Planescape: Torment

[BOZ]

Heya! Planescape: Torment just became a "Featured Article" at wikipedia. We're going to try to get it on the main page on December 12th 2009, which would be the 10th anniversary of its release date.

We also have 19 "Good Articles" at the moment, and the D&D Wikiproject is always looking to work on more...

 

[Asmor]

Sweet, I love that game!

 

[Psionicist]

Nice one! I still consider Planescape: Torment one of the best games ever made. Ten years later I still can't decide how to rank the game relative to Baldur's Gate 2 and Fallout 2.

I've been out of touch with Dungeons & Dragons for a while. Does Planescape still exist as a campaign setting, with the new editions out?

 

[Shemeska]

I've been out of touch with Dungeons & Dragons for a while. Does Planescape still exist as a campaign setting, with the new editions out?

Not really. It existed largely intact during 3e, though Shadow went from a demiplane to a full transitive plane, and the quasi and para-elemental planes were never called full planes, but it was still the same cosmology. In 4th edition however, there's no continuity with the 4e default cosmology and the 1e/2e/3e Great Wheel / Planescape cosmology, and so far it appears that all 4e settings will be using the default 4e cosmology, regardless of prior cosmologies they might have possessed. 4e was a complete reboot as far as cosmology goes, which some people like, and others (myself included) don't care for.

 

[malraux]

Does Planescape still exist as a campaign setting, with the new editions out?

Not as such, no. There's no Planescape Campaign Setting book, the 4e mostly nixing of alignment kinda removes a big chunk of the undergirding of the Great Wheel, etc. That said, Sigil exists, the various factions are around in one form or another, and planar travel can still be a big element of the campaign. YMMV.

 

[Nikosandros]

I've been out of touch with Dungeons & Dragons for a while. Does Planescape still exist as a campaign setting, with the new editions out?

There wasn't an official Planescape setting in 3rd edition, but many of the ideas found the way in different sourcebooks.

4th edition has radically altered the default cosmology, although Sigil is still there as a planar metropolis.

 

[avin]

Sigil is still there as a planar metropolis.

With no mention to Dabus, with the building-changes going to Gloomwrought, biggest commerce to City of Brass, most cosmopolitan is Hestaavar, etc.

Sigil has lost a lot of its shine.

 

[wingsandsword]

They never did make an official 3e Planescape book. The closest they came was the Manual of the Planes, with some other Planescape material translated in a few issues of Dragon Magazine, and I think some elements from it were in the Planar Handbook.

As Shemeska pointed out, the 3e default cosmology was pretty close to the Planescape (and before that 1e Manual of the Planes) cosmology, with only a few changes. 4e getting rid of alignment (or at least changing it to an unrecognizable form) and getting rid of concepts like planes of existence that are devoted to one element mean that Planescape would require significant deviation from the 4e norm and house ruling.

4e Sigil, like 4e Forgotten Realms, is the same as prior editions in name only. Frankly, that to me is yet another reason that 4e is also D&D-in-name-only when so many popular D&D settings just plain can't be accurately depicted using it.

 

[jsaving]

The DMG2, scheduled for release later this year, will feature Sigil as its signature location. There's also a bit about it in the 4e Manual of the Planes.

 

[doctorhook]

Sigil has lost a lot of its shine.

No complaints here. Since I'm not usually playing in Planescape, Sigil might as well just be another planar city to me; one with a unique shtick, rather than all of the shticks. Sigil is the City of Doors.