Implied Setting: Ethics of the Great Wheel

One of the favorite pastimes of those who identify with the OSR (Old School Revolution) is data-mining the "little brown books" of OD&D for their "implied setting." I've enjoyed many hours reading Grognardia's take on the subject, though I think that Wayne R.'s collection in Semper Initiativus Unum and of course Philotomy's Musings thankfully archived here are probably the defining works on the subject.

Sorry, purists, but this was MY DMG,
and I always wanted to step beyond those doors.

Gary Gygax would later thoroughly explore and in many ways redefine D&D's implied setting in the 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide. I remember reading and re-reading my copy until it fell apart, intrigued by both the lengthy dissertations on the development of the AD&D "milieux" and the implications of the many sub-systems of rules. Even when we updated editions, I kept my 1st Edition DMG close at hand, finding the 2nd Edition version to be emaciated in comparison. While I thought the 3rd Edition DMG had a more pragmatic approach, I found it to be equally lacking to Gygax's original magnum opus.

I have to admit that for all of its flaws, I really liked the implied setting--or rather, the blatantly presented setting--of 4th Edition, the "Points of Light" approach. By encouraging young Dungeon Masters to build small regions specifically designed around adventure rather than sprawling continents, and by greatly simplifying the planar structure, 4th Edition actually succeeded in intriguing me. It also contained nearly no maps of this "Points of Light" world, but contained numerous references to cities and wilderlands that whetted the appetite to explore it. It was in many ways disconnected from what had gone before, but I actually liked that aspect of it. Too bad that I just couldn't get into the rules.

So what about 5th Edition? Well, I don't have the DMG yet, so my perspective is still limited. But I'll hand it out anyway.

The world of 5E is one that encompasses everything that has come before it, "Little Brown Books" through Fourth Edition. The structure of the planes (contained in the PHB, just as it was in 1st Edition--is that an homage?) follows that of the Great Wheel Cosmology of the 1st Edition, but contains Sigil and the Outlands (2nd Edition); and the Feywild, the Shadowfell, and the Elemental Chaos (4th Edition). One interesting variation is that the Positive and Negative (Material) Planes, formerly part of the Inner Planes as adjuncts to the four Elemental Planes, are now the outermost structure of the multiverse, with the Positive Plane connected to the good (upper) outer planes and the Negative Plane to the evil (lower) outer planes. Beyond that is the Far Realm of Cthulhoid Abominations, which seems to exist mostly so that we can have Lovecraftian horrors in D&D, but which is in any case "beyond the known multiverse."

The basic underlying "truth" of the world of D&D is therefore one of ethical dualism that is more similar to Persia's Zoroastrianism than any Western or Near Eastern belief system (i.e., the "Abrahamic Faiths" of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In earlier editions, this was taken to extremes: If you had a salamander (a kind of fire elemental) there must of course be its opposite, an "ice salamander." Fourth Edition repudiated this absurd consistency as "the hobgoblins of little minds" but at least some of the ideal carried over.

From a game (adventuring) standpoint, this would seem at first to make sense: By being in the crux between a balance of light and darkness, we have a reason why the player characters can never achieve the final victory, but also a reason why they might achieve a significant interim victory of the light over the darkness (or vice versa)--and why the darkness can take the world to the edge of apocalypse, but never quite destroy or enslave all life.

That's not to say that it has to be that way, even in an RPG world. The RPG Pundit has posted an excellent article explaining why Warhammer-style Chaos-Always-Wins worlds make the actions of the characters completely pointless, and why a world in which Law (or Good) being stronger than Chaos (or Evil) actually makes the victories of heroes and the fall of villains far more poignant than either the ascendancy of Chaos or the chains of Balance. I'll probably explore that at some point (there's a really good article to be written building on the Pundit's), but for now, I'll stay focused on the 5th Edition implied world.

The ideal of dualism and balance makes a lot of sense for 5E, because it is very obvious just from the Player's Handbook that the 5th Edition world is being set up as one in which literally anything can happen. Take arcane magic, for example: Some magic-users are sorcerers of draconic blood, some are simply born with "innate magic" tied to "the forces of chaos that underlie the magic of creation." Others are disciplined wizards, carefully cultivating the Art and Science of Magic, while still others are warlocks, who gain their powers from pacts with dangerous Powers.

In a typical fantasy novel, you have a world that is much like ours, but with the addition of a one to three types of magic that has shaped its cultures: The Mistborn of Sanderson's original series are born to their power, as are the Aes Sedai of Jordan's Wheel of Time. On the other hand, all of the magic-users of Howard's Conan stories are warlocks of one kind or another, gaining power by their pacts with dangerous, otherworldly beings. In Tolkien's Middle-earth, both elves and wizards have magic by virtue of their own nature (fey or maiar), and while they may study to hone that craft, it is one that is beyond the ken of mortal Man (who has his own gifts).

But in the world of 5E, all of these avenues of power are true, not to mention the power of clerics, druids, and bards. Can there possibly be a "grand unified theory" that ties it all together?

Should there be?

Honestly, my time as an adult is far more constrained than my time as a teenager--but also more informed, about history, myth, science, conspiracy, physics, and metaphysics. I haven't decided if there is a grand unified theory yet, or if there even should be.

Other than the Dreamchild and the Iron Spire, the two constants in all of my campaigns . . . but those are other stories and shall be told another time.