Planescape Planescape - what would you like to see?

[Olfan]

I do hear people who love the setting as reading material criticize it as being difficult to DM or to grok as a player. How playable do you feel PS is?

I've never noticed it was hard to DM. I DMed an entire campaign of lost primes trying to find their way back. All the players were new to the planes so they didn't have to meta-game anything. They were as lost as their characters. By the end of the campaign they were as good cutters as the local bloods. They loved it, I loved it, and them books were perfect for really helping the DM get into the feel of the place. That's the key I think. Simple mechanical speech bores me and doesn't let me feel the world. Remember the "Volo's Guide" books? Those were amazing!

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm quite fond of the idea of Inspiration-powered feats. Hmmmm....

 

[TarionzCousin]

I agree that any sort of planar products going forward need to accomodate both prime PCs (for the average D&D player) and planar PCs (for the Planescape fans who enjoy reading setting material).

I, too, would like to see this.

But more than anything, I would like to see intelligent, mature gamers in my local area who are at least half as passionate as the "regular" Planescape® ENWorld posters--you know who you are!

Hint: if you have posted at least three times in every Planescape thread since you've been a member, you undoubtedly qualify as a "regular."

 

[Quickleaf]

I'm quite fond of the idea of Inspiration-powered feats. Hmmmm....

While I'm focusing my free gaming time writing up a 5e Planescape adventure for when my gamin group picks up again in August, I imagine I'll do some conversion work and am happy to share/collaborate!

I've never noticed it was hard to DM. I DMed an entire campaign of lost primes trying to find their way back. All the players were new to the planes so they didn't have to meta-game anything. They were as lost as their characters. By the end of the campaign they were as good cutters as the local bloods. They loved it, I loved it, and them books were perfect for really helping the DM get into the feel of the place. That's the key I think. Simple mechanical speech bores me and doesn't let me feel the world. Remember the "Volo's Guide" books? Those were amazing!

Yeah I have a soft spot for the Volo's Guides...

I think there's a balance to be struck between cliche prime fantasy & overwhelming hardcore planewalker. After all, there needs to be enough familiarity for the subversion of standard fantasy tropes to be as engaging and thought provoking. Maybe prime/planar isn't the distinction, rather degree of setting knowledge/investment is...

I, too, would like to see this.

But more than anything, I would like to see intelligent, mature gamers in my local area who are at least half as passionate as the "regular" Planescape® ENWorld posters--you know who you are!

Hint: if you have posted at least three times in every Planescape thread since you've been a member, you undoubtedly qualify as a "regular."

Haha, guilty!

We were debating the merits of how to start a Planescape campaign (a hypothetical 5e published adventure product), whether the first adventure should assume prime PCs are already in the process of acclimating or whether the adventure should involve the prime PCs transitioning to the planes & meeting planar PCs. I guess the drawbacks of the later approach are:

1. The prime PCs might want to "return home" or make the prime plane their focus.

2. Players of prime PCs might use it as an excuse to conduct themselves as if they were on a big standard prime fantasy adventure to "kill monsters and take their stuff."

OTOH, the advantages of that approach might be:

1. Help give the party coherence and direction (if done well).

2. Allow for increased wonder of exploring the planes from players identifying with PCs discovering it for the first time.

 

[Quickleaf]

Gearing up for running a 5e Planescape game, and I've begun working on converting the setting...

[sblock=Musings]I decided that a straight conversion was a bit limited, so I'm taking artistic license. All the familiar stuff will be there, but I am tweaking the factions with an eye toward playability. I am also thinking of accepting the established continuity (yes, even Faction War), but keeping the focus off the past and instead focus on the wonders of the planes, on the PCs, and what lies thru the next portal (rather than an obsession with meta-plot or a sys-admin view of Planescape).

The factions will be in Sigil, there will be a lot of them (more than 15), but they won't be the top-dogs there, rather they'll be more like secret societies; for example the Fraternity of Order will have members who've infiltrated (or openly serve) the City Courts, but the City Courts aren't "theirs" exclusively. So you might have judges from competing factions conflicting with each other, judges conflicting with dabus judges, accused citizens claiming their judge is a Guvner to discredit him, and so on. Turns out the Lady of Pain's decree in Faction War meant the factions couldn't have their headquarters in Sigil nor control it's government, not that they were totally outlawed. Still they operate more in the shadows than out in the open because of this, so the kriegstanz is on in a major way, and the entire planes are their battleground.

Here are some of my brainstorming notes...

Divide races into "classic" and "strange". Classic races would include aasimar, bariaur, genasi, githyanki, githzerai, rogue modron, nathri, and tiefling, along with planar half-elves and humans. Strange races would include bladeling, foo dog, reave, and tso from Monstrous Compendiums, along with new races I'll design: Fused being, godling, mimir (sentient), petitioner (exceptional), planar shadow, and Yggdrasil spirit. I think that covers all the archetypes and allows for more weirdness/diversity that players enjoy and heightens the feel of it being Planescape. I'm really excited to share my write-ups for those new races...there's some delightfully strange "abstract made tangible" themes I'm playing with there!

Factions designed as backgrounds with an extra feature (2 instead of 1) that also includes a hindrance. In addition, each faction will have an associated feat inspired by Factol's Manifesto. Sometimes I'll deviate from the cannon abilities however if they don't make sense or if there's a better option. Thinking that the Basic D&D/PHB backgrounds will be for Clueless PCs. Will be changing a few factions, notably Fated to Fateless (who deny predestination, cheat the Fates, and make their own way), a more sympathetic Harmonium, a Free League that really stands for the principles of freedom/free market,

Reinterpreting Inspiration as Belief, and awarding it for adhering to an Ideal despite great personal cost or suffering. Also providing more uses for Inspiration, such as attuning to a planar touchstone, eschewing spell components, gaining an intuitive clue, or (most importantly) re-shaping the planes am contemplating some uses of re-shaping the planes requiring multiple applications of Inspiration, whether over time or thru multiple PCs working in concert. For example, Inspiration (x5) to shift a gatetown on the brink across the border from or into the Outlands.

In addition to faction feats, adding 2 new feats: Portal Feel & Planar Sense, which will be adaptations of the proficiencies in Planewalker's Handbook.

Magic item conversions from Factol's Manifesto, Planewalker's Handbook, and that old Dragonarticle for 3.5e.

New spells selected from Planewalker's Handbook, with an eye toward cutting down their number to just the essentially unique ones.

That's it on the player side... Hah! Quite a lot of converting/updating actually! Once I've got the basics hammered out, I'll post it to the boards.[/sblock]

 

[Quickleaf]

Still curious to hear what folks would like to see from Planescape in the 5th edition?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Re-establishing the iconic baseline of setting of Sigil again. Even though I'm fine with a post-faction war setting, they should probably move back or forward in the timeline to where it was before Faction War, and then discuss possible things that could have happened, much like how they handled Dark Sun in 4e.

The focus should primarily be on Sigil. Backgrounds shouldn't be factions or sects as I think those should be covered in another optional mechanic, but rather backgrounds in PS should be things like Hiver (slightly modified criminal background perhaps), Prime Material Refugee, Gatehouse Barmy, Sheltered Upper Planar, and others that have flavour related to Sigil. Ideas like how to use for example a possible DMG module on stronghold building, into something about "owning" a strange property in Sigil.

Detail about the many locations and personalities around Sigil, but not too detailed that everything is mapped out. There should always be room to dump something in, like perhaps you want a part of Sigil that's like Venice and should come as no problem for a DM to put that in.

Beyond that a bit of a tour of the more unusual places around the planes. There needs to needs to be a bunch of interesting ideas and hooks to mine for campaigns.
Some of the old concepts introduced back in 2e given a new light like: Neth the Demiplane That Lives, and the implications of having a (star?) Warlock pact to it, or the implications of those Celestials as arms dealers fueling the misery that is the Blood War.

And then throw in a bunch of newer ideas too, such as ones involving those planes that weren't even mentioned back in 2e that are now part of the cosmology.

 

[gweinel]

I haven't read all the pages but the first and most important that i would like to see is a PURE Planescape product. A Planescape book with planescape feeling and planescape art. Although during 3rd and 4th editions we had many references to planescape lore these were not planescape products. So, for me the Manual of the Planes is not a Planescape handbook and I don't consider the full chapter of DMG to Sigil to has to do with Planescape.

That being said, I would love to see a very good Planescape adventure or a sourcebook that includes and expands the Planescape lore from the 90s. More specific I would die to see a cosmic adventure where the factions (as representators of philosophical movements) and other big movers (gods - tanaari-baatezu-yugoloths - lady etc) fight and the pcs stumble in the middle of that battlefield.

 

[Abstruse]

Still curious to hear what folks would like to see from Planescape in the 5th edition?

I never got into Planescape until it was long out of print and mostly unused. I may be off base since I am only passingly familiar with the setting, but I'd like to see this.

1. Strong Starting Point Either starting with just Sigil and work out from there, or start broad with an overview of the cosmology in general then focusing in. Either way, it should be both interesting to long-time fans while still being a strong entry point for new players so they're not lost.
2. Mystery Things should never be defined 100%. The human mind does a poor job with coping with concepts like "infinity" and I'd like to see that represented in a way that gets the feeling across of "I've kinda got this, but that only tells me how much I don't got this."
3. Lady of Pain DO NOT STAT THE LADY OF PAIN!! The Lady of Pain is a force of nature, like the Powers from Ravenloft. They and she should not be defined in any core mechanic sense outside of how much they can screw up your day, week, month, year, millennium.
4. Interconnection I want strong connections to the rest of the setting worlds (yes, including Eberron) to create a sense of a strongly bound multiverse. There should also be options to satisfy those who do not want them connected in this way, such as a way to completely ignore the Planescape setting and lose nothing in their own games, whether published adventures/settings or not.

So that's what I'd like to see.

 

[Oryan77]

I don't plan to play 5e (I'm happy with my edition), and so I doubt I will buy any 5e books. I can say though that if there was some good planar fluff books released for 5e, I'd snatch them up. We have a fairly good amount of sources from each edition that describes the planes. What I would like at this point are more focused books that describe locations on & in the planes. I also don't mean releasing a book that is 3/4 filled with new abilities and junk for your characters with a chapter that has a paragraph for 50 different planar locations. I'd like books that are filled with so much fluff that it is worth buying if you run any edition.

The 2e PS books sort of did it with the DM and Player guides. Even then, a lot of the information was really brief. Would people buy a book that just described planar locations? Especially if it could be used as a non-planar location in any campaign setting? I always hated looking at my 2e planar maps and seeing a place that sounded like a cool spot to adventure, but there is no mention of it in any books. Or, out of all of the realms, there are a ton that I would like to know more about so that when I run an entire adventure there, I can add more detail to the game sessions.

If I could buy a planar book, say a book on Arcadia, and read all about Mt. Clangeddin, Mandible, the storm king citadels, Melodia, Marduk, etc, etc, I would be in heaven. If the book came with maps of these cities and realms, I would buy all of the other 5e books that I wouldn't use just to make sure 5e stays strong.

I know that is a pipe dream since there probably isn't enough interest in books like that to make up for the amount of work it would take to create those, but man my games would be better if I had that.