"Planar Handbook" - completlely useless?

[MerricB]

I dunno, MerricB. Responding in a thread based solely on the title and not even reading the posts? Definately sounds a bit dodgy.

However, you'll find that I do address the core issues of his complaint in my posts.

Two issues were raised:
* The Planar Handbook does not aid DMs
* Wizards are producing books solely for players and not for DMs.

A few posts later, the actual reason turned up
* The Planar Handbook (and other recent supplements) aren't inspiring.

The first issue: I guess that's why it says "Player's Guide" on it. (Though, as I say below, I think it helps DMs as well).

The second issue: I do believe that Wizards has recently produced these books for DMs: Eberron, Serpent Kingdoms, the Monster Manuals, Races of Stone (which has a bunch of adventure ideas in the back as well as several other things to help flesh out dwarven, gnomic and goliath cultures). Frostburn looks very interesting from a DM's perspective... and of course you have the OGL as well, allowing products like Beyond Countless Doorways. Is there really a reason that Wizards have to make everything?

The third issue: I feel that this is purely personal taste.

Expanding on that somewhat, I gave in the post that MM objected to the following anecdote:

A couple of my players, after reading the book (and the planar touchstones), have indicated that they want to attune to a particular touchstone.

Thus, the desires of the players will fuel a future adventure, rather than me imposing one on them. It also gives me leave to develop the game in a direction I probably wouldn't have gone in before.

That's one reason I prefer that the book contains the many descriptions of the touchstones. If they weren't there, I'd have to create them myself, and I have other things that I'm doing.

I'm illustrating how the book inspires the DM through the players. It's one of the most fascinating and key things about RPGs. In other games, you're generally a slave to the game's rules and design. (Better games may allow you more choices than just one, of course). However, in D&D, the players of the game can influence the designer of the campaign (the DM!), thus creating something far more interesting than if it were just the one person creating it.

Going back to the original complaints:

I want campaign seeds, encounter ideas, demographics, descriptive areas, ideas on power groups, secret organizations, and so much more that these new books just don't really provide.

In Races of Stone - adventure ideas, demographics and campaign seeds.

In Planar Handbook - organisations, encounter ideas, descriptive areas.

Here's one example from the Planar Handbook:

The Blazing Forge
In the deep caverns of Nidvellir, dwarves, gnomes and drow contest ownership of a magic forge capable of creating anything - weapons, armor, food, drink, even living beings - out of iron, copper and brass. Naturally, a forge with such awesome abilities is highly sought after, but because it cannot be removed from its current location without losing all of its magical abilities, the forge has become the focal poing for countless underground battles between those who would make use of its power.

Now, that's the description of a planar touchstone. You could just use it as written - but surely you should be able to expand on that description yourself and turn it into the starting place for a major adventure?

Each of the five organisations described in the planar handbook comes with a couple of items of lore that seem pretty well designed to allow campaigns to be built around them!

Sure, there's a lot of just rules mechanics in recent books - but I think there's much else, as well!

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I am an old fuddy duddy who never liked grunge, so what do I know, yup. Avril Lavigne - thanks, couldn't remember her name. I can see why Kurt & Avril are miles different, certainly the sound is different, OTOH to my uneducated gaze their dress & demeanour look similar and they're both angsty in a (to me similar) self-obsessed way that feels very different from the angst of Pink or Eminem. I see modern US 'punk' bands on TV now and then, and they remind me of '90s Grunge (and seem to have nothing in common w '70s Punk), but that's just my impression.

Well, let's see.

Kurt Cobain wore old jeans and flannel shirts - and weird, Nirvana just came on my playlist - which sorta defines the "grunge" look.

Avril Lavigne wears cargo pants and singlets. It's not just the difference between male and female clothes.

I really can't imagine how you'd get the same or even a similar feeling of angst from them. I wouldn't even refer to the attitude Lavigne exhibits as "angst" - there's nothing even vaguely philosophical about it.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

FFS.

 

[Mystery Man]

In Races of Stone - adventure ideas, demographics and campaign seeds.

I have not had a chance to check out Races of Stone yet.

I will now.

 

[MerricB]

I have not had a chance to check out Races of Stone yet.

I will now.

It's worth looking at. I'm not utterly enthused about it simply because I'm not really a fan of gnomes and dwarves. It's also somewhat dependent on how much racial detail you want in your game...

Cheers!

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

You made such a claim when you stated in the first place that I couldn't possibly know if PS's designers were influenced in the spikes and leather and lingo and attitude by the culture of the 90s. It appears you're the one who is now changing opinions? So you DO now AGREE WITH ME that PS was very clearly influenced by 90s pop culture?

Look, I don't want this thread to spiral out of control any more than Piratecat does. Thus, this is the last I have to say you about this.
I stated that tattoos, spikes, etc. have been around for a long, long time, and that their inclusion does not prove that Planescape was solely or even mostly based on recent culture. That is not even close to being the same thing as working in a vacuum and, in fact, is the opposite.

The only "strawman" here is the little shot you just tried to make implying that MoTP is somehow a step back to 1e.

Sigh. It was not a shot, it was an opinion. In either instance, that would not fit the definition of a strawman.

It is not a "strawman" for me to argue that if Wizards had to make a Planescape book, they would essentially have to grind their regular Planes material to a halt.

No, but that's not the argument I was referring to. Please follow me... What I was referring to was that you stated that Planescape fans are demanding that the 3E planar books be exclusively Planescape. However, I never said that, and I don't see where anyone else did. Since the statement is false in the first place, it is a strawman.

The straw man fallacy occurs when a statement misrepresents or invents an opponent’s view (sometimes even the opponent is invented) in order to easily discredit it.

You're allowed to have your opinion, everyone is. What I took issue with is your penchant for insulting people who liked the setting, you making up facts or assuming certain things to be true in order to strengthen your position, and your misrepresentation of what I and other people said. It's all up there in "black & white", so to speak.
That's the last I have to say on the issue.
Oh and my apologies to Piratecat, some things just get my dander up.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

burnout

I think I sense a certain amount of D20 burnout.

Oddly, I as a DM found the Planar Handbook a much needed update on some older 2nd edition material, though I was disappointed that there wasn't as much setting-specific material. The fact that the book has "crunch" (hate that term) doesn't mean it's player-only. I as DM could use some new spells, prestige classes to create cool NPC villains/antagonists, monsters (the book does have monsters, a DM thing), items, and location ideas. Plenty of that in this book. I'd dare suggest that the only way this book couldn't be usefulto you is if you still own all the old planescape books, and didn't want conversion material on Factions for 3.5.

Apparently, at Gen Con Wizards has announced that they will be upgrading their adventure/module support (DM support, in other words) for their products, to reflect the fact that the 3rd party D20 market has strayed away from this method of support.

As a note: a Planar book out there which is surprisingly good and full of new stuff for DMs only is the Mongoose Classic Play Book of the Planes. I found most of the new planar realms in this book to be inspiring for games. Likewise, as everyone else has mentioned, the Beyodn Countless Doorways book will, of course, be a godsend.

 

[Incenjucar]

Ahem.

On these boards and on the WotC boards, to my recollection, I have never, read it, NEVER seen a single Planescape fan demand that Planescape be brought back at the expense of ANYTHING else. The popular demand amoung us is that Planescape be treated properly (given as its own setting, OR as the default setting), treated fairly (given fully intact EXCEPT for complaint-causing elements of minor importance, such as the Cant and the punkish look -- which, if anything, could just be offered as a small appendix in the back of the book), or, worst, but still good: Leave Planescape and all elements unique to it the heck alone, and just get back to the pure pre-Planescape system, so PS-haters are happy, and PS-players aren't feeling insulted.

If you know of any PSers who feel that everyone should make what we want at the expense of what other's want, I want to see a bloody link. I do not doubt that such exist but, for the most part, the PSers I've seen on the forums are a tad bit more mature than that.

Try not to make stuff up about us, eh berk? If you're bigoted against us, fine, whatevah, but if you make claims, back them up. We do not appreciate slander.

 

[Nisarg]

You're allowed to have your opinion, everyone is. What I took issue with is your penchant for insulting people who liked the setting, you making up facts or assuming certain things to be true in order to strengthen your position, and your misrepresentation of what I and other people said. It's all up there in "black & white", so to speak.
That's the last I have to say on the issue.
Oh and my apologies to Piratecat, some things just get my dander up.

It has been my experience that ACCUSING the other side of using "strawmen" has become the more common and most effective strawman of them all.

Besides that, by insinuating that I don't know what a strawman is you are engaging in another classic dirty-debating trick, namely trying to patronize and downplay your opponent's intelligence or education.

So that would put the dirty tricks score at 2-0 to you.

I have also not insulted any individual. I have made up not a single fact, and I have not misrepresented. However you have done all three by accusing me of these things.

Yes, clearly you are the very flagbearer of good manners and a fair fight in debating...

Nisarg

 

[Nisarg]

Ahem.

On these boards and on the WotC boards, to my recollection, I have never, read it, NEVER seen a single Planescape fan demand that Planescape be brought back at the expense of ANYTHING else.
If you know of any PSers who feel that everyone should make what we want at the expense of what other's want, I want to see a bloody link. I do not doubt that such exist but, for the most part, the PSers I've seen on the forums are a tad bit more mature than that.

Try not to make stuff up about us, eh berk? If you're bigoted against us, fine, whatevah, but if you make claims, back them up. We do not appreciate slander.

It isn't slander, it is a logical conclusion of your line of thought. I've explained it at least twice on this thread already but for your benefit i will do so again.

It is UNNESCESSARY for any PS fan to have to explicitly demand that PS be brought back at the expense of the current setting, because it is implicitly AN INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCE that if PS was brought back it would be at the expense of the current setting.

Do you understand?
To say "sure we want PS to become the "default" setting but that doesn't mean we want to force it on anyone or make them stop producing the other planes stuff" is an absurdity, it is like saying "sure we want the Yes side to win the referendum, but we don't want the No side to lose". It really doesn't matter whether you want it or not, "berk", if you win, all the non-PS fans lose.

You can't have both. To want PS to be "the" planar line (and there is no other way for Wotc to do it: Wizards cannot afford to have TWO planar lines), is to DE FACTO want PS to be the ONLY planar line.

Do you get that now?
I don't need to show you any website with a PS fan talking about how much he wants to take away the current Planar setting from its fans, the mere fact that he wants PS to be the official WoTC setting, or published at all, is enough to mean that DE FACTO that is what he wants to see happening.

Some people here on Enworld had proposed that Wizards could just make a single one-shot hardcover, or give PS to a third party. Wizards can't really afford to do either:
1. Doing a one-shot would lead to unimaginable confusion among the fans. Fans will be wondering why all of a sudden there are all these elements in the planes that weren't in the previous books, and they'll be wondering why these aren't in the future books. You'll essentially be creating two canons that serves no purpose other than to placate a tiny group of hardcore fanboys.
2. Contracting out the license would be even worse because then you'd have someone directly competing with Wizards for what is very close to the same setting. Currently other companies do Planar books but none of them are allowed to use sigil, the great wheel, etc etc. If Wizards contracted it out, then they'd have another company directly using the same setting in competition with Wizard's own books. The only reason Wizards might want to do this is if they were to stop making books on the Planes altogether, which would bring us back to the DE FACTO exclusion of all non-PS fans.

Nisarg