Quote from: Spinachcat;1123073Why? What didn't work for you with the 4e cosmology?

The Astral Sea gave us Planar Sailing which was an interesting option versus the Planescape movement via doors. It brought a Spelljammer quality of sorts to planar exploration. The Feywild, Shadowfell and Elemental Chaos were interesting because you didn't have to use them as entirely different space, instead you could drop a small segment into various terrains in your setting.

I found 4e's cosmology among the best bits of 4e because you could easily integrate planar intrusions and adventures at low and mid levels, but maintain their exotic and dangerous nature. Yes, all this is high fantasy, but that was 4e's core focus.

But I recognize that radically changing the cosmology played havoc with FR canon. My appreciation for the cosmology was as a jumping off point for creating high fantasy homebrew settings.

I agree with all that.

I found a few things needed tweaking for me - eg IMC Hell stayed as a prison plane in the Elemental Chaos, rather than become an Astral Dominion where Asmodeus had killed God*. And the Astral Sea = the starry sky itself, with the astral dominions the stars, something obvious (clue's in the name!) that the 4e designers failed to embrace. I also disliked Torog and never used him, but I liked the idea that burrowing down far enough gets you to the Elemental Chaos and the building blocks of Creation.

Of course this only makes sense for mythic/high fantasy type settings like 4e's Nerath or Forgotten Realms, not for low fantasy inc most swords & sorcery. For my Wilderlands campaign the mythic and scientific realities need to co-exist alongside each other; the mythic being the creation of the Gaea crystalline entity/world-spirit and thus a superstructure upon the underlying pulp-scientific reality.

*Although I like the idea the Devils *think* they killed God & conquered Heaven and, separated from God, are thus in a Hell of their own creation, basically a straight inversion of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials where the deluded Christians are in Hell while the knowing atheists/Devils laugh at them.

I'm going to third the "World Axis" as by far the best cosmology D&D ever produced.

The primary reason I feel that way is that it was primarily built to be useful for DMs building adventures.

An infinite expanse of all consuming fire doesn't have any practical use. Likewise, the alignment wheel resulted in a lot of empty space (ex. the transitive planes are mostly just big expanses of nothing) and needless symmetry. The alignment wheel also lumped various deities of different pantheons together who had nothing in common but their alignments instead of being part of a shared culture. Finally, the Great Wheel was sorely lacking in the low-level planar weirdness of medieval fantasy (ex. the mortal stumbling into the realms of the Fae because they turned left instead of right at a certain crossroads at midnight).

The World Axis, by contrast, has both Fey and Shadow worlds that mortals can just stumble into when the conditions are right (or can be more deliberately accessed through magic) and, while dangerous, are not so dangerous that the clever or courageous could not survive long enough to escape back to the Mortal World via the same means they arrived (i.e. you don't need a plane-shifting wizard to create adventures involving the Fae or Shadow Worlds and a party with no magic at all could find themselves in those planes and return home on their own).

The Astral Sea isn't just a vast expanse of nothing used to hop between otherworlds; it's now a sea that can actually be sailed complete with pirates and castaways and the astral planes are islands in it where gods are located due to personal affiliations rather than alignment (i.e. Asgard can have the entire pantheon there in an entirely Norse-themed realm instead of Odin in the Seven Heavens, Thor in Yssgard and Loki in the Abyss because of their alignments).

And the Elemental Chaos is far better both in terms of players being able to adventure there, but also because it creates the more mythical conflict between primordial chaos and the forces of order with the world literally created from the Chaos by the Astral gods of Order (complete with a Titanomacy in the form of The Dawn War where the gods overcame and slew or imprisoned the chaotic forces to claim dominion over the world).

By going straight Cosmic Order vs. Cosmic Chaos (with the unaligned reflection vs. shadow on the other planar axis) and basically removing D&D alignment from the equation they make it far easier on DMs looking to use more traditional mythology into their settings (ex. Ra's solar barge crosses the Astral Sea by day and then through the terrible Chaos every night to be reborn; Olympus is in the Astral Sea, Hades rules the Shadowfell with the forces of primordial Chaos imprisoned in Tartarus below; Asgard is Above, the realms of the fire and frost giants are below and signs of the Dusk War that will end the World are everywhere).

It's just all around a better conceived cosmology/setting than the Great Wheel could ever be.

What they said. Especially about the Great Wheel having needless symmetry.  

The 4E cosmology is far from perfect.  Not least of its problems is that the 4E team's use of it was relatively barren.  What's the point of being able to go to Asgard so that you can have 3 or 4 set piece encounters?

But for home use, you could do a lot worse.  I haven't kept the whole thing, and I've tweaked what I have kept, but the alternate fey and shadow dimensions are one of the few things from 4E that have made it into my 5E setting.

I don't know anything about the 4e cosmology, but the Great Wheel and the inner planes had real problems. The forced symmetry compelled authors to try to fill in the gaps, which resulted in a lot of random and repetitive crap, and the weird juxtapositions made it very hard to rationalize a coherent belief system that wasn't highly meta and ironic.

I always treated the elemental planes as contiguous to the Prime, so you can walk to the plane of fire. There's a natural transition, you just have to know where they connect, say in the heart of a desert or a volcano, and the connections may be enduring, ephemeral, or cyclical. The elemental planes, while not part of the Prime, are an extension slash reflection of it, just more focused on one specific aspect, so skills transfer. That gets rid of the zero G and distance problems, and also the dependence on magic-users to get anywhere or survive, making it usable at lower levels. At the same time, there's no limit on really crazy stuff, when deep in the plane. That means I can do a "here lie dragons" on a map, except write down the City of Brass. I also break the forced symmetry of the elements, making it extensible to other concepts, so planes of shadow and forest are also fine. Sounds like the Shadowfell and Feywild would fit in.

For the outer planes of the gods, I broken apart the wheel and reassembled them based on the underlying mythology, each becoming own realm in the Astral. Gladshiem is linked to Hel, as well as the other 7 worlds. Olympus connects to Hades and Tarterus, and so on. The Nine Hells are connected to the Seven Heavens, because of dualistic monotheism. No Loki with a bolthole in Pandemonium, or Sumerian and Chinese gods on adjacent gears in Nirvana. Instead, the titans are in Tarterus, Loki may be in Gladsheim or Jotunheim, and so on. The Astral was sea-ish because I used the void skimmers from the "Fedifensor" adventure in Dragon #67, but otherwise is mostly the same.

The parts of the outer planes that don't correspond to mythologies were reimaginged. Demons are typically monstrous combinations of things humans fear, so the Abyss became the realm of divinities created by human fear. Mechanus became the great machine running creation, borrowing from fiction like Shadowjack, while Limbo became the chaos from which everything emerged, borrowing from even more sources, like Amber or Brust's To Reign in Hell. Others were ditched, or more precisely put aside for the moment until I can think of a good use. Since there's no overall pattern, I can just choose which pieces I want to use, ignore the rest, and add new ideas at any time.

Not sure what I'd do with the Realms. They don't really have a coherent mythology, just lots of little gods that are everywhere, and form loose alliances. Maybe the Weave and Ao would be a good place to start.

I always found the Great Wheel to be forgettable (at best; when I remembered it, I hated it) and I even prefer Eberron's planar cosmology to it.

I would have to agree that the 4e Cosmology was probably some of the worst that I have ever seen, and Fantasy has some pretty bat shit crazy Cosmologies so it takes some real creativity to be among the worst.

Its almost as if someone finally had the chance to cram through their own home brew system.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123073Why? What didn't work for you with the 4e cosmology?

It seemed basic and random.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1123091What they said. Especially about the Great Wheel having needless symmetry.  

Except that almost all mythical cosmologies had symmetry. That's a feature of cosmology.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1123169Except that almost all mythical cosmologies had symmetry. That's a feature of cosmology.

But it's mostly abstract or symbolic, while the Great Wheel makes the symmetry literal and manifest. You don't just have 4 ineffable elemental planes, you have 2 energies, 4 para-elements, 8 quasi-elements, and then you have to populate them all with alien ecologies based on subjective free fall and all distances being the same. You don't have Nine Worlds, you have 17 planes arranged based on their precise alignment along two moral and ethical axes, existing cosmologies are sliced and dice to fit in them, and then you have to fill all the corners in as well. Rather than descriptive and inspirational, it's proscriptive and constraining.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1123169Except that almost all mythical cosmologies had symmetry. That's a feature of cosmology.

Yes.  There is needed symmetry, and then there is the other kind.  Probably some in the middle, too (not needed, but not really hurting anything, either).  But my criticism on those lines may only partially overlap with what others are saying here.  Specifically, I object to the "needless symmetry" of the Great Wheel on the grounds that it:

- Includes decisions that aesthetically numbing and even discordant--a subjective argument that it leads to bad game feel.
- Makes too many decisions that should be left to the GM.

The illogical characteristics don't bother me all that much.  All cosmologies are somewhat illogical when removed from the constraints of a specific setting.  

It is also highly ironic that if one accept the criticism of 4E that it was too pat, the Great Wheel would have been the most 4E thing in the older material that they could have kept.  Yet more one data point that the characteristic problem with all WotC versions of D&D is that they have a difficult time deciding what the hell game they are trying to make, to the point that the competing "visions" bleed through in their finished products.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1123073The Astral Sea gave us Planar Sailing which was an interesting option versus the Planescape movement via doors. It brought a Spelljammer quality of sorts to planar exploration. The Feywild, Shadowfell and Elemental Chaos were interesting because you didn't have to use them as entirely different space, instead you could drop a small segment into various terrains in your setting.

Good stuff. It wasn't perfect, but it was closer to my ideal 5-plane cosmology:

• Fae
• Demons
• Elementals
• Ghosts
• Angels

With some sort of connector plane (ethereal, astral, whatever.)  
Possibly one plane for each of the four elements instead of just one.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1123169Except that almost all mythical cosmologies had symmetry. That's a feature of cosmology.

Except they really don't. Cosmology is just how the supernatural world fits together. Very few fit together with the symmetry the Great Wheel employs, particularly with its completely post-modern focus on balance of all things.

Rather, most mythologies are radically skewed towards Order over Chaos (virtually every creation myth involves one or more of the gods defeating the forces of chaos) and of extolling the virtues that culture considers good.

Zeus has no equal and opposite counterpart; he forever overcame both the Titans (imprisoning or slaying them all) and the Chaos-monster Typhon to prove his supremacy over Creation. Olympus sits on high with no rival realms, Tartarus is not an equal and opposite realm, but a prison used by the Olympians to punish the most wicked).

Similarly, in Christian cosmology there is no symmetry. God is the supreme creator, all good, all knowing and all powerful. Satan is just a fallen angel, a creation of God, who has already lost and now seeks merely to drag Men into sin and Hell out of nothing more than spite. There is no scenario where Satan overcomes or even gives challenge to God. Traditionally, it's not even an even split among the angels either... Satan only convinced a third of them to rebel meaning there are twice as many angels loyal to God as chose Satan.

Likewise, Marduk overcomes Tiamat (Chaos) and uses her corpse to build the world and seizes the Tablets of Destiny to secure the rule of Order.

Set and Apophis aren't the equals and opposites of Ra and Horus/Osiris; they're just adversaries they overcome in a cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Also, most people's understanding of Egyptian mythology involves cramming together several different civilizations spread across three millennia simply because they happen to have all been in the same place geographically... roughly akin to mashing the Etruscan, Roman and Christian religions together and calling them "The Italian mythology."

I similarly don't recall a Native American cosmology where good, evil, order and chaos must also be kept in balance. Rather their mythologies tend to focus (like most do really) on the natural cycles of the world.

Even science argues against cosmological symmetry; the entire reason we have a material universe was an imbalance in the amount of matter vs. antimatter created in the Big Bang. Further, the universe does exist in a balanced state, but is expanding/cooling and the big question is whether it keeps expanding/cooling forever (heat death) or stalls out and collapses (Big Crunch, possibly followed by another Big Bang).

Even locally our solar system lacks symmetry. 99% of the mass is in the Sun, virtually all the rest is in Jupiter and none of the bodies in system has a mirror orbiting in the same path just on the opposite side of the Sun.

The Great Wheel is an awful cosmology that has almost no relation to genuine mythology and feels entirely artificial (in large part because it is; Gygax just plopped every cosmology he could find into a big rectangle with labels with much more obvious names including Olympus, Nirvana and the Happy Hunting Grounds so you could visit any particular cosmology you wanted). It's whole point is to define and categorize everything into preset boxes so everything is in place... it's like some Autist's dream of the afterlife.

The World Axis is a lot closer to real mythologies with a strong Order/Chaos divide where Order overcame Chaos in a great war at the dawn of history (with Chaos imprisoned or killed), a distinct Realm of the Dead separate from the Realm of the Gods and Realm of Chaos (until Christianity only great culture heroes typically got to reside with the gods and only culture  and an otherworldly reflection from which weird folktale magic derives (because every real mythology has weird edge cases that don't quite fit but are maintained from older sources out of tradition... see Saint Christopher or the legend of Saint George and the Dragon for Christian examples of the phenomenon).

The World Axis has a Chaoskampf creation myth, a Titanomacy (Dawn War) that established the present order and even its own eschatology (the Dusk War) and several of the fluff-text sidebars cover various culture heroes (not least of which are the gods themselves... their struggle against the Primordials was a cosmic version of the Adventuring Party (teams of gods with different strengths needed to team up to overcome the extremely powerful but solitary primordials... thus PC parties are literally acting in alignment with the gods on a smaller scale as they battle the forces seeking to tear down civilization).

While 4E gets a lot of flak, the World Axis cosmology is one of the areas generally seen as a positive (to the point that 5e just swapped out the Astral Sea part of it for the Great Wheel, but otherwise left it mostly intact).

FOR ME, the Great Wheel didn't do much for me in any TSR setting (or homebrew) until Planescape, but for Planescape it really rocked over the multiple year campaigns I ran, especially because of the planar borders and Sigil that setting added which made the Great Wheel more "gameable" than previously.

In fact, Planescape even played with the symmetry issues of the Great Wheel. The "balance" of the planes was all important to the setting, thus rumblings in one plane would be felt in its counterpart, alerting PCs (and NPCs) to potential adventures. Also, all the odd locations, like para-elemental planes, added to variety in the setting.

I'm surprised Planescape wasn't fully resurrected for 5e. It's kitchen sink with in-setting reasons for PC parties to be groupings of bizarre weirdos.

Quote from: S'mon;1123079And the Astral Sea = the starry sky itself, with the astral dominions the stars, something obvious (clue's in the name!) that the 4e designers failed to embrace.

In my games, the sky reflected the sea. The "stars" were the reflections of the domains and you could learn to study the "stars" above to sea to identify the dominions and use "astrology" to determine actions and events that may be happening via the Astral Sea. It allowed me to get my Flat Earther on!

Quote from: S'mon;1123079Of course this only makes sense for mythic/high fantasy type settings like 4e's Nerath or Forgotten Realms, not for low fantasy inc most swords & sorcery.

Abso-freaking-lutely! But via RAW, 4e was all high fantasy, and mythic at 11th level and beyond. I made 4e work for sword & sorcery (and it was awesome), but I took Kull's axe to most of the book for it to work.

Quote from: Pat;1123179But it's mostly abstract or symbolic, while the Great Wheel makes the symmetry literal and manifest. You don't just have 4 ineffable elemental planes, you have 2 energies, 4 para-elements, 8 quasi-elements, and then you have to populate them all with alien ecologies based on subjective free fall and all distances being the same. You don't have Nine Worlds, you have 17 planes arranged based on their precise alignment along two moral and ethical axes, existing cosmologies are sliced and dice to fit in them, and then you have to fill all the corners in as well. Rather than descriptive and inspirational, it's proscriptive and constraining.

If everything is symmetrical then how come we have 9 alignments and 17 aligned Planes?  How come Hell has 9 levels and the Abyss has infinite levels?  How do you fit 17 infinite Planes into a Wheel?

How come we have places that can not access the Planes and places that access all the Planes?

Yeah, not so constraining or prescriptive unless it is by a Doctor who is in a real hurry.

Quote from: Pat;1123179But it's mostly abstract or symbolic, while the Great Wheel makes the symmetry literal and manifest. You don't just have 4 ineffable elemental planes, you have 2 energies, 4 para-elements, 8 quasi-elements, and then you have to populate them all with alien ecologies based on subjective free fall and all distances being the same. You don't have Nine Worlds, you have 17 planes arranged based on their precise alignment along two moral and ethical axes, existing cosmologies are sliced and dice to fit in them, and then you have to fill all the corners in as well. Rather than descriptive and inspirational, it's proscriptive and constraining.

Yes, it can be, which is why I don't love it. It's not really classical, it's more modernist. But I like it better than some post-modern melange of gibberish.