{Settings Tournament} Round 5 - Finals! Greyhawk vs. Planescape

[pemerton]

I voted for Greyhawk.

I have a soft spot for Greyhawk: I have GMed in Greyhawk for probably 10 years in total, mostly a long-running Rolemaster campaign while I was at university.

Whereas my default response to Planescape is dislike: the cant I find oddly annoying (as an Australian English speaker a lot of it is just a slight variant on the slang I was familiar with growing up), the adventures I find unplayably railroady, and the "philosophy" I tend to find a bit underdone. I also don't like the nihilistic cycnicism, which I feel is quite at odds with what I enjoy about fantasy RPGing.

 

[Aoric]

I'm quite surprised Planescape has made it this far. In truth nothing wrong with the setting. Though I always saw it as an add on for the other settings. Sigil is merely a city among the planes a neutral ground of sorts. Though when I think of settings I'm thinking of a game world. Planescape draws from all planes and all settings IMHO.

I can easily list hundreds of reasons why Greyhawk should win. Though I'll mention one that could trump any argument to the contrary. Gary Gygax created it and it grew from the imagination of himself and those that played in his home games. Which is the heart and soul of all roleplaying games that came after it. That's the only argument needed. If you want more just look at Wizard's they discontinue the setting and cannot leave the Greyhawk content alone. Its a cash cow that just keeps giving.

Nuff said

Aoric

 

[billd91]

But, the Blood War has no place in the Great Wheel. It's a purely PS construct. I can love the Great Wheel and completely remove the Blood War without changing the Great Wheel one iota from it's 1e presentation. The outsiders were largely introduced in Planescape supplements, meaning that their PS versions do not actually appear in the Great Wheel. Which means that bringing them into core, bereft of any PS material is not problematic at all for someone who likes the Great Wheel but dislikes PS. The 'Loth were Daemons originally, and "mercenary demon" does not require NE whatsoever, since mercenary could be any alignment.

According to the wikipedia entry, the Blood War preceded the publication of Planescape by a few years. It was part of the return of devils and demons to 2e with the Outer Planes Appendix to the Monstrous Compendium. That may have heralded upcoming developments in planar settings, and PS did expound on it a great deal, as I understand it.

I don't think I'd ever say that using PS material in a non-PS campaign was really problematic. It's only problematic if you have problematic players who won't separate the canon they like from the canon you're establishing in your campaign setting. I know there are some players like that, but sometimes you just have to either not play with them or ignore their self-created problems.

 

[DMZ2112]

I just wanted to say that as much fun as it is to take sides, and criticize the foibles of Greyhawk, and call attention to how far down their heads the collective hair of the Greyhawk fandom has migrated, I'm honestly pleased to see that Greyhawk is going to take this one.

I voted for Planescape because it was really my first /serious/ AD&D setting. My first sessions of Rules Cyclopedia D&D were run in a heavily homebrewed Kingdom of Ierendi, on what I just now learned was apparently Safari Island (you would not have known, although the subtropical climate persists into my current 13th Age homebrew).

I also dabbled in Krynn while I was reading the Dragonlance novels for the first time, but Planescape was the first setting to really capture my imagination. By the time I graduated from college I owned every book released for the setting and a handful of tie-ins, to boot. I remember being fascinated by the planes as early as ten years old, running a couple of vastly underleveled friends against the original Monster Manual version of Tiamat in her lair.

They won, I think. And thus my intense disdain for players was born, in the blackened knots of my heart-analogue.

But I digress. I also own two copies of the wood-grain AD&D1 Greyhawk boxed set. I consider the pristine one a prized possession. One of my earliest memories of learning the bizarre mashup of AD&D1 and BECMI D&D that my first dungeon master ran (I'm not sure he knew there was a difference) was him promising my character the throne of the Grand Duchy of Geoff. This was before I knew about the giants. Okay, I picked it because its heraldry was awesome. I was eight.

I don't think you can be a D&D fan of a certain age and not have some nostalgia for Greyhawk. Even if this poll is completely statistically insignificant, I'm glad to see that the original D&D world still shines for people forty years on.

Would those be the veins...in your pants?

No, they're the PANTS in my VEINS!

OBEY THE PANTS!

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, that was kind-of my point and why I put "the truth" in quotes. Just because one set of people conceive of the planes as being in an Astral Sea/Elemental Chaos configuration doesn't stop others conceiving of them in a Great Wheel configuration because of the structure (or lack of it) engendered by portals and similar conduits. The real "truth" is a chaotic mish-mash; order is imposed by conception, not by nature.

I tend to use the Great Wheel concepts, but mix in a lot of 4e concepts. Mechanus goes back to Nirvana, which is the Astral Sea. Limbo is the Elemental Chaos. The Feywild is actually Arborea, which takes up the NG section of the Wheel. The Shadowfell is the Grey Waste. Pandemonium is the hope of many of the trapped primordials, which is why it's so unpleasant. Even the demons and the Unseelie stay away.

 

[interfactor]

Greyhawk

I voted for Greyhawk, but it was a tough choice. Greyhawk is home for me, but Planescape was where we vacationed.

 

[Azgulor]

Greyhawk all the way. While other settings can ratchet up niche concepts and flavor, Greyhawk handles a huge gamut of fantasy concepts very well while remaining rooted in the conceptual familiarity of the Middle Ages.

I started gaming with Greyhawk as my first setting. The allure of the FR gray box moved my campaigns over to the Realms for several years, but ultimately, we returned to Greyhawk as we could tell the stories that worked in the Realms without the baggage of the Realms-isms we disliked.

Greyhawk is the first, and arguably still the best, standard-bearer for kitchen-sink settings. My only regrets of the setting is that more of the world wasn't revealed in other box sets/books.

My tastes run to Golarion and Midgard these days, but my Greyhawk stuff is a part of my collection I'd never part with.

 

[Greyhawk Grognard]

It should hopefully be no surprise that I voted for Greyhawk.

Honestly, Planescape always felt a little weird to me. I like the wheel, and prefer the focus of the game be on the material plane. But hey, personal taste and all that. I certainly don't begrudge anyone else who wants to play in Sigil (or Waterdeep, or Tyr, or wherever).

Joe / GG

 

[Brock Landers]

I feel that I win with either vote, as Planescape is an extension of Greyhawk for me in many ways.

As for the Great Wheel vs. 4th Ed Cosmology, so easy to reconcile them.

 

[Manbearcat]

Wow. Taken behind the woodshed. I wonder how Greyhawk is going to spend Planescape's lunch money?