Planescape Planescape Conversion!

So recently I’ve been on a PS kick, fiddling around and tweaking it to my own tastes. I’m writing a pdf that contains a trifecta of my favorite D&Disms -- Planescape, DiTerlizzi artwork, and 4e rules. But I’m ashamed to say I’ve played very little PS, so I’m curious how other PS fans see it existing in a 4e or 4ish cosmology. I believe [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] in particular has done PS in 4e. So if my fellow PS and/or 4e fans don’t mind rattling their bone boxes...


1. Do you prefer the planes having a defined and contained history (4e creation story, finite number of gods) or a vague and indeterminate history (traditional PS, countless gods)?


2. Do you prefer traditional PS planes, or 4e planes? Or some mix of the two?


3. Do you think the Gate Towns are an important part of PS? If so, where would you place them (and the Outlands)?

[MENTION=40398]Tequila Sunrise[/MENTION] Sounds great! Are you planning a 4e PS game or just doing this as a fan effort?

1. Vague and indeterminate (giving DM lots of ideas and maximum freedom to come up with something of their own devising).

2. A mix of the two.

For example, in my short-lived 4e PS game the Feywild was a major story element, as there was something dark encroaching on it & the NPC quest giver was a Sidhe.

3. In DMG2, the gate-towns were sort of incorporated into portals thru which the destination began to "bleed." So a portal to Baator might over time create an entire street/neighborhood with baatorian architectural features, attract citizens with a rigid mindset, and perhaps draw an authoritarian thieves guild, etc.

Personally, I don't see the Outlands as being a necessary realm in and of itself. That said, sliding gatetowns featured prominently in my old 2e PS campaign.

Quickleaf said:

@Tequila Sunrise Sounds great! Are you planning a 4e PS game or just doing this as a fan effort?

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At the moment it's just a fan project, but at some point I need to get over my fear of doing PS injustice and just run a campaign!

Quickleaf said:

2. A mix of the two.

For example, in my short-lived 4e PS game the Feywild was a major story element, as there was something dark encroaching on it & the NPC quest giver was a Sidhe.

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Okay, so you used the Great Wheel cosmology with 4e-isms thrown in? What other 4e-isms did you slip in?

I keep wanting to turn the Astral Dominions into a revised Outer Ring, but at the same time I feel like it's more effort than it's worth...

Quickleaf said:

Personally, I don't see the Outlands as being a necessary realm in and of itself. That said, sliding gatetowns featured prominently in my old 2e PS campaign.

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Yeah, I feel like Gate Towns should definitely exist in one form or another!

Tequila Sunrise said:

Okay, so you used the Great Wheel cosmology with 4e-isms thrown in? What other 4e-isms did you slip in?

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Yeah, I used a hodgepodge, and would have included stuff like Demi-planes and the Plane of Mirrors later on too. We only played a handful of sessions Sigil, Under-Sigil, Mechanus) before we canceled because of a baby being born Then started up current game with larger group.

Some other things... I called them Outer Planes (not astral dominions). I planned to have the Gray Waste *and* Shadowfell. I planned for the Feywild to be distinct from, but have gateways to, Arborea and the Beastlands. I planned to place the Caverns of Thought in the Far Realm. I conveniently side-stepped the whole "Abyss is in elemental chaos" question, since it never came up.

I keep wanting to turn the Astral Dominions into a revised Outer Ring, but at the same time I feel like it's more effort than it's worth...

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Other may disagree, but I don't feel the ring/alignment cosmology is necessary to make Planescape, well, Planescape. After all, there was a lot of oddball stuff that would make you wonder "Whats that doing on this plane?" (e.g, the hidden aasimon & baatezu lovers on the Beastlands). It was the jaded worldliness and metaphysical quests that defined the setting IMHO. However, if you did go with astral dominions, I probably wouldn't make astral ships able to sail between dominions in Planescape, in order to maintain the importance of portals.

Yeah, I feel like Gate Towns should definitely exist in one form or another!

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Lots of ways you could go with Gate Towns....ports of call in the Astral entering into the dominion/plane proper....glorified Sigilian neighborhoods "neither quit here nor there"....a fancy name planars use to describe a long term worldfall of a town from one plane to another....as per the PS boxed set...

Forgot to mention I did 4e conversions of some 2e PS monsters if you want...

Devils (Osyluth taskmaster, Erinyes temptress, Kocrachon, Red Abishai, Barbazu guard, Lemure swarm, Nupperibo swarm, Kyton jailer), "Morte" (from PS: Torment), Trelon (from PS: Torment), Marraenoloth, Nic'Epona, Ghostlight, Parai (as level 10 solo Mage called "The Hollow Woman"), Modrons (monodrone, quadrone arbalist, pentadrone emissary, decaton), Movanic Deva, Warden Beast (wolf), Cranium Rat Hive Mind (3-stage solo)

Quickleaf said:

Yeah, I used a hodgepodge, and would have included stuff like Demi-planes and the Plane of Mirrors later on too. We only played a handful of sessions Sigil, Under-Sigil, Mechanus) before we canceled because of a baby being born Then started up current game with larger group.

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Shortly after I started playing D&D back in the 90's, I discovered that a cousin of mine was a D&Der. I was so excited...and then his gf had a baby, and I never played with him.

Stupid babies.

Quickleaf said:

Other may disagree, but I don't feel the ring/alignment cosmology is necessary to make Planescape, well, Planescape. After all, there was a lot of oddball stuff that would make you wonder "Whats that doing on this plane?" (e.g, the hidden aasimon & baatezu lovers on the Beastlands). It was the jaded worldliness and metaphysical quests that defined the setting IMHO. However, if you did go with astral dominions, I probably wouldn't make astral ships able to sail between dominions in Planescape, in order to maintain the importance of portals.

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Total agreement here. There were always things that bugged me about the Great Wheel, and I have a somewhat compulsive 'fix it' personality so it's hard to just let it all go. Probably better to just let it go, all the same.

Quickleaf said:

Forgot to mention I did 4e conversions of some 2e PS monsters if you want...

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Yeah I'd like to see 'em if they're handy!

Ok, I just spent a few minutes throwing them all into a word document and converting it to a PDF for ya!

Quickleaf said:

Ok, I just spent a few minutes throwing them all into a word document and converting it to a PDF for ya!

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Thanks, you don't mess around...some of these guys have some nasty effects going on! What font did you use for the title?

Tequila Sunrise said:

Thanks, you don't mess around...some of these guys have some nasty effects going on! What font did you use for the title?

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I'm particularly proud of "death save ends" IME characters in 4e are *very* resilient while many monsters are under-designed. Part of my goal with these monsters was to pay homage to the 2e originals, give the players some interesting themes to interact with, and make the monsters generally nasty.

The font is Exocet / Exocet Heavy.

[MENTION=40398]Tequila Sunrise[/MENTION] Seems like no one else is jumping on your bandwagon, but I am still interested and I suspect several folks lurking are too. How's the conversion going?