Planescape Planescape Pre-order Page Shows Off The Books!

LuisCarlos17f · Jul 25, 2023

Don't you miss the neraphim from 3.5 planar handbook? But I don't see too practical the specie trait "neraph camouflage". This being replaced by "blur" spell-like effect seems simple to be understood.

* Can buoman whistle? And illusory magic used to translated signs to spoken words? Can you roleplay a character with a silence vow?

Whistled language - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

* Mephlings are the right mixture of cute and wicked to sell toys.

DarkCrisis · Jul 25, 2023

Remathilis said:
You (and by you, I mean most of the people in this thread) are still looking at settings as TSR once did: a setting as a fully fleshed out world that you will run multiple different games in for years. WotC doesn't expect that of a setting anymore, they see it as a self-contained story. They don't expect you to run game-after-game in Dragonlance or Spelljammer, they expect you will run exactly one game in it and move onto the next. Which is why they give you exactly what you need to run one campaign in it (a module to act as backbone structure, some supplemental material to flesh out things if needed, and a few PC options to tie your PCs to the setting).

Eberron, Ravnica, Theros, and Ravenloft are designed as DIY toolkits for DMs to put together a campaign (a starter adventure, some PC options, and lots of tables and charts to build off of) but in reality, there isn't enough in any of them to run more than one solid campaign in without heavy use of outside sources (be it wikis, DMsGuild, or homebrewing). Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Strixhaven, and Planescape are modules first, with enough supplemental setting material to run the module. No different than the amount of info we got on Chult in Tomb or Greyhawk in Ghosts. They don't expect you to run multiple campaigns in the same setting, they expect you to run Spelljammer for one and when it's done run Dragonlance or Planescape next.

So, the large lore-dumps on people, places, and organizations are gone because you rarely need that level of detail to run a single campaign. You get enough to run the module and little extra to help putty in the gaps, but you will never see the amount of worldbuilding you might have seen in 2e or even 3e. I suspect that's because WotC views setting supplements as diminishing returns and feels a single adventure/setting is sufficient for most players.

Which is why I've tempered my expectation on Planecape: it's going to be a planar adventure and enough lore to run it (plus a little extra). I don't expect any more than that.

One of the many reasons I've more or less stopped buying most WotC products. I'll buy the Core 5.5 books so I can play in future D&D games but that's it. Just lackluster adventure books isn't something I want to pay for.

Veltharis ap Rylix · Jul 25, 2023

On the subject of slaadi, I think they work a lot better when you consider them not as THE incarnation of pure chaos, but simply AN incarnation of pure chaos.

I've always liked the planes having more dynamic ecosystems.

The Nine Hells of Baator aren't just home to the classic "baatezu" devils, but also to the "chain devil" kytons and the nearly extinct ancient baatorians - and even those firmly in the baatezu category have deep divisions over those who are "native" to Baator and those who are fallen celestial "immigrants", which have boiled over into civil war at least once in recent-ish memory.

Similarly, the Abyss isn't just home to the classic "tanar'ri" demons, but also the Lovcraftian obyriths and the recently emerging loumara. The Gray Waste isn't just the home plane for Yugoloths and their ilk, but also night hags and hordlings. The modrons share Mechanus with the two-dimensional calculating engines known as moigno and the perfection-obsessed parai, to say nothing of the invasive formians who started spreading after the Harmonium accidently "misplaced" a layer of Arcadia and caused it to slide into Mechanus.

Slaadi don't have to be perfect representations of pure chaos, they can just be one of many such manifestations. Chaos beasts are also native to Limbo, and I have seriously considered weaving Pathfinder's Proteans into my personal version of the plane as a rival "exemplar" species for the slaadi.

Heck, slaadi could even be a kind of "immuno-response" of Limbo itself to the presence of the order-infused Spawning Stone, existing as they are not as a representation of "pure chaos" but as what the plane specifically needs in order to gradually rid itself of the Spawning Stone's influence.

Given the infinite nature of the planes, even that's just a sampling of the possible diversity out there.

Parmandur · Jul 25, 2023

Henadic Theologian said:
WotC tries and often fails to make books for everyone, reducing the quality of the product.

They don't try to make a book for everyone, they try to make books with a variety of things aimed at 80% of the audience: and if you have dozens if things aimed at broad swathes of the audience, that hits a lot of people.

Based on the current Aamazon sales rankings and Beyond numbers, I see little evidence that this approach has failed commercially.

ersatzphil · Jul 25, 2023

Parmandur said:
They don't try to make a book for everyone, they try to make books with a variety of things aimed at 80% of the audience: and if you have dozens if things aimed at broad swathes of the audience, that hits a lot of people.

Based on the current Aamazon sales rankings and Beyond numbers, I see little evidence that this approach has failed commercially.

The 'Roll for Combat' guys took a look at a percentage of the sales numbers for a number of D&D products the other day, and noted a pretty precipitous dropoff in sales of the Spelljammer set - selling about 47k copies in the first four weeks, about 56k in the first eight, and about 84k in the lifetime of the product. They attributed the drop to word of mouth reviews, where everyone on youtube was telling everyone else how bad the product was:

SkidAce · Jul 25, 2023

Demetrios1453 said:
While I just mentioned the hordlings in a post, if I remember correctly, there was another book that had charts for customized demons - maybe the 3e Fiendish Codex?

Didnt see any such chart in the Fiendish Codex.

MockingBird · Jul 25, 2023

I generally like Prof Dungeon Master but lately he seems to have a vendetta against D&D.

Parmandur · Jul 25, 2023

ersatzphil said:
The 'Roll for Combat' guys took a look at a percentage of the sales numbers for a number of D&D products the other day, and noted a pretty precipitous dropoff in sales of the Spelljammer set - selling about 47k copies in the first four weeks, about 56k in the first eight, and about 84k in the lifetime of the product. They attributed the drop to word of mouth reviews, where everyone on youtube was telling everyone else how bad the product was:

Ooooh, interesting, I haven't seen that, thanks for the link.

I will note that I wasn't speaking about Spelljamemr, but about Xanathar's Guide (when WotC first detailed this cafeteria product approach) and all 5E products.

While Spelljammer not selling great makes sense due to word of mouth (it was middling at best), it is worth noting that every other publisher in the industry would kill for over 80,000 sales. That would make it the biggest Kickstarter in RPG history. Indeed, thst means that new Spelljammer outsold original spwlljammer in under a year, because that only sold 81,000 lifetime. Much as I dig the whole aesthetic, just being Spelljprobavly limited sales potential (which goes double for Planesxcape, which didnpost nearly as good numbers as Spelljammer in the 90's).

ersatzphil · Jul 25, 2023

Parmandur said:
I will note that I wasn't speaking about Spelljamemr, but about Xanathar's Guide (when WotC first detailed this cafeteria product approach) and all 5E products.

Well that's a derp on my part. Hooray for reading comprehension, I suppose.

Parmandur said:
While Spelljammer not selling great makes sense due to word of mouth (it was middling at best), it is worth noting that every other publisher in the industry would kill for over 80,000 sales. That would make it the biggest Kickstarter in RPG history. Indeed, thst means that new Spelljammer outsold original spwlljammer in under a year, because that only sold 81,000 lifetime. Much as I dig the whole aesthetic, just being Spelljprobavly limited sales potential (which goes double for Planesxcape, which didnpost nearly as good numbers as Spelljammer in the 90's).

Yeah, it really drives home that the RPG space is more or less two industries - 'D&D' and 'Everything Else'. Any other publisher would love to have the numbers of the least-successful D&D product.

Did Spelljammer really outsell Planescape back in the day? That's surprising to me, as I vaguely recall Spelljammer having a product line life of three years, and Planescape being significantly longer.

overgeeked · Jul 25, 2023

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
It's a lot better from their standpoint to sell us fish tacos every quarter than to help us fish for ourselves.

Exactly. Good business beats good design every time.

Planescape Planescape Pre-order Page Shows Off The Books!

Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse

LuisCarlos17f

Legend

Whistled language - Wikipedia

DarkCrisis

Reeks of Jedi

Veltharis ap Rylix

Legend

Parmandur

Book-Friend

ersatzphil

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SkidAce

Legend

MockingBird

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Parmandur

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ersatzphil

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overgeeked

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