How would you explain planes to someone new to D&D?
>>46604189
Bullshit timey wimey demons and angels.
Different dimensions that are not usually connected physically to the "real" world. Some are afterlives, others are more along the line of shadow realms or embodiments of classical elements.
There are plenty of places in mythology, religions, and straight fantasy that would qualify as examples.
>>46604189
Hand them a copy of Nine Princes in Amber.
Heck, that's worth doing even if I didn't have to explain planes to them.
Alternate dimensions, with 3 basic types.
There's the Transition planes, which are basically for travel and for other certain spell effects like teleportation or etherealness.
There's the Inner planes, which include planes made entirely of fire or water, and are where spellcasters summon the flames for fireball spells and the like.
And the Outer planes, which include planes like Heaven and Hell, and this is where most gods live and where you go when you die.
Low level adventurers don't really need to worry about planes, because they just exist to explain things like where demons come from or how certain spells work, but high level adventurers may actually visit these other planes.
>>46604189
Planes are basically alternate dimensions.
They can be dimensions which hold the raw elemental stuff that had formed the world (Inner Planes) or they can be the moral dimensions where a person's soul goes when they die (Outer Planes) or they can be the places between those dimensions (Transition Planes).
There are also little mini "pocket planes" which powerful spellcasters can create, and there is stuff like the Plane of Shadow, which is basically the real world but twisted around a bit due to being a different dimension.
Planes can cross over and connect in some ways, although for the most part, each plane type stays in it's own group (except Transition Planes, which cross over with most other stuff).
Or if you are familiar with Norse mythology, they are basically D&D's version of Yggdrasil, Asgard, Niflheim, etc.
>The Astral Plane is Yggdrasil, which connects everything together.
>The Outer Planes are Asgard and Helheim, where the gods and dead go.
>The Inner Planes are Muspellsheim and Niflheim, where raw elements exist and mix together.
>The Prime Material Plane, or "the world" as most people know it, is Midgard: where humans live.
They're other worlds you can go to, most of which have their own theme. That's all you really need to know.
>>46604189
metal boxes with wings that fly through the use of man made engines and aerodynamics.
>>46604189
Think of it as a wheel.
The hub of the wheel hosts the Material Plane.
It is framed by the four inner planes, which are the elemental planes of fire, water, air, and earth.
The spokes of the wheel are the outer planes. These are the homes of all other beings, angels, demons, devils, and all matter of stranger things. They are strongly aligned and are often provide a form of afterlife to those whose ideals most closely match them.
Now imagine that there are also two more planes that are stretched over the other ones. These are the ethereal plane where ghosts and similarly untouchable things live, and the plane of shadow which is a darker distortion cast by the world. Both of these planes exist within the same space as the other planes, but they behave differently in a spatial way.
So you have a hub, a set of elemental inner planes, a series of extreme outer planes, and two more that are contiguous with ours.
>>46605056
I ilke your explanation for Norse, except that DnD has Ysgard as a plane and that could be confusing.
>>46604189
Different dimentions, each with their own gimmick usually.
I try not to use the Great Wheel and instead go for an Otherworld cosmology.
>>46604189
It's like if all the paranormal shit was real and existed across different dimensions but were able to interact with each other.
>>46604382
Fuck off earslut
Can a Cleric of Bane get any spells to banish people from a plane
>>46604189
Heaven and Hell exist, but they're for people who like rules, so there's other places for people who don't like rules. Or who only like rules a bit. Or who don't care about them. Or who aren't quite good enough to get into heaven, but aren't bad enough to get into hell.
Oh, and a race of frogs who reproduce by infecting you with diseases or parasites exist, and they kicked all the unbaptised babies out of limbo.
>>46604382
>Low level adventurers don't really need to worry about planes
Unless you're in Planescape.
>>46609135
or Ravenloft...
>>46613224
Is there a lot of plane-hopping in Ravenloft?
I thought it was where people were explicitly trapped on those demiplanes.
Tell them to think about how (in Christian mythology) there's Earth, but then also Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. That should give them a good idea of what a plane actually is.
Then, also mention how other religions do it. In Norse paganism, you have the Nine Worlds (seven in Anglo-Saxon) and Yggdrasil; in Greek, you have Earth, the Underworld, Tartarus, Erebus, and such.
That gives them a basis for what to expect. At this point, you can describe the different planes.
I would start with the Prime obviously, but then the Outer Planes, which are most similar to the ones in religion, being alignment based where people go to die. Assuming you have already explained alignment, this should follow easily—people go to where their alignment and god of worship are.
Then, let them know that all of these planes have to be somewhere, and that introduces the Astral Plane. From that you can explain the Transition Planes, which as >>46604382 says are for travel magic. Explain the idea of etherealness, being kind of like being a ghost going through things.
And then the Inner Planes. The elemental planes have some correlation with Norse mythology as well, in the form of Niflheim and Muspelhiem. Just explain them as lands of pure elemental power corresponding to the four classical elements, plus "positive energy" or life, and "negative energy" or death.
>>46605056
>alternate dimensions
universes. alternate universes
I'd say, "Planes are like other dimensions. Don't worry about it for now. We'll revisit it when it comes up. After you have the basics down."
"Ever heard of MTG?"
>>46616975
"No, but I've heard of D&D".
Seriously, I know people who have actually played MTG for years (casually) who still don't really know what the game's "about".
>>46604189
Like other mythological and fantasy cosmologies, D&D has various alternate dimensions. You've got the normal real world (the "material plane"), the various elemental planes full of fire, water, etc, a shitload of "outer planes" that are various mythological heavens and hells aligned with Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, etc, etc, and a few in-between oddballs like the Astral Plane that's the space between all of them.
