Planescape Do You Care About Planescape Lore?

[Alzrius]

But characterizing me as hysterical and unreasonable isn't?

Strictly speaking, no, because the characterization is an accurate one based on how you have characterized the issue under discussion, and the people who have disagreed with you. It's not an insult to say that your actions in this regard have painted you in a dim light.

Yes, it is canon for canon's sake. I do believe that. The argument boils down to, "Well, it was established this way once, so, we must always do it that way and we can never revisit it because that will mean that maybe what we did back then wasn't as good of an idea as this new idea". And any criticism is brushed aside as "change for changes sake".

This is, in fact, not what the argument boils down to. You maintain that the people who disagree with you are holding onto canon simply for its own sake rather than exploring the question of merits, which is a distortion of their position. Ironically, you hold them as having a distorted view, that being their view of change (e.g. that they think it's change for its own sake). This is, in a word, unreasonable.

The recent articles and reactions are pretty typical. Why can't slaad be aberations? Well, the biggest criticism to the idea was that it changes what came before. The issue wasn't that the change is bad or stupid or anything else. It's that it changes what came before, therefore it's automatically bad and rejected. Is making Slaad a more Lovecraftian horror a la Shadows over Innsmouth out to corrupt the universe in the service to the Great Old Ones really a worse idea than inscrutable chaos frog demons? I don't know. Maybe. Could be.

This goes to the heart of your misrepresentation of the people who don't want to change existing elements of the game: that being your persistent failure to recognize that elements of existing lore/canon are a valid topic when debating the merits and/or faults of an idea. To you, the question of whether or not an idea has qualitative value is apparently not allowed to consider history or continuity - let alone the content of the existing canon - as part of that evaluation.

My point is that I'd much rather the debate start and end from the point of view of game elements standing on their own merit. Because that's the way we did it twenty years ago isn't a merit. Even die hard canon fans will admit that much of the writing in D&D blows. So, if it does blow, then maybe we can do something new?

Leaving aside your unsupported and sweeping generalizations that "die hard canon fans will admit that much of the writing in D&D blows," as well as the fact that you don't get to set the terms of the debate, the question of what is or isn't a merit is up to each individual to decide. You don't seem to respect that not only many, but most other people (again, check your own poll results) think that it is, in fact, a merit.

If a creature like, say, Modrons has not gained any traction outside of a single setting, in thirty years, either make sure that that element stays in that single setting, not bleeding over into other settings, or change the creature to give it a wider appeal. To me, that's the basic criteria.

Your definition of "gaining traction" aside - which appears to be some sort of hazy and ill-defined issue of how often something has been reprinted and/or used in published adventures - there's also no set definition of what constitutes a "wider appeal" anyway, let alone how you'd change something to take advantage of that.

We must not change things is why we got ten years of 2e and not a true rules revision until 3e. After all, if we cannot change what came before, that applies to more than just lore doesn't it? To me, what came before is a good starting place, sure. But, only a starting place. Not an ending place.

Your presumptions here are wildly flawed, as an adherence to in-game canon had virtually nothing to do with the issues of the mechanical changes between 1E and 2E, nor 2E and 3E. To suggest that they did is wildly disingenuous, and is in fact hysterical.

You've also made it clear that to you, what came before is in fact not a good starting place; your initial post that started this thread contains language that makes that inarguable (emphasis mine):

Hey, I don't. I couldn't stand Planescape back in the 90's, ignored it entirely. Thought it was completely ridiculous and a waste of space. Planescape Torment got played for about twenty minutes then chucked in the bin. I hated Planescape that much.

You've made it overwhelmingly clear that you don't understand the opinions of the people who disagree with you. That's fine, lack of comprehension of someone else's position isn't disrespectful. But continually mischaracterizing and misrepresenting them, is.

 

[Piratecat]

Last warning. Please keep talking about the subject of the thread, and stop talking about the personalities of the people involved in the thread. It's fine to not agree with someone, but it's not okay to belittle or denigrate them because you have a difference of opinion. Make your case eloquently, and if they don't agree with you once you do, that's okay. At least, it better be; I'm probably one of the biggest Planescape fans on this board.

Email me if you have any questions about this.

 

[Weather Report]

The Plane of Shadow dates back to 1st ed AD&D DDG.

The 1st Ed Deities & Demigods is my favourite D&D book, that is so cool, I forget (been awhile), where does it mention the Plane of Shadow?

 

[Weather Report]

1) It wasn't arbitrary. Worlds & Monsters states the rationale in great detail.

2) And what can I say - in my view it gave a lot more than it took away.

1) People rationalise all sorts of behaviour.

2) What you just did say, sounds a bit like shrouded edition warring (but, yeah...).

 

[Orius]

Who else thinks "too many overarching plots" really boils down to "I don't like the Blood War"?

I can't really remember dozens of ongoing storylines in Planescape materials, just plot seeds. The Blood War is the over-arching "truth" of the setting that bleeds into other worlds. And it does predate Planescape, if you recall.

I wouldn't even consider it to be all that heavy a metaplot; it was mainly something that was always going on there in the background. The most metaplot from it was in the Hellbound boxed set, which was pretty good IMO.

I don't have Faction War, but it sounds like it does some of the bit with the PCs being bystanders to big setting events. But then, it wasn't meant to be the line's last project either, so I guess it's kind of like a TV show that gets cancelled suddenly without resolving long-running plotlines. Still, a DM could use it as an opportunity: as I understand, at the end of the Faction War events, all the factols are either dead or mazed, so the DM could ignore the bit about the Lady kicking the factions out of Sigil, and give the PCs the chance to become factols themselves. The setting was slowly building up to it anyway, especially with the fluff in the Factol's Manifesto and Uncaged.

Most of the rest of the metaplot in PS was basically buildup to the Faction War anyway, there were various hints and stuff about which faction were hostile to each other and which ones were making trouble in the background. But it was also pretty open-ended to, letting the DM decide which plot hooks to explore. And much of this metaplot invoved the politics of Sigil, which wouldn't be relevant to a Planescape campaign that doesn't get involved in it deeply. As for Hellbound, sure there was a major setting-changing event in the adventures:

Spoiler

a plot by the yugoloths ends up stripping the devils and demons of their ability to teleport at will so the yugoloths can pull their strings by offering to restore the ability

. However, the adventure was set up so the PCs could directly influence the outcome, which IMO is the right way of doing this.

I also agree that 2e was a big offender on the "sit back and watch NPCs do cool things" adventures. Time of Troubles should have involved the PCs completely instead of losers like Cyric. Hell, it could be argued that it shouldn't have happened at all, but it was probably "bump off Bhaal 'cause assassins are gone, and let's knock off Myrkul and Bane (only the best evil god in the setting) while we're at it and replace them with a bumbling clown". OTOH, we got Baldur's Gate out of it eventually, and that can only be a plus. Spellplague was just as bad if not worse, the accumulated canon was holding the setting back a bit granted, but was it necessary to rip out huge chunks of the setting too? And to top it off, it involved that moron Cyric again. I'm glad I'm not a huge FR fan, and if I were to run the setting, I'd ignore the Spellplague.

Prism Pentad was another stumble. Really, it should have had a companion module or something that gave the PCs the chance to free Tyr. And as for Dragonlance, that was pretty bad too, since they weren't just bumping off beloved NPCs left and right, but they blew up Ansalon again so it could be used with that new SAGA system instead of keeping it D&D.

I'll say if anything, the original Dragonlance modules did it right. Even though they were massive railroads, they were written for the player to use characters of their own if the chose if I'm not mistaken instead of the official pre-gens. I think in trying to ape DL's success, TSR kind of left this important bit out. Or they were competing with other comtemporary RPGs that were also railroading heavy with the metaplots.

 

[avin]

I also agree that 2e was a big offender on the "sit back and watch NPCs do cool things" adventures.

There is no doubt about that.

 

[Nagol]

The 1st Ed Deities & Demigods is my favourite D&D book, that is so cool, I forget (been awhile), where does it mention the Plane of Shadow?

Page 129 (in my copy)

Appendix 1: Known Planes of Existence, Inner Planes, immediately below Ethereal Plane

 

[Weather Report]

Page 129 (in my copy)

Appendix 1: Known Planes of Existence, Inner Planes, immediately below Ethereal Plane

Right on, thanks, most of my D&D stuff is packed away right now, look forward to cracking open the old Deities & Demigods.

 

[Hussar]

Your definition of "gaining traction" aside - which appears to be some sort of hazy and ill-defined issue of how often something has been reprinted and/or used in published adventures - there's also no set definition of what constitutes a "wider appeal" anyway, let alone how you'd change something to take advantage of that.

How would you define gaining traction? If something only appears in a very small number of published adventures, and all those adventures take place within a specific setting, I'd say that it doesn't have a whole lot of wider appeal. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

If you want to bring something into core, it should have the broadest appeal possible. Shouldn't it? What's the point of bringing something into core that only appeals to a small subset of the general gamer population. And, as popular as Planescape is, it is still a specific setting.

So, if Planescape elements have never really gained any larger following, then Planescape canon arguments don't really apply when we're talking about adding them to core. It's not like no one has heard of Modrons, for example. They've been in the game since the early 80's. But, they've never really gained much traction outside of Planescape. Why not?

How do I know they haven't gained much traction? Well, for starters, they did not appear in core in any edition. Secondly, they have rarely featured in any setting material other than Planescape. Thirdly, they rarely are even mentioned in any gaming discussion.

Saying that Modrons, or Yugoloths or Slaad are pretty niche monsters shouldn't be terribly earth shattering thing to say.

 

[pemerton]

The 1st Ed Deities & Demigods is my favourite D&D book, that is so cool, I forget (been awhile), where does it mention the Plane of Shadow?

[MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] has given a page reference - in my edition (without Cthulhu or Elric) it is p 114. The Plane of Shadow is described as coexistent with the Prime Material Plane, a shadow cast by the Prime due to the meeting of light (positive material) and dark (negative material).

The MoP redescribed it as a demiplane within the Ethereal (other demiplanes were Time, Electro-magnetism and Imprisonment). I don't know how 2nd ed AD&D treated it, but 3E had it as coexistent with the Prime but also able to be used to travel from cosmology to cosmology.

In some ways the 4e treatment of it as the Shadowfell goes back to the idea of being coexistent with the Prime; but the treatment of it as the plane of death and undeath is new.

People rationalise all sorts of behaviour.

You might not agree with the designers, but their explanations in W&M, of why they changed elements of lore in the way they did, aren't "rationalisations" - self-deluding explanations of subconsciously motivated behaviour. They are perfectly reasonable and professional explanations of what sort of RPG play they think the changed story elements will support.

You may not agree with their analysis. You may not like the sort of play they are intendeding to support via their changes. But their reasons are clearly stated. They are not rationalisations.

What you just did say, sounds a bit like shrouded edition warring

I wasn't meaning to shroud my liking of the 4e lore, and my preference for it over Planescape. Hopefully I've just removed any such uncertainty.

But as far as I know it is not edition-warring to express a liking for, and a preference for, 4e's cosmology.