Planescape Do You Care About Planescape Lore?

[Weather Report]

Please stop trying to read my mind, or the mind of anyone who dares to disagree with your views. I don't think @Hussar gave you the licence to be his shrink, and I most certainly haven't.

Absurd, whatever you are on, I want a crate of it.

 

[Siberys]

[MENTION=8461]Alzrius[/MENTION]

That's why I said "beyond the elemental planes, the Gray, and the Black"; that's the cosmology, as far as Athas is concerned. Crystal Spheres are (or, rather /should/ have been, IMO) a Spelljammerism.

Different strokes, I guess. :/

 

[Alzrius]

That's why I said "beyond the elemental planes, the Gray, and the Black"; that's the cosmology, as far as Athas is concerned. Crystal Spheres are (or, rather /should/ have been, IMO) a Spelljammerism.

Different strokes, I guess. :/

Probably. Personally I liked that it gave that shout-out to the meta-cosmology, particularly since it had no tangible impact on space travel insofar as Athas is concerned, so why not give them one sentence about its crystal sphere?

It's why I say that less is not more, more is more.

 

[Weather Report]

You can run Dark Sun as its own isolated campaign setting or, part of a meta-setting, what's the problem (choose what ya dig)?

 

[Stoat]

That was the entire point/style of the PS line.

Which may be one of the reasons why I stuck with Spelljammer.

I wonder if the use of cant bothers people because they are not familiar with the word and are unsure of its meaning? I can see that dislike if you have to look up the word to figure out what the hell the author is saying. I know the meanings, so it is no less annoying to me than when I'm reading the forums and people are saying, "cool, awesome, dude, dork, nerd, geek, she's hot, or rad"....rad....why don't people say rad anymore?

I understand the cant, I just find it distracting, particularly when mixed into "rules text". I like the way Games Workshop handles this sort of thing. Rules/game information is presented in (relatively) clear, straightforward language. Flavor is provided in sidebars and illustrations, and there are a ton of flavor sidebars and illustrations in the text.

De gustibus, etc. etc.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Alzrius, I disagree that I'm being hysterical. Once TSR forced the meta-setting onto every 2e product, players started coming forward all the time wanting to play Race X from Setting Y in Campaign Z. Suddenly I had players clamouring to play Kender in a Greyhawk campaign. Or Krynnish Minotaurs in my homebrew.

And all the way along, TSR is telling them, "Go ahead. Your DM, if he's playing D&D, should allow this. After all, all the planes connect, so, why not yours?" It led to an awful lot of mix and match campaigns that I really think made for bad games.

Ah, now this I can wrap my head around. For future reference, you might want to start with a sort-of specific example like this rather than a vague "PS fans are forcing PS stuff down my throat!" complaint. Because many DMs, like me, have never had this experience.

Players who have favorite settings and pet PC races? Sure. But pig-headed setting-fan players with a one-track mind? Nope, and I tend to agree that your problem here is at least as much the player as PS. Sure, in a way the overarching nature of PS gave them permission to request some weird PC, but most players IME have the social grace to back off when a DM says "Sorry, there's no Sigil in my universe, so play something appropriate."

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

That was the entire point/style of the PS line. Like Piratecat, I found reading Planescape "rules" a hell of a lot more fun and entertaining than slogging through the mind-numbing dribble in all of my 2e & 3.5 rulebooks. I found it really cool when I'm reading a monster's ecology and I'm being told about the creature first hand by a Planewalker or Greybeard. It's extremely boring to read my 3.5 monster manual entries. But that's just what I found entertaining. I learn better in a classroom when the teacher is energetic & has the gift of gab than I do when the teacher is just giving a scripted lecture.

Same here! Reading PS stuff is almost as fun as reading a great novel -- and better than reading most others -- because it's like I'm talking to Tarsheeva Longreach or some other cutter. But not for everyone, I guess.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You are the one who is being rude and getting personal (defensive...?), sad really - next.

You must think you sound smart, but you most definitely don't imho.

Moderation time:

Stop this. No one wants to read this. Do not make personal attacks. Do not presume that you know what's going on in someone's head. If you cannot talk about magical gumdrop elves in alternate dimensions without getting personal and rude and snippy about it, please re-evaluate your posting habits. We are all grown ups posting about make-believe on the internet, it's not worth getting personal about.

Love,

The Management.

 

[Siberys]

[MENTION=8461]Alzrius[/MENTION]

I just read that edit you made earlier, and yeah, in general, Dark Sun is a good example - only a couple of mentions in out-of-the-way places. I just had some sand in my craw re: Gith; I was recently making a race list (much like [MENTION=18701]Oryan77[/MENTION] does!) for Dark Sun and I had to figure out what to do with them, given my no-meta-setting preferences. They're one of the more overt examples in DS; they're not quite iconic of DS, but they're a bit more than a minor setting element, y'know? That's why I didn't just drop 'em.

Gith are an example of the sort of things that should IMO be avoided in Next, tying some element to the existence of another setting.

 

[Jiggawatts]

The Great Wheel is my favorite cosmology, and I do rather enjoy Sigil, quirks and all. The massive scope and interconnectedness are actually a big part of what I love about it.