Constructing D&D's Default World

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 9:43 pm

Teleport, Greater
Conjuration (Teleportation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 7, Travel 7

This spell functions like teleport, except that there is no range limit and there is no chance you arrive off target. In addition, you need not have seen the destination, but in that case you must have at least a reliable description of the place to which you are teleporting. If you attempt to teleport with insufficient information (or with misleading information), you disappear and simply reappear in your original location. Interplanar travel is not possible.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 9:52 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:you do need to have evil worlds that have evil kings. And I made that plural for a reason. Having Baator and the Abyss as separate worlds that have separate dark lords (Asmodeus and Demogorgon respectively) is pretty much a must. Having evil worlds that don't have world-kings is also a must.

I genuinely don't think it's important that Asmodeus rule a world, meaning an entire literal planet. I get that it's a trope in things like Dragonball or comic books to have new badasses show up who are the rulers of planets but that's because those are written for children. If Asmodeus ruled a continent that would be insane, he would have unimaginable power and I find it perfectly reasonable to translate "Ruler of _____" in a childrens show to mean "Rules an enormous amount of territory and is the top dog on that planet but there are technically areas that other people lay claim to" in fiction for adults. It's like how they say the newest baddie is "unstoppable" all the time or has never been defeated. It's untrue lazy storytelling being used to get across an impression as swiftly as possible for a minimal amount of work. I'm ok with that but I don't feel a need to replicate it.

I've tested out this cosmology in a campaign made largely to do that and having Asmodeus and Demogorgon on the same plane of existence didn't alter the perceptions of either of their characters. Asmodeus is still a top dog who concerns himself with looking out for would-be challengers and quashing them and Demogorgon was still a jealous bitter powerhouse who wants to rule all.

I have no qualms with a lack of world rulers at all. What I do recognize is that an active angel-demon warfare location isn't supported and that's a bit sad. Obviously one could be written up but my goal here wasn't to write a specific campaign world telling you that the Hellmouth is south of the Gunterlands. If you want a location where you ally with angelic forces to fight demons it's perfectly reasonable to have an embattled Angelic fortress in hell, or a Gate effect that Mephistopholes opened into Celestia which has become the staging ground for direct assault onto the heavens. Whatever. I consider all of those things something that a given DM gets to choose whether he wants in his home campaign and not part of my mission statement to make a more versimilitudinous set of assumptions about the storyworld.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:04 pm

Eh. Just because you lay claim to X territory doesn't mean you're automatically all-powerful. The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire wasn't all-powerful, neither was the King-Emperor of Austria-Hungary. Fucking Australia is technically an entire continent, but their GNP is less than the GDP of California. Asmodeus could be ruler of his own planet and somebody else will go "That's nice, now fuck off, we're talking about Arrakis, not Giedi Prime."

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:09 pm

Ancient History wrote:
Teleport, Greater
Conjuration (Teleportation)
Level: Sor/Wiz 7, Travel 7

This spell functions like teleport, except that there is no range limit and there is no chance you arrive off target. In addition, you need not have seen the destination, but in that case you must have at least a reliable description of the place to which you are teleporting. If you attempt to teleport with insufficient information (or with misleading information), you disappear and simply reappear in your original location. Interplanar travel is not possible.

We all know the wording of greater teleport or how to find it. I even directly quoted the relevant part, if you have a point to make, you are failing. If you intend to be helpful, you are not.

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:13 pm

Ancient History wrote:Eh. Just because you lay claim to X territory doesn't mean you're automatically all-powerful.

I agree? No one's saying that. In the specific case I was referencing of Asmodeus I think it'd be fair to say that being boss hog of hell probably means you have incredible weight to throw around but the gap between lots of power and all the power is considerable.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:15 pm

Well then you are completely full of shit because the entire point of the post I quoted was you talking about how our universe has multiple planets on the same plane so the fucking D&D one could have all the planes be planets on the same plane. You specifically talked about having ice planets, fire planets, and hell planets and material planet and not fucking planes.

Go back and read the fucking discussion if you are going to insist on doing this, so you can at least stop yourself from looking like an illiterate retard.

First, hell planet is something that has been brought up exactly once in this thread. In the post I just quoted made by you.

Second, when I spoke about making ice planets and fire planets and what not, that was in the same context as the earlier discussion where all elemental planes are not in fact separate planes, but a subsection of hell.

At no point did I ever say that the Material plane is just one planet among many, or that all of the planes are actually planets. In fact in the first post involving multiple planets, I went out of my way specifically saying to throw the concept of multiple planets out for the prime material plane, and have a couple dozen planets making up Hell as we know it.

Anyway are you done pretending to be an illiterate asshole to have an excuse to rage, or am I putting you on ignore?

No it fucking doesn't say that. At all. Even a little bit. You fucking idiot.

In addition, you need not have seen the destination, but in that case you must have at least a reliable description of the place to which you are teleporting.

Quoting the exact same bit you did. It says you do not need to have seen the place, but if you have not you need a description. That means if you have seen it, then nothing else is needed, you just fucking teleport there. This is really fucking basic shit.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:28 pm

Kaelik, you quoted the wrong part of Greater Teleport. Your quote actually means if a demon had heard of Venus or Mars (and was given good info), they could look to the night sky and teleport there. They wouldn't even have to look. What's in AH's full quote which is relevant to the argument is the misleading or no information bit. If said demon didn't know shit about Venus or Mars and looked to the sky, the teleport would fail.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:41 pm

Dean wrote:I genuinely don't think it's important that Asmodeus rule a world, meaning an entire literal planet. I get that it's a trope in things like Dragonball or comic books to have new badasses show up who are the rulers of planets but that's because those are written for children.

And your game is a mature intellectual exercise for mature men like yourself?

Well, while this thread is not going to produce a DnD setting that is default for more than a dozen of people who share your views, it certainly is producing some laughs.
[/i]

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:49 pm

Grek wrote:I get that. What I don't get is why we want Asmodeus to be a planetary ruler. Why do we want Baator to be the one you reach by space ship? Why do we want devils to come through using stargates? Surely, that should be the role of the Ithillids and the Xill?

It's a leveled game. There are evil counts, evil kings, evil emperors, and evil gods. And you're supposed to be able to fight them in that order. I take it as given that the evil god-emperor of an evil planet is better final boss material than the evil emperor of an evil continent spanning empire, just as the hypothetical evil emperor would be a better final boss than the evil king of an evil kingdom or the evil count of an evil county. And if D&D is to have a final boss, it's going to be Demogorgon or Asmodeus (or both).

The Ilithid are a perfectly fine group of villains. But for all their gravitas as villains, I can't really name any "top Ilithid" worthy of being the final boss of the whole game. There's definitely some satisfaction to be had in fighting your way to the Supreme Intelligence Elder Brain and killing it - but that asshole is like an evil Doge. It runs a city. A powerful and evil city to be sure, but you're never going to put that as the overall cap for how high the game could possibly go. It fits in a single overland hex for fuck's sake!

Dean wrote:I've tested out this cosmology in a campaign made largely to do that and having Asmodeus and Demogorgon on the same plane of existence didn't alter the perceptions of either of their characters. Asmodeus is still a top dog who concerns himself with looking out for would-be challengers and quashing them and Demogorgon was still a jealous bitter powerhouse who wants to rule all.

You can declare that the game only goes up to 10, hell you can declare that it only goes up to six. For any specific campaign that only goes that high, I'm sure that's fine. But it's a leveled game. There are supposed to be higher levels than that. After you beat up the Demon Doge with his Demon City, you're supposed to be able to kick it up a notch and fight the Demon King with his Demon Kingdom. And then you're supposed to be able to kick it up a notch and fight the Demon Emperor. And finally, you're supposed to be able to fight the Demon Planetary Ruler. These are distinct steps, and they have clear ramifications.

Now you might ask, if we're going up to Evil Planetary Godkings, why aren't we allowing things to go up one more notch to Evil Space Popes, rulers of multi-planet masses of evil? And the truth is, we actually probably should do that. The final boss of the game is merely the highest tier you intend to write on the grounds that you don't think that enough people will care about a new vista to make it worth the page and conceptual space. Not because there literally are not and cannot be new obstacles to overcome. It's D&D, you should never weep because there are no more lands to conquer. Never.

So you ran a game that was E10 and people thought that was OK. Good for you. But other D&D players still find purpose in going to 11. And if that bothers you, you are in the wrong game.

-Username17

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:56 pm

Seerow wrote:First, hell planet is something that has been brought up exactly once in this thread. In the post I just quoted made by you.

You realize that is is literally one letter off of the thing you did bring up right?

Seerow wrote:Second, when I spoke about making ice planets and fire planets and what not, that was in the same context as the earlier discussion where all elemental planes are not in fact separate planes, but a subsection of hell.

That is not even remotely clear from what you said, and also a stupid idea.

Seerow wrote:At no point did I ever say that the Material plane is just one planet among many, or that all of the planes are actually planets. In fact in the first post involving multiple planets, I went out of my way specifically saying to throw the concept of multiple planets out for the prime material plane, and have a couple dozen planets making up Hell as we know it.

Yeah that thing you said, it could mean that, but that definitely isn't the only or even most likely meaning of what you said.

Seerow wrote:
In addition, you need not have seen the destination, but in that case you must have at least a reliable description of the place to which you are teleporting.
Quoting the exact same bit you did. It says you do not need to have seen the place, but if you have not you need a description. That means if you have seen it, then nothing else is needed, you just fucking teleport there. This is really fucking basic shit.

Uh... No. Not even a little tiny bit. It says it is as teleport, but you don't need to see the place, you can do it with a description. That is why I quoted Teleport, because if you have seen the location, it defaults to teleport rules. Notice that the teleport rules do not say "if you've seen it, you can go there" because you can't.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 10:58 pm

So refusing to admit you're wrong, as expected.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 11:00 pm

Seerow wrote:So refusing to admit you're wrong, as expected.

I often refuse to admit I am wrong when I am right. I mean I did admit that you were super fucking unclear and your point was opaque, but your point is also still wrong, because you can't fucking teleport to a planet in the sky unless you have been somewhere on it or you have been given a detailed explanation.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 11:23 pm

Teleport wrote: You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works. Areas of strong physical or magical energy may make teleportation more hazardous or even impossible.

To see how well the teleportation works, roll d% and consult the Teleport table. Refer to the following information for definitions of the terms on the table.
Familiarity

“Very familiar” is a place where you have been very often and where you feel at home. “Studied carefully” is a place you know well, either because you can currently see it, you’ve been there often, or you have used other means (such as scrying) to study the place for at least one hour. “Seen casually” is a place that you have seen more than once but with which you are not very familiar. “Viewed once” is a place that you have seen once, possibly using magic.

Thus you can Teleport or Greater Teleport somewhere if you have seen it "once ever".

Teleport wrote: “False destination” is a place that does not truly exist or if you are teleporting to an otherwise familiar location that no longer exists as such or has been so completely altered as to no longer be familiar to you. When traveling to a false destination, roll 1d20+80 to obtain results on the table, rather than rolling d%, since there is no real destination for you to hope to arrive at or even be off target from.
On Target

You appear where you want to be.
Off Target

You appear safely a random distance away from the destination in a random direction. Distance off target is 1d10×1d10% of the distance that was to be traveled. The direction off target is determined randomly
Similar Area

You wind up in an area that’s visually or thematically similar to the target area.
Code: Select all
Familiarity                     On Target       Off Target      Similar Area    Mishap
Very familiar                   01-97           98-99           100             —
Studied carefully               01-94           95-97           98-99           100
Seen casually                   01-88           89-94           95-98           99-100
Viewed once                     01-76           77-88           89-96           97-100
False destination &#40;1d20+80&#41;                                     81-92           93-100

So, if you have viewed the area "Jupiter" once ever, and you are within 100 miles of the area "Jupiter", then using Teleport, you have a 76% chance of successfully teleporting to the area "Jupiter". If you try to teleport to Hoth, you will probably eventually end up on Titan as a "similar area" since they're both icy celestial bodies, but Titan differs in that it exists.

Greater Teleport wrote:This spell functions like teleport, except that there is no range limit and there is no chance you arrive off target.

So, if you have viewed the area "Jupiter" once ever, then you can use Greater Teleport to travel there from the Andromeda galaxy with a 0% chance of landing anywhere that isn't Jupiter.

Unless you want to quibble the definition of "area" I honestly can't see how you're claiming to dispute the idea of using Greater Teleport to planet hop.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:03 am

Omegonthesane wrote:So, if you have viewed the area "Jupiter" once ever, and you are within 100 miles of the area "Jupiter", then using Teleport, you have a 76% chance of successfully teleporting to the area "Jupiter"..

You have not viewed any location jupiter, because you can't see a goddam thing when all you see is a point of light.

To quote the spell "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination."

Viewed once is viewing a location such that you have some clear idea of the layout and destination. By seeing a tiny point of light in the sky, you do not have a clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. So you have not viewed once the location you would teleport to.

I mean for fucks sake, by your logic I have viewed once "the universe" so I can according to you teleport to any location in the universe.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:24 am

FrankTrollman wrote: There's definitely some satisfaction to be had in fighting your way to the Supreme Intelligence Elder Brain and killing it - but that asshole is like an evil Doge.

I'm not sorry

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 12:33 am

A progressive escalation of temporal rulers is hardly satisfying. At some point, territory stops being a meaningful resource well short of infinite space. A planetary ruler isn't particularly vital to a KSF. Enemies with meaningful agendas can drive a campaign without a meaningless cycle of increasing powerful villain of the weeks.

By way of analogy, Lex Luther can be an interesting opponent for Superman - more so, often, then General Zod.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 2:25 am

schpeelah wrote:The size of observable universe is determined by the distance where the expansion of the universe moves things away from you at the speed of light. Its size is constant for any given speed of expansion, and the accelerating expansion makes the observable universe shrink.

Sort of.

Right now, the bounds of the observable universe is the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. It was emitted when it was about 42 million light years distant from our current position and the radiation took 13.9 billion years to reach us here because of the expansion of space along the way.

It is absolutely expanding. We see a little further every single day. Currently we are seeing things which were co-moving 42 million light years distant at recombination, and in the distant future light will reach here from things which are presently co-moving at 16 billion light years distant.

Now, there's much less matter in the current 16 billion LY sphere than there was in the presently visible 42 million LY sphere (which is now 46 billion years distant). So the observable universe gets another 380 times larger in scale terms in the future, but has only a tiny fraction as much matter and energy in it that we can see now, because the amount of stuff in the universe we can observe is getting smaller. Eventually only the collapse of the local supercluster will be observable, even though the observable distance will continue to grow without limit (well, not completely, because at very low energies other things would get in the way, but only long after all the stars have died out).

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 3:06 am

schpeelah wrote:
DSMatticus wrote: The observable universe is finite. It will always be finite. There is no time t among the real numbers at which the size of the observable universe will be infinite. But the observable universe is expanding, and not only that the expansion is accelerating.
That is not how the observable universe works. The size of observable universe is determined by the distance where the expansion of the universe moves things away from you at the speed of light. Its size is constant for any given speed of expansion, and the accelerating expansion makes the observable universe shrink.

You are confusing proper distances and comoving distances. The proper distance between two objects is, at any given time t, the amount of actual physical space between two objects. The comoving distance between two objects is an arbitrary number you get when you factor out the expansion of the universe and write "not to scale" in the corner. It's the relative measure of distance. It's a useful tool, but it doesn't describe the universe as it actually exists. It's a simplification, an abstraction, whatever. Talking about the size of the universe in comoving distances is a lot like claiming you don't need to lose weight because once you factor out all the weight you've gained you're the same size you've always been.

In proper distances, the observable universe is expanding, and that expansion is accelerating. It is expanding both because each year is another year light has to travel and because each year the origin event of that light has been expanded further away from both the light itself and the destination. That expansion is accelerating because... well... it is. As the expansion of the universe accelerates, there will come a time when objects on the edge of the observable universe are being expanded away faster than the light from those objects can reach us, and they will redshift into invisiblity. Eventually, this will happen to all objects in the universe, and it will be impossible for the light from any object to reach any other object. This process has already started, and there are things objects escaping the observable universe right now. But the observable universe is a volume, and just because you remove things from a box the box does not get smaller; the observable universe is still getting larger (and getting larger faster) even as things leave it.

In comoving distances, you're explicitly factoring out one of the determinants of the size of the observable universe so who cares? It's not the tool you use to answer this question.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:09 am

Kaelik wrote:
Omegonthesane wrote:So, if you have viewed the area "Jupiter" once ever, and you are within 100 miles of the area "Jupiter", then using Teleport, you have a 76% chance of successfully teleporting to the area "Jupiter"..
You have not viewed any location jupiter, because you can't see a goddam thing when all you see is a point of light.

To quote the spell "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination."

Viewed once is viewing a location such that you have some clear idea of the layout and destination. By seeing a tiny point of light in the sky, you do not have a clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. So you have not viewed once the location you would teleport to.

I mean for fucks sake, by your logic I have viewed once "the universe" so I can according to you teleport to any location in the universe.

If you Greater Teleport to "Severomorsk", which part of Severomorsk do you land in?

How about if you Greater Teleport to "Moscow"? Or are you saying you need a destination as precise as "Red Square, Moscow"?

I would have assumed some level of imprecision if you didn't think to specifically teleport to "that specific patch of tarmac, Red Square, Moscow". Under my stated logic, it would be reasonable to extrapolate that attempts to teleport to "the former USSR" could get you to any randomly determined place that is in that area.

So, according to my earlier logic, you have viewed once "the universe" and can Greater Teleport to "the universe", which would be a terrible idea because most of the areas that are "the universe" that you could end up in are vacuum and your target precision was "the universe" rather than "Red Square, Moscow, Terra, Sol system, the universe".

You can definitely Greater Teleport to any part of the vacuum of space, regardless of arguments about how clearly you've seen it, because you have a "reliable description" of most area-shaped points of the vacuum of space ("there's nothing there, not even air, take special precautions or you die and/or become blind"). Therefore you can definitely Greater Teleport to a bit of the vacuum of space that is reasonably close to that point of light way up there.

At that point, you would likely be able to see a patch of their upper atmosphere, so if you have at-will Greater Teleport, you can just keep Greater Teleporting closer and closer to the surface until you at last have a useful landing site, then write a detailed description and Greater Teleport straight back home in one hop to tell all your friends.

So, yes, you absolutely can planet hop with Greater Teleport, it's just that your first trip to a new planet takes about 20 rounds instead of only one.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:11 am

Teleport wrote:You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination.

Suggesting that you can designate the universe, the planet, or even a city as the destination of teleport is pretty fucking dubious. You are pretty clearly supposed to designate a place about which it is possible to have a clear idea of the immediate physical surroundings. If you make a successful, on target teleport to "Moscow" and end up in a part of Moscow you've never even seen before, then you pretty fucking obviously didn't have a "clear idea of the location and layout of the destination" - whether you define the destination in question as Moscow or as the part of Moscow you ended up.

The argument about whether you can look up at the night sky and teleport to any arbitrary point in the vacuum of space is even stupider. You could be staring right at a giant fucking rock and have no idea. The act of looking up at the night sky is not telling you anything about the location or layout of what you're looking at. The thing that lets you, Omegonthesane, know what you're looking at is the fact that you learnt that shit in school and know that it's mostly empty. So I suppose the question is "does successfully guessing the location and layout of the destination count as having a clear idea AND having a reliable description?" And I'm gonna say no, that's fucking stupid. You're guessing, you have no information specific to the destination whatsoever. I guess that the bottom of the ocean is wet and dark. Poof, I can now teleport to anywhere on the bottom of the ocean.

This argument would be a lot simpler if teleport targeted a specific square or something, but as is destination is an undefined term. But context is a bitch, and it's pretty obvious you're supposed to be targeting a physical space about which you have knowledge, not an abstract space like "Moscow" that contains a physical space about which you have knowledge.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 10:43 am

deaddmwalking wrote:A progressive escalation of temporal rulers is hardly satisfying. At some point, territory stops being a meaningful resource well short of infinite space. A planetary ruler isn't particularly vital to a KSF. Enemies with meaningful agendas can drive a campaign without a meaningless cycle of increasing powerful villain of the weeks.

By way of analogy, Lex Luther can be an interesting opponent for Superman - more so, often, then General Zod.

You're being a fucking idiot. Superman doesn't gain levels. The fact that one of the enemies from his Rogue's Gallery is basically cooler than another one doesn't say anything at all about whether characters should have bigger enemies when they do gain levels.

The comparison isn't one Superman villain to another, because those are both villains at the same level. The comparison is Superman villains to Superboy villains. The Superman villains are bigger, because he's higher level than Superboy.

One of the aspects of enemies that can scale up is desmesne. Bigger villains can control bigger enemies. Saying that some of the better villains actually don't control bigger territories isn't a refutation. At all. Obviously, villains can scale on other measures as well. Obviously you could face a bigger dragon or a deadlier wizard rather than (or in addition to) a villainous overlord with a larger domain. So fucking what? If I thought the best villains were masterminds, would that imply that there should be a maximum size of dragon?

-Username17

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 1:16 pm

If you allow scaling on other aspects besides size of domain, I don't see a compelling argument for planetary rules (or space popes).

It's possible to get 'as big as you need to get' without tying these opponents to a physical realm. Creatures from 'the far realm' don't need planets to be a threat.

Sure, at level x+y you need greater threats than at level x - but I don't see any compelling reason that necessarily implies Space Popes.

The part where you describe coterminous threats versus potentially distant threats I'm on board with. Having to march an army from the mouth of a volcano over thousands of miles of terrain to threaten the Free City isn't usually as compelling as a 'gate' opening up to the depths of Hell right outside the gate. But I don't see what advantage 'ruler of foreign planet' has over either 'Emperor of a big chunk of territory' or 'massive resources from another plane of existence'.

The Sultan of the City of Brass could serve as an opponent all the way up the dial if he can increase in power to represent the needs of the campaign, and if his minions increase accordingly.

Even in a series of disparate campaigns using the same characters you can find new threats without increasing the domain resources of the opponents. Fighting the gods (again) can still work if you're fighting them in new ways with new reasons.

When you have an opponent that has exclusive control of a dozen worlds, you have to justify why he wants yours. If his resources are so much greater than that of your existing world, there's not much reason for him to desire it. If the resources of your world are greater, he's not as intimidating as he is supposed to be.

Having Asmodeus want to conquer the world isn't compelling because he's already a ruler with access to most things he wants. Asmodeus as chief prisoner of Hell is compelling - he wants to establish dominion over the mortal realm to escape.

Accepting that Asmodeus doesn't have an 'infinite domain', I don't see a compelling reason that any villain would need more than he has. It's certainly possible I'm wrong, but you haven't provided evidence to support your claim.

In D&D, because it is a leveled system, you can dial up the opposition. The only obstacle is making sure that 'low level play' can still happen despite the level of opposition. If everyone on 'the Dark Continent' is an epic-level threat, it's hard to explain why they didn't conquer the dirt farms. But beyond that, there's no reason that the epic opponents need more than a continent - certainly not more than an arbitrarily large but non-infinite plane.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 3:55 pm

DDW wrote:If you allow scaling on other aspects besides size of domain, I don't see a compelling argument for planetary rules (or space popes).

I'm going to stop you right there because you obviously don't understand Kitchen Sink Fantasy.

You don't add something to a Kitchen Sink setting because you can't do without it. You add it because it does anything at all. We don't need Hobgoblins, because we have Orcs and Drow. Any story you wanted to tell with Hobgoblins, you could (with slight reworking) tell with Orcs or Drow instead. You could do that, but you don't have to because D&D is a Kitchen Sink Fantasy setting and it has a metric shit tonne of things in it.

It isn't that we couldn't replace Bullywugs with Lizardfolk or replace Malcanthet with Lolth, it's that it's Kitchen Sink Fantasy and you are not asking the question of whether you could do without it, you're asking the question of whether it adds anything at all. It's a Kitchen Sink, you could do away with absolutely anything. You could run a complete campaign and never meet a Phanaton. You could run all the campaigns and never meet a Phanaton. But it's there as an option because it's different from a Hadozee or a Vanara. It doesn't have to be very different, it just has to be any different.

So we get rid of Flinds as a separate race, because they are literally indistinguishable from Gnolls who happen to be slightly elite (something that Gnolls can be anyway in the modern age). But we don't get rid of demon owned planets, because that is fucking awesome and also not exactly the same as a demon owned barony or whatever the fuck.

You're simply apply the wrong standard of evidence to this argument and because of it you are getting the wrong answers. Kitchen Sink settings are different than coherent settings.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:06 pm

deaddmwalking wrote:...I don't see a compelling reason that any villain would need more than he has. It's certainly possible I'm wrong....

Unreasonable desire is basically a functional answer to the question: "What drives the villain in this story?"

Antagonists can be rational and reasonable, but not villains. Going the other way threatens to turn Asmodeus into "that bureaucrat in cubical 3B who is just doing his best with limited resources and strict guidelines," and only a monster wants to gut that guy.

Stubbazubba · Post by **Stubbazubba** » Sun Mar 29, 2015 9:43 pm

Responding to this dickery:

Kaelik wrote:That is not even remotely clear from what you said, and also a stupid idea.

Yeah that thing you said, it could mean that, but that definitely isn't the only or even most likely meaning of what you said.

Really? Cause I'm thinking you're the only person who screwed up his statement this bad:

Seerow wrote:Well there are multiple worlds in our universe without needing to go to alternate planes. Even if we jetison that concept as either not there or not relevant for the Prime Material plane, you could have the Hell Plane actually made up of a cluster of (relatively) tiny planets.

The only indication Seerow gives about whether or not the Hell Planets he's describing are in the PMP or in their own Hell Plane is that he prefaces the Hell Planets discussion with the words "we jettison that concept for the Prime Material Plane." The wording here clearly sets aside the possibility of multiple planets in the PMP and addresses the Hell Plane on its own. There is no other meaning any rational reader can give to the words "Even if we jettison the concept for the PMP, you could still [insert Hell Planets discussion]."

The only way you get confused about his meaning is if you read the first sentence, skip the bolded phrase, and read the end of the second sentence. That would lead to your interpretation.

But wait! There's more:

Seerow, in the same post, wrote:The reason I prefer "have a bunch of relatively close planets in one plane" over "half a couple dozen planes that are mostly similar" is I actually liked the part of the Cosmology that described Good's ability to plane shift as an advantage over Evil.

Here he is specifically referencing plane shift as a critical aspect of the cosmology's appeal, something his take on Hell preserves, which is why he is distinguishing his proposal for Hell Planets from Frank's proposal of fewer, but still multiple, Evil Planes.

If you misread the first bit and thought he meant put everything on the same plane, this should have given you pause.

And yes, that is what you thought he meant:

Kaelik wrote:how our universe has multiple planets on the same plane so the fucking D&D one could have all the planes be planets on the same plane.

The meaning of his post is plain and obvious, if not from one sentence then certainly from the combined effect of all of them. The fact that you got it wrong and then proceeded to insist that it was Seerow's fault that you got it wrong when no one else interpreted it that way just makes me agree with Seerow:

Seerow wrote:Go back and read the fucking discussion if you are going to insist on doing this, so you can at least stop yourself from looking like an illiterate retard.