D&D 5E What's in YOUR Multiverse?

[ProgBard]

I originally posted this in the "Lore isn't rules" thread, but by that time the participants were having much too much fun with their argument in progress (which, pretty please, let's not continue here) to give it much notice - but I'm still curious about it, so maybe it's worth a thread of its own.
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So here's an intriguing question I've been mulling on, based on some of the conversation here and in the Other Thread. And partially it's intriguing to me because it doesn't have a right answer; there is inherently no "official" way to verify or disprove it.

The 5e PHB has this in its Introduction (emphasis mine):


The worlds of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game exist within a vast cosmos called the multiverse, connected in strange and mysterious ways to one another and to other planes of existence. such as the Elemental Plane of Fire and the lnfinite Depths of the Abyss. Within this multiverse are an endless variety of worlds. Many of them have been published as official settings for the D&D game. The legends of the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Mystara, and Eberron settings are woven together in the fabric of the multiverse. Alongside these worlds are hundreds of thousands more, created by generations of D&D players for their own games. And amid all the richness of the multiverse, you might create a world of your own.


Does your reading of this - in particular the bolded section - suggest to you that the multiverse contains Golarion? How about Aldea? The Scarred Lands? Freeport? Primeval Thule? The Lost Lands? Thieves' World? Nehwon?*

Note that the question isn't "Are these things D&D?" (which I'm not sure is a terribly interesting question anyway) - it's whether you feel their existence in the strange and mysterious web of hundreds of thousands of worlds in the D&D multiverse is implied by the way the PHB describes it. And as I say, there's no way there even can be a right or wrong answer - but I do suspect that the way you answer the question reveals much about the way you view the role of lore.

*The astute reader may have already noted that the examples given pass through a number of categories: Settings created for games that aren't officially D&D, but use rulesets explicitly based on the D&D engine; settings created by third parties for previous editions of D&D; settings with material written (or at least adapted) specifically for 5e; and literary settings that were once licensed as D&D settings, but aren't currently licensed for 5e. (And Golarion has a foot in a couple of places, given that the first materials written for it were third-party 3.5 adventures!) So do feel free to simply comment on whether those types of settings feel like part of the multiverse to you, if you find that's a more interesting approach to this subject than looking at settings on a case-by-case.

 

[Nagol]

By and large, I have always included alternate Prime Material Planes in my D&D games. Some of those worlds could come from second and third-party sources, sure. I my personal case, a lot more come from literature that had nothing to do with D&D or other game systems such as Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, Aftermath, CHAMPIONS, and Top Secret to name from early examples.

 

[Mercule]

My multiverse contains an infinite number of planar groupings. They tie together in multiple and various ways. Some of them share an ethereal plane and travelers could, theoretically, use that to go from one to the other. Others connect via the astral plane and share many of the same outer planes (of which the Great Wheel is more a conceptual model of an abstract ideal than an actual map). Still others are only tenuously connected and are difficult to transition between. There are probably a few that share the same Prime Material, but there are no Spell Jammers, so travel is generally easier by short planar jaunts.

What does this mean, in practice? It means I treat every single setting as completely stand-alone. There is almost never a reason to know how the settings connect. An Eberron game takes place on Eberron. A Greyhawk game focuses on the Flaeness. My homebrew focuses on that setting. Way back when, we had lots of parallel games going on, currently. Every now and then, someone who wasn't available for the first, say, five levels of play would have their schedule free up and they wanted to join. Instead of having them make up a new character, we let them port an existing one from another setting. This worked because we all used pretty much the same gross table rules, with a couple of setting variations. I don't think this has been a thing for any group in which I've played for 20 or so years, though. We don't have the time, anymore, to commit to multiple games at the same time.

So, what exists in my multiverse is really just whatever games we've played. They may or may not be connected/connectable. I'm not sure whether that qualifies as a multiverse or not.

 

[Igwilly]

I tend to create or carefully pick existing worlds to my setting*. I like my setting to be, either completely separate from other settings, or be a "what if" alternative version.
In no way I want to deal with Elminster in my futuristic Zanarkand, if you know what I mean. Neither I want my homebrew setting to be forcefully included in another setting from someone else.
*Although I don't play 5e, and never will, I think I can be useful and constructively active here. Sometimes, at least.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Does your reading of this - in particular the bolded section - suggest to you that the multiverse contains Golarion? How about Aldea? The Scarred Lands? Freeport? Primeval Thule? The Lost Lands? Thieves' World? Nehwon?*

No, my reading of that passage doesn't suggest the multiverse contains those worlds. It explicitly states that it contains those worlds, my worlds, your worlds, and so many more.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Does multiverse contain those other settings? Who's to say?

As [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] says... on a practical level does it really matter? If someone out there in RPG-land says that Primeval Thule is one of the worlds of the D&D Multiverse, no other players are going to care (except for the self-centered or precious ones who get all uppity about other people daring to speak for them.) If you play D&D and you use whatever world or worlds you use... whether or not other people say that other worlds are a part of the Multiverse has no tangible effect on you or your game. Cause if ya don't agree with it... ya just ignore it.

Do I think the 7th Sea games I've played in that take place on Theah using the 7th Sea game system are in the D&D Multiverse? No idea! Until it matters, I don't need to answer. I don't need to think about it or even bother considering it, until such time as it WILL matter. And when will it matter? The second I play a D&D game that either takes place in that Theah setting I've already played in... or I play a D&D campaign game that makes a reference to that 7th Sea campaign in the past.

Once that happens... then sure, I can decide to say at that point they both take place in the same Multiverse, and which is why those references to that previous 7th Sea game have appeared in this new D&D one. The information or jokes from that setting have found their way across the Multiverse to show up in the D&D game. Whoopie!

But then again... does it matter? Does anyone care? Especially anyone outside of my own personal game group? I think the answer is a definite 'Nope!'.

 

[ccs]

In my view, there are two ways to look at the multiverse in my campaign; the theoretical, and the practical.

On a theoretical level, the multiverse contains all possible permutations of campaign worlds. By this, I mean both the campaign world that we are in, EGG's original GH, Nehwon, Golarion, Gamma World, FR, your homebrew world, whatever. In addition, there are an infinite number of variations on each (think of Zelazny's Amber series or similar ideas from comic books or genre film/TV, where every campaign world has multiple mirror words that are subtly different, usually involving evil versions with goatees). It's all there in the multiverse.

OTOH, on a practical level, it doesn't matter much. Planar travel is more easily possible than is travel between parallel campaign worlds. Planar travel is at the player-decision level; travel between universes within the multiverse is at the DM level.

Yep, that'd describe my multiverse.

 

[Igwilly]

Does multiverse contain those other settings? Who's to say?

As [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] says... on a practical level does it really matter? If someone out there in RPG-land says that Primeval Thule is one of the worlds of the D&D Multiverse, no other players are going to care (except for the self-centered or precious ones who get all uppity about other people daring to speak for them.) If you play D&D and you use whatever world or worlds you use... whether or not other people say that other worlds are a part of the Multiverse has no tangible effect on you or your game. Cause if ya don't agree with it... ya just ignore it.

Do I think the 7th Sea games I've played in that take place on Theah using the 7th Sea game system are in the D&D Multiverse? No idea! Until it matters, I don't need to answer. I don't need to think about it or even bother considering it, until such time as it WILL matter. And when will it matter? The second I play a D&D game that either takes place in that Theah setting I've already played in... or I play a D&D campaign game that makes a reference to that 7th Sea campaign in the past.

Once that happens... then sure, I can decide to say at that point they both take place in the same Multiverse, and which is why those references to that previous 7th Sea game have appeared in this new D&D one. The information or jokes from that setting have found their way across the Multiverse to show up in the D&D game. Whoopie!

But then again... does it matter? Does anyone care? Especially anyone outside of my own personal game group? I think the answer is a definite 'Nope!'.

This may be my OCD talking, but I always have the feel that, if two determined settings are connected, then there aren't two settings: there's one setting. That makes a huge difference to me.
But my approach is that, in all tables, each table is using a different version of a setting. I tend to separate gaming worlds instead of connecting them.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*