Capturing Planescape

[reason]

...

The feeling of Planescape, for me at least, lies in (a) strangeness for the sake of strangeness, (b) magical thinking actually works, (c) people are still basically people despite all that, (d) the powerful are constrained only by their attention span and others of greater power.

So you have strange, tentacled and very crotchey beings plotting in the manner of people to hire thugs to retrieve an immortal, godly merchant's stolen anger, such that the merchant will kick out the hundred lesser fey who are driving up the prices of silver tears from the remote planes. But the anger has been placed inside a Story Well and only by hiring someone of the right attributes - or worse, that can develop the right attributes through a series of tasks - can the tentacled beings attain their goal of buying enough tears to build a Peerless Waterfal of Ecstasy that will transport them home.

And of course the players should be free to find their own equally strange paths forward. So, yes. My (of course) unfinished take on the mood of Planescape is called Ten Thousand Gates, and is much as this.

Reason
Principia Infecta

 

[Bodah]

Well, I ran my second session on sunday, and it seemed to go pretty well. All in all, I think I am on the right track, and the very helpful responses given by everyone in this thread only reinforce that to me.

I've been playing up the 'belief is power' thing by adapating the 2nd edition belief point system that appeared in the Planewalkers Handbook, with some modifications for more options when it comes to using the points. I also encouraged factions among the parties, and one person decided to start off as a Fated, so that worked out well.

The game is being run pre-faction war. Reasoning behind this was I've never run a Planescape game before, so I wanted to do at least one campaign that was closer to the original material. The other reason was that all but one member of my group (not counting myself) are new to Planescape. So I didnt want to have to explain the Factions only to explain a war that happened, and how the Factions have changed since then.

I'm not so concerned about the learning curve. I've run enough previous D&D games that involved planar travel (non-Planescape) that I'm confident in my knowledge of the planes and the various races that inhabit them. My Sigil knowledge is only backed up by reading and not much experience (yet) but that shouldnt be too much of a problem.

As far as the feel so far: I tend to run games that have dark stories and atmosphere overall, but are broken up inbetween by absurd (and generally comical) character interactions, both player and NPC. Planescape seems pretty good for this, and it is usually the type of stuff my players like when we are playing D&D. I've also used the cant for all NPC talk so far, and it seems to really help immerse the players, as they have begun to use it as well.

I've also tried to play up the strangeness alot. For example: one of the players is currently working for a Lord (whom he has never actually met) that wants him to assassinate another Lord, but the two Lords are actually one and the same. They are a rather insane chronotyrn (fiend folio) whose dual brains are unaware that they share the same body, and therefore continue to plot to kill each other, without realizing that the death of the other would mean their own death as well. I imagine there will be some good "WTF?" moments from the players when they discover this. I have other equally strange and fantastical characters for them to run into while in Sigil as well.

Anyway, thanks for the responses. I'll keep an eye on the thread, just in case anyone else wants to chime in with their own experiences.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Little things help too.

I always made sure to comment the first time a new player (character) stepped out of a building onto the streets of Sigil - and saw the horizon go up ... up ... and over.

If you can get the player to visualize this, you'll get that "wow" sense you want.