Planescape parties and factions

[ThirdWizard]

Well I don't see why specific people inside factions can't get along, even if their general philosophies don't. I'm sure all of us have friends who are have vastly different political, economic, religious beliefs...I can see a few problems emerging between Hardheads and Anarchists, for example, but the faction isn't the sole component of a prime's belief system.

It depends on the game. In an intrigue oriented game, they arn't going to want to go about most things the same way. In vastly opposing ways, actually. A Guvner or a Mercykiller given the choice between aiding or hunting down a thief who steals to survive would probably side with the law, whereas many Fated and Indeps are going to side with the thief. You can have an excellent time with the roleplaying this brings out, but only if that is what you're after. The OP might not mind that, but then he probably wouldn't have started the thread.

It also depends on how much you want to focus on inter-party conflict (conflict not meaning actual combat here). I also wouldn't, for example, want to stick an Athar in a party with a cleric of a particular god unless I didn't mind them coming into conflict eventually.

 

[wocky]

Thank you all for the responses... I'll certainly be letting them choose faction membership freely (if any at all), after speaking a bit about it. I'll study the issue a bit and have them avoid choosing severely conflicting factions.

Yet, if anyone wants to further contribute their experiences in this matter, you're more than welcome to do so, and I'll keep checking the thread.

 

[Ruined]

For three years in my last campaign
I did run a oneshot game however with an Athar mage in the same group as a cleric of pelor, and it was amusing because he was always volunteering the cleric to go first into danger, but it usually made sense at the time even though he was intentionally trying to get him hurt so he could mock him for his deity not saving his tail or some such.

Hey, IIRC that was my Athar. Wasn't this the game you ran at NC Game Day II?

 

[Trellian]

Did anyone publish an official 3.5 version of the Planescape campaign? Like they did Ravenloft?

 

[Ryltar]

www.planewalker.com is as official as it gets. Nothing in print, however.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

www.planewalker.com is as official as it gets. Nothing in print, however.

And I think they only have post-Faction War writeups for the factions. I mean, that's nice and all, but most offical material takes place before it...

 

[wocky]

Sorry to say that some of the stuff at Planewalker striked me as SO essentialy unbalanced, that it disencouraged me from relying too much on the other stuff that perhaps didn't seem unbalanced at first. Same thing happens with lots of third party stuff, however...

What I did is buy a used 2nd Edition Planescape boxed set. It's mostly fluff... so together with the 3rd ed planar handbook I guess you are as close to a 3rd Ed Planescape as you need get.

 

[ragboy]

What I did is buy a used 2nd Edition Planescape boxed set. It's mostly fluff... so together with the 3rd ed planar handbook I guess you are as close to a 3rd Ed Planescape as you need get.

You'll want to look at getting these books to get a better idea of how 'intense' the faction thing is:

The Factol's Manifesto
In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil
Uncaged: Faces of Sigil
Faction War

It was mentioned earlier that people have friends that are of different religious/political bents, but on the Planes, your belief _is_ you. It can certainly be disruptive to have opposed factions within the party, but you also find that there's a lot of leeway in the belief system that you won't get in the alignment system. Makes for a lot of intense roleplay and character development.

For some great third-party fluff (without the unbalancing problems or the conversion problems) take a look at the following on mimir.net

Cagerattlers - Interesting characters and how they fit their beliefs with their faction.
http://www.mimir.net/cagerattlers/index.shtml

SIGIS - Paper of record for Sigil - lots of faction interaction and editorials:

http://mimir.net/sigis/sigis1.html

Philosphers with Clubs - great treatise on the factions with some characters and other stuff

http://www.mimir.net/factions/index.html

Visionaries - diehards fighting for change within their factions... Very illustrative of how individuals can take a belief and make it their own.

http://www.mimir.net/factions/visionaries.html

For a sectual education ... where baby factions come from...
http://www.mimir.net/sects/index.shtml

 

[Clueless]

I did run a oneshot game however with an Athar mage in the same group as a cleric of pelor, and it was amusing because he was always volunteering the cleric to go first into danger, but it usually made sense at the time even though he was intentionally trying to get him hurt so he could mock him for his deity not saving his tail or some such.

Luckily. The Indep in the group caught onto that *quick* and went along with the cleric. But yeah - if the group of players are mature enough to handle factions then they're more than likely mature enough to be asked to clear any disruptive character concepts first. I'll add Indeps to the list of relatively easy to get along with groups - in fact that's in the Indep writeup form 2nd ed - they get along with just about anyone that's not pushing a philosophy on them (aka anyone but Hardheads.)


As a GM - if you have something you really want to run as a plot that involves a particular faction I'd definately suggest asking the group about it. They aren't going to enjoy the game nearly as much if they don't have any input into the sort of beliefs their characters have - but I can certainly understand how for plot purposes putting them inside a definaed 'box' from the beginning will help.

 

[Clueless]

Hey, IIRC that was my Athar. Wasn't this the game you ran at NC Game Day II?

Yep. That was you. Beautiful job on that btw - I almost didn't catch on to what you were doing. I'm sure my double take was pretty funny to see.