Planescape Planescape Confessions

[Charles Rampant]

[Note to mods: sorry if this is in the wrong place, I wasn't entirely certain to be honest of where to stick it!]

Hey all,


So the basic idea in this post is "do people run Planescape but ignore the factional stuff?"


I have always loved Planescape, since I came into contact with it in Torment. I only once got to play in it, as part of playtesting for an adventure set in the Hive district for 3rd edition, as I missed out on campaigns being run of it. But I collected a bunch of stuff for it, including enough AD&D books to equip a group of time-travelling gamers. Naturally I then did nothing with all of this stuff, but whatever. I am now writing up a setting for my upcoming D&D 5e game, and found myself adding a city (linked to Baator, through the Tiefling connection) with multiple planar portals and hooks to make venturing through them an interesting option. Planescape by the back door!


However, I have come to realise that - much like my earlier obsession with Mage: the Ascension - my younger self was labouring under the pretence that I actually have a brain designed to handle all of this abstract BIG IDEAS stuff that Planescape seems to run off. Certainly the well-written Planescape 5e notes prepared by someone on here (Jacob?) focuses heavily on elements that I would be very poor at:, such as complex and philosophical ideas. I kind of just love Sigil and the idea of trying to survive jaunts into Hell itself, y'know? The combination of the most extreme environments in the genre, along with neutral ground allowing interaction of all these wonderful races and peoples.


So I guess that this massive tract is all about asking whether other people ran/run Planescape without the heavily philosophical overtones, whether you thought that the setting lost its raison d'être in the process, and indeed what kinds of things you did with it. Help a poor literal-minded gamer out!

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=32659]Entsuropi[/MENTION]
It's always good to know what you like, and there ain't no shame in sticking to it. The heady philosophy and abstract conflicts that fit best in Planescape may not work at every table. Many D&D players just want to kill some goblins and steal their loot. No shame in admitting it

Personally, I feel that running PLANESCAPE without abstract weirdness & the power of belief would be like running DARK SUN without the savage quest for survival, or RAVENLOFT without gothic horror and influence of Dark Powers, or DRAGONLANCE without dragons, Takhisis, and Paladine. You can do it, but you're missing out on the main thing.

 

[Jackal_]

Planescape is probably our groups favorite setting, and we will be returning to it for our first 5th edition game. The factions are very important in all our PS campaigns, they are where we have always gotten alot of lower level adventures from because in previous editions you couldn't just go out into the planes before a certain level and expect to live very long. So we would spend most of our time in Sigil doing faction jobs. They also help the characters feel unique as we would always have characters from very different factions, making for nice interparty philosophical conflicts, and different objectives for what they wanted out of each adventure.

In our 3rd edition campaign that went to level 20 I played a Fated Rogue/Fighter/Gatecrasher was interested in having influence within the Fated, but he didn't want to have to stay in Sigil all the time to get it. So I backed an NPC monk ally of mine and got him to rise up the ranks based on our groups accomplishments. Everyone in the faction knew he was a my puppet, but as long as I gave him the credit for the massive profits i brought in for the faction no one could say anything. Our DM did a great job of running PS as well, one way was having interesting things happen while we were out on the Planes. I once came back to find out my ally had died on a faction job involving some crazy powerful wizard. had to pay for his resurrection, which I was not happy about. Also some of the job/adventure outcomes I wanted would conflict with the Guvner wizard in the party, which always led to hilarious compromises.

We also always run our PS campaigns very grey, when we want to do traditional hero's we usually run another setting. Which makes the campaign very goal driven, each character had specific things they wanted to accomplish and we rarely quibbled on how to get things done.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I have run three Planescape campaigns and played in two short-lived Planescape campaigns. I love the setting, the feel, the "philosophers with clubs" element.

But not everyone does.

If your players aren't as enthusiastic about PS as you are, including small bites of it in your "regular" campaign is probably a good idea. If the PC's want to make Sigil their headquarters, more power to them. But if they want to remain clueless primes, that's their prerogative.

 

[Shemeska]

I will shamefully admit to never having really used Factions as major elements of a Planescape campaign... but in my defense, all of my games have been run post Faction War. The Factions and their scattering to the planes, their changes, and the fallout of the mazing of many of their factols did however end up informing a lot of things going on in a more subtle way. They always added atmosphere and cool factor, even if I didn't have any PCs taking a major role in them.

I ran two 3.x Planescape campaign, each of them running for several years each. I'm also currently running a planar campaign set in the Pathfinder cosmos within the city of Galisemni (which is totally not a love-letter to Sigil, really, sure, absolutely, etc).

I've always played with the trio of 'rules' from Planescape (Rule of 3, Center of All, Unity of Rings), but not necessarily calling them out by name, but absolutely there. I also never really delved heavily into individual faction philosophies with the exception of the Bleak Cabal (since former factols Tollysalmon and Esmus featured in both of the 3.x games, and were major characters in the second one) and the Xaositects (because Xaos is best philosophy). I've more played around with the fiends, their politics, their pre-history, and their own philosophies. I'm still doing that to some extent in the planar Pathfinder game.

 

[Savage Wombat]

As someone else who has trouble with "big ideas", I ran a well-received Planescape game based just around exploration.

I had a philosopher hire them for a trip around the outer planes, taking Yggdrasil, the Styx, and Mt. Olympus to go from site to site. And interesting things happened, especially when they irked Arawn wandering around.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I'm also currently running a planar campaign set in the Pathfinder cosmos within the city of Galisemni (which is totally not a love-letter to Sigil, really, sure, absolutely, etc).

I believe you.

Galisemni is a gigantic love-letter to Sigil*.

*At least the version in my home game - the canonical version hasn't been fully written up beyond being named in a half dozen passing references to it, and appearing on a map of the Maelstrom.

Did you invent Galisemni? Or is it something Paizo created and hasn't expanded upon yet?

 

[I'm A Banana]

So I guess that this massive tract is all about asking whether other people ran/run Planescape without the heavily philosophical overtones, whether you thought that the setting lost its raison d'être in the process, and indeed what kinds of things you did with it. Help a poor literal-minded gamer out!

Massive tract? Friend, I have seen some massive tracts and your post barely qualifies as a footnote for some of 'em.

However, I have come to realise that - much like my earlier obsession with Mage: the Ascension - my younger self was labouring under the pretence that I actually have a brain designed to handle all of this abstract BIG IDEAS stuff that Planescape seems to run off. Certainly the well-written Planescape 5e notes prepared by someone on here (Jacob?) focuses heavily on elements that I would be very poor at:, such as complex and philosophical ideas. I kind of just love Sigil and the idea of trying to survive jaunts into Hell itself, y'know? The combination of the most extreme environments in the genre, along with neutral ground allowing interaction of all these wonderful races and peoples.

Oh! Hai!

So I don't think your experience is vastly uncommon. I don't think you need to write off your own skill quite so easily, but I think there's plenty of people who are fine taking the planes and leaving the 'scape. So there is this: I think there's a distinction to be made between Planescape as a unique D&D campaign setting, and The Planes as general D&D adventure settings.

For the latter, extreme environments and a neutral meeting ground are all ya need. "I'm going to Hell to slay devils! Tomorrow it's off to the Abyss to slay demons!" is very cool in it's own right. The Great Wheel doesn't need the Planescape setting to be cool, and there's nothing wrong with enjoying the Great Wheel as a place to go and have cool adventures in.

I think there is something more in a "Planescape" game, though. In 2e, they were by and large the same thing, so someone who wanted one got the other even if they didn't want it (there's plenty of people who wanted Limbo who didn't want the Xaositects, and I'm sure there's some who are vice-versa!). But the distinction is useful, since it helps us weed out what helps define "Planescape" itself as a unique setting. That separation helps us whether we like it or not, because it lets us identify why we might like it and bring that along to whatever cosmology or setting you want, or vice-versa, letting what we do like to be left un-tainted by what we don't.

If I was to do that, and then to try and sell the setting on its unique aspects, it would probably sound a little bit like this. If those elements are interesting to you in and of themselves, you might want to try infusing them on your next planar jaunt (faction membership goes a long way, and you might think about using the faction backgrounds I've posted -- specifically, the inspiration). If not, enjoy your jaunts to extreme environments and don't worry about whether or not it's technically "Planescape." If you're having fun, the label doesn't matter too much.

 

[Shemeska]

Did you invent Galisemni? Or is it something Paizo created and hasn't expanded upon yet?

Yep, I did. It first showed up on the map of the Maelstrom (but no other details) in 'The Great Beyond', and subsequently was briefly referenced in 'Classic Treasures Revisited', 'Book of the Damned III', and as a portal location through the cauldron in Baga Yaga's hut in 'Artifacts and Legends'.

 

[kenmarable]

I have unfortunately played very little Planescape but am hoping to change that very soon. I have used the Factions and plan to in the future (getting a PhD in philosophy, I'm not afraid to play that side up). My main advice to you, however, is play the campaign you and your group want to play and apologize for nothing. If you never want to use the Factions, don't. It's your campaign, do what ya like.

You can have a great Planescape campaign based entirely around exploration, the Planes are an incredible, over the top, beyond imagination kinds of places to explore. That's one way to still embrace a lot of Planescape's ideas without the Factions. Although the Factions and philosophical ideas are applicable everywhere, they are typically treated as strongest in Sigil, so a campaign that spends more time exploring other areas of the planes might naturally not use much of the Faction philosophical conflicts.

However, to defend them for a minute, the idea of "philosophers with clubs" and Factions and "importance of belief" can seem intimidating. It doesn't have to, though. The Factions can be seen in 2 much simpler ways. 1) They are organizations just like every other setting has (like FR's Harpers, Zhentarim, etc. except that each group has some good and some bad among them maybe more like Eberron's Dragonmarked houses). 2) The level of philosophical ideas doesn't have to be anything much more complex than alignment or 5e Ideals.

In fact, if you think of Factions as Ideals that have organizations around them, that's most of the way there anyway.

But overall, use what you like and ignore what you don't. Don't sweat whether it's "true Planescape" or not.