Planescape Do You Care About Planescape Lore?

[RichGreen]

On the flipside of the coin, there's also something to be said for PC exceptionalism. I've read plenty of threads where, when the PCs ask to be a one-in-a-million race, with some intricate backstory for how they got where they are, people agree that it's not necessarily a vice to let the PC be something different/special. The problems come when the GM has a good reason for disallowing that anyway, and the player won't respect that.

In other words, there needs to be some mutual respect between what the players want and what the GMs want, and if there's a conflict then someone should know when to acquiesce (usually, to me, that should be the player).

I agree completely with this. I allowed a PC in my Parsantium campaign to play a thri-kreen gladiator. Thri-kreen were originally a core D&D monster but have become pretty synonymous with Dark Sun since that setting came out for 2e. I thought about it, we came up with a place outside the city where he could have come from, and, bingo bongo, thri-kreen now exist in the world. I don't think this kind of thing is hard.

Cheers


Rich

 

[billd91]

And seriously, Frank, wow, do our points diverge. What you disliked is what I loved about the PS line: really intriguing and unexpected political/belief-based plots and a clean graphic design. For me, the line was eminently readable and really pleasing on the eye. I recently reviewed a bunch of old Planescape material, and was struck once again how much more fun they were to read than more recent rulebooks.

I thought the politics/beliefs interesting and the graphic design nice to look at (loved DiTerlizzi's art). But readable? Wherever that annoying patois turned up, I turned off.

 

[Piratecat]

I thought the politics/beliefs interesting and the graphic design nice to look at (loved DiTerlizzi's art). But readable? Wherever that annoying patois turned up, I turned off.

Berk. Berk berk berk. Berk berk? Berk! Berk berk berk berk berk.

Berk.

 

[Alzrius]

Berk. Berk berk berk. Berk berk? Berk! Berk berk berk berk berk.

Berk.

It's like Sigil's own version of the Swedish Chef.

 

[billd91]

And, the other big issue isn't so much the flavour itself, it's the chilling effect of Planescape fans trying to force their one vision of how things are into the core of the game. Any change to any PS related element is judged, not on how good the change might be, but on how well it follows PS setting specific canon.

I have no real problem adding in PS flavour to the game. I don't like it particularly, but, I don't dislike it because it's from Planescape. I dislike it because any deviation is viewed as a bad thing. We cannot have any new ideas unless they are first vetted to be PS Compatible.

It's not just with Planescape, though. It's unnecessary changes in general with any new edition vs compatibility and continuity. What's the point of naming a game a new edition of Game X when the ground the game is based on, either rules structure or other elements, keeps shifting? Assuming that the primary reason for a new edition is changes to the rules, you end up having to accept shifts there (exactly how shifty is still subject to debate - there's no way I'm going to agree that a classless or level-less game is D&D, for example). But a game edition that produces core creatures/races/or implied setting elements that don't match is shooting much of the sense of continuity between the two editions right in the foot and that's going to hamper new edition adoption. It may seem like small potatoes to people who didn't use that bit of game lore in the first place or who like some new changed element better, but we've seen people around here post that it really does get in their way. Why would game designers want to put up barriers to adoption? What do they get out of it? Space to design new stuff when they can already have that by using new names for things rather than repurposing what's already out there?

For what it's worth, I kind of like 4e's astral sea metaphor for planar cosmology. But then that's mostly a cosmetic change that could still be compatible with Planescape ideas and the Great Wheel. I was a lot less interested in the restructuring of devils and demons because it would disconnect with campaigns I have run.

 

[SkidAce]

The best example I've seen was actually a WotC product from "before they were famous" in 1993. Chessboards for their product line (game?) The Primal Order. Of course, to my eyes, that whole line served as a wonderful treatise on cosmologies and divinities in rpgs.

I still have all three of those....love them.

 

[Thotas]

I think part of the reason that PS was treated differently by a lot of people in the way Hussar talks about has to do with the over all size of PS vs. another setting, and more importantly, the fact that in theory all other settings fit into PS. If a new player joined an FR group after leaving a group that played in Krynn, it easily made sense to say, "No, the minotaurs here are the traditional labyrinth dwellers, not sailors. That's Krynn, it's different." But when modrons show up, Krynn and the Realms have the same Mechus as reference, so they should have the same modrons. So everyone gets confused when I DM because there are not modrons anymore because I killed them because they suck.

 

[Stoat]

It's like Sigil's own version of the Swedish Chef.

I haven't read a lot of Planescape books, but the cant drives me crazy. I remember one Planescape splat (IIRC it was a Planes of Chaos) that used the cant throughout the text, including in the rules and DM information. It's one thing to have a sidebar or whatever with some NPC talking in character. It's another thing to have to parse through a bunch of "bonebox" "deadbook" and "berk" to get tot he part of the text you'll use in play.

 

[Weather Report]

Okay, Hussar, this all seems to boil down to you having a paranoid conspiracy theory that PS fans are lurking in alleys waiting to jump on you and force PS material into your campaigns.

And I feel sorry if you have had situations such as:

You: "Okay, guys, I'm running a D&D campaign set in Middle-Earth."

Player: "I want to play a Kender Samurai."

You: "...uh, sorry that doesn't really jive with my Middle-Earth campaign, please choose something Middle-Earth appropriate."

PLayer: "Nope, it's D&D, and Planescape is D&D, and everywhere, Kender Samurai, NOW!"

 

[Balesir]

Berk. Berk berk berk. Berk berk? Berk! Berk berk berk berk berk.

Berk.

Heh - and this in the "demons and devils made safe for moms everywhere" edition, too... It's lucky no-one in TSR management knew just how rude that was!