Is Faction War a good adventure?

[Dog Moon]

I've been thinking about doing a campaign in Sigil because we haven't done that in a while. I've only looked at a little bit. I wanted to hear if anyone else has played it and think it's good before I devote time to reading it and running it. Is it a good adventure? Is there anything you would change about it? Say whatever, though please say what's good or bad about it, if you would. Thanks. (And are there any other good Sigil-related adventures?)

 

[Piratecat]

No. No no no no no. It utterly alters the nature of the factions in Sigil, and while this wasn't supposed to be permanent the line got canceled before the next product came out. I didn't care for it at all.

I strongly recommend Harbinger House, though. If you can work around the railroading, it's a great adventure.

 

[Turjan]

I don't want to hijack the thread, but can anyone tell me which Planescape supplement detailed the factions in Sigil? I don't want to play a Planescape game, but the factions always fascinated me and can probably be recycled for other purposes .

 

[Shemeska]

I don't want to hijack the thread, but can anyone tell me which Planescape supplement detailed the factions in Sigil? I don't want to play a Planescape game, but the factions always fascinated me and can probably be recycled for other purposes .

'Factols Manifesto'. And for what it's worth, 'Faction War' revealed who IC wrote that first book. *chuckle*

There's also Planewalker's 3e writeup of the factions as well, post Faction War that you can find here.

 

[Shemeska]

You either love Faction War or you hate it, there seems to be very little in between opinions.

Personally I thought it was brilliantly written since it brings to a culmination several plotlines that had been hinted at and built over the course of the entire PS line of books. And the ending was poetic how it turned out. Very very well written and a fun adventure to play.

Most of the negative reaction comes, I feel, not from the module itself in how it ran, or how it was written, but because it radically altered the way the factions existed (some disintigrated, some split, all of them lost official political power in Sigil). Granted this was never meant to be the utter end of the campaign setting metaplot, but perhaps only around 1/3 of it? However WotC folded it back into the core line with 3e (worst decision ever) which effectively cancelled it except for some 3e pastiche scattered in various books.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

I love Faction War

I've only ever read the adventure and never actually gotten to run it, but I love this module. That said, the fact I haven't run the module is not my only caveat:

As Piratecat indicates, this ride throws a major wrench into the Planescape gears. Factions are, I believe, essential to the setting. But so is radical change.

The Lady has messed with the faction arrangement before, about 400 years ago, in The Great Upheavel. Run the module only if you're willing to deal with the fallout of pulling one of the major lynchpins out of the works, and then finding a creative way to put it back in without WotC's help.

Some of the coolest action in the module comes out-of-game, way out. The NPC's dealings with one another and the eventual fate of the antagonist are likely to remain forever dark to the players and their characters.

The factions are at their best and worst in this module. Sigil has never felt richer or more real. The metaplots come to fruition and some big questions get answered, only provoking new questions. I feel like this adventure is the culmination of the Planescape story, and while, in practice, it turned out to be the setting's finale, it works at least as well as the end of a looong prologue to an even better, longer story.

I highly recommend this product. I say run every other published Planescape product you can get your hands on, especially The Great Modron March, Dead Gods, and the aformentioned Harbinger House. Read them all until you've got the order you want to run them in, run them and then run Faction War.

Once you've done all of that, you should have enough of a sense, a feel for, the Planescape twist, that you'll be able to run a wonderful post-faction war Planescape campaign featuring the return of the guilds/factions/sects/??? and a new era for planar travel and the Cage.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

the factions always fascinated me and can probably be recycled

The factions were cool, and so they got a lot of attention, even in the sometimes ham-handed 3e reincarnations thereof, but what I think was really brilliant was just the way the different NPC's were intertwined. No story was complete in Planescape without knowing at least a couple of other stories as well. The details on that can be found in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil, which would also prove recyclable, I think, or at least highly inspirational.

 

[edbonny]

Absolutely fantastic adventure! All the factions were brought to the fore and every player is given the chance to shine (depending on which faction he belonged to). Faction War read more like a novel than a module. I always wished Monte could be given the chance to write the follow-up timeline/chain of events that he originally planned for the setting.

- Ed

 

[Monte At Home]

You know, if you like the adventure but don't like the resolution (and I can understand that), it wouldn't be that hard to change the end so that not all the factions are kicked out and changed.

If nothing else, the product offers a lot of new information about Sigil, has a huge battle scene with multiple spheres of annhilation floating around, and has a lot of fun drawing references from older PS products (and there's plenty of action with barmies in the Madhouse).

It is a shame, however, that the line never got the follow-up product that would have allowed DMs to put everything torn assunder back together again they way they wanted to (which would have been more sourcebook than adventure).

 

[Turjan]

'Factols Manifesto'. And for what it's worth, 'Faction War' revealed who IC wrote that first book. *chuckle*

There's also Planewalker's 3e writeup of the factions as well, post Faction War that you can find here.

Ah, thanks a lot. I will try to get this one, because I always wanted to know more about these factions .

The factions were cool, and so they got a lot of attention, even in the sometimes ham-handed 3e reincarnations thereof, but what I think was really brilliant was just the way the different NPC's were intertwined. No story was complete in Planescape without knowing at least a couple of other stories as well. The details on that can be found in Uncaged: Faces of Sigil, which would also prove recyclable, I think, or at least highly inspirational.

Thanks for the hint. I'll have a look into that one, too .