[D&D] Editions, Metacosmology and Setting
Ron Edwards:
Hey guys,
This thread needs to include accounts of actual play in order to continue.
Also, people might be interested in my article "A hard look at Dungeons & Dragons" which you can find via the link at the top right of the webpage.
Best, Ron
Grimcleaver:
Step 2: Third Edition (s)
So to try and stay as loyal as possible to third edition's goal of having each setting have its own entirely separate cosmology I've tried to take all the settings I've given to third edition and break them as far away from each other as possible. Spelljammer got written up nicely by the crew at Polyhedron magazine as a mini-setting with its own worlds and gods and I really like to hold to that version of the game as a template for all the 3e games I'm restructuring. Planescape, for example, I have always felt was more harmed than helped by being attached to different game settings. Being attached to every setting left you having to shoehorn gods into one of the prefab planes whether or not they really felt like they belonged there, including a lot of gods from real world mythologies which always seemed a bit weird to me. Where do you put mythical egypt? Shouldn't its cosmology be its own thing (if it even belongs in D&D in the first place--which is a contentious affair anyway)? Third edition made things weirder--because the Prime of Planescape became Greyhawk and now suddenly there weren't nearly enough gods to flesh out their varied and interesting planes--like Mechanus, there just are no Greyhawk gods who fit in Mechanus at all. What I've tried to do is make Planescape it's own setting. What Primes are there? Well like everything in Planescape you know there are infinite primes but that they probably adhere to the cardinal rules of Planescape cosmography--there's always three of everything (and a hidden fourth) etc.
Likewise Forgotten Realms has always felt distinctly third edition to me. So I've taken the setting advances of 4e and kept those, 100 years in the future, vast cataclysms, magic turned on its head, new draconic and elemental races. Rather than just having all these interesting evolutions to the setting all dump into Faerun turning into the 4e core cosmology, I've instead dipped into many of the lost books of 3e lore that never got used. Races of the Dragon for the immigrant Abeiran races, Incarnum and Tome of Magic for the changed nature of magic. In utilizing some of this rules material which never seemed to see much use before 4e, Faerun in its modern form feels much more rich and interesting and loyal to its world shaking events.
3e has also become the home to games like Ghostwalk that got created as little side projects and never really got the love they deserved. Likewise throughout a lot of the sourcebooks there's all these little mini-settings they kept coming up with and then never mentioning again (like the Winding Road Cosmology from the Manual of the Planes--just cool and totally abandoned). All of these cool and conceptually independant worlds have become the basis for my various 3e games.
Grimcleaver:
[Really? Wow. I'm two for two. I seriously thought Actual Play was for your experiences with games and the theory you've developed from them. Is it really just logs of games you've run? That just seems way less interesting. Anyway I submit to the forum admin...that's it for this thread too.] *End of Line*
Ron Edwards:
Please consider that:
1. I did not close the thread.
2. No one said a thread topic had to be confined to play logs, nor that discussing play needed to be a "log." Just include some examples from genuine experience to illustrate your points, here and there.
I would like to see this thread continue, which is why I moderated it rather than shutting it down. The Forge isn't like other places. Being moderated is not a social signal to shut up.
Best, Ron
Natespank:
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My hope is to have 2nd edition be the home for the original Gygaxian cosmology.
Gygax wasn't actually involved in 2nd Ed, was he? I think the last edition he participated in was advanced 1e. I'm nitpicking though- I don't actually object.
Where's your source material for this idea of Gygax's? I wouldn't mind reading it :D
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"A hard look at Dungeons & Dragons"
Will do, thanks. The history of RPGs always intrigues me!
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