Best of Planescape (and Birthright, while we're at it)

[kenmarable]

Thanks for all of that. More questions might follow, but for now I had two: What about the Deva Spark? No one has mentioned that and the premise looked interested. Also, what Planescape books have the most about Sigil and the land around it? In other words, that which is unique to Planescape and not just part of the Great Wheel?

I haven't really delved too deep into Deva Spark, so I can't say how good it is. It is an interesting and very Planescape-y idea...
[sblock]If I recall, a portion of a deva is smuggled into the Lower Planes (spy?? I forget) but gets into a bebillith. The bebillith turns good and the PCs are faced with the dilemma of returning the spark to the celestial who needs it but dooming the now reformed bebilith, or letting the fiend live at the cost of the celestial[/sblock]
... but many have said it's very railroady. *shrug* I don't know for myself, so I'm interested in hearing others actual play experiences with it.

As for Sigil info, In the Cage and Uncaged: Faces of Sigil are great sources of info on the city. If I recall, Faction War also had a great deal of info (rumored to be from another project that was dropped, so they inserted it into this adventure).

Although Sigil was favored in a lot of the products, I'm not sure offhand how many adventures are based in it, however. Beyond adventure hooks that read "While in Sigil your factol sends you on a mission, here's the portal key, see you later" most adventures were actually throughout the planes. Eternal Boundary and Harbinger house, I think are mostly in Sigil. Doors to the Unknown branches off into other planes, but through dealing with Estavan and such, still feels pretty Sigil grounded. Of course, Faction War is 100% in Sigil.

Also, Shemeska wrote a very nice treatise on Sigil over at Planewalker.

Concerning "surrounding area not just part of the Great Wheel", if you mean the Outlands and gatetowns, the Player's Primer to the Outlands has a bunch on that. It's short but has at least a page and I think map for each gatetown. Most every gatetown appears to a varying extent in some adventure, but not a whole lot of fluff in those. as for other stuff unique to Planescape not just part of the Great Wheel, I'm not really sure since the two are so closely integrated in my mind.

 

[Crothian]

I used the Deva Spark basic plot in a Changeling the Dreaming game. Of course I didn't realize that at the time.

 

[Oryan77]

Thanks for all of that. More questions might follow, but for now I had two: What about the Deva Spark? No one has mentioned that and the premise looked interested. Also, what Planescape books have the most about Sigil and the land around it? In other words, that which is unique to Planescape and not just part of the Great Wheel?

I came really close to running the Deva Spark for my group. I read it, I liked it, and then as I began to prepare it I realized that it is wayyyyy campy. I wanted to run it cause it sends the PCs to Elysium and I thought that would be a fun trip. But that Elysium chapter is just really immature. It felt like something a group of 11 y/o girls would enjoy, but not something a group of 20 something men would take seriously. I like to run some light-hearted scenarios from time to time, but I thought that stuff was over the top. I can't remember any specifics, but I do seem to remember that the ending of the adventure was kinda bad too.

I set it aside and decided that it is definitely a good book to mine ideas from (so I have). There's still some cool scenarios in it, including a couple good scenarios in the Elysium chapter.

I read Something Wild but it just really seemed empty for a 30 page book. I felt like I'd still be creating my own adventure to make it have more substance, so why bother running it.

Harbinger House always gets good praise. I've never used it and I actually haven't read the full thing yet.

I have never fully read Doors to the Unknown and In the Abyss yet, only cause I've been running Dead Gods and that was a beast to prepare/convert to 3.5. I don't know if those are any good or not.

I've heard mixed things about Well of Worlds. I didn't really care for it myself, but I've heard other people say they had fun with it.

 

[Orius]

3) Factol's Manifesto ...Oh yeah, and

Spoiler

A'kin

wrote it in-game.

Wait, what? Where was that revealed? (Makes some sense though).

I was going to comment on the different books, but really everyone's pretty much covered it. You've got the various planar guide for the planes, In the Cage and Uncaged: Faces of Sigil give the chant on Sigil, The Factol's Manifesto describes the various factions and sets up some setting metaplot, On Hallowed Ground describes the various gods, and Hellbound gets into the Blood War and how it affects the Outer Planes. Planewalker's Handbook is less crunch and more of a general guide for players that consolidates rules for character creation and general fluff that a PC would know.

 

[Nai_Calus]

On Hallowed Ground - One of the best god books for D&D, period, with some really nice art.
The Inner Planes - And you thought they were boring.

 

[Shemeska]

Wait, what? Where was that revealed? (Makes some sense though).

Faction War has that little bit as part of the faction politics going on, because that author dips their hands into the mix in one of the later portions of the adventure.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Out of the Planes of Boxed Sets, I'd say that Planes of Conflict was the best.

Inner Planes was a really good book, it makes the Inner Planes quite interesting.

Tales of the Infinite Staircase was definitely Planescape's best module in my opinion.

Uncaged: Faces of Sigil has plenty of interesting characters and more than enough plot hooks to use. There's never been a D&D book like it since then.

 

[Orius]

Faction War has that little bit as part of the faction politics going on, because that author dips their hands into the mix in one of the later portions of the adventure.

I should have guessed. Faction War and Faces of Evil are the two big gaping holes in my PS collection.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

For the Planescape lovers out there, I really must suggest playing the Planescape: Torment video game. That was one D&D game done right!

 

[DerekSTheRed]

Another BR fan here. I have to say the best and worst parts about the product support of BR was how much TSR put out and how specific each product was. Almost every PC ready domain had a mini-supplement written for it. Each setting supplement was well done but some were just more interesting than others.

I'd take a look at the free stuff here and here (scroll down to the Birthright stuff). It would be pretty easy to mine a random Birthright domain for a home game. The only issue is removing/changing the threats each domain faced.