Using the SRD3.0/SRD5.0/PRD as a yardstick, we have a minimum of the following planes: Material Plane, 4 transitive planes (ethereal, astral, shadow, dream), 5 elemental planes (air, earth, fire, water, chaos), 2 energy planes (positive, negative), the Feywild?, and 9 outer planes for each of the alignments (not counting the elemental and outer paraplanes and quasiplanes). That's around 22 major planes. Each plane is infinite in size, has a potentially infinite number of layers that are each also infinite in size and an arbitrarily large number of demiplanes each of arbitrarily large size. Most of these planes are also either identical to a given material plane landscape and/or are featureless expanses of empty space or some homogenous substance.

Given that little note about layers, do we really need 22 or more major planes? In my estimation you could condense it to 7 and leave the minutiae to environments within those.

If anything, there are not nearly enough planes. I admit to not being crazy about D&D's classic cosmology and preferring a more open-ended Multiverse.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;874102Given that little note about layers, do we really need 22 or more major planes? In my estimation you could condense it to 7 and leave the minutiae to environments within those.

There's little to stop you from having only one (the physical world, whether you call it the material plane or not). The few specific planes that are directly implicated by spell effects can be dealt with as just a different state (e.g., ethereal or astral creatures are just in various insubstantial states within the material plane, not in a different plane) or a distant place in the same plane. You might have to throw out a few spells that reference other planes more generally.

What is bad about having 22 major planes that is helped by only having 7 but with more minutiae in each?

FOR ME, it depends on the campaign.

Planescape is my favorite TSR setting, so the large number of planes works great for me because its the places to visit for those campaigns.

I loved the 4e cosmology of the planes bleeding into the world and patches of planes existing in various locations. I had so much fun with that and built several campaigns just on those ideas. HERE the much lower number of planes was a great benefit.

My current on/off 4e campaign that primarily uses the PHB 3 for races and classes and takes place in the Astral Sea on a chunk of Elemental Chaos as it floats inextricably toward a Far Realm rift.

That sort of high fantasy crazy is perfect for 4e, but completely doesn't work for my OD&D campaign that I feel is more Sword & Sorcery. Here, the planes are barely understood by sages and no place for mortals.

You forgot the nine levels of Hell.

In my book, the number's not the issue, it's the structure. The Great Wheel structure locks things into an 'all or nothing' arrangement; you either use every plane or toss it out and build from scratch. I prefer BECMI or 4E's more open-ended system, where you've got a handful of 'core planes' and one or two 'overplanes' that contain any number of unconnected specific planes.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;874128You forgot the nine levels of Hell.

But they have not forgotten him!!!

Bwahaha!!

Quote from: The Butcher;874115If anything, there are not nearly enough planes. I admit to not being crazy about D&D's classic cosmology and preferring a more open-ended Multiverse.

This is my point of view as well. If the major planes be few in number then it matters not, for they be infinite in size.

Quote from: rawma;874116There's little to stop you from having only one (the physical world, whether you call it the material plane or not). The few specific planes that are directly implicated by spell effects can be dealt with as just a different state (e.g., ethereal or astral creatures are just in various insubstantial states within the material plane, not in a different plane) or a distant place in the same plane. You might have to throw out a few spells that reference other planes more generally.

What is bad about having 22 major planes that is helped by only having 7 but with more minutiae in each?

It cuts down on having to remember the relations between them. Material, Astral, Shadowfell, Elemental Chaos, Mechanus, Overheaven and Darkunder are much easier to keep straight.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;874130In my book, the number's not the issue, it's the structure. The Great Wheel structure locks things into an 'all or nothing' arrangement; you either use every plane or toss it out and build from scratch. I prefer BECMI or 4E's more open-ended system, where you've got a handful of 'core planes' and one or two 'overplanes' that contain any number of unconnected specific planes.

I like that, too.

Quote from: The Butcher;874115If anything, there are not nearly enough planes.

I'm sympathetic to this view. I love the old D&D planar structure to death, but it kind of flies in the face of the planes as being an uncharted frontier, which I also think is cool.

Related to that, I've always liked the way that planes are presented in The Primal Order, wherein conquering a plane is one of the central ways of increasing your divine rank; likewise, conquering multiple planes is the sign of reaching the highest levels of godhood. That's not really something you can do when you have myriad gods spread across two or three dozen planes.

In the Qabalah there's 32 planes. So I'd say if anything, D&D is ten short.

Quote from: RPGPundit;874937In the Qabalah there's 32 planes. So I'd say if anything, D&D is ten short.

I just googled that... you mean the 10 Sephira (not including Da'at) and the 22 "connecting paths"? I remember in another thread you said that according to this occult worldview that the elemental planes would be subsidiary planes to the material plane... which in said worldview is named Assiah (containing only Malkut). The other three worlds of Yetzirah (Yesod, Netzah and Hod), Beri'ah (Gevurah, Chesed and Tif'eret) and Atzilut (Hokhmah, Binah and Keter) are non-physical in nature. You cannot visit them like you may visit the outer planes in D&D (at least in the later editions where the outer planes became physical; whereas in their earliest appearances they were non-physical and required spells and gates to mediate the conversion between flesh and spirit).

P.S. Romanizing Hebrew letters is hard.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;875922I just googled that... you mean the 10 Sephira (not including Da'at) and the 22 "connecting paths"? I remember in another thread you said that according to this occult worldview that the elemental planes would be subsidiary planes to the material plane... which in said worldview is named Assiah (containing only Malkut). The other three worlds of Yetzirah (Yesod, Netzah and Hod), Beri'ah (Gevurah, Chesed and Tif'eret) and Atzilut (Hokhmah, Binah and Keter) are non-physical in nature. You cannot visit them like you may visit the outer planes in D&D (at least in the later editions where the outer planes became physical; whereas in their earliest appearances they were non-physical and required spells and gates to mediate the conversion between flesh and spirit).

P.S. Romanizing Hebrew letters is hard.

That is an interpretation of certain schools of Hebrew Qabalism.

Having visited most of these planes, I can tell you for sure that those Hebrews are wrong about this, and the Hermetic Qabalists (as well as other Hebrew Qabalists) are right.

In the Hermetic Qabalah, all four of the worlds you mentioned: Assiah, Yetzirah, Briah, and Atziluth contain an entire Tree of Life, each sphere of which contains an entire tree of its own within it as well. Though at this point you're getting into "angels dancing on the head of a pin" territory.  Or something like how every city has a Chinatown. Take your pick.

Roll away the Great Wheel and you can have as many or as few planes/or demiplanes) as you need, as needed. Because the multiverse is infinite and ultmately unknowable.

I really enjoyed the details they provided on the planes in the 1e Manual of the Planes.  There's a lot of ideas one could run with in designing planes/layers of one's own.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;874387This is my point of view as well. If the major planes be few in number then it matters not, for they be infinite in size.


It cuts down on having to remember the relations between them. Material, Astral, Shadowfell, Elemental Chaos, Mechanus, Overheaven and Darkunder are much easier to keep straight.

I like that, too.

Overheaven and Darkunder? Jesus Wept.

Spoiler