Does the multiverse exist at your table?

[90sMusic]

Some folks run the game as if their campaign world is the only one that exists.

Others treat their campaign world as if it is one of the infinite number of realities of the multiverse.

The distinction may not be important to most, unless you deal with high level play often or just like to get really deep into the lore of your worlds, but i'm still curious.

With option B, you can have situations like a Universal Hell that beings from all realities goto instead of a private hell that is specific to each one. You can also have characters (or PCs) from other worlds/realities come into your campaign while option A precludes that.

So, just curious.

[guachi]

No, the multiverse does not exist at my table.

[Naanomi]

My campaign exists in the larger Great Wheel+ Cosmology, but planar travel by PCs is relatively rare... some of the prominent villains have extraplanr origins though

[Haldir]

Depending on the system a multiverse has to exist, at least in terms of heaven or hell.

My table? Depends entirely on the demand of the narrative.

[Arkhios]

Multiverse as in all known and yet to be created settings (and rulesets) in one big whole? Yes, we do that.

How much does it affect the actual play? Not at all. Planar/stellar travel is first of all rare, and mostly high level stuff anyway, so most games don't go that far.

[Potato_Priest]

We have one material plane with one planet, but most of the other normal planes theoretically exist.

[imanidiot]

The multiverse does exist but there are factors to prevent planar travel into the world. Anything from "off plane" has either been there since the before the barrier existed around 1000 years ago or has been broght to the plane by a being beyond Greater Power status.

There are no beings above divine rank 1. Maybe one, but probably not even him and he would only be DR2.

There is very little knowledge of other planes. There is no Plane Shift spell. Travel off of the plane is technically possible (via Wish), but returning would be impossible.

The Feywild and Shadowfell both exist but are considered part of the same plane and they do not connect directly to the larger offical planes. Travel to and from those is largely at the discretion of the inhabitants.

[mephnick]

Yes, but only accessible through physical portals at certain locations. Plane Shift virtually doesn't exist since my world is capped at 13 so maybe 2 people in the setting have access to it (one being a PC that reached max level).

[Waterdeep Merch]

Some of my settings don't allow for a multiverse, and yet it exists anyway entirely for a single villain who is omni-dimensional and exists in every setting, having certain meta-knowledge and memories regarding all of his past encounters with players. Specifically, he remembers their past characters and can identify their new ones. He doesn't know he's in a game, but has some sense of the interaction between players and their characters.

In every game, he eventually shows up and tries to kill the players for all the times he's been humiliated in the past. It's usually through some insane trap/conspiracy that my players have thus far been very bad at recognizing as the mark of their ultimate meta villain, letting him make the kind of grand reveal he loves best before launching into a melodramatic villain speech that all-too often leads to his defeat.

[tieren]

It exists but can only be accessed by running faster than the speed of light, which requires such a ridiculous amount of preparation and well trained pigeons as to be virtually impossible.

[Regitnui]

Eberron, but yes. The worlds of Athas, Eberron and Abeir-Toril each exist in the Blind Eternities (Deep Astral), surrounded by their particular subplanes on the Astral level. I include Zendikar, Innistrad, Kaladesh and Amonkhet in the "D&MtG" multiverse, along with a few other M:tG planes. If anyone's interested:
Athas is locked off to planeswalkers, much like it was in Spelljammer, but those with the Spark are born there. Unfortunately, there haven't been any planeswalker-level talents since Athas fell into ruin.

Eberron is fairly near Dominaria and Ravnica, though is a relative backwater overshadowed by its two more famous neighbours. The dragons of Argonessen and the Lords of Dust are aware of the existence of planeswalkers, though most other factions would consider them foreigners or from one of Eberron's local planes. Local planeswalkers come and go freely, and its relatively unspoiled nature makes Eberron a popular destination for planeswalkers based in Ravnica. Part of the charm is the general obliviousness to the multiverse.

Abeir-Toril is a plane close enough for planeswalkers to get to it, but they have trouble with the local gods, particularly Mystara. It's not entirely sure why the gods of Abeir-Toril are so antagonistic to planeswalkers, but very few manage to slip under their notice and return. Those who ignite in the Forgotten Realms are usually unwelcome on return, but are most adept at buttering up the gods.

The Demiplane of Dread is really close to Innistrad. Not many planeswalkers could tell you the difference. some consider Innistrad a piece of the Demiplane of Dread, while others consider the Demiplane of Dread a piece of Innistrad torn off and repurposed. Planeswalkers from the DoD are usually glad to leave and settle somewhere safer in the multiverse.

[NorthernPhoenix]

I play with the standard inner and outer planes but there is only ever one material plane.

[JackPhoenix]

Planes exist, of course.

Other settings do not.

Sorry, Elminster, you're not wriggling your way into Eberron or my settings in games I run. Wait, what am I saying... I'm not sorry in the least.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My setting is all non-standard:

The material plane and the surrounding planes (4xElemental, Astral, Abyssal, and Shadow) are a bubble universe inside the Dreaming Dark. The Astral is the home of all the Gods and all the Devils (plus a sea of high-potential soul-energy). The Abyss is home to Demons. Since I abandoned alignment entirely, angels vs devils vs demons is a matter of job/philosophy rather than alignment or race. The shadow plane serves as the liminal plane separating all the others. Travel between them is possible, but risky.

The Dreaming Dark is the equivalent of the Far Realms. There are an uncountable infinity of other worlds out there, each brought into existence by a Dreamer, as the Dreamers were by the Dark itself. Some of these are long-lived, others are short-lived. They are all maintained by the collective subconscious of their inhabitants--if enough stopped believing in the dream, it would end and with it that bubble universe. Trying to travel between Dreams (at least from this one out or into this one) gets you beaten by angry angels. There are Wakeners out there that want to end all Dreams--parasitic thought forms with no physical nature that infect living beings and cause an awful mess.

One of my players's characters is convinced that he's actually a godlike being from the Dark who has come to rally this world against the Wakeners. He's playing a GOO warlock and his patron is his supposed wife (a nautiloid creature with lots of tentacles). Is he? Who knows. I certainly don't. He certainly doesn't get any mechanical benefits from his belief, and most people (including the rest of the party) think he's a little...well...mad.

[Anon von Zilch]

It does, but it gets kind of weird because I use a bunch of Greyhawk gods that have different origins than their classic counterparts. I don't worry about it, because the multiverse doesn't seem like a place that has to make all that much sense.

[QuintonBeck]

I like mixing a little space fantasy in with my regular fantasy so I lift ideas from Spelljammer. There's the Material Plane which contains a great number of worlds in a great number of spheres although most PCs are liable to only ever see one world. Still, this allows for 'alien' life such as Illithid and Beholders to literally have come from beyond the stars but not be from a different plane.

The different planes also exist and can be reached either through planar magic or through "conventional" spacejamming but they exist at the edges of the Material Plane and so traveling there via spelljamming can be quite slow. Advanced intellects have usually discovered how to travel across worlds and planes by the time the PCs are active but they tend to be on backwater or rim worlds of relatively little importance so they don't tend to get swept up in interplanetary struggles or the like. Doesn't mean they won't run across evidence of that existing though.

[Willie the Duck]

Other planes or planets exist the instant I or we decide we want to run that type of campaign. Otherwise, at high level, there might be occasional reference to a wizard who was off on a different plane of existence, or maybe planar travel is the true (or misinformation) origin of Race X. And devils, demons, celestials, and gawds--they exist to facilitate stories regarding the religions and afterlives of the people of the world, not the other way around.

I tend to not like any of the iconic characters of the D&D setting. Melf and Leomund and Drawmij must have once been people to have spells named after them, but any information the PCs have on them is apocryphal and likely false. I think EGG had it right originally when he assumed that people would prefer to make up their own worlds with their own histories (and extraplanar cosmologies). At least we do.

[Xetheral]

I use a custom game world with a custom cosmology. There is a single central Abyss, surrounded by a spherical shell which is the 9th layer of hell, Nessus. Projecting outwards are countless "stacks" consisting of upper layers of hell, an underdark, a material plane, and a set of heavens. The interstitial spaces between the stacks are filled with the elemental planes... fire between the upper layers of hells, earth between the underdarks, water between the material planes, and air between the heavens.

Planar travel can only move one within a stack. Moving to a different stack requires physical travel: either great distances across an elemental plane (the stacks are farther apart the higher "up" the stack you are) or, for the daring, short distances through Nessus (which, as a crossroads, is the only true planar metropolis).

The planes in each stack are essentially flat (although they have curvature). "Above" the heavens is a great gulf where the astronomical bodies are (suns, moons, and stars) beyond which are a collection of bizarre planes and demiplanes clinging to the edge of the multiverse. Beyond that edge lie the far realms, which are not technically part of "reality" at all.

[Anonymouswizard]

While I don't generally run D&D, there is one recurring element in all my settings for games or books: this is the only universe. There may be other levels, such as hyperspace, heaven, the abyss, or whatever, but there is no way to access any other universe. In one setting there are other branches on the universal tree, with each branch splitting into two approximately once a century (approximately two to the power of one hundred and thirty seven plus minus two thousand minus one branches, just try to conquer it all), and those with the knowledge can move between the branches to access different 'worlds'.

(This is personally a pet peeve about the meaning of the world 'universe'.)

That isn't to say there can't be versions of the same person in multiple universes. All universes also have multiple worlds, because we're running physics plus guys, this is like reality unless you hand me your working out, so spherical planets in solar systems in galaxies.

[GlenSmash!]

"Does the multiverse exist at your table?"

For the game I DM, I don't know. It hasn't come up yet.

Fro the games I play in, I don't know. It hasn't come up yet.

[Akulatraxis]

I got into D&D from Planescape and it has been part of the setting ever since for me... I just love planar travel, and if the game is lower level than that I love having a few weird things show up ever now and again.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Does the multiverse exist at my table? Yes it does. However its a power a little beyond the range of the PC's. Planeshift and teleport were not enough, To open a gateway between campaign worlds say from Terra'Nara(my setting) to Faerun or Krynn requires either an epic level spell, a psionic power called Tesseract augmented to 24 power points. And the only way to learn Tesseract was via psychic chirurgery from the one being known to possess it "The Braxis"
But that was all 3.5/PF need to figure out new things for 5e.

Spell-Jammer ships exist but they'd rarely land on the planet and if they did they'd masquerade as a "regular" magical flying ship. The founder of the Garr Empire; The God Emperor Shao'Garr was a spell a spelljammer who crashed on Terra'Nara centuries ago after his ship was destroyed. (yes his ship was destroyed BEFORE he fell to earth.)