The in-universe lore of edition changes

[No brains]

Ever since I heard that Die, Vecna, Die! was 'the end of 2e', I started to wonder if there's an in-universe explanation for the edition changes. Something that could be done to make a fun story for how D&D characters perceived and responded to the universal upheavals that come along every once in a while.

Like I can imagine Vecna tilting the universal pinball machine to make Greyhawk the default setting, because his whole deal is obtuse lore. Similarly, I can imagine 4e may have came about with Asmodeus experimenting with becoming an actual god, smushing the heavens into a line instead of a wheel, and then realizing the status quo was to his benefit when 5e rolled thing back. I'm pretty sure Tasha breaking everything might be an element of the end of 5e.

Is there anything actually close to this?

[Squark]

For the Forgotten Realms, there has generally been a big in universe event associated with edition changes;

1e to 2e had the Time of Troubles
2e to 3e had the Vecna saga
3e to 4e had the spellplague
4e to 5e had... That thing with the gods that was a bit like the time of troubles without as much cataclysm.

This isn't the case with other settings- Eberron is still in the same year 2 editions later.

[JackPhoenix]

No. 4e had it's own, unique default setting which had nothing to do with previous editions... FR had their own set of changes for stupid reasons, Eberron had 4e changes forced upon it for no reason at all. 5e has no proper default setting, and again, no relation to previous editions. FR, as usual, had some stupid explanation for why things changed again, Eberron just removed most of 4e changes (and retroactivelly added some new 5e stuff), but timeline never moved since 3.5. Greyhawk wasn't officially updated to either edition (though GoS adventures are set in Greyhawk, the setting at large wasn't described), AFAIK. 5e changed Ravenloft for no (good) reason.

[Naanomi]

~The nature of Beholders has changed several times...
~Asmodeus went from having explicit plans to avoid accidently becoming a god to wanting it and making it happen...
~The nature of the Prime Material Plane has changed a lot with this latest Spelljammer update...
~The creation of the Feywild and Shadowfel shook up the cosmology quite a bit (though the Shadow ~Plane has changed a lot every edition; With lore explanations given as to why on many of them)...
~How the dragon pantheon operates seems to change a lot between editions ...
~The inner planes have drastically shifted arrangement...

[PhoenixPhyre]

~The nature of Beholders has changed several times...
~Asmodeus went from having explicit plans to avoid accidently becoming a god to wanting it and making it happen...
~The nature of the Prime Material Plane has changed a lot with this latest Spelljammer update...
~The creation of the Feywild and Shadowfel shook up the cosmology quite a bit (though the Shadow ~Plane has changed a lot every edition; With lore explanations given as to why on many of them)...
~How the dragon pantheon operates seems to change a lot between editions ...
~The inner planes have drastically shifted arrangement...

But (except for FR, mostly, I think), it's been unclear whether the 3e (et al) settings were actually the same universes as the 5e ones, etc. That is, did the universe change at some point in time T, or did the 3e universe always exist and the 5e universe always exist and we're just shifting focus from one to the other.

In FR, it's clear. There was <state before change>, then <event>, then <state after change>. But many of the changes are more in the nature of retcons (it's always been this way) than changes.

[Anonymouswizard]

This isn't the case with other settings- Eberron is still in the same year 2 editions later.

I believe Keith Baker is okay with adventures and books set after 998YK, but nothing set after then is allowed to be definitive canon. Each edition of Everton is essentially a reboot that brings in changes from the rules changes (although the only things I can think of is the changes in Warforged armour, the way Magewrights work, and the 4e version having a nonexistent plane).

[No brains]

~Asmodeus went from having explicit plans to avoid accidently becoming a god to wanting it and making it happen...


Maybe then 4e happened because someone triggered Asmodeus' godhood against his will and he said it was his plan to save face. Maybe 4e was Asmodeus frantically trying to fix things for a while.

If I remember right, there is a similar discontinuity with Vlaakith. She's been approximately as strong as a god since OG Manual of the Planes and for just as long she's never liked clerics. Then in a 4e adventure, she wants to become a god and then comfortably accepts being a near-god again in 5e.

The story of 4e might just be Asmodeus getting stuck in a god hole for a few years until Vlaakith goes in after him to push him out.

[JackPhoenix]

Maybe then 4e happened because someone triggered Asmodeus' godhood against his will and he said it was his plan to save face. Maybe 4e was Asmodeus frantically trying to fix things for a while.

If I remember right, there is a similar discontinuity with Vlaakith. She's been approximately as strong as a god since OG Manual of the Planes and for just as long she's never liked clerics. Then in a 4e adventure, she wants to become a god and then comfortably accepts being a near-god again in 5e.

The story of 4e might just be Asmodeus getting stuck in a god hole for a few years until Vlaakith goes in after him to push him out.

I don't know what your obsession with Asmodeus is, but he's got nothing to do with any edition changes. He has suffered from those changes himself.

Outside FR and its novels, there's no metaplot in D&D anymore.

[Millstone85]

4e to 5e had... That thing with the gods that was a bit like the time of troubles without as much cataclysm.The Second Sundering.

There have actually been three "sunderings":

the separation of a very young Abeir-Toril into the twin worlds of Abeir and Toril.
the creation of the isle of Evermeet by an elven ritual that stole a piece of Arborea.
the return of pieces of land to their original worlds, after the Spellplague had exchanged them between Abeir and Toril.

However, the creation of Evermeet is considered the First Sundering because its excess energy actually travelled backward and forward in time, and was used by Ao to deal with the Abeir-Toril situation, twice.

This is almost as bad as comic-book lore.


But (except for FR, mostly, I think), it's been unclear whether the 3e (et al) settings were actually the same universes as the 5e ones, etc.4e's main setting, Nentir Vale, tried to play the alternate-timeline card a few times. For instance, it claimed that Primus attempted to split the Elemental Chaos into four separate Elemental Planes, but had his plan foiled by the Nine-Tongued Worm. That was like *hint hint* what if in a different version of history Primus had been successful in creating this symmetry.

[Naanomi]

But (except for FR, mostly, I think), it's been unclear whether the 3e (et al) settings were actually the same universes as the 5e ones, etc. That is, did the universe change at some point in time T, or did the 3e universe always exist and the 5e universe always exist and we're just shifting focus from one to the other.
Well, except I suppose that they keep putting Toril in the shared Prime Material Plane so... If it is the same Forgotten Realms, it is the same Great Wheel/etc (unless I suppose the Sunderings and the like also catapulted the world to different Cosmologies? But I don't see any evidence to suggest that)


If I remember right, there is a similar discontinuity with Vlaakith. She's been approximately as strong as a god since OG Manual of the Planes and for just as long she's never liked clerics. Then in a 4e adventure, she wants to become a god and then comfortably accepts being a near-god again in 5e.
She has been trying to ascend to Divinity herself (by absorbing the divine essence of the corpse god she lives on) since 2e

[JadedDM]

Dragonlance had the Second Cataclysm (from 1E/2E to SAGA) and the War of Souls (from SAGA to 3E).