with its size and that of any possible duplicates or newer models, taking into account sheer size and number of galaxies, presents infinite possibility, and that infinite possibility and infinite size must eventually randomly generate probability, and likewise certainty. It goes beyond math into infinite combinations of unknowable numbers. From that perspective, all Universes become a part of the same Multiverse; ours, the ones from our games, Star Wars, Star Trek, Middle-earth, even the events of 24 or The Matrix. And at the same time... they aren't!!! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa!
neobolts 03-09-06, 10:11 AM	There used to be two campaigns in 2nd Edition that captured this topic perfectly. Starjammer and Planescape. Our group use spelljamming and Planescape as a collective setting in ours too. Cool to see we're not the only ones.
Ryltar Swordsong 03-09-06, 10:37 AM	I had an adventure arc for my group that took them through every published TSR setting and my homebrew. It lasted over a year and was quite fun. No no absolutly not. Becuase if Dragonlance and Eberron are connected that could lead to kender artificers and the would just be bad. That's so scary, it's brilliant. I think I'll sick one on my players.
solandras 03-09-06, 12:53 PM	I found something that basically said most campaigns are withing "the material plane"....so Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Ebberon, and most homebrews exist there. Granted some capaigns exist outside of it, most notable are Planescape and Ravenloft.
SinisterSeraph 03-09-06, 01:01 PM	That type of setup was the defualt back in 2ed. Planescape and Spelljammer served to flesh out the behind the curtain aspects. If ya wanted to just play FR or greyhawk, then you could just ingore the Planescape stuff, but the default was that they were all in the Prime material plane. Think of the prime as an endless expanse of "stuff" this was called the Phlogiston, or the Flow. Within this phlogiston "hyperspace" floated crystal spheres, each one being a finite representation of an infinite universe within. The Spelljammer ships sailed from world to world through the phlogiston, using the spheres as a kind of portal system. Planescape fleshed out the rest of the planes. Check out the out of print forums for tons of cool info on these settings, both older stuff and newer updates for 3ed/3.5ed. The default for the new edition is that every setting is unique, but that doesn't have to stop you, and I've found most people I've met that play 3ed still use the old 2ed multiverse cosmology anyway.
igronimus 03-09-06, 04:47 PM	If you want to get mind-blowingly philosophically stardust about it, you could argue that the theoretical beginning (and likely duplicatable) origin of the Universe itself, coupled with its size and that of any possible duplicates or newer models, taking into account sheer size and number of galaxies, presents infinite possibility, and that infinite possibility and infinite size must eventually randomly generate probability, and likewise certainty. It goes beyond math into infinite combinations of unknowable numbers. From that perspective, all Universes become a part of the same Multiverse; ours, the ones from our games, Star Wars, Star Trek, Middle-earth, even the events of 24 or The Matrix. And at the same time... they aren't!!! Bwah-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa! I so wanna be there to see the look on Elminster's face after he takes the red pill and comes to the realization that he's just a flabby, weak bald-guy and his all powerfulness is just a computer generated fantasy. Then I would punch him in the head.
Super Guy 03-09-06, 05:13 PM	It's happened, sort of, in our games. Once I played an old character of mine in a new campaign set 100 years later (the only reason I survived was because Tolaris, an old ally, brought me some sort of Water of Youth and I was able to return from my exile at the Astral Plane without dying. Yay, human!) In our current campaign we needed some allies so my bard found some famous heroes that we had known in a previous campaign. We've met the ghost of an old PC before. Oh, and one of my really old PCs, he made cameos in another campaign or two.
cwslyclgh 03-09-06, 05:19 PM	when I was running my 3.0 FR game I continued using the 2e "great wheel" cosmology because I thought (and still do think) that the the 3e FR cosmology was/is stupid, my concurent 3.0 greyhawk game also used the great wheel cosmology, although characters never crossed from one world to the other during the course of play... (my current 3.5 greyhawk campaign uses the great wheel as well, which is the standard greyhawk cosmology).
Shemeska the Marauder 03-10-06, 04:10 AM	Technically a lot of them still are set within the same prime material plane within the same multiverse, 3e just goes out of its way to avoid mentioning anything not specific to Oerth (Greyhawk). Ravenloft is just a demiplane in the Ethereal, and might be mentioned in that proper context now that WotC has the rights back and is releasing the 'Castle Ravenloft' book. Dragonlance was always within the common Great Wheel multiverse, but by virtue of being a 3rd party production now licensing issues prevent them from using the Great Wheel (unless they wanted to shell out the money for it, or unless WotC never offered them the option). FR was always within the Great Wheel till Sean K Reynolds decided to retroactively remove it into its own bizarro, half-baked cosmology in 3e. I've never met a single person offline that actually uses the new setup; everyone with any interest in using the planes in their games seems to have ignored it and has continued to use the 1e/2e/3e Great Wheel cosmology. Athas (Darksun) was just another world in the prime as well, though it lacked certain planar connections. It's out of print and not being published in 3e, but I don't see why it wouldn't still be within the Great Wheel. Again with WotC by design ideology just not making reference to non Greyhawk things if they can avoid it. If you look at the 3e Manual of the Planes, you'll find references to other worlds and non Grayhawk deities, they just couldn't name them explicitely. Loki of the Norse pantheon is mentioned along with a description of his deific domain in Pandemonium, they just refer to him as 'an entity known as the Trickster'. The greek Titans are there in Carceri. And Hades is still there in the Gray Waste, they even detail his deific domain, they just conveniantly omit explicit mention of him by name. The common multiverse has become 3.X's 900lb Gorilla they don't want to acknowledge despite the fact that most everyone at their house is asking about it standing there brachiating in the middle of the living room.
JulesCARV 03-10-06, 04:26 AM	How 'bout this: there are multiple multiverses, which can't be reached from each other, but ONE of those multiverses happens to have planes and planets that look exactly like the planes from all the other multiverses combined. Let's call this the "inclusive multiverse." Technically, it's just another multiverse, like the Eberron-only multiverse, the FR-only multiverse, etc. However, its distinguishing feature is that it has an exactly-similar planet called Toril in its prime material plane, it has its own Eberron, its own Athas etc.
Kerri_Evanwood 03-10-06, 05:55 AM	I like the concept tha Manual of the Planes presents: alternate cosmologies (i.e. alternate campaign settings) are linked via one or more of the transitive planes.
kerveroc 03-10-06, 07:23 AM	I like evolving my game and combining anything from past adventures, and since I play powered-up games it kinda gets out of ordinary gaming. While I was DMing 2nd ed one of my players played a Demon Slayer for a few adventures, completely new race with new powers, sort of like an extraplannar construct bent on their destruction. Another series of adventures concerned a wizard that got really high on the ladder and well I made him the replacement of Elminster, as the latter would destroy one of the main planets of the demons by self-sacrificing. (Here it got a lot out of hand, cause I gave him powers and prophesies that concerned Azuth and Savras and so on.) Another adventure concerned a Klingon stranded in Faerun, where he made his stronghold and mated with a human Wild Mage. All this happens simulatenously. When 3rd came out, I combined all of the above. First the wizard that in turn wanted to destroy the devils as well totally failed, and so the planet went hay-wire and was swarmed by devils. The Klingon escaped because he was soul-trapped in a lich chamber. Time went by, the cosmos reformed, our 20th century era passed, and so I made a favor to another player of mine to play a Predator, and he was soul trapped in archaeological discovery. So I made a party of a Klingon, a Predator, and a new wizard in a very very young alternative reality of Forgotten Realms. Hmm... the Klingon died, but Jergal made him deathless, the wizard became the incarnation of Mystryl and the predator became Warrior King of his now-extinct race and ascended to divinity. They killed the arch-devil god that reigned the young planet. The next campaing concerned a new era, where after the evil god was overthrown a new civilization sprout forth, and this was the alternative Masters of the Universe, where they are currently fighting Keldor (Skeletor), Hordak and King Hiss. All of them have souls of Elders inside them, one is destined to become Dragon King, another has the demon-slayers abilities, and the other has denied ascending to the Illumian pantheon (whose grandmother is the female partner of the Klingon (she too was trapped in the lich's soul crystals and became an immortal epic chaos mage)) Talk about cross-over!
DPStorm 03-10-06, 09:48 PM	I consider the material plane not to be one world (as the DMG and PHB seem to suggest) but the mortal universe (sort of like the real one), and the planes semi-paralel dimensions around it that are linked to it. (Forgive me if that's the way it is) I consider all the settings to be planets in the same material plane/universe, which is part of the multiverse. I have considered doing a trans-setting campaign for a while... my group just doesn't like epic stuff like that.
Shemeska the Marauder 03-10-06, 10:20 PM	I consider the material plane not to be one world (as the DMG and PHB seem to suggest) but the mortal universe (sort of like the real one), and the planes semi-paralel dimensions around it that are linked to it. (Forgive me if that's the way it is) I consider all the settings to be planets in the same material plane/universe, which is part of the multiverse. I have considered doing a trans-setting campaign for a while... my group just doesn't like epic stuff like that. The DMG and PHB only give explicit mention to Grayhawk as the prime material, but plenty of material makes it clear that it's an infinite universe much like our own, with stars, planets, solar systems, etc. What isn't really clear is just how much of the detail of the Prime that was developed in the Spelljammer material has been directly continued over. Spelljamming is still around in various books, but the spelljammer concept of the Phlogiston has been largely glossed over. But regardless, each of the various prime material campaign settings has traditionally been viewed as a planet or solar system set within the single common prime material plane. Many folks still consider that the case, and recent books have made mention of other planets out there in the prime, they've just technically tried to divorce some of the pre-3e campaign settings out of that common multiverse (I'd say that they've failed to connect with their buying audience on that matter, but that's neither here nor there). And FWIW, no need to be Epic to go planeswalking or cross various campaign settings. I've done it in campaigns as of level 8 or so.
JulesCARV 03-10-06, 10:53 PM	And FWIW, no need to be Epic to go planeswalking or cross various campaign settings. I've done it in campaigns as of level 8 or so. Depending on your view of how the astral plane functions (is it still a transitive plane that links the outer planes?), a Nomad can do it by level 5, with the "Astral Caravan" power, although having a higher enough knowledge (the planes) check to actually navigate it well might be a challenge, since he has at most 8 ranks of knowledge (the planes). Though, I'm sketchy on my cosmology, and I think that in 3.5th edition, the Astral plane serves some different function: what is it, again?
Shemeska the Marauder 03-10-06, 11:33 PM	Though, I'm sketchy on my cosmology, and I think that in 3.5th edition, the Astral plane serves some different function: what is it, again? They pretty much nerfed the ethereal, making the deep ethereal (which bridged the metaphysical gap between the Prime and the Inner planes) optional, and putting the Astral plane in the position of bridging the gap between all of the planes. Unfortunately this makes no sense given the definitions of the Astral and Ethereal, and the change was admittedly done only because the game mechanics governing certain spells had been changed. The actual in game flavor of the planes' roles seemingly wasn't taken into account.