| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| silverwizard |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 10:12:10
I'm curious as to which cosmology people use in their Realms campaigns. Do you use the Great Wheel cosmology (as in 2E) or the new cosmology found in FRCS?
I'll go with the old one.
[edit: spelling] |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Sanishiver |
Posted - 08 Apr 2006 : 21:04:59
quote:
Originally posted by silverwizard
[quote]I'd be interested to know the reasons why you think of the planes that way.
More than happy to answer, albeit in private. 
PM to follow.
J. Grenemyer |
| silverwizard |
Posted - 07 Apr 2006 : 12:34:58
quote:
Originally posted by Sanishiver
On the contrary I’m gratified from both an objective standpoint and a Realms Fan standpoint because one of the largest TSR-induced, cancerous-like lumps still infecting the Realms has been –if not entirely excised– re-grown into something much, much more Realms-like.
I'd be interested to know the reasons why you think of the planes that way. |
| Mr. Wilson |
Posted - 07 Apr 2006 : 08:42:06
Personally, I don't have much connection to either of the systems because my campaigns almost always are over by the time we hit 13th or 14th level. Planehopping isn't that important and I can honestly say I've only used two planes (other than the Material plane) at all IC in my life, either as a DM, or as a player, the 9 Hells (where the party died in combat) and the Ethereal plane, which was used to move from place to place quickly.
So, to me, it's all about the lore in this case. Which is why I'm open to either system. If I was more like Kuje where I had reams of material based off of the old system, I'd be a little ticked as well. |
| Sanishiver |
Posted - 07 Apr 2006 : 07:16:39
<steps very carefully into the thread….>
Like Faraer, I use both.
I find the Great Tree Structure better fits the Realms as I understand it; as well it provides a couple benefits:
1) It removes many of the preconceptions my veteran players (gamers that started in the late 80s/early 90s) have about the Planes. What once was old and ‘like everything else’ is new again (travel through the Planes, the presumed structure of them, their names and qualities, etc…).
2) Doesn’t compel or require me to retcon anything campaign specific, nor anything canon-specific but irrelevant to my campaign.
Despite being a veteran gamer and long time Realms fan, I don’t personally suffer any hang-ups about the Realms changing here or there that many other Realms enthusiasts do.
Thus I don’t feel insulted by the transition to the Great Tree model (That, and life is too short for such silliness, if you ask me).
On the contrary I’m gratified from both an objective standpoint and a Realms Fan standpoint because one of the largest TSR-induced, cancerous-like lumps still infecting the Realms has been –if not entirely excised– re-grown into something much, much more Realms-like.
FWIW my current (6 years running) Realms Campaign is mostly centered in Faerûn, and not in its attendant Planes. A DM running a Realms game with lots or mostly planar action might just have a very different perspective on things.
J. Grenemyer
<steps back out of thread, praying and hoping for the best…> |
| The Sage |
Posted - 07 Apr 2006 : 02:42:15
As I said... I don't mind it as an "option", but not as anything official.
The "no-explanation" bit I mentioned before relates to that as well... in that, it almost feels like a slap in the face to everything we've ever learned about the planes themselves.
If I had an decent explanation to work with (and by decent I mean an explanation which takes into account proper reasons for the cosmology change and 3e rules changes), and I've said this before many times, I'd incorporate the Great Tree "too an extent" in my FR campaigns. Not a permanent changeover mind you... but enough to utilise some of the newer planar material presented with 3e FR sourcebooks... that would, hopefully, build upon the reasons for the changes WotC provide for us.
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| Kuje |
Posted - 07 Apr 2006 : 02:16:27
Just so we are clear. :)
I don't mind the Tree, if it had some lore to explain how the retcon happened. That is, and has always, been my biggest problem with it. How did all of these planes just change? And no, I don't buy the "It's always been this way." I'm sorry, that's just insulting and it messes with to much established lore.
If I hated the tree, as much as people try to paint that I do, I wouldn't have wrote about it in one of the Compendium. :) |
| The Sage |
Posted - 07 Apr 2006 : 02:08:11
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
If I thought it made more sense, I wouldn't be complaining about it for the past four or five years. So no, I don't think it makes sense and besides, the Tree is just to Faerun human pantheon centric to me. I want planes that include the other pantheons and deities from ALL of D&D, not just FR, nor do I want the Faerun human pantheon to take centerstage. Then again, FR's afterlife is also Faerun human centric and people have seen my angry rants about that.
I don't have any problem with the Great Tree, so long as I continue to consider it as an "optional" planar cosmology for the Realms, and not its official one. I've had problems with the Great Tree since its introduction in the FRCS... upon my first reaction, I thought, "where are all my planes".
Of course, that was an initial reaction born of a knee-jerk reaction rather than from properly reading through the planar support material presented inside the FRCS. I was a little more content with the Great Tree itself after that point... but I still didn't feel like it was a Realms planar structure. I'd grown up with the 1e/2e models of the planes (outer, inner, transitive and the rest), and it was to these that I still felt the most drawn to.
quote:
Further more, no it doesn't make sense, to me, that all the deities are grouped by pantheon and contingent because not even our history shows that that is the case. Many of our tales show that deities have been kicked out of thier "pantheons" and planes and reside in other planes and realms.
The changes might not seem significant to you, but to some of us, they are.
Indeed, and agreed.
I prefer the pantheon models as they were in 2e. I would still like to see changes reflected pantheons through deities being "kicked out" or switching through pantheons and the like. It gives a more dynamic and conflicted view of the divine life of gods and their domains. Which can only serve as a greater basis for plots and background story elements in future Realms campaigns.
quote:
Even so, WOTC seems to have basically turned the Tree back into the Wheel/Ring with each new sourcebooks or novel that comes out. So basically, they have retconed back the retcon, which makes me grin and laugh.
Aye.
I get the feeling now that perhaps WotC are finally starting to realise that the "no-explanation" clause they've offered in the past for the changes made is starting to wear thin with a great many older fans of the Realms, not all of them mind you since I respect the fact that some older players find the Great Tree as intriguing as the Great Wheel.
quote:
For example, first they added back in Sigil, then they added in Limbo from the Wheel/Ring, now we see the Outlands being mentioned in Lisa's trilogy, and she also puts some deities in the Abyss like they were in 1e/2e, even though the sourcebook material for the Tree says that no deities reside in the Abyss, WOTC added back in some of the elemental planes, etc.
Even the Far Realm has popped its tentacled head back up in the 3e Realms material.
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| The Sage |
Posted - 07 Apr 2006 : 01:57:42
quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
I'm curious why more people here don't handle it as I do (which is similar to how I understand that Ed does).
Because PLANESCAPE influenced a great deal of my Realms campaigns during the peak production of that particular setting. I established a great deal between the two... relating over the connections of the outer planes between the Great Wheel and the Realms proper.
A lot of what I've written as background for MY Realms, NPCs, cities/towns/villages and nation states has in some way been influenced by planar events and locations as they are on the Great Wheel.
It would simply take too much time for me to go through all that historical detail to alter and change to the current planar structure of the Great Tree or try to incorporate both structures as a basis for what is occuring in my Realms.
As well,
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
But the cosmology is more then just the outer planes. It's the Prime, the 12+ elemental planes, since I used the old elemental planes, the outer planes, the transit planes, etc.
That's the same for me too... in addition to the hundreds of demiplanes I've designed for the Ethereal and other transitive planes.
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| Kuje |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 19:10:57
quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
Some mortals and beings see the wheel/ring as a tree while others would see it as the circle and others as a square, etc.
Exactly. Don't you think the reasoning behind the new structure makes sense? That the gods are better grouped by pantheon and contingent than sorted into the AD&D outer-plane grid, based on a Moorcockian cosmology the Realms doesn't really share, whose names and nature often have little to do with them? If you let go of literalness, you can have that, and continuity with pre-3E material, and as many world-connections as you like. As for the exact nature of the Inner Planes, the differences between the implementations don't seem significant to me.
If I thought it made more sense, I wouldn't be complaining about it for the past four or five years. So no, I don't think it makes sense and besides, the Tree is just to Faerun human pantheon centric to me. I want planes that include the other pantheons and deities from ALL of D&D, not just FR, nor do I want the Faerun human pantheon to take centerstage. Then again, FR's afterlife is also Faerun human centric and people have seen my angry rants about that.
Further more, no it doesn't make sense, to me, that all the deities are grouped by pantheon and contingent because not even our history shows that that is the case. Many of our tales show that deities have been kicked out of thier "pantheons" and planes and reside in other planes and realms.
The changes might not seem significant to you, but to some of us, they are.
So as I said, the cosmology is just more then outer planes, it includes all of the planes and the differences on the new retcon'd Prime, etc.
Even so, WOTC seems to have basically turned the Tree back into the Wheel/Ring with each new sourcebooks or novel that comes out. So basically, they have retconed back the retcon, which makes me grin and laugh. For example, first they added back in Sigil, then they added in Limbo from the Wheel/Ring, now we see the Outlands being mentioned in Lisa's trilogy, and she also puts some deities in the Abyss like they were in 1e/2e, even though the sourcebook material for the Tree says that no deities reside in the Abyss, WOTC added back in some of the elemental planes, etc. |
| Faraer |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 18:49:01
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
Some mortals and beings see the wheel/ring as a tree while others would see it as the circle and others as a square, etc.
Exactly. Don't you think the reasoning behind the new structure makes sense? That the gods are better grouped by pantheon and contingent than sorted into the AD&D outer-plane grid, based on a Moorcockian cosmology the Realms doesn't really share, whose names and nature often have little to do with them? If you let go of literalness, you can have that, and continuity with pre-3E material, and as many world-connections as you like. As for the exact nature of the Inner Planes, the differences between the implementations don't seem significant to me. |
| Kuje |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 18:20:41
quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
I'm curious why more people here don't handle it as I do (which is similar to how I understand that Ed does).
Why? Because the outer planes of the great wheel/ring does the same thing and so I don't need another canon cosmology to do that when 1e/2e's does that for me. Some mortals and beings see the wheel/ring as a tree while others would see it as the circle and others as a square, etc.
But the cosmology is more then just the outer planes. It's the Prime, the 12+ elemental planes, since I used the old elemental planes, the outer planes, the transit planes, etc.
Plus, as I said above, I have to much in game history to add new planes to my history or retcon deities and beings to other planes of existance that they never resided in or on, etc. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 18:08:14
quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
I'm curious why more people here don't handle it as I do (which is similar to how I understand that Ed does).
Well, I don't DM, but if I did, I'd use a system like yours. |
| Faraer |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 18:01:24
I'm curious why more people here don't handle it as I do (which is similar to how I understand that Ed does). |
| Mr. Wilson |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 10:23:35
I'd be more inclined to use the Wheel, but the Tree is valid as well (and had it originated first, I think would be the preference.) |
| scererar |
Posted - 06 Apr 2006 : 03:22:16
I'm stuck on 2E and trying to convert to 3E. I use the wheel |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 05 Apr 2006 : 16:12:25
quote:
Originally posted by silverwizard
To mods: As for my opening this thread, initiating a flame war was not my intention. As you said, I just want to know people's preferences.
'Tis understood. 
It's just that this is a topic that has lead to heated debates in the past, with the fans of each system arguing vehemently why it was inherently superior to the other. While a simple discussion of preferences is fine, we didn't want to see the debate get restarted again. So far, no worries. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 05 Apr 2006 : 15:20:13
quote:
Originally posted by silverwizard
The FR campaigns I've been in had a tendency to get transformed into Planescape campaigns at some point between levels 12-15. Not bad for me, because I like good old Planescape.
I had the same experiences many years ago when PS was still a published setting. My FR campaigns would regularly swing back and forth from Faerun to the Outlands and Beyond... to Sigil and then back to the Realms.
I think that is how my alternate timeline Blood War Realms campaign originaly came to be...
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| silverwizard |
Posted - 05 Apr 2006 : 14:00:17
The FR campaigns I've been in had a tendency to get transformed into Planescape campaigns at some point between levels 12-15. Not bad for me, because I like good old Planescape. So, our DM used the Great Wheel, even when 3E came along. I'd use the old one too if I ran the game, for the same reasons. That would be the "correct" planar structure, with variants depicting other cultures' conception of the multiverse.
To mods: As for my opening this thread, initiating a flame war was not my intention. As you said, I just want to know people's preferences. |
| Shadovar |
Posted - 05 Apr 2006 : 01:31:09
Most of the time I favored the D&D Great Wheel, for it offers the most appropriate picture of the Multiverse and generally easy to apply to any of the current D&D games available. I commonly employ the Great Wheel in my battles across the Multiverse, and of course, make it easier for my spelljammer pilots and navigators.
The FR cosmology is fine, more suited for the FR world and I do use it occasionally but not very often as my campaigns in FR are more centred on the material plane.
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| Kajehase |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 20:17:51
I've not got a game to run, but I've given the topic some though in case I ever will, and most likely I'll use a slightly tweaked version of the new one. (I don't feel they took Spelljammers or the non-Faerûnian pantheons into account properly with the Great Tree). |
| Gray Richardson |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 19:09:59
I prefer to stick to canon, so I use the Great Tree cosmology. All cosmologies are still connected by means of the Shadow Plane (and several other methods), so Greyhawk and the Great Wheel are still connected to the Great Tree in my campaign, although I haven't yet taken the players beyond the Tree. But the possibility exists. They did encounter some spelljamming hadozee pirates, once.
Some of my planar adventures have centered around the Fugue, the Barrens of Doom & Despair, the Elemental Planes, the Ethereal and recently Heliopolis (so far). Although mostly we adventure in Faerûn proper. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 18:17:16
Oh yeah... in-game PC history is an important element for this.
Internal changes made that need the old planar structure and/or histories that tie with established events that occured on the Great Wheel (but perhaps didn't on the Great Tree), for me, necesitate the need to keep the Great Wheel and Crystal Sphere intact.
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| Kuje |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 18:03:48
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
Having said that... I still use the 2e Great Wheel. Always have... always will.
Yeah, I favor the Wheel, too. I also favor crystal spheres.
Agrees with these two. :) I have to much in game PC history to just toss the old cosmology. |
| Faraer |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 17:36:08
I treat both versions as human, fallible interpretations of one infinite planar system humans can only partly understand (that is, as cosmologies rather than cosmoses). So the gods' realms are largely as described in the 'tree', but are also coexistent with/linked to the old Outer Planes. Both sets of connections exist. Your outlook and expectations also influence what you find there. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 17:12:20
quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
Both at once.
How do you make that work? Two linked but individual cosmologies, or by saying the Tree links to deific realms that lie on planes of the Wheel? |
| Faraer |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 16:36:44
Both at once. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 14:23:20
quote:
Originally posted by The Sage
Having said that... I still use the 2e Great Wheel. Always have... always will.
Yeah, I favor the Wheel, too. I also favor crystal spheres. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 13:10:41
Having said that... I still use the 2e Great Wheel. Always have... always will.
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| Jindael |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 13:10:25
I don’t use either of them.
I’ll start with this: Planewalking, for me, is for truly epic events. One does not simply walk into Mord, er, the Abyss. You don’t get to go see your dead friends happily living the afterlife, you cannot pay a visit to your deity directly, etc. Think more like the Greek legends.
Since that is what I use, I find it totally pointless to even try and codify the planes and where they are. It’s totally irrelevant; they are either divine realms or Pits of Despair or elemental planes. It’s the home of strange critters and solidified concepts and beings of pure whatever-it-is. I don’t need to know where the planes are in relation to each other, and what planes are transition planes and which aren’t. Plot dictates where and when a way to get from place is available.
I like my mysterious outerplanes to be mysterious.
EDIT: I'm totally open to people pointing out the flaws of this system; it's worked very well for me before, and I've never come into conflict with the game rules over anything, but I would like some advance warning if something will go horribly wrong. :p |
| The Sage |
Posted - 04 Apr 2006 : 13:07:21
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Okay, before it gets started... This is a simple question of preference. Let's not turn this into yet another Tree/Wheel debate. I don't want to have to lock this thread.
And I'm reinforcing this...
I don't want this scroll becoming another battleground for 2e vs 3e planar structures. Now, if you're looking for details regarding the actual planar changes themselves... see my planar write-up in the Candlekeep Code of Conduct linked in my sig.
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