Planescape 5e Planescape- What would you like to see in the upcoming setting?

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Going in-depth on the Lords of Hell and the Abyss would be fodder for a book along the lines of 3E's Fiendish Codex or the Planes of Law (Baator)/Chaos (Abyss). I'd rather not more than an overview of the power structure/court clutter up a Planescape campaign book that supposedly covering ALL the planes (I'm not fond of the fascination with demons & devils in the game - especially rulers who are unlikely to ever be directly faced, and the less of them, the happier I am).

I agree, more or less - good for a deep dive book on fiends or a guide to the Abyss/Nine Hells, not so much for a guide to the multiverse as a whole.

That said, I would very much love to get a Fiendish Codex/Fizban-style deep dive on fiends down the road... Lower Planar politics is my jam.

 

[Vinicius Lessa]

I hope the new edition bring on the power of belief theme through strong playing advice, procedures and rules.

Yes, rules. Don't know what the latest technology D&D is employing but I always found that the concept of Flags would fit like a glove in Planescape, things like Belief/Instinct from Burning Wheel or Passions from Pendragon, the Obsessions from Unknown Armies, or MHR milestones, etc. Which is something the Belief points system in Planewalker Sourcebook tried to address, but that always felt tacked and half-baked to me.

Could 5e Inspiration be tweaked/expanded to do something like that? Or some other concept/mechanic?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Could 5e Inspiration be tweaked/expanded to do something like that? Or some other concept/mechanic?

I've had luck with this:

Your faction comes with a Belief. At any point, you can state that you are doing something because of your belief. If there's some significant drawback that happens to you because of what you do, you'll gain Inspiration. Examples might include: Rejecting healing if you're a Sinker, doing the first bad idea that comes into your head as a Cipher, or giving help to someone who needs it at significant personal cost if you're a Bleaker. The DM is the final judge on whether or not you acting in line with your belief gives you a significant drawback, and note that the drawback must be personal - causing problems for your fellow party members isn't very cash money of you, and your belief isn't an excuse to be a fart.​

​

Anyone can have a belief and gain Inspiration for acting in accordance with it. If you're a member of a Faction, though, you gain an additional benefit: you can spend your Inspiration to use a faction ability. The greater your reputation within your faction, the more powerful abilities you can access.​

This makes it:

• something the player can trigger (the player defines their beliefs, and states when their belief is relevant), which is nice because I don't want to keep 5 different motives in my head for every PC's action.
• something I can overrule if there's shenanigans, which is nice because absolutely some of these can be shenanigans if there's no guidelines.
• something that makes the game more interesting, because it requires that the PC suffer some problem to get the Inspiration. There's no benefit to adhering to your belief without cost. Beliefs are only powerful when they are tested.
• something that rewards the player for hosing themselves, encouraging players hosing themselves, which is an important part of the
• something that lets me use the 2e tiered faction abilities, more or less, and ties them to rank within a faction rather than level.

 

[humble minion]

I hadn't considered the centrality of belief in Planescape in light of the inspiration/flaws/bonds/etc mechanics in 5e, it's a good call-out though. Personally I was hoping Dragonlance would flesh out or give guidelines/alternate rules for an expanded role for Inspiration, and ways of making a PCs passions and desires drive a plot and impact gameplay. Dragonlance is all about the romantic melodrama after all, it seemed a good fit, but WotC opted to emphasise the war aspect of the setting instead. Obviously the focus of this sort of think in planescape would be less romantic and more philosophical, it would still fit though. Inspiration really is a kinda weaksauce system and could use some beefing up.

 

[pnewman]

I would like to see WOTC slap the person who says 64 pages of setting, 64 pages of monsters, and a 64 page adventure. Yell, "NO!" and do 64 pages of crunch, 64 pages of fluff, and 32 pages of monsters bound with a 32 page adventure. Oh, and the map had better be double sided with the planes on one side and Sigil on the other.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I would like to see WOTC slap the person who says 64 pages of setting, 64 pages of monsters, and a 64 page adventure. Yell, "NO!" and do 64 pages of crunch, 64 pages of fluff, and 32 pages of monsters bound with a 32 page adventure. Oh, and the map had better be double sided with the planes on one side and Sigil on the other.

Why would you want less than what we are getting? Or did you miss the posts here saying that it's going to be 96 pages or setting, 64 pages of monsters, and 96 pages of adventure?

 

[Stormonu]

Why would you want less than what we are getting? Or did you miss the posts here saying that it's going to be 96 pages or setting, 64 pages of monsters, and 96 pages of adventure?

Dump 80 of those pages back into the setting section, and I'd feel a lot better about considering getting it.

<Edit> - Savage Worlds does a lot of 1-page adventures, and 1-page dungeons are a thing many people have done for 5E. I'd love to see that here for any campaign settings they do in the future, giving you enough ideas to use the setting, but not bogging down or intruding upon information for the setting.

 

[Vinicius Lessa]

I've had luck with this:

Your faction comes with a Belief. At any point, you can state that you are doing something because of your belief. If there's some significant drawback that happens to you because of what you do, you'll gain Inspiration. Examples might include: Rejecting healing if you're a Sinker, doing the first bad idea that comes into your head as a Cipher, or giving help to someone who needs it at significant personal cost if you're a Bleaker. The DM is the final judge on whether or not you acting in line with your belief gives you a significant drawback, and note that the drawback must be personal - causing problems for your fellow party members isn't very cash money of you, and your belief isn't an excuse to be a fart.​

​

Anyone can have a belief and gain Inspiration for acting in accordance with it. If you're a member of a Faction, though, you gain an additional benefit: you can spend your Inspiration to use a faction ability. The greater your reputation within your faction, the more powerful abilities you can access.​

This makes it:

• something the player can trigger (the player defines their beliefs, and states when their belief is relevant), which is nice because I don't want to keep 5 different motives in my head for every PC's action.
• something I can overrule if there's shenanigans, which is nice because absolutely some of these can be shenanigans if there's no guidelines.
• something that makes the game more interesting, because it requires that the PC suffer some problem to get the Inspiration. There's no benefit to adhering to your belief without cost. Beliefs are only powerful when they are tested.
• something that rewards the player for hosing themselves, encouraging players hosing themselves, which is an important part of the
• something that lets me use the 2e tiered faction abilities, more or less, and ties them to rank within a faction rather than level.

This is exactly what I had in mind, thanks. For the exact powers each faction could give, there's a great fanmade 5e planescape pdf flying around that gives lots of suggestions. I think it's by author "Greyleaf", IIRC.

Also, in pure story now! fashion, I would love to see those same belief "flags" to be not only sources of PC powers, but also kickers for the GM to challenge, build situations around, and drive adventures.

These two would make the campaigns really about the PCs beliefs and convictions, and not have them just as secondary gimmicks to your default heroic fantasy hack & slashing. Planescape is so ripe for these adventures with so many hooks - the philosophical factions, the planes as embodiment of ideas, etc. that it would be a disappointment seeing this new edition present that only in style and a coat of paint, and no actual substance (guidelines/procedures/mechanics) to back it up.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

They could create magic item whose prequisites to be attuned were loyalty to some faction.

 

[Quickleaf]

This is exactly what I had in mind, thanks. For the exact powers each faction could give, there's a great fanmade 5e planescape pdf flying around that gives lots of suggestions. I think it's by author "Greyleaf", IIRC.

Also, in pure story now! fashion, I would love to see those same belief "flags" to be not only sources of PC powers, but also kickers for the GM to challenge, build situations around, and drive adventures.

These two would make the campaigns really about the PCs beliefs and convictions, and not have them just as secondary gimmicks to your default heroic fantasy hack & slashing. Planescape is so ripe for these adventures with so many hooks - the philosophical factions, the planes as embodiment of ideas, etc. that it would be a disappointment seeing this new edition present that only in style and a coat of paint, and no actual substance (guidelines/procedures/mechanics) to back it up.

Might have been yours truly: Planescape - Planescape: Fantasy Taken to the Edge (5e conversion)

Another poster here (@I'm A Banana IIRC) did a 5e writeup for Planescape factions too that's quite good: Current Project - Jacob's Personal Wiki

 

[Vinicius Lessa]

Might have been yours truly: Planescape - Planescape: Fantasy Taken to the Edge (5e conversion)

Another poster here (@I'm A Banana IIRC) did a 5e writeup for Planescape factions too that's quite good: Current Project - Jacob's Personal Wiki

Oops, my bad. Yes, it's Quickleaf (almost got it ). I'm taking a look at Jacob's (@I'm A Banana ) material and it's pretty awesome, too. Thank you both for those.

I hope the official material end up following that direction and having the same care and love that you folks put into those.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

They're not going to reduce the number of upper planes unless they get rid of all the dual-alignment planes, because they like their symmetry. Which, theoretically, they could do--they've basically ignored all the lower planes in favor of the Abyss and Nine Hells already. Since they have already blended the para/quasi-elemental planes into the basic four elemental planes, I wouldn't be surprised if Pandamonium, Carceri, Gehenna, and Acheron got blended into other planes: Pandemonium (and Ysgard) and Carceri (and Bytopia) can become part of Limbo and Mechanus, respectively, and Genenna and Acheron can become part of the Abyss and Nine Hells.

I'm of two minds about that, myself. I actually prefer those dual-aligned planes to the Abyss and Hells; I find them a lot more interesting and wouldn't want them to be removed or mixed in with another plane. Heck, I'd be happy if the Abyss and Hells were totally downplayed, simply because I find them really boring (I know they won't be, though). On the other hand, I know that, if I were to run a Planescape game, I'd completely change the planes around to be more to my liking anyway, and my idea is closer to what I think 4e did, with individual domains claimed by deities and arch-whatevers or just naturally-formed bits of weirdness, than anything like the Great Wheel. After all, I don't need both a Limbo and an Elemental Chaos, after all. But that's me; probably some people like them both.

While there are still planes and layers named after parts of real-world religions and mythologies, I think it might be more important to simply remove the real-world gods from the setting. Or at least the real-world gods that haven't been co-opted into a D&D religion, like Bahamut and Loviatar. What I would like to see is them come up with a brand new bunch of gods to fill in the blanks where the real gods had been used previously. Not just renaming the real gods into something more fantastic, but literally new gods.

(Sadly, though, the book is going to be 96 pages long; there's no way they'll come up with a new grouping of gods, even if they only gave them each a 1-sentence description.)

The cosmology has been set up in the original core books, they aren't going to eliminate anything from although I doubt they will focus on the material or mirror planes.

I think it'll mostly flesh out the Outer, Inner, and Astral Planes. Maybe something on the energy planes.

But no eliminating planes.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I wonder how the setting will handle real world Gods? I mean the Norse are hugely important to Ysgard and the Grecoroman Gods are massively important to Aborea. I personally think they should split Avandor and Olympus into 2 seperate layers of Aborea, its a weird mix.

And do something really thing cool with Pelion, its not clear whay Pelion's purpose ever was. It was just kind of there.

Maybe stick the Egyptian/Mulhorandi and Mesoptiamian/Untherite Gods there.

I mean they can't get rid of the Greek Gods from Mount Olympus in Aborea, nor the Norse from Ysgard.

I'm wondering if the Nymphs from Theros get an updated stat block given Mount Olympus and all.

If they do Hindu deities, hopefully they don't do stuff like stick Indra into Limbo again, that was weird. If anything flavour wise Aborea is more fitting.

I'd love if Aquella made more sense, I mean for most of the Ocean its 3 feet, outside of deep canyons, but someone can't figure out if the surface has islands or not, I mean just stand up.

Actually how the realms of Gods works in Limbo is a good question period.

I really hope we get more details on Divine Domains in the Astral Sea. I mean I get its where they stick the Gods who don't fit into the Outerplanes, like 4e Gods, maybe some 3e FR Great Tree Planes like Brightwater and Heiropolis which seems to make more sense as a Divine Domain honestly.

Also what is the new Chaotic Good Celestial race going to be now that most Eladrin are fey or humaniods?

This time I'd like something more Greco-Roman themed. Muses? Erotes?

I wonder if they will relate the Archons of Mount Celestia, to the Archons of Theros & Ravnica or even mention them because of possible confusion (both are paragons of spiritual law).

 

[Parmandur]

I wonder how the setting will handle real world Gods? I mean the Norse are hugely important to Ysgard and the Grecoroman Gods are massively important to Aborea. I personally think they should split Avandor and Olympus into 2 seperate layers of Aborea, its a weird mix.

And do something really thing cool with Pelion, its not clear whay Pelion's purpose ever was. It was just kind of there.

Maybe stick the Egyptian/Mulhorandi and Mesoptiamian/Untherite Gods there.

I mean they can't get rid of the Greek Gods from Mount Olympus in Aborea, nor the Norse from Ysgard.

I'm wondering if the Nymphs from Theros get an updated stat block given Mount Olympus and all.

If they do Hindu deities, hopefully they don't do stuff like stick Indra into Limbo again, that was weird. If anything flavour wise Aborea is more fitting.

I'd love if Aquella made more sense, I mean for most of the Ocean its 3 feet, outside of deep canyons, but someone can't figure out if the surface has islands or not, I mean just stand up.

Actually how the realms of Gods works in Limbo is a good question period.

I really hope we get more details on Divine Domains in the Astral Sea. I mean I get its where they stick the Gods who don't fit into the Outerplanes, like 4e Gods, maybe some 3e FR Great Tree Planes like Brightwater and Heiropolis which seems to make more sense as a Divine Domain honestly.

Also what is the new Chaotic Good Celestial race going to be now that most Eladrin are fey or humaniods?

This time I'd like something more Greco-Roman themed. Muses? Erotes?

I wonder if they will relate the Archons of Mount Celestia, to the Archons of Theros & Ravnica or even mention them because of possible confusion (both are paragons of spiritual law).

I seriously doubt that they will go into that in detail.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Going in-depth on the Lords of Hell and the Abyss would be fodder for a book along the lines of 3E's Fiendish Codex or the Planes of Law (Baator)/Chaos (Abyss). I'd rather not more than an overview of the power structure/court clutter up a Planescape campaign book that supposedly covering ALL the planes (I'm not fond of the fascination with demons & devils in the game - especially rulers who are unlikely to ever be directly faced, and the less of them, the happier I am).

The basics will likely get covered in Hell and the Abyss's section. I hope they do more to make the other lower planes pop.

I want playable Bladelings again.

I want them to make the Demodand as interesting as they are in Pathfinder.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I seriously doubt that they will go into that in detail.

You don't think they will at least explore the layers of planes (okay only the important ones of the Infinate Layers of the Abyss)?

 

[Parmandur]

You don't think they will at least explore the layers of planes (okay only the important ones of the Infinate Layers of the Abyss)?

I don't think they want to touch any real world gods with a 10 foot pole at this point.

If you look at the Cleric playtest packet, the flavor has removed any reference to a particular deity whatsoever.

 

[James Gasik]

What's more likely is that they mention, instead of Grecoroman and Egyptian Gods, Theros and Amonkhet.

EDIT: ditto for Kaldheim!

 

[humble minion]

What's more likely is that they mention, instead of Grecoroman and Egyptian Gods, Theros and Amonkhet.

EDIT: ditto for Kaldheim!

They made up another quasi-Egyptian pantheon for VRGtR Har'Akir, as well. Two of them in fact, the 'real' not-Egyptian pantheon, and the fake no-Egyptian pantheon that Anhktepot invented and forced his people to worship after the 'real' not-Egyptian gods cursed him. Pantheonception!

 

[Henadic Theologian]

What's more likely is that they mention, instead of Grecoroman and Egyptian Gods, Theros and Amonkhet.

EDIT: ditto for Kaldheim!

So you think they will import Theros, Amonkhet, and Kaldheim's Gods in to replace real world Gods in Planescape?

I'll point out that Tiamat and Asmodeus come from real world Gods (or fiends in Asmodeus' case). As do Silvanus, Tyr, and Lovitar in the case of the Forgotten Realms, with Silvanus & Tyr showing up on MtG cards just last year.

How would you go about ingrating MtG Gods onto Planescape?