I think I've bought all the 5e official books that I could find, but other than a couple of modules there doesn't seem to be a lot on the outer planes.
Certainly back in 2e there was no content more interesting or more exciting than the demons and devils, the lords, their kingdoms, their motivations etc.
There is probably more than I know, I just haven't got to searching it out yet, but I am curious as to what others think.
Do you think that WOTC will be producing a manual of the planes?
Is it worth digesting everything 3e/4e on the planes in the meantime? Or was 4e just too weird.
The big thing to know is for the most part the lore from previous editions is unchanged. the only thing they need to do to make a 5e version is give it 5e mechanics. But all the information for the most part from previous additions is unchanged unless they really needed to change it for some reason.
i'd stick with 3/3.5 - forget 4 unless there's some location in 4 that just isn't in previous editions at all.
my money's on them not producing a manual of planes. look at avernus...they built it out enough that hundreds of modules have been based on it, including an AL season. imo, it'll be deep and rich (a plane), not wide and shallow (tidbits of many planes).
I understand what you mean but don't you think MToF is already a manual of the Nine Hells and the Abyss.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
REMEMBER: Wizards Of The Coast does not own DDB, they are two different companies. When you buy a physical book, WotC receives the money you bought it for, not DDB and vice versa. If you want a digital key to get an online book for free because you have the hardcopy book then DDB makes no money because you don't buy off DDB you buy off WotC, so please stop making threads about this issue. DDB needs money to continue helping people and servers aren't cheap.
my money's on them not producing a manual of planes. look at avernus...they built it out enough that hundreds of modules have been based on it, including an AL season. imo,
really, what do you mean, like on dmsguild there were a lot of avernus related modules? set in the outer planes?
It is not entirely accurate to say the lore hasn't changed. In 3.5 Bel was lord of Avernus, having taken it from Zariel. He kept her chained in the Bronze Citadel and consumed her essence for power.
In Descent into Avernus it is said that Zariel was given Avernus by Asmodeus and it was taken from Bel iirc.
But to the OP, there is a ton of rich lore that they haven't changed in 3.5, go wild for now and don't worry about changing things until it happens. Even then, you can always reflavor things when it changes.
Ex: 3.5e Zariel was chained and being consumed. When DiA was released you could reflavor and say that she escaped her bindings with a small cadre of loyal devils and retook the throne. Same outcome, different story.
It's almost like I said "for the most part" in my comment. A similar phrase you used in yours yet you say I'm inaccurate.
@GregCA I believe Phantom is referring to Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes which came out in 5e and does give information from the Abyss and the Hells
Yes, I was, should've said the edition I was talking about.
About MToF, I don't recall them talking about any other of the lower planes, they mainly stayed on the topic of the Blood War and The Abyss and The Nine Hells.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
REMEMBER: Wizards Of The Coast does not own DDB, they are two different companies. When you buy a physical book, WotC receives the money you bought it for, not DDB and vice versa. If you want a digital key to get an online book for free because you have the hardcopy book then DDB makes no money because you don't buy off DDB you buy off WotC, so please stop making threads about this issue. DDB needs money to continue helping people and servers aren't cheap.
It's almost like I said "for the most part" in my comment. A similar phrase you used in yours yet you say I'm inaccurate.
@GregCA I believe Phantom is referring to Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes which came out in 5e and does give information from the Abyss and the Hells
Yes, I was, should've said the edition I was talking about.
About MToF, I don't recall them talking about any other of the lower planes, they mainly stayed on the topic of the Blood War and The Abyss and The Nine Hells.
Yeah its kind of weird name, foes but covers stats on a lot of fiends, which is great but maybe they just didn't want to rehash content from other editions. Either way it feels like we are missing something substantial. I want to literally have a google map of where everyone lives, how many fiends they are, what they are up to on a daily basis etc.
I think that if D&D goes too deep with The Nine Hells and The Abyss it may spark the argument and paranoia that 'D&D causes Satanism' and other beliefs.
Which is not true at all.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
REMEMBER: Wizards Of The Coast does not own DDB, they are two different companies. When you buy a physical book, WotC receives the money you bought it for, not DDB and vice versa. If you want a digital key to get an online book for free because you have the hardcopy book then DDB makes no money because you don't buy off DDB you buy off WotC, so please stop making threads about this issue. DDB needs money to continue helping people and servers aren't cheap.
I don't think WOTC is worried about reigniting the Satanic Panic. As already mentioned in this thread, an entire Adventurer's League season was spent in support of tentpole hardback release where the characters will likely have to "deal with devils" to make it through without nerfing parts of the adventure. Not long before that another tentpole hardback adventure (I"m presuming with a lot of supporting AL productions) was Out of the Abyss which contended with an Abyssal invasion beachhead in the Underdark (those demons sure like establishing beachheads). Tieflings are a thing.
I think there's enough in current print from WOTC to support campaigns in the Hells, and to a lesser extent the Abyss. I wouldn't mind seeing 5e material touching upon Pandemonium, Carceri, Hades, Gehena, and Acheron. The upper planes too. With the soul coins in Avernus and the soul coin-lite soul trinket (presented in the Phantom UA), while both were interesting riffs on the Soul Cage, I thought or was hoping for a trajectory where an upcoming hardback adventure would get more into the the "economy of souls" and "afterlife planes" maybe not focusing but perhaps even giving some stronger guidance for the "beyond level 20" epic level adventuring where exploits have repercussions across the planescapes. Instead, WOTC gives me the cold shoulder this fall. Maybe further down the line.
Also to the OP, unless I'm really invested in something like the AL and feeling a need to play in accordance to official lore, I don't think I'd want the granular detail (how many fiends, and how often to they cycle their patrols), and you can find a lot of good inspirational summaries of lore on YouTube for example, where 20 minutes will give you what consulting 5 editions of lore will get you in a more streamlined fashion. I really think D&D does best when it source material evokes or inspires. Their adventures at least in my experience always need at minimum tailor but more often than not major surgery in terms of plot.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Also to the OP, unless I'm really invested in something like the AL and feeling a need to play in accordance to official lore, I don't think I'd want the granular detail (how many fiends, and how often to they cycle their patrols)
I would compare it to the Forgotten Realms back in the day. You had the campaign guide, you can supplements and modules and books. All that wealth of information created a very realistic world, you had heroes like Drizzt or organizations like the Harpers and the Zhentarim. You had famous bad guys like Zhoul Chembryl. You had Allustriel of Silverymoon, you had Artemis Entreri that breathed life into Calimshan. All this lore and content meant you can still create all your own custom adventures but it was inside a world that everyone was familiar with.
So all that stuff. Thats what I would like to see for the Outer planes. It still leaves lots of room for creating your own content.
Sadly it doesn't feel like WOTC creates much content any more, at least not like they used to when they were churning out hundreds of books.
Also to the OP, unless I'm really invested in something like the AL and feeling a need to play in accordance to official lore, I don't think I'd want the granular detail (how many fiends, and how often to they cycle their patrols)
I would compare it to the Forgotten Realms back in the day. You had the campaign guide, you can supplements and modules and books. All that wealth of information created a very realistic world, you had heroes like Drizzt or organizations like the Harpers and the Zhentarim. You had famous bad guys like Zhoul Chembryl. You had Allustriel of Silverymoon, you had Artemis Entreri that breathed life into Calimshan. All this lore and content meant you can still create all your own custom adventures but it was inside a world that everyone was familiar with.
So all that stuff. Thats what I would like to see for the Outer planes. It still leaves lots of room for creating your own content.
Sadly it doesn't feel like WOTC creates much content any more, at least not like they used to when they were churning out hundreds of books.
I appreciate the desire to play in a living, breathing universe, and the sort of feeling your imagination is taking part in a greater world. I get it. And having sort of "lore characters" sort of representing the franchise wasn't unique to D&D. Shadowrun had it's regulars like Dunkelzahn. Cyberpunk had Morgan Blackhand, Johnny Silverhand, Rache Bartmoss etc. The World of Darkness had it's regulars leading up to the Final Nights etc. A lot of publishers still do that, but on a much scaled back level. Drizzt still shows up in novels, etc. Force Grey has some canonical impact on the Realms. We're getting an update on middle of nowhere Iceland Dale in a few months. So yeah, scaled back significantly, but still there. I got two possibilities as to "why" we don't have that, one's kinda economic, one's sort of game psychology. This isn't to refute your thinking but as way to see why the game's publication output might've gone in a different direction.
I kind of see the "big world with a life its own" Forgotten Realms, it's predecessor in Dragonlance, and the explosion of other campaigns worlds that seemed to come all at once (Planescape, Ravensloft as a campaign world, Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.) as an economic or merchandise product of their time. I got into D&D right about the same time as I was growing out of G.I. Joe and Transformers figures. They too had literal armies of toys produced on a scale much wider than what either toylike puts out today. Curiously both Transformers/GI Joe and D&D are ultimately owned by Hasbro today.
Hasbro is in a position where it owns a whole lot of IP and doesn't want to compete with itself, so it produces smaller output for its lines (six figures instead 24 a year sort of stuff). I think that's where they are with toys and action figures now. With D&D it's a bit different. When they looked at what Wizards had acquired from TSR, they saw a property that initially served a niche market, and had an exhaustive publication output to maintain that market. Wizards pushed the envelope further with its licensing tiers sort of encouraging competition with itself under the presumption that the gaming ecosystem could sustain all of it. That strategy just wouldn't work on where Hasbro wanted to take the hobby. Sure hardcore niche gamers would buy a boxed set or hardback (or two a year) plus a dozen other publications etc, and novels tied to "major event roll outs". There's a lot of recreational outlets today and most consumers keep diverse habits. It's just easier to maintain the property with two hardbacks a year, sometimes affecting lore and having an occasional novel to fill in some world shaping. This shorter lore learning curve allows easier entry to the game, which along with the streamlined ruleset, increasing its audience.
Another angle that I've seemed debated about playing in worlds developed richly by the publisher as opposed to the players. It's sort of like the Star Wars effect. I read about this effect in a game publication years ago, addressing the limitations of the old d6 Star Wars RPG. I dismissed the notion initially as ridiculous "playing in Star Wars is awesome, who wouldn't want to play this game!" Until 3/5 of my players raised the complaint too. Basically it was this: we're never going to "win" this game. We all know whatever we do isn't going to be canonically consequential because the real conflict between the Empire and the Rebellion and the Dark Side and the Jedi is decided by characters we're never going to be. We're literally on the sidelines, cheerleaders at best. Now, since then TV shows like Rebels and the Mandelorian show that there can be some compelling stories told on those side lines, but for characters who wanted to be THE story, there was a flaw to the world. I think you could say with the golden age of Forgotten Realms publishing, some players felt in a similar trap or machine, but with a lot more moving parts than Star Wars had. Gaming became sort of "reactionary" to the latest world changing or power shifting "event" rather than the group themselves "being the event."
I hope that makes sense. I never really thought too deep on this till your post, and while I understand what you're saying, I think there's another position that people who actually decide the budget for the games decided to side with in order to maintain a broad appeal.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Also to the OP, unless I'm really invested in something like the AL and feeling a need to play in accordance to official lore, I don't think I'd want the granular detail (how many fiends, and how often to they cycle their patrols)
I would compare it to the Forgotten Realms back in the day. You had the campaign guide, you can supplements and modules and books. All that wealth of information created a very realistic world, you had heroes like Drizzt or organizations like the Harpers and the Zhentarim. You had famous bad guys like Zhoul Chembryl. You had Allustriel of Silverymoon, you had Artemis Entreri that breathed life into Calimshan. All this lore and content meant you can still create all your own custom adventures but it was inside a world that everyone was familiar with.
So all that stuff. Thats what I would like to see for the Outer planes. It still leaves lots of room for creating your own content.
Sadly it doesn't feel like WOTC creates much content any more, at least not like they used to when they were churning out hundreds of books.
Chris Perkins addressed why they stopped churning out content. Frankly from user feedback they found that making 24 books a year basically bloated their game (listened to a podcast where Chris estimated there were like 1500 feats by the end of 4e) and made it so the books they produced barely got used by a large percentage of the D&D community. During a panel he brought all this up and some key points he made back in 2015:
Wizards has no interest in releasing product unless it has a story to tell. Gone are the days where it were bound by the requirement to release a book (or more) a month.
This is partly driven by business realities; partly driven by knowledge of facts gained through surveys and face-to-face discussion at conventions. They’ve found there is a limit to how much material people can absorb. After a while, the material they release has no value and is no longer serving anybody. A lot of 3rd and 4th edition products were bought and never used or used very little.
“We don’t sell products so that 5% of our audience can use 5% of it. We’re now trying to sell products that 100% of our audience might use and they’ll use all of it.”
This improves the perceived value of D&D, and creates more shared experiences, the way that everyone knows Tomb of Horrors.
The goal is to create stories that (hopefully) years from now people can remember.
So they are not interested in just making books for the sake of it (not to mention I think the last I hear there were only 12 D&D employees so it's not like they have the staff to churn out the stuff either.) That's why I said look at the old stuff because except for stat blocks the lore will be for the most part fine, until they choose to release something that updates it.
Also unfortunately D&D is no longer the "Dungeon Crawl" that the first editions were so even when they do release stuff on an area, they really won't go int brick and mortar "5 demons here every 10 mins" and instead will leave that stuff for specific adventure books.
The other big thing is as seen in the past two many books leads to an edition becoming too bloated making the need for a new edition to basically squash the 1,000 x 1,000 player choices a new person will get lost in. So they want 5e to be around for a while, and they've kind of decided that World books and lore books need to have something in it for everyone. Notice the source books all contain some PC option and not just lore stuff or DM needs.
So they want every book they produce to have a use, and they want 100% of the book used by almost 100% of the tables that by it, therefore that means more options in each book, but less books released a year as to not bloat their own market causing a collapse due to too many choices.
Also i know that the creators currently at D&D like to leave the outer planes more open to allow for each table to make their own out of these extra planar places. Kind like how it is 5e and we still don't know who the Lady of Pain truly is and where she came from.
I think that if D&D goes too deep with The Nine Hells and The Abyss it may spark the argument and paranoia that 'D&D causes Satanism' and other beliefs.
Which is not true at all.
Unless of course your a stupid republican nazi and / or evengilical nut job.
I think that if D&D goes too deep with The Nine Hells and The Abyss it may spark the argument and paranoia that 'D&D causes Satanism' and other beliefs.
Which is not true at all.
Unless of course your a stupid republican nazi and / or evengilical nut job.
This is belaboring a tangent, but those of us, including you I think, who were around during that Satanic Panic period knows it wasn't exclusively "republican nazis" or "evangelical nut jobs" fanning those flames. Maybe they provided some of the ignition, but a lot of the fire was carried by Barbara Walters, Geraldo Rivera, Tipper Gore ... heck, Tom Hanks starred in Mazes and Monsters.
Also, as you may be aware or maybe may not care, but I gotta while one may debate calling out a broad category of people as "stupid" I don't know whether doing so while failing to employ the distinction between "you're" and "your" advances your argument.
Again, this point is pretty moot, given Wizards spent half of last publication year in support of a tentpole hardcover that literally explored Hell, and a year or so before that dealt with the Demon Lords. It doesn't seem to be a concern in this edition.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think it's likely that they find it difficult to balance high tier content, and planar entities are most certainly high tier.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
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I think I've bought all the 5e official books that I could find, but other than a couple of modules there doesn't seem to be a lot on the outer planes.
Certainly back in 2e there was no content more interesting or more exciting than the demons and devils, the lords, their kingdoms, their motivations etc.
There is probably more than I know, I just haven't got to searching it out yet, but I am curious as to what others think.
Do you think that WOTC will be producing a manual of the planes?
Is it worth digesting everything 3e/4e on the planes in the meantime? Or was 4e just too weird.
The big thing to know is for the most part the lore from previous editions is unchanged. the only thing they need to do to make a 5e version is give it 5e mechanics. But all the information for the most part from previous additions is unchanged unless they really needed to change it for some reason.
i'd stick with 3/3.5 - forget 4 unless there's some location in 4 that just isn't in previous editions at all.
my money's on them not producing a manual of planes. look at avernus...they built it out enough that hundreds of modules have been based on it, including an AL season. imo, it'll be deep and rich (a plane), not wide and shallow (tidbits of many planes).
...not that my 2 cents is worth 2 copper.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
I understand what you mean but don't you think MToF is already a manual of the Nine Hells and the Abyss.
REMEMBER: Wizards Of The Coast does not own DDB, they are two different companies. When you buy a physical book, WotC receives the money you bought it for, not DDB and vice versa. If you want a digital key to get an online book for free because you have the hardcopy book then DDB makes no money because you don't buy off DDB you buy off WotC, so please stop making threads about this issue. DDB needs money to continue helping people and servers aren't cheap.
really, what do you mean, like on dmsguild there were a lot of avernus related modules? set in the outer planes?
what is AL season?
It is not entirely accurate to say the lore hasn't changed. In 3.5 Bel was lord of Avernus, having taken it from Zariel. He kept her chained in the Bronze Citadel and consumed her essence for power.
In Descent into Avernus it is said that Zariel was given Avernus by Asmodeus and it was taken from Bel iirc.
But to the OP, there is a ton of rich lore that they haven't changed in 3.5, go wild for now and don't worry about changing things until it happens. Even then, you can always reflavor things when it changes.
Ex: 3.5e Zariel was chained and being consumed. When DiA was released you could reflavor and say that she escaped her bindings with a small cadre of loyal devils and retook the throne. Same outcome, different story.
Its been a long time since I read it, I would assume that a lot has changed since then e.g. who resides on which plane would be all different.
I guess I have to read everything all over again to get a clear picture of what we have and what is missing.
It's almost like I said "for the most part" in my comment. A similar phrase you used in yours yet you say I'm inaccurate.
@GregCA I believe Phantom is referring to Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes which came out in 5e and does give information from the Abyss and the Hells
Yes, I was, should've said the edition I was talking about.
About MToF, I don't recall them talking about any other of the lower planes, they mainly stayed on the topic of the Blood War and The Abyss and The Nine Hells.
REMEMBER: Wizards Of The Coast does not own DDB, they are two different companies. When you buy a physical book, WotC receives the money you bought it for, not DDB and vice versa. If you want a digital key to get an online book for free because you have the hardcopy book then DDB makes no money because you don't buy off DDB you buy off WotC, so please stop making threads about this issue. DDB needs money to continue helping people and servers aren't cheap.
Yeah its kind of weird name, foes but covers stats on a lot of fiends, which is great but maybe they just didn't want to rehash content from other editions. Either way it feels like we are missing something substantial. I want to literally have a google map of where everyone lives, how many fiends they are, what they are up to on a daily basis etc.
I think that if D&D goes too deep with The Nine Hells and The Abyss it may spark the argument and paranoia that 'D&D causes Satanism' and other beliefs.
Which is not true at all.
REMEMBER: Wizards Of The Coast does not own DDB, they are two different companies. When you buy a physical book, WotC receives the money you bought it for, not DDB and vice versa. If you want a digital key to get an online book for free because you have the hardcopy book then DDB makes no money because you don't buy off DDB you buy off WotC, so please stop making threads about this issue. DDB needs money to continue helping people and servers aren't cheap.
I don't think WOTC is worried about reigniting the Satanic Panic. As already mentioned in this thread, an entire Adventurer's League season was spent in support of tentpole hardback release where the characters will likely have to "deal with devils" to make it through without nerfing parts of the adventure. Not long before that another tentpole hardback adventure (I"m presuming with a lot of supporting AL productions) was Out of the Abyss which contended with an Abyssal invasion beachhead in the Underdark (those demons sure like establishing beachheads). Tieflings are a thing.
I think there's enough in current print from WOTC to support campaigns in the Hells, and to a lesser extent the Abyss. I wouldn't mind seeing 5e material touching upon Pandemonium, Carceri, Hades, Gehena, and Acheron. The upper planes too. With the soul coins in Avernus and the soul coin-lite soul trinket (presented in the Phantom UA), while both were interesting riffs on the Soul Cage, I thought or was hoping for a trajectory where an upcoming hardback adventure would get more into the the "economy of souls" and "afterlife planes" maybe not focusing but perhaps even giving some stronger guidance for the "beyond level 20" epic level adventuring where exploits have repercussions across the planescapes. Instead, WOTC gives me the cold shoulder this fall. Maybe further down the line.
Also to the OP, unless I'm really invested in something like the AL and feeling a need to play in accordance to official lore, I don't think I'd want the granular detail (how many fiends, and how often to they cycle their patrols), and you can find a lot of good inspirational summaries of lore on YouTube for example, where 20 minutes will give you what consulting 5 editions of lore will get you in a more streamlined fashion. I really think D&D does best when it source material evokes or inspires. Their adventures at least in my experience always need at minimum tailor but more often than not major surgery in terms of plot.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I would compare it to the Forgotten Realms back in the day. You had the campaign guide, you can supplements and modules and books. All that wealth of information created a very realistic world, you had heroes like Drizzt or organizations like the Harpers and the Zhentarim. You had famous bad guys like Zhoul Chembryl. You had Allustriel of Silverymoon, you had Artemis Entreri that breathed life into Calimshan. All this lore and content meant you can still create all your own custom adventures but it was inside a world that everyone was familiar with.
So all that stuff. Thats what I would like to see for the Outer planes. It still leaves lots of room for creating your own content.
Sadly it doesn't feel like WOTC creates much content any more, at least not like they used to when they were churning out hundreds of books.
I appreciate the desire to play in a living, breathing universe, and the sort of feeling your imagination is taking part in a greater world. I get it. And having sort of "lore characters" sort of representing the franchise wasn't unique to D&D. Shadowrun had it's regulars like Dunkelzahn. Cyberpunk had Morgan Blackhand, Johnny Silverhand, Rache Bartmoss etc. The World of Darkness had it's regulars leading up to the Final Nights etc. A lot of publishers still do that, but on a much scaled back level. Drizzt still shows up in novels, etc. Force Grey has some canonical impact on the Realms. We're getting an update on middle of nowhere Iceland Dale in a few months. So yeah, scaled back significantly, but still there. I got two possibilities as to "why" we don't have that, one's kinda economic, one's sort of game psychology. This isn't to refute your thinking but as way to see why the game's publication output might've gone in a different direction.
I kind of see the "big world with a life its own" Forgotten Realms, it's predecessor in Dragonlance, and the explosion of other campaigns worlds that seemed to come all at once (Planescape, Ravensloft as a campaign world, Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.) as an economic or merchandise product of their time. I got into D&D right about the same time as I was growing out of G.I. Joe and Transformers figures. They too had literal armies of toys produced on a scale much wider than what either toylike puts out today. Curiously both Transformers/GI Joe and D&D are ultimately owned by Hasbro today.
Hasbro is in a position where it owns a whole lot of IP and doesn't want to compete with itself, so it produces smaller output for its lines (six figures instead 24 a year sort of stuff). I think that's where they are with toys and action figures now. With D&D it's a bit different. When they looked at what Wizards had acquired from TSR, they saw a property that initially served a niche market, and had an exhaustive publication output to maintain that market. Wizards pushed the envelope further with its licensing tiers sort of encouraging competition with itself under the presumption that the gaming ecosystem could sustain all of it. That strategy just wouldn't work on where Hasbro wanted to take the hobby. Sure hardcore niche gamers would buy a boxed set or hardback (or two a year) plus a dozen other publications etc, and novels tied to "major event roll outs". There's a lot of recreational outlets today and most consumers keep diverse habits. It's just easier to maintain the property with two hardbacks a year, sometimes affecting lore and having an occasional novel to fill in some world shaping. This shorter lore learning curve allows easier entry to the game, which along with the streamlined ruleset, increasing its audience.
Another angle that I've seemed debated about playing in worlds developed richly by the publisher as opposed to the players. It's sort of like the Star Wars effect. I read about this effect in a game publication years ago, addressing the limitations of the old d6 Star Wars RPG. I dismissed the notion initially as ridiculous "playing in Star Wars is awesome, who wouldn't want to play this game!" Until 3/5 of my players raised the complaint too. Basically it was this: we're never going to "win" this game. We all know whatever we do isn't going to be canonically consequential because the real conflict between the Empire and the Rebellion and the Dark Side and the Jedi is decided by characters we're never going to be. We're literally on the sidelines, cheerleaders at best. Now, since then TV shows like Rebels and the Mandelorian show that there can be some compelling stories told on those side lines, but for characters who wanted to be THE story, there was a flaw to the world. I think you could say with the golden age of Forgotten Realms publishing, some players felt in a similar trap or machine, but with a lot more moving parts than Star Wars had. Gaming became sort of "reactionary" to the latest world changing or power shifting "event" rather than the group themselves "being the event."
I hope that makes sense. I never really thought too deep on this till your post, and while I understand what you're saying, I think there's another position that people who actually decide the budget for the games decided to side with in order to maintain a broad appeal.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Chris Perkins addressed why they stopped churning out content. Frankly from user feedback they found that making 24 books a year basically bloated their game (listened to a podcast where Chris estimated there were like 1500 feats by the end of 4e) and made it so the books they produced barely got used by a large percentage of the D&D community. During a panel he brought all this up and some key points he made back in 2015:
So they are not interested in just making books for the sake of it (not to mention I think the last I hear there were only 12 D&D employees so it's not like they have the staff to churn out the stuff either.) That's why I said look at the old stuff because except for stat blocks the lore will be for the most part fine, until they choose to release something that updates it.
Also unfortunately D&D is no longer the "Dungeon Crawl" that the first editions were so even when they do release stuff on an area, they really won't go int brick and mortar "5 demons here every 10 mins" and instead will leave that stuff for specific adventure books.
The other big thing is as seen in the past two many books leads to an edition becoming too bloated making the need for a new edition to basically squash the 1,000 x 1,000 player choices a new person will get lost in. So they want 5e to be around for a while, and they've kind of decided that World books and lore books need to have something in it for everyone. Notice the source books all contain some PC option and not just lore stuff or DM needs.
So they want every book they produce to have a use, and they want 100% of the book used by almost 100% of the tables that by it, therefore that means more options in each book, but less books released a year as to not bloat their own market causing a collapse due to too many choices.
Also i know that the creators currently at D&D like to leave the outer planes more open to allow for each table to make their own out of these extra planar places. Kind like how it is 5e and we still don't know who the Lady of Pain truly is and where she came from.
Unless of course your a stupid republican nazi and / or evengilical nut job.
This is belaboring a tangent, but those of us, including you I think, who were around during that Satanic Panic period knows it wasn't exclusively "republican nazis" or "evangelical nut jobs" fanning those flames. Maybe they provided some of the ignition, but a lot of the fire was carried by Barbara Walters, Geraldo Rivera, Tipper Gore ... heck, Tom Hanks starred in Mazes and Monsters.
Also, as you may be aware or maybe may not care, but I gotta while one may debate calling out a broad category of people as "stupid" I don't know whether doing so while failing to employ the distinction between "you're" and "your" advances your argument.
Again, this point is pretty moot, given Wizards spent half of last publication year in support of a tentpole hardcover that literally explored Hell, and a year or so before that dealt with the Demon Lords. It doesn't seem to be a concern in this edition.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think it's likely that they find it difficult to balance high tier content, and planar entities are most certainly high tier.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha