Planescape Planescape - what would you like to see?

[Quickleaf]

I stumbled across notes from an old Planescape game I ran, and was pleasantly surprised at how that campaign setting inspired my own adventure writing! Recently I've been wondering what sorts of stories I would like to experience in Planescape (or on the planes) going forward?

This isn't just my idle speculation. About a year ago, Mike Mearls wrote an article asserting that Planescape's cosmology would be core in 5e:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130701

When it comes to the outer planes, we're treating Planescape as our default assumption. It's a much-beloved setting and one that's fairly easy (by design) to integrate into existing campaigns. That means the return of the Great Wheel, the Blood War, and other classic elements of the D&D cosmos. The same process for the inner planes applies to the outer planes, with our intent to add elements to the cosmos to increase storytelling opportunities and make the Wheel as flexible as possible for different settings and different DMs.

Perhaps we will never see Planescape as its own "New Weird" setting again, but certainly elements from those old books or Planescape themes can be incorporated in adventures & the Manual of thePlanes. Me personally, I'm curious about Aoskar the dead god of portals; I think investigating his death and cult would make for a thrilling adventure.

What about you?

 

[Tovec]

Personally?

Less emphasis on Sigil and the Lady - this might disqualify me immediately as far as Planescape goes. I like the planar stuff the setting provides and even like Sigil but I feel that something like Planar Handbook wasn't that good of a read because it focused on the factions with a lingo I couldn't begin to appreciate unless I'm playing a Sigil game. So, I'm all for keeping the central city and all that goes with it I would like to not have to ever go there or interact with it too.

Secrets. I've been reading an excellent thread on the GiantITP forums (afroakuma's Planar Questions thread) and I would like to see the reintroduction and then hopefully explanation of secrets, lore, history. Basically things long dead that we get to unearth. I think the planes are lovely as an ancient battleground and world to explore and I want rich tapestries to explore as well. The interplay is one thing, but unearthing something gone for a million years is more exciting (to me). Double points if they explain old things that were never explained. Who created the Guardinals, what the ancient law outsiders were called, who the prisoner of elysium? is, what Asmodeus' previous name was (or is it his twin?). Stuff like that.

Ability to topple powers that be. Be they good or (especially) evil. I have no problems with HARD to do this, but I would like Asmodeus to be fallible and perhaps overconfident so that my players could conceive of toppling him. As I understand it may involve politics, subversion of the power hierarchy, maybe getting a temporary hold on the blood war, or what ever. I just hate nigh unstoppable forces I have to interact with on an every day basis in a setting.

Better explanation of the planes. How they work. Why they're not WAY bigger/more populated. Maybe how alternate cosmologies tie in. What the higher powers are doing on their daily lives. I don't mind if this stuff is contradictory but well though out stuff can always be modified and reorganized.

I would personally like a new planar race, or maybe recent humanoid turned planar race. Or some kind of massive invasion. Something like the Mind Flayers who had a sizable empire in the material plane for a time, so large it threatened the fiends and paused the blood war. I'd like to see the rumblings of that kind of thing again. Or really, if I can't have that (I know that good planar races are hard to make) then a fully humanoid one from the material that is expanding. I'd be okay with an interstellar race of hobgoblins - again if well written.

New objectives and organizations. New classes. New things to do in the planes. Absolutely not a meta-plot or whatever, but tools to enable my players modify, create, shatter, remake the planes in some respect.

Good epic and deity rules, hopefully looking very little like the 3e counterparts.

More involvement with the inner planes. I don't really like them from experience but I would love to see something turn me around on them. At this point in my home game I've basically cut them entirely from existence with little to no side effects and that is a shame.

That's all I've got for now.

 

[Yora]

Less emphasis on the Lady? I havn't read everything there is, but did she ever do anything? All she does is floating around as a reminder that nobody can drastically overturn the status quo inside Sigil. Don't try to overthrow the established system of the factions or deliberately cause large scale distruction to the city and you should never run into her.

 

[Wolfskin]

I'm a sucker for Planescape and, if any new source material for 5e were to be published, I'd buy all of it in a shopping binge. I'd specifically like to see more on the Outlands and the so-called Planes of Conflict- that's where most of the fun is anyway

 

[Tovec]

Less emphasis on the Lady? I havn't read everything there is, but did she ever do anything? All she does is floating around as a reminder that nobody can drastically overturn the status quo inside Sigil. Don't try to overthrow the established system of the factions or deliberately cause large scale distruction to the city and you should never run into her.

I did say "Sigil and the Lady" not just the Lady of Pain by herself. In my experience there is a strong divide between those who are SUPER into Sigil, its factions, its lingo, tales of the Lady, talking about how strong and perfect she is; and those who don't really go there at all. The first group (both in-game and out-of-game) mock those who don't do or know Sigil. I have no problem with supplements catering to this group, but I would like to be able to go into Sigil and run something without having to worry about that group. Okay, so the Lady is all-powerful in her little cage? I don't care, I'm not using her. No you can't summon her by sheer force of will as a gamer. I just find the over-saturation of the Lady annoying. I'm sure she has her uses but yeah. If I want to break the high and mighty rules of the Lady, as DM, I should have that authority. IME over-focus of Sigil makes ruleslawyers (or setting-lawyers) of any gamer and it bugs me.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Here's a few things I would do (and a few things I implemented in the brief PS4e game I ran in early 4e)

• Embrace Unmappability: While the 2e cosmology created some beautiful diagrams and art, it is, by trying to be definitive, limiting. There's no Elemental Plane of Wood, and Olympus and the elves presumably share and infinity and perhaps most importantly, alternate theories for how the planes fit together are demoted. A PS game is all about the clash of ideas and definitions, and cosmology and structure should be a part of that conversation. PS always acknowledged that its maps were shorthand, descriptive rather than definitive. I want to see that embraced. Saying the eladrin live in the Feywild or that they live on Arborea or that they live on the slopes of Olympus should be answered with "Yes, depending on how you look at it." This echoes PS's "center of all" theme, and keeps the setting adaptable. Maybe the Plane of Mirrors plays a big role in your Planescape? Sure, whatever, that in no way contradicts someone who plays PS with a World Axis cosmology.
• Emphasize Sigil: While some version of Olympus may appear in any game with a Greek-inspired pantheon, what makes Planescape unique is the tone and atmosphere of the City of Doors, and the Factions. It's the tone of Sigil -- jaded, gritty, beaten-down Sigil -- that makes a Planescape game markedly different from a game of "Lets go visit all the realms of the gods!" that you can run in pretty much any setting ever. Whatever else they are -- Abyssal mercenaries, lost modrons, a genasi prince -- the PC's should be Sigilian, with all the access to infinity that this implies. Playing against type, as a Clueless, is OK, but that character is an exception. Sigil is the gate to everywhere, it's why it doesn't matter what you call the home of the Eladrin, because as far as the party is concerned, it's just beyond that doorway. This also, to a significant degree, means emphasizing economics: one of Sigil's defining traits is the separation between the rich and the poor that is iconic of the source material that it is culled from, which means that a character should also know their social place: a tiefling isn't just a creature born of the hells, it's a creature born into poverty more often than not. It's an outcast, just as an earth genasi with holdings in the plane of Mineral is a mover and a shaker within the system.
• Belief trumps Class/Race/Subclass: Independent of your political maneuvering within your faction, your belief should shape the kind of character you make more than your class or race does. Your archetype is your philosophy, not your class or race. The fact that you're playing a dwarf rogue should say much less about your character than the fact that you're playing a Xaositect or a Guvner. I'm fond of the idea of 5e allowing you to swap class abilities with other class abilities because of your faction. Clerics have faction domains, wizards have faction specializations, fighters have faction-specific fighting maneuvers, rogues have faction-specific skill uses. I would even consider training rules -- each faction has a monopoly on certain abilities and learning a certain spell or skill trick conveniently means doing something for that faction. Say, if only the Athar knew Second Wind, and you wanted that ability, you'd have to either be an Athar, be friends with the Athar, or do something to advance the Athar cause in some small way. If you wanted access to the Life domain as a cleric, the person at your Church of the Sun God who teaches you how to do it...is also a Godsman. Faction membership is how you GET STUFF DONE. (This leans a bit toward either classless play or factions-as-classes....which I'd be kind of cool with, honestly).
• Knowledge Is Power > A Bunch of Fiddly Things: Half the 2e PS rules bits were dedicated to various transformations or alterations to magical schools and abilities that happened on certain planes. Magic items and divine magic because weaker depending on your plane. This was a headache. There were ways to overcome these changes -- keys -- and that fed into the idea that knowledge trumps might on the planes. If you were a pyromancer on the plane of water, you'd be dead quick unless you knew what to do. This element can be preserved without the millions of fiddly changes, though. I shouldn't need to know what plane my longsword was forged on, or where my god specifically lives in this hypothetical ring that doesn't actually exist anyway. And where it does exist, overcoming it should be easy -- common items I can buy to survive in the City of Brass or the Plane of Vacuum sold on the streets of the Grand Bazaar. I should be able to drop some gold to cast my fire spells on the Plane of Water or breathe on the Plane of Earth. I should certainly have to know that I have to do that, but it should be easy to do. On a similar note, ditch the 3e alignment penalties. I should be able to take my CE Abyssal mercenary onto the slopes of Celestia and simply have role playing make it hard for her. I don't need -6 penalties to some subset of some general skills.
• Exploration + Role-Playing emphasis: The fun of PS does not and has never come from the fights. Fight happen -- combat happens -- but the more important bits of PS are the role-playing bits and the exploration bits. This means that I want character options and abilities to be used on these levels first. It's more important to have a scene chatting with a succubus than fighting one. It's more important to have a scene exploring Mt. Celestia than in fighting an angel there. Yeah, you'll fight succubi and angels, too, but PS is not a planar dungeon crawl, it's not about bad guys vs. good guys, it is about areas of grey, discovering the unknown, the problems with strict definitions. Problems should prefer a solution that involves talking to the enemy, or that involves going somewhere new (in thought if not in location, but often in both), and PC's and threats should have abilities that make these activities more dynamic and interesting.
• Alignment Is a Tool, not a Club: Alignment means something in PS, but a player should be defining what that means to them in pretty concrete terms. I really like the preview of the Wizard's sheet, how it ties the character's alignment into their values, and I think this is a good route to follow. The thought process should be something like "I believe that people are better together than apart, but I also think hell is other people, so I guess that makes me Lawful Neutral," not "I'm Chaotic Good, that means that I can't obey the laws!"

I have a buttload of other ideas, and I'm sure I'll fling them out early in the edition while I spitball what PS5e is going to look like for me.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'd like to see the factions officially reinstated in Sigil. In my homebrew Sigil, I can just ignore Faction War of course, but it'd be nice for a new generation of gamers to discover everything that makes PS great!

Apparently TSR had plans for a follow-up module which would have done just this, but then the company went belly-up, and well, the rest is history.

 

[Wolfskin]

I'd like to see the factions officially reinstated in Sigil. In my homebrew Sigil, I can just ignore Faction War of course, but it'd be nice for a new generation of gamers to discover everything that makes PS great!

Ditto. I liked most Factions and if PS makes a comeback it would be nice to see all of them in their original status.
Also, bring back the Blood War!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Belief trumps Class/Race/Subclass: Independent of your political maneuvering within your faction, your belief should shape the kind of character you make more than your class or race does. Your archetype is your philosophy, not your class or race. The fact that you're playing a dwarf rogue should say much less about your character than the fact that you're playing a Xaositect or a Guvner. I'm fond of the idea of 5e allowing you to swap class abilities with other class abilities because of your faction. Clerics have faction domains, wizards have faction specializations, fighters have faction-specific fighting maneuvers, rogues have faction-specific skill uses. I would even consider training rules -- each faction has a monopoly on certain abilities and learning a certain spell or skill trick conveniently means doing something for that faction. Say, if only the Athar knew Second Wind, and you wanted that ability, you'd have to either be an Athar, be friends with the Athar, or do something to advance the Athar cause in some small way. If you wanted access to the Life domain as a cleric, the person at your Church of the Sun God who teaches you how to do it...is also a Godsman. Faction membership is how you GET STUFF DONE. (This leans a bit toward either classless play or factions-as-classes....which I'd be kind of cool with, honestly).

Also on the topic of Belief = Power, Quickleaf introduced me to the idea of Belief Points, which I love!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Also, bring back the Blood War!

Is there a ceasefire I'm not aware of?