Getting around in Planescape

[Felon]

So, the Planescape setting sounds pretty interesting. As I understand it, the characters are assumed to be using Sigil as a hub of operations. Assuming characters are too low-level to have access to planar travel under their own steam, they have to use portals (or gates, or whatever they're called). Was there some codified way for character's to find the portals they need, or is it abstracted into a scavenger hunt where you have to find a guy who will provide that service, or is the DM expected to deux ex machina on a case-by-case, aventure-by-adventure basis?

In general, if a DM situates player characters to Sigil, what sort of adaptations are necessary?

 

[ruleslawyer]

No adaptations really necessary!

There is no "codified" way to find portals, although there are certain spells in the Planescape materials that give characters the ability to locate and/or discern the properties of portals. IIRC, Manual of the Planes has most of these updated to 3e. In general, the way to find the portal that takes you where you need to be is to roam around the city consulting the right people. Membership in a faction helps PCs greatly in this regard, since the factions have lots of access to information.

Every published module I've seen for PS gives a very clear means for characters to find the portals they need; in most cases, they simultaneously find out where they need to go and obtain the portal location and key required. However, I'd say, based on my own experiences, that it's more fun to use the portals as an excuse to run some information-gathering play based around interaction with Sigil's many colorful NPCs and the use of the PCs' social skills. I currently run a city-based campaign (set in FR's Waterdeep) in which gathering information and making friends are about the most important things PCs can do, and my PS campaigns have been like that as well.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Sigil, being an urban setting, is the perfect opportunity to make use of those social skills (and if you have the PH II affiliation rules).

I almost always have various portals detailed for an adventure before the PCs go looking for them. So, to give an example, lets say that the PCs need to get to the Dwarven Mountain on the Outlands.

I start with two or three portals that will get them there or into the surrounding areas (such as there is a surrounding territory on the Outlands). I do multiple portals because the social interaction is important in my games, and the PCs can fail or succeed based on their actions. Usually there will be a hard one, a non-difficult one, and an easy one.

I create a gather information table that details various things, including portal locations. When someone goes out and uses gather information, they can roll and get clues as to who knows where these portals are. So in the case of the Dwarven Mountain, they might end up being pointed to an old dwarven wizard, the bartender of a dwarven bar in the Lady's Ward, and an adventuring group who recently visited that area and has been telling everyone about it.

So then the PCs go off, use Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, or whatever and interact with various people. The dwarves in the bar might challenge the PCs to a drinking contest, which would call for Con checks in my game. The dwarven wizard might want the PCs to deliver somethiing for him while they're there, and the adventurers might just want some money for the information. The PCs' actions will determine which comes about.

Then I'll note which group the PCs interacted with and try to use them again later. Maybe the adventuring group wants to go somewhere the PCs have been, and they come to the PCs later asking for portal information. The dwarven wizard, after they completed the mission for him, and then he'll ask them to do something more dangerous for him, or the dwarves at the bar will invite the PCs to go on a quest to take back their ancient dwarven mountain kingdom that a dragon has taken from them (oh wait, that's been done...).

That's how I work with my Sigilian urban campaign.

 

[I'm A Banana]

There is no "codified" way to find portals, although there are certain spells in the Planescape materials that give characters the ability to locate and/or discern the properties of portals. IIRC, Manual of the Planes has most of these updated to 3e. In general, the way to find the portal that takes you where you need to be is to roam around the city consulting the right people. Membership in a faction helps PCs greatly in this regard, since the factions have lots of access to information.

I believe the idea of "knowing the right people" is a pretty important one for PS's feel. Sigil is a realm of machiavellian politics and reality-stradling organizations, and looking for portals is one of the major ways the PC's will get involved with these. "Knowledge is Power," after all, and the knowledge of an organization is going to be better kept and better organized than the knowledge of even the best-informed PC's. Faction connections are key -- much of the time, they just need to talk to their faction's Gateseeker and they'll have what they need (so that not every portal is an uphill struggle).

Either way, it should (generally) be emphasized that the PC's cannot go it alone and find everything they need. They need to please other people, put points into Knowledge (local), and use divination magic.

I'll often do something similar to ThirdWizard, and do some sort of "portal exploring roll" The PC's tell me how they want to find a portal -- Gather Information, Knowledge (Sigil), Knowledge (the Planes), Detect Portal spells, etc. The more specific their info, the bigger bonus they'll get -- if they say "I go talk to the dwarves in the ghetto to find that passage to the Dwarven Mountain," they get a bigger bonus. The roll then determines how much hassle they may have to go through to get it. Greasing their palms with silver is pretty basic "no hassle" kind of play, but if they roll low and don't use much strategy, they may find themselves sadled with sidequests, or quite in debt to those who gave them the portal.

 

[cmrscorpio]

How do PCs find portals while they are in Sigil?

1) Being a member of a Faction is a major boon. A faction usually has portals to their affiliated planes under guard. Also, some, like the Guvners and Sensates, know the locations of several other portals as a matter of course.

2) High-up men of powers, clerics and such, usually know the location of a portal to their deity's home plane. I would assume that many celestials, fiends, and cordians know the location of a portal to their home plane.

3) Spells like Analyze Portal (updated in Planar Handbook) is castable by a 5th level Wizard and can find portals.

4) I play by the old Planescape rule that outsiders have the innate ability to see a portal if it is activated within their sight. If one of the PCs is an outsider, then they might be able to make an eduatated guess as to where the portal goes based on what they glimpse through the door.

5) There are always people in the Grand Bazaar who are selling information on portals and their keys, although canny cutters should keep peery. Some of those vendors are just selling skreed.

6) Portals to the gatetowns, to the 1st layer of the other outer planes, and to the other planar metropolises would be pretty well known because of the amount of trade that passes through Sigil.

 

[Shemeska]

Even if you're not in Sigil...

Major portals to the other outer planes are in the gatetowns in the Outlands, and the locations and gate keys of those are common knowledge given the amount of traffic they see.

On the various outer planes, permanent portals oftentimes take upon a unique form (such as bottomless pits in Gehenna, glowing disks in the Gray Waste, etc). And no key is needed for such portals.

Other portals can be found by use of some spells, a planar sextent/compass, buying that information from planar factions, the Doorsnoops Guild in Sigil, the Planewalker's Guild, the Planar Trade Consortium, etc.

If you can planeshift or gate on your own power it makes things much more simple, but you can get around just fine if you don't have personal access to powerful magic (but given how hostile certain planes can be, some planes aren't advised for less powerful PCs...)

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Finding a portal to your desired destination and the key to using it (if any) is pretty much as much of a hassle as the DM or the group wants it to be. Whether it's abstracted to a colourful description by the DM as to what weird location the portal is in and the odd junk you have to have on your person to use it or made the focus of a whole session of roleplaying, investigation, and bargaining depends on what the group wants.

Travel in regular D&D is much the same - whether it's "you ride for six days until you come to the ruins of Southmere Abbey" or played out over the course of a session depends on what the group prefers.

It's not something the game itself specifies, apart from the presumption that portals to important places are more obscure, valuable, or well-protected, you know?