Anime Is Planescape an interesting setting?

[Atlantico]

It is a very demanding setting and I want to love it, but I can't completely. I bought the original boxed set when it came out, Planes of Chaos and Planes of Law, the Planescape monster's compendium and tried as I could.

The main issue I had, as a DM, was to explain to the other players what Planescape was. In practice, I feel that's the most difficult threshold to cross, because the players need to be on the same level. That's easier in Drangonlance or Forgotten Realms. They're familiar even if they aren't familiar.

Planescape is not familiar. It will confuse many and honestly I think you have to adapt a "house-style" for the setting. You have to fill in a lot of blanks yourself, and no wonder, each plane is a setting of it's own really. These are huge worlds which makes Planescape a blank sheet of paper with a few outlines. You'll have to do most of the creating of the world yourself.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

It was the second most interesting setting back when D&D was not a complete corporate zombie. The first one being Ravenloft. It tried to apt White Wolf's World of Darkness which was big at the time. Some features like factions were a direct rip-off from there. That alone made it more appealing than the other generic dungeon-crawler focused settings.

But like most D&D settings it never reached its potential. It was held by barebones mechanics and muh lore police and epic metaplot. The art rocks though.

I don’t know what sources you’re using, but those stated “facts” are complete nonsense.

Ravenloft predates White Wolf. The first module released in 1983, while the first box set released in 1990.

Factions predate White Wolf too. Gamma World had its “cryptic alliances” in the 70s and 80s.

 

[S.torch]

Ravenloft predates White Wolf. The first module released in 1983, while the first box set released in 1990.

I didn't say Ravenloft takes off from White Wolf, but Planescape. Ravenloft is its own thing and was created by the creators of Dragonlance.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Ravenloft predates White Wolf. The first module released in 1983, while the first box set released in 1990.

I didn't say Ravenloft takes off from White Wolf, but Planescape. Ravenloft is its own thing and was created by the creators of Dragonlance.

My mistake then. The second point still stands. Gamma World had factions (“cryptic alliances”) in the 70s.

 

[S.torch]

Is not so much the idea of factions as their nature. You can see they're were clerly trying to emulate the "punk" vibes on the World of Darkness books.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Is not so much the idea of factions as their nature. You can see they're were clerly trying to emulate the "punk" vibes on the World of Darkness books.

I suppose you could call Planescape “dungeonpunk”, but at that point the “punk” suffix is a meaningless buzzword. The factions are collections of various philosophies, some real and some fictional, that provide PCs more goals beyond dungeoncrawling. Sigil is so cosmopolitan anyway that you can’t call any of the factions counterculture movements. They definitely have nothing to do with punk rock.

 

[Hydro]

I don’t like Planescape. It’s weird, too alien.
Like muh elvs’n’orcs. FR was fine. Not anymore though. But it’s the same case about modern writers.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I don’t like Planescape. It’s weird, too alien.
Like muh elvs’n’orcs. FR was fine. Not anymore though. But it’s the same case about modern writers.

I’m completely burnt out on generic fantasy. It’s oversaturated and interchangeable.

 

[Hydro]

I don’t like Planescape. It’s weird, too alien.
Like muh elvs’n’orcs. FR was fine. Not anymore though. But it’s the same case about modern writers.

I’m completely burnt out on generic fantasy. It’s oversaturated and interchangeable.

I understand. It appeals to me nonetheless, so I keep replaying BG which is FR magnum opus CRPG wise.

 

[ind33d]

It is a very demanding setting and I want to love it, but I can't completely. I bought the original boxed set when it came out, Planes of Chaos and Planes of Law, the Planescape monster's compendium and tried as I could.

The main issue I had, as a DM, was to explain to the other players what Planescape was. In practice, I feel that's the most difficult threshold to cross, because the players need to be on the same level. That's easier in Drangonlance or Forgotten Realms. They're familiar even if they aren't familiar.

Planescape is not familiar. It will confuse many and honestly I think you have to adapt a "house-style" for the setting. You have to fill in a lot of blanks yourself, and no wonder, each plane is a setting of it's own really. These are huge worlds which makes Planescape a blank sheet of paper with a few outlines. You'll have to do most of the creating of the world yourself.

planescape is literally just the D&D MCU, and I don't mean that in a disparaging way

 

[gabel]

I don’t like Planescape. It’s weird, too alien.
Like muh elvs’n’orcs. FR was fine. Not anymore though. But it’s the same case about modern writers.

I’m completely burnt out on generic fantasy. It’s oversaturated and interchangeable.

Yeah, where's the hard sci-fi, man?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

It is a very demanding setting and I want to love it, but I can't completely. I bought the original boxed set when it came out, Planes of Chaos and Planes of Law, the Planescape monster's compendium and tried as I could.

The main issue I had, as a DM, was to explain to the other players what Planescape was. In practice, I feel that's the most difficult threshold to cross, because the players need to be on the same level. That's easier in Drangonlance or Forgotten Realms. They're familiar even if they aren't familiar.

Planescape is not familiar. It will confuse many and honestly I think you have to adapt a "house-style" for the setting. You have to fill in a lot of blanks yourself, and no wonder, each plane is a setting of it's own really. These are huge worlds which makes Planescape a blank sheet of paper with a few outlines. You'll have to do most of the creating of the world yourself.

planescape is literally just the D&D MCU, and I don't mean that in a disparaging way

It’s Sliders as a D&D setting.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I would fucking hate more Planescape games cause I would hate modern writers getting involved with the setting.

Too late, they're already rebooting it. And 2025 DnD will supposedly kick off with Vecna doing some Planescape stuff.

https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/dnds-planescape-reboot-has-no-business-being-this-good/

Can't wait for the Realm of Infinite Genders expansion. This is going to be awesome.

 

[Old One]

I always disliked the D&D cosmology wheel. Planescape was probably the most interesting implementation of it though.

 

[Dark Souls II]

My favourite part about Planescape as a setting were the factions, very cool idea to have factions based on in-depth philosophical differences and not something retarded (by retarded I mean for example the memorable conflict of blue not-orcs vs brown not-orcs in Piece of Shit II: Gayfaggot). A world full of competing schools of thought reminds me of Imperial Rome in the 2nd and 3rd century where you had the church fathers of what would later become the state-approved Christianity, cults of the old gods dating back to Phoenicia, Etruria or Egypt that were starting to rebrand into hermeticism, numerous gnostic cults, various neoplatonic and neophytagorean schools that despite being pagan rallied against the gnostics together with the official Christians etc. The factions in Planescape are well designed, too bad they weren't utilized enough in PsT (wow the Xaositects talk like Yoda and bark like dogs, how quirky! And when you join them absolutely nothing happens and they have zero quests).

 

[theraphos]

the Dustmen had a philosophy that was way too bizarre to be widespread

It's been forever since I read the actual books instead of just replaying PST, but wasn't their whole deal still basically "edgy goths reinterpreting Buddhism"? Not as conceptually straightforward as ones like Athar and Godsmen, but I don't remember them being too bad.

 

[Erebus]

the Dustmen had a philosophy that was way too bizarre to be widespread

It's been forever since I read the actual books instead of just replaying PST, but wasn't their whole deal still basically "edgy goths reinterpreting Buddhism"? Not as conceptually straightforward as ones like Athar and Godsmen, but I don't remember them being too bad.

Their philosophy is that everyone is already dead. True Life is sublime, but it's impossible to return to it (though a few members of the faction think otherwise). The only way to be free of suffering is to reach True Death, which implies getting rid of all your emotions and desires.

It's clearly inspired from Buddhism, but a lot more negative and depressing. It's hard to imagine why an adventurer would want to embrace such beliefs.

The Godsmen are also inspired from Buddhism (with a strong focus on reincarnation) and they're considerably better (their ideology involves bettering yourself, which is of course very appropriate for adventurers).

 

[Gahbreeil]

As an indep, yes.

 

[theraphos]

It's clearly inspired from Buddhism, but a lot more negative and depressing. It's hard to imagine why an adventurer would want to embrace such beliefs.

Yeah, that's fair. It definitely leans more towards being useful to the worldbuilding (city cleanup and corpse admin) rather than being super popular as an adventurer group. I like that there's room for different takes on ascetic character concepts though, and a neutral faction for necromancy and the undead is useful.

 

[Alex]

I always got the impression that a lot of the planar stuff could have been worked out a bit more. The planes are supposed to be infinite, and indeed, the setting books try to paint the place as having room for whatever you can dream of. But none of the books really write up any place but Sigil. Maybe the adventure books do (I never got those), but the gate-towns, the layers, the planes, they all are just touched very briefly in the books I got.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I always got the impression that a lot of the planar stuff could have been worked out a bit more. The planes are supposed to be infinite, and indeed, the setting books try to paint the place as having room for whatever you can dream of. But none of the books really write up any place but Sigil. Maybe the adventure books do (I never got those), but the gate-towns, the layers, the planes, they all are just touched very briefly in the books I got.

An inevitable consequence of the size of the planes. Even the Planes of Law box set and Planes of Chaos box set each encompassed five of the outer planes, meaning less than 50 pages per plane, and each plane has multiple layers and multiple notable sites, so that no location can receive much detail.

 

[Alex]

I always got the impression that a lot of the planar stuff could have been worked out a bit more. The planes are supposed to be infinite, and indeed, the setting books try to paint the place as having room for whatever you can dream of. But none of the books really write up any place but Sigil. Maybe the adventure books do (I never got those), but the gate-towns, the layers, the planes, they all are just touched very briefly in the books I got.

An inevitable consequence of the size of the planes. Even the Planes of Law box set and Planes of Chaos box set each encompassed five of the outer planes, meaning less than 50 pages per plane, and each plane has multiple layers and multiple notable sites, so that no location can receive much detail.

Sure, but maybe they could have detailed a few places in the planes other than Sigil? I mean, as it is, the setting books read as a collection of campaign and adventure ideas for the DM to use. Not that this is bad per se, but a setting needs a bit more than that. To be fair, I suppose that hellbound book might do just that, as I never managed to get that box...

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The Hellbound box set has 80 pages of material about the Blood War, 90 pages of adventures, and a largely redundant 30-page guide for players.

 

[Just Locus]

"Dead Gods" is my favorite of all Planescape campaigns, it takes a while to "get going" for lack of a better term, and you'll have to put in a ton of work as a DM if your player group isn't comprised of the most altruistic, but damn if it does a great job at pacing everything.

It starts small enough, with players having to find a magical wand that steals "beauty" from people, and sooner or later you'll have the player group witnessing the death throes of some mind flayers to hitching a ride to a walking tower and so on, it's a fantastic adventure that does a phenomenal job of reeling players in (the first 3 chapters are to introduce the players to the problem at hand) and is written in such an open and flexible way.

 

[AfterVirtue]

My favourite part about Planescape as a setting were the factions, very cool idea to have factions based on in-depth philosophical differences and not something retarded (by retarded I mean for example the memorable conflict of blue not-orcs vs brown not-orcs in Piece of Shit II: Gayfaggot). A world full of competing schools of thought reminds me of Imperial Rome in the 2nd and 3rd century where you had the church fathers of what would later become the state-approved Christianity, cults of the old gods dating back to Phoenicia, Etruria or Egypt that were starting to rebrand into hermeticism, numerous gnostic cults, various neoplatonic and neophytagorean schools that despite being pagan rallied against the gnostics together with the official Christians etc. The factions in Planescape are well designed, too bad they weren't utilized enough in PsT (wow the Xaositects talk like Yoda and bark like dogs, how quirky! And when you join them absolutely nothing happens and they have zero quests).

This is precisely the issue i have with Planescape. It attempts to do that and some idea are nice and "weird" enough, at his best. But as a whole as a "metaphysical" setting uniting the cosmology of D&D it is, to me, a failure, a mix of thing that do not blend well or are not synthetized well: elemental planes, energy planes, hell, abyss, celestia, etc. do not form a coherent cosmology; nor, it is narrated with enough ambiguity to make it fragments of truth: the ambition is there, but it must adapt to the great Wheel, unfortunately.

The cosmologies from Qabbalah, gnostic, zoroastrian-"iranian gnosticism", etc. are both very capable of weird and do not feel like failed mixes, even if many if not all of these are full of syncretisms. the center of it all is Sygil and the Lady which, while kept mysterious really do not seem to me the kind of "tapestry of creation" mystery that it shoul be, like "the Face of God is veiled by 1000 veils", the relationship between the material, the Imaginal and the Intellegible worlds in the emanation of the One etc. Moreover, i like the idea of a fundamental philosophical and spiritual struggle, that the topography of those metaphysical levels of reality is based on it. But in the end it is all material; i enter in the abyss to kick demons - of course, adventure, fun... but you can spiritually enter the abyss to metaphysically kick demons, that's what i'm saying. Don't think Planescape accomplishes that.

And leaving that apart, just sticking to fantasy, i find Lone Wolf cosmology much more coherent, leaving space for the weird and making -for what it is- sense. And letting kicking demons all the same.

Still Planescape have nice ideas and designs though. Can be fun, in a way.