Hordes of the Abyss: Q&A

[frankthedm]

That's unfortunate. Once you get past the inane verbal posturing that infected the first year or so of releases, it really marks a high-point of TSR's creative development.

--Erik

I felt TSR's High point was the Dark*Sun box set. They blanked it all up pretty quick though.

Planescape was the Manual of the planes fluffernutted into a campaign setting. The Planescape 'campaign' was used to inflate the cost of Planar material and spread the information across multiple books and box sets. It was like marketing said, "We know a single planar book would sell, lets spread it over dozens of books!" Oh, players love white wolf games, lets factionize the PCs like one of thier games. Don't forget to make them feel kewl about playing the setting, lets call all non planehopping characters "Clueless!"

 

[Nightfall]

To each their own frank. I felt the adventures were very good. Course I liked Dead Gods and of course the return of Orcus.

 

[Erik Mona]

Planescape was the Manual of the planes fluffernutted into a campaign setting.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

The Planescape 'campaign' was used to inflate the cost of Planar material and spread the information across multiple books and box sets. It was like marketing said, "We know a single planar book would sell, lets spread it over dozens of books!" Oh, players love white wolf games, lets factionize the PCs like one of thier games. Don't forget to make them feel kewl about playing the setting, lets call all non planehopping characters "Clueless!"

Back then the creatives decided which products to make, not marketing. I think you're right about the factions, though. In hindsight I think tying the setting so closely to the factions and to Sigil was a mistake (how many Sigil books do we really need, anyway?), but there is a lot of _great_ material in the later Planescape books, and the Monstrous Compendium Appendices were of great use to DMs using any setting.

--Erik

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Planescape was the Manual of the planes fluffernutted into a campaign setting. The Planescape 'campaign' was used to inflate the cost of Planar material and spread the information across multiple books and box sets. It was like marketing said, "We know a single planar book would sell, lets spread it over dozens of books!" Oh, players love white wolf games, lets factionize the PCs like one of thier games. Don't forget to make them feel kewl about playing the setting, lets call all non planehopping characters "Clueless!"

That is what I hate about PS, the attitude. I hate the arrogance displayed by the whole setting, and to some degree some fans I met(no one here). The main reason I dont like PS being connected to DL is that it just doesnt mesh well with DL's Romantic Fantasy theme.

 

[Ripzerai]

Here's a question asked on IRC:

"Quick question for you all. Hordes of the Abyss mentions Archosian Brightflame of Celene. Is that Melf by any other name? Or another Brightflame?"

 

[EricNoah]

I loves me some planescape; my very best campaigns came straight outta that. Pushed my game in a whole new wonderful direction. And I love seeing the PS legacy finding its way into so many core and non-core 3E products.

 

[Pants]

Not according to Wies/Hickman. They created the world. I'll stick with their vision of it.

That's fine, but the 1e MotP pretty clearly established that they were one and the same, which only makes sense, assuming Krynn is located in the Great Wheel, which it was at the time, then having two multi-headed chromatic dragon gods with very similar portfolios was needlessly cluttering things. Only if Krynn is relocated outside of the GW does having Takhisis being different from Tiamat make sense, which is also logical, considering Krynn's cosmological viewpoint.

PS is a good campaign setting. Too bad 90% of the information is haphazardly scattered across multiple box sets and books, making finding information on some subjects somewhat annoying. I'm also not fond of box-sets in general, but that's an entirely different issue.

 

[Nightfall]

Pants,

I like the box set that Rappan Athuk Reloaded is coming in. Some people also liked the Midnight box set, along with the Judge's Guild box set.

But there you are.

 

[Razz]

PLANESCAPE was awesome in that it:

1) Was definitely a fantasy game taken to the "edge" (edge of time, reality, whatever, heh...)

2) Connected ALL the campaign settings, universes, worlds, etc. WITHOUT invading too much of the campaign's theme (though in some cases it invaded more than others, Forgotten Realms for example, but it worked out still)

3) The crossovers were just awesome: Tiamat/Takhisis, Vecna and Ravenloft, Orcus and Primus with the Modron March thing, Elminster/Mordenkainen/Dalamar get-togethers...I dunno about you guys, but cameos and crossovers in Planescape was what made my players in PS swoon.

4) Kept everything tidy and simple and in one place

5) Subtely stated that whatever the Primes ~thought~ they knew about the planes wasn't exactly what they hypothesized at all (this basically quieted down the crowd of people that would say "Uhh, how come this here is that when in my DL/FR/DS book says it's really this?")

6) It's simply fun and a good place to take epic level characters too, as well

 

[Tinker Gnome]

5) Subtely stated that whatever the Primes ~thought~ they knew about the planes wasn't exactly what they hypothesized at all (this basically quieted down the crowd of people that would say "Uhh, how come this here is that when in my DL/FR/DS book says it's really this?")

That is one of the major reasons I dislike it. It just rubs me the wrong way and is part of the attitude problem I talked about in my last post.

The crossovers IMHO were just cheesy.