D&D General Sir Plane "Not Appearing in this Cosmology"

[Yora]

Planescape fails as a useful campaign setting because it states that it is designed to not be for adventures that are about looting treasures or killing monsters, but "about concepts and philosophy, man!"
And then never giving any helpful explanation or examples what that could even look like.

There are all the gods, and demon lords, and factions, and they have cool descriptions, but nobody anywhere has any motivations to become active and do anything. The factions have different philosophical dogmas, but many of those don't translate into specific actions that would step on the toes of the activities of others.
That might be why the Blood War became so overblown. That's an actual conflict where stuff is happening. It's only pointless combat for the point of combat, which Planescape isn't supposed to be about, but at least there's action going on.

The Planescape boxes for the different planes can be wonderful to read. But they are fiction. Not usable game content.

 

[Weird Dave]

Planescape fails as a useful campaign setting because it states that it is designed to not be for adventures that are about looting treasures or killing monsters, but "about concepts and philosophy, man!"
And then never giving any helpful explanation or examples what that could even look like.

There are all the gods, and demon lords, and factions, and they have cool descriptions, but nobody anywhere has any motivations to become active and do anything. The factions have different philosophical dogmas, but many of those don't translate into specific actions that would step on the toes of the activities of others.
That might be why the Blood War became so overblown. That's an actual conflict where stuff is happening. It's only pointless combat for the point of combat, which Planescape isn't supposed to be about, but at least there's action going on.

The Planescape boxes for the different planes can be wonderful to read. But they are fiction. Not usable game content.

YES! This 100%. Exactly how I felt about Planescape as a setting and the products released to support it. I'll add that I didn't care for the unreliable narrator aspect most of the books had as well - fun to read as a narrative, not fun to parse through as a DM to figure out how to use at the table.

 

[Weird Dave]

I mean, sure. But so it goes with every setting - it's individual locations that make it cool. Waterdeep is cool. Faerun is filler. Etc., etc.

The benefit of the larger setting for those cool locations for me is "associative imaginative thought processing" (patent pending). Start with a known and then imagine what could logically exist. Yes, City of Brass is super cool. The Plane of Fire is filler, but it has a sea of literal fire. An island in that sea of fire is kinda cool, but what about an obsidian tower on that island? An obsidian tower with a ruby that can control fire whales that swim in the sea of fire, like a weird lighthouse place? Who controls this Inferno Lighthouse? What did they do to piss off the Grand Sultan of the City of Brass? Why are fire giant cultists of Surtr seeking it? Why would a group of characters care or be involved? What kind of havoc could the Grand Sultan wreak if he could control thousands of destructive fire whales? Could I have this Inferno Lighthouse on Faerun, Oerth, or Krynn? Not to the same level. But on the infinite planes, I can imagine a place for it! Does it have to be on the Plane of Fire? Not necessarily, but it

Say what you will about AI art but it's helpful to visualize some of the weirder aspects of the planes. I hope no one steals my adventure "Ruby Light of the Fire Whales"!

 

[Baron Opal II]

I mean, sure. But so it goes with every setting - it's individual locations that make it cool. Waterdeep is cool. Faerun is filler. Etc., etc.

Yeah, there's only so much detail you can put into around 40 settings that are packaged with the prime material setting.

 

[Undrave]

Planescape fails as a useful campaign setting because it states that it is designed to not be for adventures that are about looting treasures or killing monsters, but "about concepts and philosophy, man!"
And then never giving any helpful explanation or examples what that could even look like.

There are all the gods, and demon lords, and factions, and they have cool descriptions, but nobody anywhere has any motivations to become active and do anything. The factions have different philosophical dogmas, but many of those don't translate into specific actions that would step on the toes of the activities of others.
That might be why the Blood War became so overblown. That's an actual conflict where stuff is happening. It's only pointless combat for the point of combat, which Planescape isn't supposed to be about, but at least there's action going on.

The Planescape boxes for the different planes can be wonderful to read. But they are fiction. Not usable game content.

Not to bring it up constantly, but Plane Above gave every faction they detail a goal they’re trying to accomplish. Many gods are given a specific motivation that could clash with other gods or the PCs. It’s just my go-to book to serve as an example of an adventurable plane.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Oh I'm sorry. I thought this was abuse. Arguments are down the hall.

Here is my argument. City of Brass is cool. The Elemental Plane of fire is filler. Levistus trapped in Hell Ice is iconic. A whole layer of Ice Hell is lazy.
The problem with planes is they are giant sections of blank with cool bits in them. Keep the cool bits. Don't worry about fitting them into a pleasing background palette of sameness. The Great Wheel Cosmology is dedication to an image in the back of the PHB, that is all.

Isn’t that true of any setting?. It’s all a bunch of boring stuff accept a couple places that are cool. How is that different from the forgotten realms or greyhawk or dragon lands, or any other setting. It’s the locations within the world that are interesting not the world itself. The same is true of the planes. You just have to populate them with interesting areas.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Isn’t that true of any setting?. It’s all a bunch of boring stuff accept a couple places that are cool

Most settings aren't infinitely big.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If anything Planescape is the only version of the Great Wheel that is boring. Because the Great Wheel cosmology has tons of interesting locations, but Planescape expects you to ignore those and just stick in the one that can be summed up as "New York, but with London accents"

(edit: and neither of those traits in a good way)

You're both right. They're both boring.

London With Slightly More Goatmen That Mocks You For Being From Out of Town and Is Ruled by Worst Plot Device, and Alignment, But Its A Place. Both boring.

 

[Incenjucar]

A major component of alignment in Planescape is that it could literally relocate entire cities. Sufficient corruption in Paladintown could drop the souls of tens of thousands of good people into the abyss, and kidnapping enough pure folks into a hell fortress could drop that fortress into the crater that used to be Paladintown. This gives political shenanigans and secret evils a lot of extra weight.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Most settings aren't infinitely big.

No, but neither are most planes. I mean the prime is infinity large (or close enough), but are we saying it is boring? No because it is populated with interesting places and people. The planes are the same, we just need to populate them with the places and people.