Except that is a default world with no history and no conflict. (At least in 3E. I'm assuming that the 3.5 PHB doesn't differ much from the original version in this respect.)
Ok, this is totally untrue. 3.5's default world was Greyhawk.
There is nothing equivalent (at least that I recall) to the dwarves' captivity in the hands of the giants, the conflict between dragonborn and tieflings, the sundering of the elves between the Feywild and the world, the rise and fall of Nerath, etc. And the point of this stuff isn't that it's good literature - of course it's pretty trite as fiction. It's job isn't to be good fiction in itself - it's to seed conflict in game, in play. This is what 4e provides out of the box.
That is because it was in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
Corellon and Gruumsh as enemies is there, yes. This is perhaps the clearest example of what I'm talking about - if I choose to play an elf cleric then right away I'm thrusting myself into a situation where dramatic things can happen - all it takes is some orcs to appear on the horizon.
Okay, and there's plenty more where that came from in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
Hextor and Heironeous is weaker, in my view, because there is no typical monster type that is, by default, associated with Heironeous. 4e's use of Bane is much stronger in this regard, because of the way goblins and hobgoblins are set up as worshippers of Bane.
Uhm, those would be cultist, followers, clerics, etc. of Heironeous. You see S&S is much more humanocentric in it's feel. This is one fo the things that gives 3.5/Greyhawk a more S&S feel than 4e.
This does not, on its own, establish a conflict between any PC and any potential antagonist. What sort of PC is the "natural enemy" of a basilisk - dwarves, perhaps? The rulebooks don't say. Are demons the enemies of all mortal beings? Well, sort of, except that many mortal beings are chaotic evil, and so allied with them - how exactly does that work?
The basilisk thing is just an example of the creature being tied into the default world... a better example would be the Dwarf/Giant animosity which is also represented in the mechanics for the dwarf race. As to your questions about Demons, I would say as CE cretures they have no true "allies" but instead have useful resources... and once that usefulness is at an end, well...
Of course there are answers - every D&D GM has thought about how to handle the relationship between the Chaotic Evil thug on the street corner, the like-aligned servants of Demogorgon, and then the demon lords and princes themselves. But establishing these anwsers, and having the players work their way through them, itself shifts the focus from the pursuit of conflict to exploring the world.
Not if you are using the default world of Greyhawk. If you are doing this then there is the same transparency you speak of concerning 4e.
I don't own it, no. I don't buy things I suspect I'm not going to use or enjoy. I think I've got a reasonable working knowledge of it's basic conceits, though.
Wait a minute, you're comparing two things... one of which you've never read or played in. That would be like me judging the 4e PoL setting on the basis of having looked over "Keep on the Shadowfell", the "Dungeon Delve" book and just the information on Fallcrest in the DMG. That seems lie a pretty big lack of evidence to base absolute statements on.
My view is that they already resolve that conflict. That is, they already tell the participants in the game who/what is good, and who/what is evil. Like much of post-classic D&D play, and especially 2nd ed D&D play, it's high concept simulationist. The setting answers certain thematic or genre questions, and the purpose of play is to explore those answers, but not to push against them. Without significant drifting, for example, it would make no sense in a Planescape game for the players to commit their PCs to proving that the Upper Planes are really wickedness incarnate, and true salvation lies with the Lower Planes.
I totally disagree with this. Just as a really blatant example of this type of play... one of the factions (the Athar I believe) is based around the belief that the deities everyone worships are nothing but frauds... and guess what there is no answer given to the question of it's validity or not. Let's say your players do prove this true, then the question of where salvation lies and who is really good, and who is evil becomes much more vague. I think again you have a very limited view of what is and isn't possible in a Planescape campaign.
I don't know the Planar Handbook very well, although I think I've read it (it's 3E or 3.5, yes?). From how you describe it, it sounds like PCs could be built that would be thematically loaded, if the backstory of the campaign setting supported that. My comments are directed primarily at that backstory.
The very exsistence, beliefs, etc. of the Factions in Sigil is, IMO, about thematically loaded play.
But does a Planescape game test those beliefs? Does it challenge a paladin's conviction that Mount Celestia is at the heart of all that is worthy and good?
It challenegs whether that lawful good god he is devoted to is anything more than a charlatan... and it seems from that premise all that you wrote above is possible.
My impression is that it doesn't - that it begins with the thematic questions settled, rather than in play. Again, accounts of actual narrativist play in Planescape would be interesting here.
That's the problems with impressions. You see I'm not saying 4e is impossible to play the way you do (though I thtink it caters to a different style more naturally), I'm not saying that 4e's cosmology is worse than Planescape for this type of play either... but if I went on my "impressions" of 4e instead of reading and playing it for myself I probably wouldn't believe it promoted much beyond linear fight scenes.
Tell me more about the conflict you have in mind here.
Here's one... love vs. duty. Can an angel truly love... can a devil truly love (from the backstories of certain beings it seems possible) now... what if they loved each other and can/does this love supercede their duties? If given the opportunity would the PC's help them or hinder them in this relationship depending upon their own character's beliefs and ideals?
My own feeling is that this sort of stuff - which suggests that "the dark of things" (have I got my cant right? I mean the truth) is primarily under the GM's purview, and not transparent to the players - pushes play away from the players' making their own thematic statements, and towards the players exploring the GM's own views on the matter (such as, for example, "What is the nature of moral conflict such that an angel can drink in a bar with a devil without feeling morally compromised?")
The players can do anything a citizen of Sigil can do... so what stops them from exploring the same themes the DM can in the city of Sigil and upon the Planes... especially if they start play as a planar vs. a clueless berk.
How do 4e's rules set this expectation? Via the Epic Destiny mechanics, which are a core part of PC build. Because The Plane Above discusses journeying into deep myth (which is what 4e calls heroquesting) over a page or so - leaving the mechanics loose, but (from memory) canvassing both Rituals and skill challenges as avenues for doing so.
Rituals and skill challenges are the purview of the DM... so you have Epic Destinies, which IMO aren't that different from epic levels in 3.5 (which actually give a player more freedom in defining the thematic conflicts he wishes to explore since he is not locked into a subclass for 10 levels.
Would it work as well in 3E? Well, 3E doesn't have Epic Destinies, and seems to maintain a stricter boundary between the mortal and the divine. Related to this, 3E does not present the present world as a consequence of past mythical events - whereas this is central to 4e (and not unique to 4e, of course - Glorantha is the first RPG setting I know of to use this idea - hence why I have in the past talked about The Plane Above of completing the Glorantha-fication of D&D). 3E also doesn't have quite the same default orientation towards "one off" or esoteric magic as does 4e - there's more of a vibe that magical effects should be explicable (even if via the item creation rules) as consequences of either arcane or divine spells.
There are spells that PC's can use to ravel across th planes, numerous portals in Sigil, and so on. If anything I would say planar travel is less under the control of the DM in 3.5 than in 4e (and if I remember correctly this, like flight and teleportation, were one of those things they purposefully pulled back on in 4e.). There are no Epic Destinies but Prestige Classes and Epic levels serve the same purpose. Greyhawk, which again is the default world of 3.5 has it's own mythology which in turn is a subcateory of the larger mythology of the Planescape setting. As I said earlier this seems to boil down to your particualr fluff preferences as opposed to what can or can't be done because of the setting.
Perhaps, although personally I have my doubts - 4e's core action resolution mechanics (eg skill challenges - and I have in mind here especially some of the skill challenge ideas in The Plane Below and The Demonomicon) don't support this approach as well, because they favour glossing over detail that is not part of the framing of an encounter, whereas nooks and crannies play tends to favour attention to detail for its own sake.
Don't buy it. Again knowledge and lore checks, history checks, precision of some skills, the approach of the majority of published adventures, etc. all support the exploration approach... contrary to how you've interpreted a few personally selected sources.
Part of the issue is the story elements that are available to the players, and the degree of control they have over the meaning that they bear. I feel that Planescape - with its nooks and crannies, its convoluted metaplot, its "ah, but what's the dark of it" nod-and-wink to the GM's secrets - is more interested in settling the thematic issues before play rather than in the course of it.
Actually, since Planescape the campaign setting answers very few of those questions with a definitive answer, I would say it leaves it very much open for DM's and players to explore. In fact many people don'tlike the fact that The Lady of Pain and what she is, can do, etc. isn't defined. Where Sigil came from isn't defined, which factions are right or wrong isn't defined, and so on.
It's not that they're all equally valid in 4e's cosmology. Rather, it's that it's up to the participants in the game to work out what they mean. Meaning is to be worked out in play - not settled prior to play. That, for me, is the difference between 4e and Planescape.
I just listed quite a few things whose meanings haven't been defined. Again I think you might have a different view of Planescape if you read the seting itself instead of getting impressions form various outside/fringe sources.
It comes through in so many little things - like the suggestion that an unaligned mercenary might worship Bane as the god of soldiering, or that a dragonborn invoker might serve both Bahamut and Tiamat. In 3E, with it's system of mechanical alignment, neither of these options is viable in the same way (supplicating Hextor would itself be an evil act, tending to drift the supplicant from neutrality, and simultaneously worhsipping Heironeous and Hextor would be incoherent).
You do realize you can worship whoever you want in 3.5 right? The only time alignment matters is if you decide to play a divine character. A fighter in 3.5 can worship both a good and evil deity if he wants to. Supplicating Hextor is not in and of itself an evil act, you are projecting your own impressions here, as far as worshipping Hextor and Heironeous would be incoherent in the same way you wouldn't worship The Raven Queen and Orcus isn't it?
Maybe you misunderstand what I mean by exploration. I'm not talking about exploration of the fictional world by the PCs - a fantasy story about imaginary Sir Francis Drakes and Captain Cooks. I'm talking about exploration of the fiction by the players as participants in the game. What the Forge calls "simulationism". One reason PoL doesn't support this sort of exploration-focused play is that the relevant fiction doesn't exist (unless the GM does a lot of work to flesh it out). It's a collection of hints about situations, ripe with conflict, that the players might engage via their PCs.
Really? Because there is quite alot of details on Fallcrest, Hammerfast, Winterhaven, Thunderspire Labyrinth, Gloomwrought, and so on. Now admittedly, for some strange reason WotC has decided to parse out all this detail across numerous products and formats... but it is very much there.
Because the sotry elements - the building blocks - are transparent, but where they lead to in play is not known until play occurs. This is the essence of narrativist play.
I think I've listed quite a few elements of Planescape where this is true as well. And on a side note 4e also has it's fair share of defined setting elements as well. Both, IMO have a mixture which is why I don't see any appreciable difference (other than preference) in using one over the other for drifting into narrativist play.
As you said, we've talked about some of this stuff before. And as is often the case, I'm curious. Are you saying that you've GMed or played in a narrativist Planescape game? If so, feel free to tell all! I'm not going to contradict you - I want to hear about how you did it. (For example, how did you handle alignment? In my mind mechanical alignment is the number one obstacle to narrativist play in the traditional D&D mechanics. When I've GMed narrativist AD&D we've just dropped alignment altogether. But I don't see how that could be done in a Planescape game.)
I honestly don't have the time to post something like this permeton, especially as I am playing 4e right now and not Planescape it would be mostly from memory. As to alignment, It really only affects those classes that have chosen it as a thematic definer such as clerics, paladins, druids, barbarians and monks
Or, if you haven't GMed narrativist Planescape, then I'm puzzled as to how you can be so confident that it can be done. To be honest, I don't get the impression from your posts that you are into narrativist play (I could be wrong though - I seem to recall that you play HeroQuest). And if you're not into narrativist play, why does it matter to you that someone who is has views about what systems and what settings offer better or worse support for it?
And I, in turn, am puzzled by how someone that has never read the Planescape campaign setting can have such strong opinions and feelings on what it is and what it isn't good for. As for narrativist games, I do enjoy them and I have played Heroquest, in the Nameless Streets campaign setting (where the DM defines all kinds of secrets that the players investigate), I don't know if I necessarily prefer them over other styles of play but they are enjoyable with the right group.
