Does any one else miss Planescape?

[I'm A Banana]

Well, as for the blood war, it's really a matter of the focus of Planescape itself.

In general, the setting encouraged a Law vs. Chaos dichotomy a lot more strongly than the traditional good vs. evil. I'm not sure exactly *why*, but it did.

The Blood War makes thematic sense from that perspective -- Law vs. Chaos. Also, it represents the ultimate vacuum that EVIL is supposed to be. Evil is self-destructive, in the end.

Of course, there's the stuff about Celestials actually *starting* the war......and it's a lot easier to reach something only "nextdoor" than something that's supposed to be a lot more powerful than you that's an eternity away, through enemy lands.

It also makes the Heavans a place of peace and life. If they were being beseiged by EVIL every day, it might not be so peaceful. So the siege of evil is, of course, in the evil planes, which are all about war and suffering. Perhaps it's a bit of 80's and 90's tree-huggin' hippie-ism infused in the setting, but there ya go.

It also held up a big maxim of Planescape: thigs are never as you expect them to be. Sure, the armies of the Abyss *should* be marshalling agianst the forces of law and good, but then PS twists things.

The Blood War, finally, isn't *all* the fiends are concerned with. By twisting things around (which the setting encourages a lot), my current PS campaign has the Blood War as only a front, a false thing that those in control of the "armies" use as a weeding ground for the ones who are to go for the true battle to the heavans. After all, why send an entire army to the slaughter and possible redemption when you can send just one guy who's got all the power of the army wrapped up in his little finger. The blood war isn't about extermination. It's about finding out who is the best for the TRUE battle.

Oh, and in the new edition (both in the plans by the Planewalker people and in the DRAGON article), not every faction member gains powers. Only those who take the PrC, or the Feat, or whatever, gain power related to their faction. So you can be a member of a faction with nothing, mechanically, to seperate you, and if you totally removed faction abilities, it wouldn't hurt your game at all.

Munchkin playground I'm not so sure about. Sure, it could be...but there were a lot of things actively discouraging it, from the focus on beleif and city-campaigning (when all traveling is done with one step through a doorway, there's not much that has to be done), to reflections on the tone and style of the setting.

It could be a munchkin playground, for sure. But it was geared so that it wasn't. Which, of course, leads to complaints about 1st-level characters surviving in Hell, but that's more a stylistic choice than a fault with the setting itself.

 

[Darklance]

Monte, do you think Malhavoc could pick it up?

 

[Ashy]

Thanks a TON, KM, for saying all of this stuff that I should be saying!

And he's dead on, cutters!

 

[Lady Dragon]

Planescape is special because its different.You have Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms and a dozen other "normal worlds" currently on the market but planescape was special.

Yes I think it had a few problems.Get rid of the problems and you would have a tremendous setting.First get rid of the cant it was stupid and unbelievable.Second the factions. They were fine as background political organizations and as potential enemies or employers for the characters but expecting your characters to choose and join one of these groups was unreasonable frankly I didn't like any of them.They all seemed to focus on Law,Chaos,death,self-love or Deities or the lack therof.

As for Demons and Devils keep in mind that most of the planescape stuff came out during TSR/WoTC's period of refusal to acknowledge the existance of such so they changed their names and tried to make them more like ordiary monsters.Now they could make them as evil as they are,especially a third party company that would have to worry as much about offending some kids mother and losing out on Pokemon card sales.

There is so much more that needs to be covered.I hope Monte with Malhavoc or perhaps chris Pramas with green ronin is listening after all it sounds like WoTC is currantly in the mood to sell the rights to these old settings.Run quick before they change there mind.

 

[LcKedovan]

Thanks a TON, KM, for saying all of this stuff that I should be saying!

And he's dead on, cutters!

Well at least it's not Horacio beating me to the posts this time .

Good to see you alive there Ashy! Any chance of giving us an update on how you're doin' anytime soon

-Will

 

[Horacio]

Well at least it's not Horacio beating me to the posts this time .

Good to see you alive there Ashy! Any chance of giving us an update on how you're doin' anytime soon

-Will

Oh, mierda!
Will has winned me this time!

Cutter, I think ol' Ashy will say he'll give us an update anytime 'soon, very soon', and you now that means he will update as soon as the poor barmy tiefer will be able to free some hours from his schedule, schedule that's tighter than a Hardhead undies, as sure as Sigil...

BTW, I love cant, do you hear me?

 

[Psion]

I agree that the 2e planescape stuff seemed weak to me. I didn't like what they did with the demons & devils very much. I don't use any of that material in my game.

News flash:

The majority of the (bad) changes to Demons & Devils came BEFORE Planescape. PS merely made the best of a bad situation. And they did. Squaring the circle is one of the coolest adventures ever, and the other fiend related PS adventures are very cool (with the possible exception of Into the Abyss, which was weak.)

Have you read Blood War? Or Faces of Evil? Or any of the PS fiend related adventures? If you have, then you can talk to me about what PS did to Demons & Devils. Otherwise, you are talking out your posterior.

 

[Zappo]

People... of course Planescape changed a lot from the 1e cosmology. There's got to be a difference between something you use as a setting and something you just adventure in every now and then. That difference is what made it great.

And for the cant... I personally like it, but if you don't you can just trash it and the setting works perfectly all the same. Since I game in Italian, that's exactly what I've done, and nothing bad has happened.

And, uhm, saying that the MotP is enough to play Planescape is a bit like saying that reading PC Gamer is enough to get a degree in computer science. Sorry, but only someone who has never played a full Planescape campaign (as opposed to a Grayhawk campaign where the characters once went to the planes for a week) for a decent amount of time. The information in the MotP, while good for occasional planar adventuring, is not even close to being sufficient for a "setting".

I do hate the magical powers associated to factions, and I also don't really like the factions-as-PrCs thing. Come on, who is going to climb to 10th level in a PrC which may or may not be suited to your character? Either each PrC is good for all possible characters, or we'll have very strange faction distributions of characters. Again, it can work for occasional planar adventuring, where the factions are for NPCs that can be tailored to work well with that prestige class. But in a setting, where things are supposed to make sense, it won't work. IMC, if you join a faction you will not get "flashy" powers or disadvantages. They'll all be stuff like bonus feats, bonuses to this or that numerical value on your sheet, stuff like that.

Munchkin playground... oh, please! Quite the opposite in fact. If you try to hack your way through Planescape, you will die before getting to 2nd level. There's even a paragraph in the DM's Guide to the Planes that's called "mega monster bash" that tells explicitly that becoming really powerful to kick demon ass is not what the setting is about. Notice that there's a good amount of low and very low level adventures for PS.

BTW, in case some didn't notice, most if not all the factions are simply some of the most important philosophical positions of the present and past, taken to their extreme consequences. It's not that they were built around Law and Chaos, it's just that there are many philosophies that "tend" to those extremes. Yes, most reasonable people would not embrace any of them. No, most planewalkers are not reasonable people under Prime Material standards. It's once again the casual playing vs. setting thing. As long as you keep viewing Planescape as an expansion for [insert your favorite setting here], it will never make sense.

Planescape *had* problems. The faction flashy powers. The various bits not clearly explained, and the other bits that contradicted themselves. The cant in the rules parts - it should be kept to the flavor parts IMO. That's exactly the reason for which I hope that another company takes it and remakes it. If it is WW, which is specialized in roleplaying-heavy settings, so much better.

 

[Zappo]

Also, what Psion said.

 

[Psion]

Well the whole Asmodeus as an ubergod was stupid IMO.

He wasn't in any PS product. A Guide to Hell was in the post PS "lets cheese out devils again" era.

As is the Blood War. Why would demons & devils war for eternity over law & chaos?

As I mentioned in the last post, the Blood War was pre-PS. And Demon/Devil emnity stretches back to 1e.

Why don't the lawful neutral and chaotic neutral entities battle?

Because they aren't evil and avaricious and don't see the reason? Because there is no planar pathway connecting the neutral planes to make it a problem in the first place?

I never played Planescape, as it wasn't the kind of setting I was looking for.

Then why are you here? You don't have to buy it. At least when I bitch about DL, I do it coming from the perspective of someone who played in the setting and hated it for its own qualities.