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Message: <blockquote data-quote="QuietBrowser" data-source="post: 7734259" data-attributes="member: 6855057">Those of you have seen my comparisons of the World Axis to the Great Wheel are probably assuming that I just hate Planescape. In truth, my relationship with it is more complicated than that... if I had to sum up my feelings in a few short words, it'd be "great idea: lackluster execution".See, I really like the concept of planar fantasy. The idea of traveling between magical realms out of the melting pot of the multiverse is just inherently awesome, and really sparks the side of me that like truly gonzo fantasy. Where else can a character concept like "vengeful dragon-hunting kobold who eats her draconic foes" feel perfectly reasonable? Where else is it perfectly normal to have a hexslinging cowboy, a cyborg samurai, a pyromantic pirate and an undead ninja all hanging out in the same bar? Exploring the realms of fiends, angels and faeries, traveling to worlds unseen, battling opponents who can shake the very order of creation itself - this is a concept that just sparks my imagination!And then I actually got to look at real Planescape material... I think the best simile I can come up with for my presumably mostly-American audience is this: imagine you order a buffet at your favorite local style BBQ joint. Then imagine that, after you've paid, you sit down to your meal, and find that 90% of what you've been given is spam, tofu, and soy-products.I went in expecting epic adventuring across a fantasy multiverse. What I got was a baroque and clunky backdrop that reeked of grid-filling and similar try-hard "edge-punk!" to the Old World of Darkness, and where most of your "adventuring" amounted to being pawns, puppets and dogsbodies of "Iconics" whom you were told you would never, ever, ever be a threat to, so don't even try. Planescape was in no way exempt from the "Status Quo is Sarosanct!" approach of TSR and early WotC era D&D, and it really did not do the setting any favors.In the end... what I want out of a planar setting is far closer to Planescape: Torment - the game where you midwife a pregnant street, traverse the subterranean streets of a necropolis full of civilized undead, interact with the prostitutes at an intellectualistic brothel, and explore a fortress built from crystalized regret, all with the aid of a wisecracking skull, a fiend-blooded street urchin, an alien warrior-wizard with a deep secular religion, a chaste succubus, and Nordom. I want the kind of setting where I can truly embrace the wonders and weirdness of the multiverse. The kind of setting where a party comprised of a prime-worlder androgynous black mage trying to reshape his destiny, a half-marilith gnoll who is one of Yeenoghu's abandoned daughters, a duthka'gith out to free her people from Vlaakith CLVII's slavery, a tanuki ninja and the faerie dragon equivalent of a kobold would not attract more than a few stares.And not, say, the kind of setting where I faff about as a lowly errand-boy in a party of "the generic races but from fancier lands!", running around a smokier, edgier Waterdeep full of jaded, stuck-up cynics and avoiding run-ins with lunatics from a bunch of philosphical gangs were many of their ideologies don't even make sense if you spend a few minutes thinking about them. Which, sadly, is generally how Planescape came off to me in execution.That said, disappointing as I found Planescape in general to be, that doesn't mean I can't recognize and respect its hidden gems. I just think the World Axis cosmology and 4e's mentality presented a far better outline for Planescape that would let me play it and run it the way I want.</blockquote>

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