D&D 5E Setting Playoffs Finals (round 5)

[Queer Venger]

There is no option to vote for Forgotten Realms, so I couldn't vote. But if I could vote I would vote for Forgotten Realms.

 

[Imaro]

Hiya!

Greyhawk for me. Between it and Planescape, Greyhawk is infinitly more "make it your own". GH, I can run a campaign based on commoners rising up to fight off a hoard of orcs. Or I can run a political intrege campaign around Iuz, the Shield Lands and Furyondy. I can keep it wide-open and just have the goings on of the world...just go on...so the PC's can dungeon-hop all over the place. The problem we had with PS was that it was pretty much hard-coded what you could and couldn't do. For example, in GH I could say "The Circle of Eight disappeared right before the Greyhawk Wars, never to be seen again"...but I can't say "There are no Factions anymore" for PS. The Factions are hard-coded into the setting. Same with the whole Blood War thing (which we all hated...). In GH, new PC's can go explore the world....in PS new PC's can hang out in small little 'safe areas' for them...no wandering the planes of Hell at 2nd level.

Anyway, i was actually just looking at my Planescape stuff last night. Now that I've had just over 20 years to get used to it's ideas, I can see why so many folk like it. I was thinking of doing a small PS mini-campaign...to see if I and my group could "get into it". But I can only see it as a mini-campaign because it is so dang...specific and, as I said, "hard coded" into.

Love Greyhawk...know it pretty dang well, having DM'ed in it for 36 years now. I can appreciate Planescape much more now than I did 20+ years ago when it came out. I think I'm ready to give PS another shot now, but for "best D&D campaign world"? No contest. Greyhawk. Period.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

The funny thing is I believe that the factions were actually destroyed... officially in later supplements.

 

[Plaguescarred]

It will always be Greyhawk for me

 

[hawkeyefan]

Hiya!

Greyhawk for me. Between it and Planescape, Greyhawk is infinitly more "make it your own". GH, I can run a campaign based on commoners rising up to fight off a hoard of orcs. Or I can run a political intrege campaign around Iuz, the Shield Lands and Furyondy. I can keep it wide-open and just have the goings on of the world...just go on...so the PC's can dungeon-hop all over the place. The problem we had with PS was that it was pretty much hard-coded what you could and couldn't do. For example, in GH I could say "The Circle of Eight disappeared right before the Greyhawk Wars, never to be seen again"...but I can't say "There are no Factions anymore" for PS. The Factions are hard-coded into the setting. Same with the whole Blood War thing (which we all hated...). In GH, new PC's can go explore the world....in PS new PC's can hang out in small little 'safe areas' for them...no wandering the planes of Hell at 2nd level.

Anyway, i was actually just looking at my Planescape stuff last night. Now that I've had just over 20 years to get used to it's ideas, I can see why so many folk like it. I was thinking of doing a small PS mini-campaign...to see if I and my group could "get into it". But I can only see it as a mini-campaign because it is so dang...specific and, as I said, "hard coded" into.

Love Greyhawk...know it pretty dang well, having DM'ed in it for 36 years now. I can appreciate Planescape much more now than I did 20+ years ago when it came out. I think I'm ready to give PS another shot now, but for "best D&D campaign world"? No contest. Greyhawk. Period.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Wow, I get the exact opposite feeling about Planescape. I think it was designed to open the planes up to characters of all levels, with Sigil and the Outlands as a kind of home base. And although I agree that as the setting as presented, the factions are all very important, I find it very easy to dial back their presence so that they are very similar to the faction type organizations of other settings, like the Red Wizards or the Harpers or the Scarlet Brotherhood.

I honestly feel like there are too many for the players to ever truly keep track of, and the majority of published material seemed to really focus on only a handful of Factions. I don't require my PCs to join a faction, and I don't make everyone in Sigil a member of one. Instead they're just organizations that my PCs need to deal with from time to time..whether as a source of employment, or as rivals of some sort, or as outright enemies.

I find that works much better all around. The idea that every single person in Sigil was a faction member always seemed ridiculous to me...so I ditched it and I feel things are better for that change.

There is no option to vote for Forgotten Realms, so I couldn't vote. But if I could vote I would vote for Forgotten Realms.

Well...this is round 5....you missed your chance a couple of rounds ago! But don't feel bad...your vote would not have saved the Realms.

The funny thing is I believe that the factions were actually destroyed... officially in later supplements.

Some were. The Faction War was one of the last things published for the line, and it made some pretty drastic changes to the situation in Sigil. There was going to be a follow up from what I've heard, and that would have restored some kind of status quo...but they ended the product line before that follow up was made.

I used some of the concepts in my game, but not too many. But even if you used the adventure exactly as written, there would still be Factions in Sigil. A few were disbanded, and one or two fractured into more than one, and another one or two new ones formed.

I forget the exact details because I changed so much, I'm sure someone can correct me...but that was the gist of it.

 

[Bad Fox]

And so we grow closer to the hour of Planescape's inevitable victory.

 

[Mercule]

There is no option to vote for Forgotten Realms, so I couldn't vote. But if I could vote I would vote for Forgotten Realms.

The Realms had their shot in the earlier rounds. Even after it was pretty clear we could skip a round (quarter finals, IIRC) due to the land slide, I didn't, just so there was no controversy around it. I did that, in part, because I'm not shy about my opinion on the Realms (gray box was tolerable, but lackluster; anything after that is a travesty) and didn't want any chance someone could accuse me of manipulating the vote.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[hawkeyefan]

Planescape it is!

That's the way I voted. And I have a fondness for the Greyhawk stuff...my ongoing campaign uses Iggwilv, Eclavdra, Snurre, Erelhei Cinlu, and plenty of other classic Greyhawk material. But it also uses Sigil and the Outlands and all the planes, and for me, that stuff is the stuff that is really unique.

The Greyhawk stuff is just so easily portable to other settings that most of it doesn't feel that unique. For me, Greyhawk doesn't have anywhere near as strong a feel as Planescape...that's the deciding factor.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[discosoc]

I don't really think Planescape is as good as people remember. Maybe it was just my group back in the 90's, but it was a great example of a set that I *really* wanted to love (and did, on paper), but didn't really translate well to actual games. At least not for normal long-term games.

Planescape, to me, was like Ravenloft. It was a place you could bring into your existing setting for a good end-game or side quest type adventure, but neither really really great settings on their whole.