WotC's New Cosmology - someone's been reading the CBG!

[brainface]

I have no problem with the elimination of the splinter planes you list, since, as you say, they were just tacked on for categorical reasons. I'll also grant you that even without the splinter planes, the Inner Planes were boring adventure locations.

liked[/i] the splinter planes. :) The existence of an endless plane of dust, to me, is more interesting than a plane of a bunch of rock. I was more miffed about the way they dropped those planes in the 3e manual of planes than i would've been about them culling some layers off the abyss. I had to realize why they did it though, for reasons stated above. I think the idea behind those planes becomes useable again with the "Elemental Chaos" plane. Now, a writer CAN add a seemingly endless expanse of dust (or lightning, or ooze) in somewhere and write up descriptions for it when needed. I suppose like how the abyss was before: an author/DM could just make up a free number, wonky demonic ecosystem, and stat out a new layer of the abyss to run an adventure in.

[Epic Meepo]

Hold on a minute... Um... Where's the Ethereal Plane now?

[LordVreeg]

Maybe it's the barolo talking, but I just don't see how it matters that much.

I agree with Brainface that the new 'Elemental Chaos' is like some of the planes of the Abyss used to be, a place to be creative.  I personally see it as an excuse to be creative, since you need one in someone elses setting.

But I have always seen the rulebooks as jumping-off points. I see  a dozen better cosmologies without even looking hard here.  And bothering to keep very much of their cosmology and planes and etc in your own setting smacks of a crutch.  Make the magic and cosmology of your world your own.

Epic Meepo hit a very good point about the comic book thing, where this smacks of people re-writing over the idea just to rewrite over it, to make their edition theirs...and thats what a lot of this is.

When I was younger and held onto the importance of comic books, I'd get upset when they screwed with the history.  Then, when I got older, I got less upset and more annoyed, as it seemded to become just ridiculous.  Then I stopped caring, as I found better stories elsewhere.  I still feel some affection, but my tastes have expanded.

That's how this feels to me.  I stopped caring what they do to their game a while ago, I'm more interested in mine and other people (like from here) that I feel are my peers, not people trying to re-brand the goddamn wheel to make themselves feel important.

Personal Opinion.

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think some people are overreacting to these changes. The Forgotten Realms and Eberron already had their own distinct cosmologies that were different from the Great Wheel. And numerous other games have their own cosmologies, let alone real-world mythology!

Personally, I think the more detailed example cosmologies to work with, the better - this gives us inspiration to come up with our own cosmologies.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Hold on a minute... Um... Where's the Ethereal Plane now?

I think Shadowfell probably covers it, as the plane where ghosts go. But until they release more information on it, we won't know for sure. I actually think merging the shadow plane and ethereal could be an interesting choice.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

I actually think merging the shadow plane and ethereal could be an interesting choice.

Yes...  yes, I've always thought that would be an interesting choice as well.

...

[PlanetNiles]

These 'new' planes work for me.

Back when 3.0 came out, having run Die Vecna Die and had my players seriously mess things up in Sigil, resulting in the city's destruction, I came up with the Broken Wheel Cosmology which made some outer planes material planes, had all material planes coexisting in the same universe (but separated by time and space) and generally had the barriers between worlds breaking down as Primordial Penumbra, the darkness from beyond creation, wormed its way in.

So from my perspective things have just degenerated further; the elemental planes haves and broken down and homogenized while some of my "home grown" planes (the Wyld and the Shadow Marches) seem to have become had some official recognition (WotC must be reading my mind! ;))

The Wyld differs from this Feywild :huh: in that it's also nature untamed while things enter the Shadow Marches when they die &/ decay.  So the more ruined or decayed something is in the material world the more whole it is in the marches.

The Primordial Penumbra is the darkness that existed before there was a cosmology.  Its inhabitants are jealous and allergic to this newcomer Light and, according to my players have names like "Will Save", due to their Cthuluesque wrongness.

Oh first post here, BTW so hello.

[Numinous]

My opinion is that the addition of the Elemental Chaos, and the new cosmology as a whole, was a fumble.  However, I can understand why the redesign was implemented.  A pattern of genericism has become apparent in WotC's new material.  The "Points of Light" article, the (assumed) move away from Greyhawk as the Core world.  It appears to me that the intention of Wizards is to make rules that can be used and adapted easily, regardless of what world is used for your campaign.  I see this as a fine idea, and although I never intend to use the new cosmology, it looks like the rules for it will be easily adaptable to any homebrew world.  I will admit that Planescape was artistic, where the new design is the equivalent of finger-painting, but at least the new cosmology is borderuing on irrelevant, therefore granting us world-builders more freedom.

[note]I think it's interesting that we're seeing such a large division between members on this subject, especially as the opinions here are fairly homogenous.[/note]

[Bill Volk]

*a moment of silence in memory of the Unity of Rings*

[Bill Volk]

I just noticed something else. It appears that the Blood War is over!

 weaves garlands of hippie daisies and hands them out as he frolics and sings Good Morning Starshine

[Piphtrip]

Eef! I don't like this much. Too vague, too bland. Hope theyactually have more detailwhen the books come out.

At this point, my half completed cosmology seems more full than this. lets hope this is just a few of the planes, not the whole cosmology

[snakefing]

Ehh.

I was never too into the cosmology of D&D. It seemed a little too static to me. Although... Because I wasn't that interested in it, I never read any of the Planescape stuff, so I could have been missing something.

I'm guessing what they are trying to do is open it up a bit to creative re-interpretations. If they want to create a new setting with different deities, they can just go ahead and create new astral realms for them. Similarly they can create whole new races of elemental outsiders without having to fit them into the existing set of planes, demi-planes, quasi-planes, etc. Just create a new realm in the elemental chaos for them. And they can exist on an equal footing with established creatures.

I suspect that some of the vagueness and generality relates to this. They'll no doubt come out with one or more setting books that re-introduce some of the old concepts in new clothes. And probably some completely new things as well.

[limetom]

I really liked Planescape and the standard D&D cosmology, but it seems Wizards has been moving further and further away from the standard cosmology with every release after Manual of the Planes.  I'm not at all surprised that they would make this change, but I cannot say whether it will be for better or for worse until I see the finished product (as with all of 4E).

I was never too into the cosmology of D&D. It seemed a little too static to me. Although... Because I wasn't that interested in it, I never read any of the Planescape stuff, so I could have been missing something.

You've definitely been missing a lot, if you haven't even given Planescape a look; all of the detail for the cosmology, which made it much more interesting, was there.

[Epic Meepo]

If they want to create a new setting with different deities, they can just go ahead and create new astral realms for them. Similarly they can create whole new races of elemental outsiders without having to fit them into the existing set of planes, demi-planes, quasi-planes, etc. Just create a new realm in the elemental chaos for them. And they can exist on an equal footing with established creatures.

But you could do that anyway. Inner Planes are made of elements and energies, so if you need new elementals, create new Inner Planes. Outer Planes are for deities, so if you need new deities, add new Outer Planes. The whole Great Wheel concept merely reflected the fact that some places had more connections than others, and loses nothing if your new plane doesn't even fit on the Great Wheel.

If that's not vague enough for you, then all you have to do is fail to name the Inner Planes and the Outer Planes in the Core rules. Seriously, if the specific planes were causing problems, they could have just said there's Inner Planes past the Ethereal and there's Outer Planes past the Astral. That would be both vague and true to the original cosmology. Everyone who liked the original cosmology could say "well, it never changed" and everyone who hated could say "well, it's not mentioned anywhere in Fourth Edition."

[brainface]

The whole Great Wheel concept merely reflected the fact that some places had more connections than others, and loses nothing if your new plane doesn't even fit on the Great Wheel.

I doubt they were willing to introduce new planes in the Great Wheel though. I think the shadow plane is relatively new, but it wasn't a "belief" plane. I guess the quasielementals were introduced, but they were all at rigid locations in the defined order still. I'm not sure an additional outerplane that didn't "belong" somewhere would be well-recieved, either.

And yeah, they COULD make new layers or realms or whatever in existing planes, but i don't think that really works well. If the elemental plane of wood is a realm in the plane of earth, then it's less important than the plane of earth itself due to classification. (If that makes any sense?)

(Disclaimer: My knowledge of D&D before 2ed is lacking or nonexistant.)