Planescape Do You Care About Planescape Lore?

[pemerton]

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], I voted No on your poll. I quite like the Planes of Existence Appendix in Gygax's PHB, and don't mind the AD&D Manual of the Planes, but Planescape has never done anything for me.

Also, many of those talking about "options" over "defaults" seem to have missed that the 4e MoP explicitly presented the Great Wheel as an option, including with the mechanical info needed to support 4e action resolution mechanics.

Then I guess you don't like the D&D multiverse, because Planescape is just a crystallisation/solidifying of the AD&D cosmos.

I don't think that Planescape fans have a monopoly on enjoying the "D&D multiverse". There is nothing about Gygax's presentation in his PHB that suggests the Blood War, for instance. Nor Eladrin or Guardinals. And it has better names, too (I might enjoy the Twin Paradises in my afterlife, but Bytopia just sounds like a bad sci-fi space station to me).

 

[Pour]

I love Planescape lore when I'm in a Planescape mood, and I've borrowed bits and pieces throughout the years. And who could hate Bioware's masterpiece Torment?

However, my vote of Yes here is not a vote to keep a default Great Wheel cosmology, and it's definitely not a vote to cram Planescape into default. It is so much its own, specific thing, I don't think it's compatible with 90% of games these days. I really don't. Yugoloths, Modron, the factions, etc should be kept for a setting-specific MM and campaign book, and honestly, with the toted backward compatibility of 5e, doesn't even need to be. Release the original books, publish a new adventure or two, and call it a homage.

As an aside, it really annoys me when someone swoops in and claims not liking Planescape is hating D&D, or stepping on other people's enjoyment of the game. Get over it. It's just another reason why there should be no default, only a healthy application of settings as suggestions, each with their own cosmology, pantheon, and treatment of iconics (and such obscurities as 'loths and modrons, or twelve variations on vampires, or sha'ir, or hengegekoi, whatever the case may be).

 

[avin]

I do.

It's just lore, a chunk of written ideas. I don't care about Forgotten Realms but that doesn't prevent me to buy FRCS3E and extract what I wanted for my campaigns.

Also, I hate halflings and almost never use them... but they are part of D&D and should be there for those who like them.

 

[avin]

And who could hate Black Isle masterpiece Torment?

Fixed for you

Bioware was responsible for Baldur's Gate, PS:T was a Black Isle creation

 

[Pour]

Fixed for you

Bioware was responsible for Baldur's Gate, PS:T was a Black Isle creation

Gah, thank you!

 

[Ahnehnois]

Got any data to back that claim up?

Are you suggesting the contrary (i.e. that a majority of groups use a published setting)?

 

[Alzrius]

I voted Yes for several reasons, the first being that I'm a fan of Planescape.

Secondly, the OP is misinterpreting the "Great Wheel" planar structure as being somehow unique to Planescape. While Planescape massively fleshed it out, the fundamental aspects of that arrangement pre-date Planescape, as others have noted. This isn't some arbitrary setting-specific idea that was forced onto other campaigns that already existed; this is how it always was in AD&D.

Third, I am, in general, against changing quintessential elements of a game setting in order to try and appeal to the people who don't like said setting. Far better, I think, to pay attention to the fans who actually like it already. The changes to the Forgotten Realms in Fourth Edition were horrible, as they invalidated the huge swaths of canon that were (to me) the setting's greatest strength, in an effort to appease the fears of people who apparently live in mortal terror of "canon lawyers." In my opinion, that was an awful mistake - we already have campaign settings that are painted in broad strokes so as to allow individual GMs to fill in the details on their own; why can't we have just one massively-detailed setting?

So I say Yes; here's hoping that 5E uses the Planescape cosmology!

 

[Savage Wombat]

I'm not sure the complaint is really so much with the Great Wheel as it is with the "and this campaign connects all the other campaign worlds we own together" aspect. I didn't mind having people from Greyhawk walk over to Faerun, but Krynn always seemed like it should be its own thing. Spelljammer had the same problem, but no one complained as much.

 

[RangerWickett]

Planescape's a cool idea. But I'd rather it be its own product. In the core books, have the planar stuff be vague, with a few possible explanations presented. Where do demons come from? Master summoners claim there are two realms, one of orderly evil known as Hell, source of devils, the other a land of raw vile chaos known as the Abyss, source of demons. But to the common folk of the world, any fire-wreathed entity from another world is simply a monster, and the nuances of their origin don't matter when they call upon heroes to deliver them from evil.

 

[Kinak]

I care about Planescape lore to the extent that they're using Planescape things.

If they're going to put Modrons in the MM, but have them be totally different from the Modrons we've seen before, that's just annoying. If they put some other lawful exemplar race in there, that's fine.

I guess my point here is "if backwards compatibility is actually a goal, don't change something's essence without giving it a new name."

Cheers!
Kinak