Infinite angels can dance on the head of a pin. Do you care?

[Foxwarrior]

So, I've got this Astral Plane, see, where the Angels live. It's a plane, so it's two dimensional. As an added benefit, that means in some settings it can literally be the heavenly shell the world resides within. If you somehow rolled it up, since it's completely two dimensional, that would allow you to fit an infinite amount of the plane on the head of a pin, with all the angels in that area included.

If you want to visit the Astral Plane, you can't physically go there because a change in dimensionality would obviously make a total mess of your organs, so you have to instead project your consciousness into a two-dimensional avatar of you to explore the plane with. Likewise, the Angels living there cannot visit the 3D world for the same reason, so when your Angel Summoner summons one (via black magic and a sacrifice), they're really creating an avatar for an angel to project its consciousness into.

The problem is, I fear that this 2D realm thing is too disconnected from the rest of the game world, and I suspect that nobody I've shown it to is excited about it. Should I give in and make the Astral Plane 3D, or perhaps get rid of it altogether?

[GreatGreyShrike]

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is good, but the amount of words Abbott used to describe his fictious flatland is several orders of magnitude more than I would want to have to read and understand in order to know the basics about a plane that I may or may not ever visit or meaningfully interact with in a fantasy RPG setting. And I'm not sure you can cut the amount of explanations and ideas sufficiently to still have a cool concept without cutting the substance so far that all the implications that make the concept interesting are lost. I mean if you just present the concept as in your post above, my reaction is 'meh, whatever, I don't really care', and while you could move that needle to 'awesome', .... I think it'd take so much effort and so much text that I don't think it's a worthwhile use of time and effort for either the reader or writer.

It's a cool idea for an entire book of fiction to be based around, but anything that takes this amount of explanation, thought, and drawing diagrams to understand probably isn't super well suited for most gaming tables.

[deaddmwalking]

I'd be a little surprised that you'd opt for beings known for operating in 3 dimensions (angels and wings) and try to put them in a 2 dimensional space.

On the other hand, I like the idea of making angels a little more...otherworldly than D&D tends to.

In our heartbreaker, angels are from an essentially timeless dimension; there is no entropy. So I like weird in a different direction.

[PhoneLobster]

I suspect that nobody I've shown it to is excited about it.

People who want to play D&D or close enough.

People who are not weirded out that your setting pitch being largely about angels, heavenly shells and angelic avatars. You know, crazy person talk.

People who want to try some guy's amateur take on that lame one gag 2 dimensional universe in that episode of Futurama and make it into the central pitch of something they spend a very large amount of time and effort investing in.

Now combine the intersection of those three groups.

How big do you think the group that is totally on board for ALL those things might be?

[Foxwarrior]

According to this poll, obviously not the whole player group.

[Judging__Eagle]

Personally, I think it's awful. Specifically because one would expect more dimensions on supposedly more powerful entities than 3 (or 4th) dimensional beings such as Humans, than less dimensions.

[Foxwarrior]

Yeah, I know, fifth-dimensional lizardmen and all that, but 3D is hard enough to represent on tabletop already. And I somehow suspect this poll wouldn't be vastly more positive if I gave the Angels two or more extra dimensions.

[deaddmwalking]

Actually, I think that Angels that have the ability to intersect with timelines at any point somewhat more interesting than 2 dimensional beings.

The answer to 'why don't the angels just come in and save us' can be as simple as 'this timeline isn't bad enough - if it were going to be, they would have already'.

But changing the timeline is tricky in D&D, so maybe it wouldn't be a good idea.

[Foxwarrior]

Changing the timeline is tricky everywhere, and I think you need a computer to play Achron.

[OgreBattle]

How about a 2D sidecrolling dimension

[Foxwarrior]

It is. Platformer-style, to be specific.

[ishy]

So, uhmmm, what is the point?
How does this benefit the game?

[Foxwarrior]

The point of having strange content is to help create unusual and interesting worlds for the players to interact with and explore. The trials and tribulations involved in robbing an Angelic fortress or trapping a king's mind in the Astral Plane for interrogation are obviously and notably different from doing so elsewhere.

[Username17]

I don't comprehend how you would interact with a 2 dimensional being. It's literally invisible and intangible. Were something to be 2d, it might as well exist in a realm of pure thought or something.

-Username17

[virgil]

I don't comprehend how you would interact with a 2 dimensional being. It's literally invisible and intangible. Were something to be 2d, it might as well exist in a realm of pure thought or something.

[hyzmarca]

I don't comprehend how you would interact with a 2 dimensional being. It's literally invisible and intangible. Were something to be 2d, it might as well exist in a realm of pure thought or something.

-Username17

2d beings aren't invisible and intangible, they're just flat. That means that they're invisible and intangible if you look at them from the edge. But if you look at them from up top, they're no different from something written on a piece of paper.

Flatland actually does this quite well. You can see into their houses, because their houses have no roofs, because they don't have an up direction. You can also see into their bodies, for the same reason. And you can poke at their vital organs with your fingers if you want to be malicious.


Since they're not aware of the 3rd dimension, they can't fight back. You're basically a god to them.

[Omegonthesane]

I don't comprehend how you would interact with a 2 dimensional being. It's literally invisible and intangible. Were something to be 2d, it might as well exist in a realm of pure thought or something.

-Username17

2d beings aren't invisible and intangible, they're just flat. That means that they're invisible and intangible if you look at them from the edge. But if you look at them from up top, they're no different from something written on a piece of paper.

Flatland actually does this quite well. You can see into their houses, because their houses have no roofs, because they don't have an up direction. You can also see into their bodies, for the same reason. And you can poke at their vital organs with your fingers if you want to be malicious.


Since they're not aware of the 3rd dimension, they can't fight back. You're basically a god to them.

Assuming, of course, that the two dimensions in which angels exist are two of the dimensions of material space. Or is it too much gratuitous mindfuckery to even contemplate that...

[Negative Zero]

Finally, I can join the love of my life, and also be 2D.

More seriously, I think a 2D plane is an interesting concept to play in, but it would take a lot of explanation and I don't know if it's the kind of thing your group would be game for.

My group, for example, is super heavy into RP and character relations/development, so they'd probably get bored of a 2D plane and go back to having character interactions (which I can't imagine would be seriously enhanced or harmed by the 2D plane).

Meanwhile, a super casual beer'n'pretzels kind of player might find it interesting if they find geometry interesting, or they might not care about the scenery and just want more red dots on the minimap that they can roll dice at.

[OgreBattle]

I like the idea of interacting with a world following 2D sidescroller logic so when you attack Dracula's castle you play through it like this:



So combat follows 2D sidescroller gameplay with enemy placement, area of effect, and so on. As jumping and platforming would be a bigger deal and hitting people mid air happens a lot in 2D sidescrollers, a system where you declare movement, then declare actions to intercept one another would be fitting. So the axe knight enemy has a certain attack arc that has a chance of hitting anyone moving through that area, while a hero with a double jump power can declare that he's gonna use his double jump to move out of the axe's arc, but then that can put him on a ledge where a skeleton duelist is ready to attack, and so on.

So for me the interesting part is in the gameplay of a 2D sidecroller world, and I'd ignore the philosophical/physics part.

[RobbyPants]

Man, I want to play Castlevania:SotN, now.