D&D General How Do You Feel About Sigil?

[mrpopstar]

Planescape is about the interplay of belief systems, Sigil being the nexus.
If you're not into your game of Dungeons & Dragons being that deep, you're not going to be into Planescape.

 

[Staffan]

Sigil is a great hub for a Planescape campaign. It's a place where creatures from different planes can meet and interact in relative peace, and it has quite a bit of depth and quirkiness to it.

Sigil is quite useless for most campaigns based on the material plane. If you're going to the planes, D&D-flavored Dickensian London is not what you probably expect.

 

[Faolyn]

3. I am confident in pronouncing GIF, but have no clue on Sigil

Sih-gill, like the gill of a fish.

There was actually a little blurb in one of the PS books where some Harmonium arrested a Clueless not for murdering a bunch of fiends but for saying sih-jill.

 

[Charlaquin]

3. I am confident in pronouncing GIF, but have no clue on Sigil

The official pronunciation of the city rhymes with wiggle. The actual word it’s based on rhymes with vigil.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

It never really worked for me as a setting. I dislike the Lady of Pain trope intensely.

The way I see it, if you're going to have a city that's an inter planar Casablanca all the politicking should matter. But having an all powerful overlord who makes sure the status quo is always maintained undermines this. Who cares if there's a plot by Hell to take over the city if you know it can't possibly succeed?

 

[cbwjm]

It never really worked for me as a setting. I dislike the Lady of Pain trope intensely.

The way I see it, if you're going to have a city that's an inter planar Casablanca all the politicking should matter. But having an all powerful overlord who makes sure the status quo is always maintained undermines this. Who cares if there's a plot by Hell to take over the city if you know it can't possibly succeed?

Because this time, just maybe, it might.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

How do you feel about Sigil? Have you DM'd a game that featured it, or been a player in a game where Sigil was featured?

Well, like virtually all other things 2e... "Cool idea... but they did it wrong".


That was me and my entire groups experience with 2e when we played it (for about 3 years total I'd guess...2 consistently, 1 year here and there). Kits? "Cool idea...but...". Assassins being 'any class'? "Cool idea...but...". Customizing character classes or races? "Cool idea...but...". Etc. Sigil/Planescape fell into the "Cool idea...but..." category.

I think it would be like Star Wars trying to give a physical, medical, biological reason to the Force... "Cool idea...but...". If Star Wars would have made it work from the standpoint of "The Force is a mystical energy force that binds the universe together"...and then said "People who are more sensitive to the force have increased midichlorian counts. A midichlorian is a specific protein that gets formed in and around various cells, especially myelin. One can learn to control the 'flow' of the Force in them...like learning meditation to lower blood pressure. The better you get, the more Force Control you have". That would be almost acceptable. But they didn't. They just plopped in this big 'explanation', "Oh, this person has a high midichlorian count...they'd be a powerful Jedi!", leading to the inevitable conclusion of: "Well, why don't we just cultivate midichlorians and inject them into people to turn them into Force Wielders?"

Sigil...same sort of thing. "Lets just take this decades-long metephysical model and just pretend that Sigil has always been here but nobody ever mentioned it before. Ever. Because...reasons.

Oh, and the Lady of Pain bothered me. I hated the idea of some 'singularly omnipotent deity that was even more tougher than the other gods'. That, to me, reeked of "1-Up'ism". Min/Max. Munchkinism. "Yeah? Well MY character has a 26 Strength! THAT's how strong he is!". groan My work around was simple; all the gods/demon lords/arch-devils each get a seemingly random "turn" at controlling the atomoton/vessel that is the Lady of Pain. There is no actual 'entity' that is the Lady. Zeus could be controlling her one minute, then Amaterasu the next, then Asmodeus, then Grumsh, then Seeker, etc. This explains away the Lady's... "unpredictability". No being could force possession, and when controlling the Lady, they were incapable of direct communication with any other being...they could only move around Sigil and interact a bit, with great effort.

Lastly..the lingo! I know a lot of people love it...but me, exact opposite. Hated it. It sounded...childish I guess. Like it was a bunch of 9 year olds trying to make up words to sound cool, then laughing at anyone who gave them a funny look, then patting themselves on the back for being "so clever". I don't know. Probably just me, but man...REALLY got under my skin.

Oh, lastly lastly.. the Blood War. I'm NOT even going to start!!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Because this time, just maybe, it might.

Really? I admit to not having read deeply into Sigil but isn't it canonical that no it won't?

Gods can't enter Sigil. LoP is as powerful as any god, at least within Sigil. So no-one is taking her on personally. She's very jealous of her power, brooks no rivals, has a vast information network, has very powerful goon squads.

Obviously one can write around all this and say "it's different in my campaign." And that's cool. I'm a big supporter of taking a setting and making it your own. But as far as Sigil as written, the canonical version of it, goes... I got a big case of meh.

 

[Leatherhead]

Really? I admit to not having read deeply into Sigil but isn't it canonical that no it won't?

Well Vecna made it into Sigil. Which actually makes me think about this problem you seem to be having:

I don't think that's a problem with the LoP so much as it is a problem with having gods in D&D. Consider Ravenloft's Dark Powers. They are the exact same idea; A nebulous concept-being with the primary purpose of being a plot device so you can just say "no" to outside influences.


Anyway I like Sigil quite a lot. From the whimsical-grotesque aesthetics that mimic Jim Henson's Labyrinth and in turn Maurice Sendak. To the idea that it's the "endgame of D&D", but you can actually play with it at level 1.

 

[cbwjm]

Really? I admit to not having read deeply into Sigil but isn't it canonical that no it won't?

Gods can't enter Sigil. LoP is as powerful as any god, at least within Sigil. So no-one is taking her on personally. She's very jealous of her power, brooks no rivals, has a vast information network, has very powerful goon squads.

Obviously one can write around all this and say "it's different in my campaign." And that's cool. I'm a big supporter of taking a setting and making it your own. But as far as Sigil as written, the canonical version of it, goes... I got a big case of meh.

It's a game, you should feel free to write around it. Not only that but if you want an official example, at least briefly Vecna entered Sigil in a high level adventure so canonically, those unbreakable laws can be broken.