A Plane Question?

[Blustar]

I didn't want to start a poll but was wondering out of all the products dealing with the planes, which do you think does the best job? Anything from 1edAD&D up until now. Is it the little blurb at the end of the 1ed PH or the very thorough Planescape? Or 3.5 DMG or any D20 supplement?

The reason I'm asking is I would like a consistent approach to the planes and something reasonably playable. Are all the D&D cosmologies pretty much the same and the only difference flavor? I see the only difference in 3.5 is they added the plane of shadow and the Astral touches all realms. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

regards,

Alex

 

[Jdvn1]

The Manual of the Planes (3.0), I think does a good job. I don't feel comfortable saying it's the best because I haven't seen a lot of stuff to compare it to. It's a solid book, though.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The Manual of the Planes (3.0), I think does a good job. I don't feel comfortable saying it's the best because I haven't seen a lot of stuff to compare it to. It's a solid book, though.

The 3.0 Manual of the Planes is the only D&D book I own, other than the PH, where I feel I got my money's worth, and then some. It's beautifully written, beautifully illustrated, and provides everything you need to create your own multiverse.

Fantastic book. I wish all of them were that good.

Like Jdvn1, though, I haven't read any of the pre-3.0 planar stuff, so I won't say it's the best out there.

 

[Turjan]

I didn't want to start a poll but was wondering out of all the products dealing with the planes, which do you think does the best job? Anything from 1edAD&D up until now. Is it the little blurb at the end of the 1ed PH or the very thorough Planescape?

It really depends on what you want to do with the material. D&D 3.x generally uses the 'Great Wheel' cosmology of Planescape, but a few planes got lost . The Forgotten Realms got their own cosmology now, but I don't think that the practical differences are that large.

Anyway, if you want an introduction to the planes of D&D combined with some info on how to build your own cosmology, I'd third the Manual of the Planes. It's a 3.0 book, and I really enjoyed that one. It's still one of my favourite books that I bought from WotC. If you like the toolkit approach and want to get even more into building your own plains, I'd recommend FFG's Portals & Planes. It's also a 3.0 book and definitely worth a look.

As far as Planescape goes, I really like those old books. They look just beautiful, even if I'd probably never use the setting for a campaign .

 

[Aaron L]

1E Manual of the Planes is a beautiful read. The 3E version does a credible job of covering it, but lacks that "1E flair" of archaism and description. (Not knocking it, I like that flair!) I dont like Planescape very much, the desciptive text is good, but the whole flavor of the setting, combined with the premise of other planar beings essentially living lives much like Prime beings, in towns, villages and whatnot, and the large groups of mortals populating "Heaven and Hell" just grated on me.

 

[Jdvn1]

1E Manual of the Planes is a beautiful read. The 3E version does a credible job of covering it, but lacks that "1E flair" of archaism and description.

Aren't all the Manual of the Planes written by the same guy?

 

[Timeboxer]

The D&D cosmologies are often categorized similarly but structured differently -- by which I mean, the metaphor used for the planes is different. Far as I can tell, the D&D planes usually consist of the Planes of the Elements (Inner Planes in the Great Wheel), the Planes of Ideology (Outer Planes), and the Transitive Planes, but they can be arranged in various ways -- f'rinstance, the usual D&D structure is the Great Wheel, but I believe FR has them arranged in a tree, and Eberron has an orbital planar structure.

If you're looking for any old cosmology, the Great Wheel works pretty well and you would do well to look at the old Planescape stuff, but if you'd like to construct your own, I recommend the Manual of the Planes 3E. There's also no reason why you need to use the "classic" D&D planar categories, so to speak -- Beyond Countless Doorways is very helpful.

Another way to look at it is that your cosmology can also affect the stories that you want to tell. The Great Wheel is very heavily based upon the notion of alignment (and, in Planescape, belief and faith), and so using that planar cosmology will be useful for stories in which that plays a big part. The Eberron cosmology results in a lot of planar junction sites and so it encourages play on the Prime Material Plane in which strange magical things happen that are planarly affected. The BCD cosmology works well for a rollicking romp exploring one plane after another after another -- and so on. So.

 

[Psion]

I didn't want to start a poll but was wondering out of all the products dealing with the planes, which do you think does the best job? Anything from 1edAD&D up until now. Is it the little blurb at the end of the 1ed PH or the very thorough Planescape? Or 3.5 DMG or any D20 supplement?

Well, that rather depends. Does the secretary or the engineer or the administrator do the "best job"? That really rather depends on what job you are trying to do.

If you had to pick just one product, I'd say pick up Manual of the Planes (3e). It has the Great Wheel, which is pretty much the standard. It also has a baseline system for defining planes (which made it into the 3.5 DMG) and great ideas for non-Great Wheel cosmoligies and related concepts. The next two books on your shopping list should probably be either or both Mongoose's Book of the Planes and FFG's Portals and Planes. If you want some resource planes or planar sites, DM's Directory of Demiplanes and Beyond Countless Doorways are great resources.

I'll make a quick list of available planar products, focusing more on generally useful products than campaign (i.e., Planescape specific) products. I will not list anything I don't own, nor will I list many planesape products I don't feel especially useful outside of that setting. Of third party products, I am focussing on ones I actually use:

AD&D 1e

• Manual of the Planes - The original expose on the great wheel cosmology. Also has some interesting and never replicated material on elemental creatures that I still use, and some material on alternate prime materials that gets paid homage in Beyond Countless Doorways.
• Dragon Magazine "Nine Hells" article - a great reference if you want to campaign in hell. An interesting read if you don't.
• Tales of the Outer Planes - Despite the title, was not all about the outer planes, and included some forays into the elemental planes. An odd juncture in D&D history, it stood on the precipice. It presumes a deity dominated outer planes (an image that many old schoolers cling fastly too), but provides adventures for low level characters (which is something some old schoolers refuse to consider.)

AD&D 2e

• Monster Compendium Outer Planes Appendix - First reference to the blood war, tanar'ri, and baatezu. (No, it wasn't planescape.) Not too noteworthy other than that, but it did have the best art for some creatures.
• Planescape Campaign Setting - Introduced portal concept to D&D, and provided a stripped down MotP type catalog o the planes.
• Planes of Law/Chaos/Conflict - A great resource for planes of the great wheel and adventures therein.
• Guide to the Inner Planes, Guide to the Astral - Rounding out material on the great wheel cosmology.

D&D 3e:

• Manual of the Planes - Revives the classic expose of the great wheel, introduces the 3e system for cataloging planes, and some great ideas for variant cosmologies. A very nice, idea filled, useful reference.
• Planar Handbook - A 3.5, more player oriented reference to the planes. I was a bit disappointed, but there are some tidbits in here that you will want for planar gaming, like 3.5 versions of planar spells and planar substitution levels. Other resources include planar races, monsters, and sites.

D20 Third Party Products

• Portals & Planes (FFG) - A fantastic idea mine for planar gaming. It's not great wheel, but has some ideas that can be plugged in to the classic great wheel. Also provides variant planar pathways that you can use as a means to get your players to the planes. (I based my current campaign on the "River of Worlds" concept.) Great ideas for new portal concepts, planar campaigning, and creating new planes, monsters (man my players hate the chaos-spawn template ), as well as a few tidbits for players, including new PrCs and a system for making variant PC races that live in unusual environments.
• Classic Play: Book of the Planes (Mongoose) - Another great planar resource. It provides an even more detailed look at defining planes (recommened!), an alternate, somewhat simplified cosmology, some nifty and useful planar factions, spells, and a great catalog of planes. Some of my favorite includes a plane of epic stories and a plane hopping tavern. Very nice, very flavorful
• DMs Directory of Demiplanes (RoninArts) - A interesting selection of well defined demiplanes. There was a print run, but it's principally available in PDF
• Secrets of the Planes - Planar Factions (Lions Den Press/RoninArts) - If you like the concept of plane-faring factions with their own agendas as campaign-drivers, etc., there are a few here for you to play with.
• Six Planar Gates and Six Living Planar Gates (RoninArts) - A pair of short PDFs with some interesting ways to get PCs involved in the planes.
• Book of Fiends (Green Ronin) - Provides a bevy of fiends for your game, which serve as everpresent foes. Nicely done and very flavorful, particularly the Legions of Hell and Hordes of Gehenna sections (I gotta say I am getting a lot less use out of the Abyss section, but it will still be useful for populating the abyss if your players ever head that way.)
• Aasimar & Tiefling (Green Ronin) - Provides a great system for brewing your own planetouched races. Also has a lot of plane specific options that go beyond just the planetouched.
• Beyond Countless Doorways (Malhavoc Press) - A catalog of planes by the old Planescape crew. Features an alternate cosmology with some interesting ideas, as well as about 20 extensively detailed planes, some suitable for extended campaigns. Also has an appendix on alternate worlds. Great stuff in here. Available as a hardback, or on PDF.

 

[DragonLancer]

I also recommend the 3.0 Manual of the Planes over any other source.

 

[Turanil]

You can also get the 100 Demi-Planes netbook for free (see download link in my sig.)