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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6322445" data-attributes="member: 2067">Here's a few things I would do (and a few things I implemented in the brief PS4e game I ran in early 4e)<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Embrace Unmappability: While the 2e cosmology created some beautiful diagrams and art, it is, by trying to be definitive, limiting. There's no Elemental Plane of Wood, and Olympus and the elves presumably share and infinity and perhaps most importantly, alternate theories for how the planes fit together are demoted. A PS game is all about the clash of ideas and definitions, and cosmology and structure should be a part of that conversation. PS always acknowledged that its maps were shorthand, descriptive rather than definitive. I want to see that embraced. Saying the eladrin live in the Feywild or that they live on Arborea or that they live on the slopes of Olympus should be answered with "Yes, depending on how you look at it." This echoes PS's "center of all" theme, and keeps the setting adaptable. Maybe the Plane of Mirrors plays a big role in your Planescape? Sure, whatever, that in no way contradicts someone who plays PS with a World Axis cosmology. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Emphasize Sigil: While some version of Olympus may appear in any game with a Greek-inspired pantheon, what makes Planescape unique is the tone and atmosphere of the City of Doors, and the Factions. It's the tone of Sigil -- jaded, gritty, beaten-down Sigil -- that makes a Planescape game markedly different from a game of "Lets go visit all the realms of the gods!" that you can run in pretty much any setting ever. Whatever else they are -- Abyssal mercenaries, lost modrons, a genasi prince -- the PC's should be Sigilian, with all the access to infinity that this implies. Playing against type, as a Clueless, is OK, but that character is an exception. Sigil is the gate to everywhere, it's why it doesn't matter what you call the home of the Eladrin, because as far as the party is concerned, it's just beyond that doorway. This also, to a significant degree, means emphasizing economics: one of Sigil's defining traits is the separation between the rich and the poor that is iconic of the source material that it is culled from, which means that a character should also know their social place: a tiefling isn't just a creature born of the hells, it's a creature born into poverty more often than not. It's an outcast, just as an earth genasi with holdings in the plane of Mineral is a mover and a shaker within the system. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Belief trumps Class/Race/Subclass: Independent of your political maneuvering within your faction, your belief should shape the kind of character you make more than your class or race does. Your archetype is your philosophy, not your class or race. The fact that you're playing a dwarf rogue should say much less about your character than the fact that you're playing a Xaositect or a Guvner. I'm fond of the idea of 5e allowing you to swap class abilities with other class abilities because of your faction. Clerics have faction domains, wizards have faction specializations, fighters have faction-specific fighting maneuvers, rogues have faction-specific skill uses. I would even consider training rules -- each faction has a monopoly on certain abilities and learning a certain spell or skill trick conveniently means doing something for that faction. Say, if only the Athar knew Second Wind, and you wanted that ability, you'd have to either be an Athar, be friends with the Athar, or do something to advance the Athar cause in some small way. If you wanted access to the Life domain as a cleric, the person at your Church of the Sun God who teaches you how to do it...is also a Godsman. Faction membership is how you GET STUFF DONE. (This leans a bit toward either classless play or factions-as-classes....which I'd be kind of cool with, honestly). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Knowledge Is Power > A Bunch of Fiddly Things: Half the 2e PS rules bits were dedicated to various transformations or alterations to magical schools and abilities that happened on certain planes. Magic items and divine magic because weaker depending on your plane. This was a headache. There were ways to overcome these changes -- keys -- and that fed into the idea that knowledge trumps might on the planes. If you were a pyromancer on the plane of water, you'd be dead quick unless you knew what to do. This element can be preserved without the millions of fiddly changes, though. I shouldn't need to know what plane my longsword was forged on, or where my god specifically lives in this hypothetical ring that doesn't actually exist anyway. And where it does exist, overcoming it should be easy -- common items I can buy to survive in the City of Brass or the Plane of Vacuum sold on the streets of the Grand Bazaar. I should be able to drop some gold to cast my fire spells on the Plane of Water or breathe on the Plane of Earth. I should certainly have to know that I have to do that, but it should be easy to do. On a similar note, ditch the 3e alignment penalties. I should be able to take my CE Abyssal mercenary onto the slopes of Celestia and simply have role playing make it hard for her. I don't need -6 penalties to some subset of some general skills. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Exploration + Role-Playing emphasis: The fun of PS does not and has never come from the fights. Fight happen -- combat happens -- but the more important bits of PS are the role-playing bits and the exploration bits. This means that I want character options and abilities to be used on these levels first. It's more important to have a scene chatting with a succubus than fighting one. It's more important to have a scene exploring Mt. Celestia than in fighting an angel there. Yeah, you'll fight succubi and angels, too, but PS is not a planar dungeon crawl, it's not about bad guys vs. good guys, it is about areas of grey, discovering the unknown, the problems with strict definitions. Problems should prefer a solution that involves talking to the enemy, or that involves going somewhere new (in thought if not in location, but often in both), and PC's and threats should have abilities that make these activities more dynamic and interesting. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Alignment Is a Tool, not a Club: Alignment means something in PS, but a player should be defining what that means to them in pretty concrete terms. I really like the preview of the Wizard's sheet, how it ties the character's alignment into their values, and I think this is a good route to follow. The thought process should be something like "I believe that people are better together than apart, but I also think hell is other people, so I guess that makes me Lawful Neutral," not "I'm Chaotic Good, that means that I can't obey the laws!"</li> </ul>I have a buttload of other ideas, and I'm sure I'll fling them out early in the edition while I spitball what PS5e is going to look like for me.</blockquote>

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