Andy Collins on the Planar Handbook

[MerricB]

G'day, people!

Just spotted this over on the WotC boards:
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=148386

Planar Handbook

A Querent asked:
This book is intriging. Will it be:
a) an updated Manual of the Planes
b) a new book for players with new PrCs, spells, feats, et cetra
c) a planescape style book with information on things like outsider lords and Sigil?

Andy Collins replied:
According to the catalog copy, I'd say that (B) is the closest answer of your three options.

There's definitely some material in there that'll make Planescape fans smile (I'm one of those fans, and it was fun for me to develop those parts), but it's by no means a return to that setting.

Nor is it an "updated" MotP--as the catalog says, it's a "complementary product" to that tome.

(You could stretch definitions just a bit and describe Planar Handbook and MotP as the "PH" and "DMG + MM" of planar adventuring. It's not a perfect comparison--MotP has some player stuff, Planar Handbook has some DMish stuff, and neither of them could stand on their own without the PH, DMG, and MM to support them--but you get the idea.)

Cheers!

 

[Nightfall]

Mm glad to hear that. It was kind of what I was thinking when it came to this book.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Oooh! It has information on Sigil and Outsider Lords?

I just might have to pick this book up.

 

[MerricB]

Oooh! It has information on Sigil and Outsider Lords?

Try reading what Andy said. I've edited it to make it clearer.

Cheers!

 

[Nightfall]

I think that's a no.

 

[MerricB]

Planescape belongs to that era where I was vastly indifferent to what TSR were doing - from the time that huge Boxed Set of the Forgotten Realms 2nd edition update came out onwards, I played less and less AD&D, and played more and more Star Wars (WEG), Marvel Superheroes and, especially, Amber.

Add to that the fact that it very much comes across as an "insider" setting, with its cant and other features. (I'm not really a fan of Tony DiTerlizzi's art, either.) Inventive, certainly, but the rich body of lore developed for the setting also means I'm totally as a loss with regards to it.

Thus, I'd be rather glad if the setting wasn't resurrected in the full body of D&D lore. I think the better, more accessible elements would be great to include in the Planar Handbook, but I also know that many of us (including myself) run divine cosmologies vastly different than that posited in Planescape. As such, each divergent Planescape reference makes the book is less and less of interest to me, in the same way that the new divine "War" pantheon in the Comple Warrior was a complete waste of space. (Thankfully, little space was devoted to it!)

Planescape elements easily adaptable to most D&D campaigns? I'm all for them, but not much more than that.

Cheers!

 

[Darrin Drader]

The planes are, have been, and always will be an integral part of core D&D. Calling it its own setting was never accurate in the first place. As such Planescape, as campaign setting, was a misnomer.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Kinda.

The 'campaign setting' aspect of PS was the flavor. Bladed architecture. Political philosophical groups. Great power right at your doorstep. Cant. The idea of adventuring for belief in addition to the mundane gold, glory, and gore. Those were things that made PS distinctive as a setting, not as a tack-on to Greyhawk. It had it's own world.

Of course, a lot of that could be ignored in the stretch of the planes, or integrated as a DM desired. In which case, you'd get something more like MotP + PlanarHB: rules for characters and monsters and places on the planes, with the flavor left entirely in the hands of the DM.

I'm a BIG fan of the flavor of PS, and I'm very glad to see most of it carried over into 3e (it seems that nearly the only things lost were the importance of the factions and the cant....which can easily be jacked back in for those who want it).

Basically, nothing in the planes *forces* Planescape. But when PS flavor is overlayed onto the planes, I feel you get a much richer experience.

 

[Ashy]

Preach it, brother...

 

[Nightfall]

I just want Planescape back so Brannon can have some other job to enjoy/work for!