Planescape (+) What would you want for 5e Planescape?

[Urriak Uruk]

Yes, I am shamelessly stealing the format of the other similarly named thread.

I want to hear what folks love about Planescape and what they most want for 5E, but I will start;

- Setting material for Sigil and the Outlands

Not much of these two locations has been covered much in 5E. Sigil greats a brief mention in the DMG, but the Outlands and their towns don't get much a mention at all. We also don't know much about the status of the Guilds in Sigil; are they still around, are they the same as in previous editions, or have they changed in some ways?

- Setting material for the various Outer, Inner, and Transitive Planes

I don't mean so much detail on the planes themselves, as the DMG does a pretty good job of explaining places like the Elemental Plane of Fire for example. What I am interested in, is points of interest in these planes, like the City of Brass. There are loads of interesting locales and NPCs within these planes that haven't gotten much coverage in the DMG, and that material is a lot more useful than "Well, the Abyss is filled with demons and is an all-around bad place." Go ahead and give details and specific layers of the Abyss (not all obviously, but the most interesting ones). Same goes for other Outer Planes, Inner Planes, and even Transitive Planes (like the Fortress of the Soul, maintained by the Dustmen deep in the Negative Energy Plane)

- Monsters monsters monsters!

This is a big one. Give me more monsters! Planescape is a great opportunity to add more creatures that have gotten skimped so far, chiefly Celestials and Fey. Beyond that, there are just a lot of variations of creatures that exist in the planes of creatures we know; Planar Dragons for example. Who doesn't what to face off against a Hellfire Wyrm? I think there can be a big mix of creatures from a variety of locales and types, but I suppose there should be a tilt towards mid-and-high CR creatures.

- Important NPCs getting stats and art

One disappointment for me in Ravenloft was the Darklords not getting stats. I understand the motive there, but it would be an even bigger disappointment to see some of the most important NPCs of Planescape getting skipped out on. There are too many NPCs to name, and too many to stat, but we should get a few important Archdevils like Mammon, Glasya, and Mephistopheles, plus a few others like Queen Vlaakith of the Githyanki, or a Tome Archons of Mt. Celestia. Plus, updated art! I would love to see a being like Mammon getting some time to shine in the 5E art style.

- Mix of art styles

I love 5E's art style, but I also love the Planescape art style of DiTerlizzi. It's unreasonable to expect DiTerlizzi to create more than a handful of pieces of art (he's said before his Planescape schedule in the day was unhealthy) but I'd love to see his return, plus some 5E traditional pieces, plus some even stranger styles to reflect places like the Abyss or Far Realm. Don't be afraid to showcase a variety of art styles!

- Bariaur

Baraurs. No more to say, apart from doesn't this GW mini look like a great Baraur?

 

[Faolyn]

Personally, I have zero problem with NPCs not getting stats. That ensures that I can make them to fit my party's level (should I need them to) and my personal vision of them. That being said, I'd include more NPC statblocks in the monster section.

Things I want:

In my ideal world, I'd have two books: One for the planes, and one for Sigil and its suburbs: the Gate-Towns. I realize that's unlikely to happen, but I can dream, right? (I also realize the Gate-Towns aren't really Sigil's suburbs, but I kind of want them to be; if you wanted to run a primarily Sigil-based Planescape game but also have a taste of the Outer Planes, they're a good way to do that.)

The 15 factions, but revamped to make them equally useful as PCs. Dustmen and Bleakers are cool, but it's kind of hard to see why they would want to go adventure.

I want to see the Athar given an actual role in Sigil. The Godsmen run the forges, the Guvners do the legal work and are judges, the Harmonium and Mercykillers run the police and armory, the Indeps run the Market and they're not even a "real" Faction, etc.. The Athar are just... angry atheists who do little but go around sabotaging religious organizations and writing anti-religious Chick Tracts. As an atheist, I find that a bit insulting. I'd put them in charge of the a lot of scribes or printing presses, since they were already described as having a lot of scribes to make their tracts. Or have them run non-religious/divine magic-based hospitals. I mean, the Faction built around the futility of existence has soup kitchens and orphanages!

Have some non-Faction factions. I can't believe there aren't numerous thieves guilds in Sigil, for instance. Or private guard/mercenary companies, or hospitals, or things like that. Things like that. Maybe make it that more people aren't really part of a Faction--even if you assume that lots of people join one just because their parents were members, there's still got to be lots of people who just don't care enough about the philosophy of the universe to make a decision.

There definitely need to be more monsters included in Whomever's Guide to the Planes/Sigil than there were in VGR. As long as they check for redundancy--I recently went through the three 3e PS monster books and there were a lot of unnecessary monsters, many of which were just planar versions of regular monsters. Lots of lizardfolk of the planes, or it's neogi but from the planes, or it's a dabus but slightly different.

Common races: planar humans, planetouched of various types (perhaps including new types beyond tieflings/aasimar/genasi), gith, bauriars. Maybe some new ones as well. Uncommon races: everything else. If you can find stats for it, you can play it (DM approval pending, of course). We could definitely use more celestials.

As for the planes themselves... I kind of want to options for both the Wheel and the other variations on the Planes, as well as tips for making your own cosmology. I personally don't want to see "Planejammer" for a lot of reasons (not the least of which is, since nobody has to breathe, eat, drink, or sleep in the Astral, a lot of the hazards of travel just go away and what you're left with is a string of encounters, any of which can be done by simply passing through portals as normal) but I know other people do like it.

But anyway, since Sigil and the Factions (and travel via portal) are a lot of what makes Planescape Planescape and not just a Manual of the Planes, I think it should be easy to put those things in any other style of cosmology.

 

[CleverNickName]

I really enjoyed playing "Planescape: Torment" on the PC back in the day. I'd like to have a remastered version of it released on Steam, updated to use a better game engine and the 5E rules set.

 

[Quickleaf]

I always felt that Planescape offered these allusions to a certain type of adventure which really captivated me, but then the actual execution in the published adventures felt too conservative and disappointing. For example, one of the premises of Planescape was that "belief could literally move mountains" and there were politics around gate-towns shifting from the Outlands into the neighboring planes. How did that occur? DM fiat. What did it look like when that happened? The books were silent.

And figuring out how to translate Planescape themes about belief into your own games required wading through lots of text that was very much of the "tell, don't show" variety. In other words, it wasn't readily game-able information. I would often visit websites like The Mimir or Li Po's Guide to Multiverse, or read books like Calvino's Invisible Cities to try and wrap my head around what a certain planar site would feel like from an adventurer's eye view.

Whereas if you compare any of the published Planescape adventures like Something Wild or Great Modron March to Planescape: Torment, you see a stark difference. Torment had you talking dream beings out of existence, restoring the fallen gate-town of Curst by inspiring the public to trust one another again, and all kinds of crazy awesome adventure hooks.

Flipping through Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft I felt the "domains of dread" were just a little too spartan and leaned a little too much on random tables that were so-so. Good for creating your own stories and decently average inspiration, but less so for running a clearly defined location.

However, maybe a riff on that approach for Planescape would work really well, where there is a table of adventure hooks for each of the vast planes of existence. Many GMs that I've spoken with who ran Planescape would say something to the effect of "there's no good adventures in Elyisum or Bytopia" (typically it was one of those), and I think that really showcases the conservative...or limited... approach to adventure design during the AD&D run of Planescape.

Blowing it open with more creative risk-taking and more immediately game-able adventure hooks/info would be the best move for the setting, in my view. Leave the DMG's coverage on the planes to be vague & evocative. With a Planescape book, show how you implement those high concepts. Make it specific & game-able.

 

[Inchoroi]

Do Adventurer's League using The Great Modron March; its a format that's perfect for AL, and they could put a bit more effort into it with extra art.

Then, the large AP is Dead Gods. Finally do a high-ish level AP.

 

[Parmandur]

Playable Modrons should suffice.

In terms of whaI want to see in structure, I'd like something similar to the Ravnica/Eberron model:

• Chapter 1: Player options, primarily Modrons.
• Chapter 2: the Outer & Inner Planes Gazateer
• Chapter 3: Sigil in-depth Gazateer, including the Outlands and Gate towns
• Chapter 4: Adventure generation material
• Chapter 5: Magic Items & such
• Chapter 6: Beatiary

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The return of the Gate-Town where the factions war can continue. (Here there aren't Lady Pain's business).

Most of PC races, but any ones from 3.5 Planar Handboo weren't my cup of tea.

The planar dragons.

Demiplanes for low level PCs.

The mirror plane.

 

[Mercurius]

In an ideal world, several books.

1. A dedicated book on Sigil and the Outlands. There's a fair amount of old material, and I'd like to see the Outlands fleshed out, even as a kind of infinite plane in and of itself. Meaning, the Outlands go on forever, and within them are portals to different planes and worlds.

2. A Manual of the Planes with sections on the planes, planar travel, planar adventures, alternate cosmologies, build-your-own-cosmologies, and monsters. The emphasis being: this is a toolbox; create your own version of the planes, with the idea that there is no "one true way" that the planes are, thus different cosmologies - whether those of different worlds or cultures within worlds.

3. A story arc involving the githyanki in some form or fashion. Something grand an epic.

I don't expect that, of course, at least not at first. I think they'd combine the first two, then do an adventure and then maybe further adventures if the reception is positive. It would be hard to do the planes justice with only a "one-and-done" book ala Theros.

 

[Faolyn]

Demiplanes for low level PCs.

The mirror plane.

Yeah, I'd like to see more things like that. Fewer infinite planes, more "smaller" places.

Actually, the infinite aspect of the planes is, I think, a bit of a problem. Each plane is infinite, but of course the books can only go into detail about a single miniscule part of it. My personal take on it is that the planes aren't so much infinite as they can always be made bigger if you have the strength of body and mind to do so.

 

[Stormonu]

Definately want the return of the factions, Planescape is no fun without them.

Bariurs, rogue modrons, slaad, githyanki & githzeria all as playable races (good, law, chaos, astral and ethereal essentially).

More adventure touchstone locations - a lot of the new campaign settings have ”generic” maps in them, and I’d like to see 2-3 per plane that can be used for adventure jump points or touchstones. Especially if they’re orthogonal art-maps-stories, like the ones done by Jason Thompson.

A big focus on Sigil - as both a jump-off point and a city-only campaign.

And I know a lot of people were turned off by it during the day, but I enjoyed the barmy cant used through the series, but perhaps limit it/note it as to being an “accent” used in large sections of Sigil.