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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Southern Oracle" data-source="post: 1974385" data-attributes="member: 1249">Tales from the Infinite Staircase is an excellent compilation and can be used a number of ways. If you play in Forgotten Realms, it can be used as a bridge from Toril to the planes, and it ties into the adventure For Duty and Deity. It's also fine as written, or broken up into its individual encounters without the metaplot of the Iron Shadow.  There are a number of different approaches you can take, and I'll discuss them as I address your other questions below.  People become planewalkers for a variety of reasons. The easiest to implement at the beginning of a campaign is for the party to accidentally stumble through a portal...the characters become planewalkers because they want to find a way home. When starting with planar characters, they could be members of the various factions, belong to an organization with planespanning activities (a trade consortium, wizard guild, mercenary guild, etc. -- I created one such organization called the Silver Strike Guild which you can find in Dragon #307), be a fanatical member of a religion, or just a thrillseeker looking for new experiences.  The factions can play as big or as little a role as you desire. Each faction has a particular philosophy, as well as a planar base where its activities are more or less "in the public eye." You can arrange encounters with faction members all over the multiverse to "educate" your players about the different philosophies, or if a character seems to naturally exemplify a particular philosophy, you can have a faction attempt to recruit him or her as a member. Pre-Faction War, the factions are much more active in Sigil than out on the planes. If you keep the PCs moving and downplay the importance of Sigil, you may never need to worry about the factions. The multiverse is a big place, and the factions haven't reached everywhere.  The best way I can describe this is to point to modern day politics and religion. People can be friends and still belong to different political parties or hold different religious beliefs. Conflicts may arise from time to time, but most people don't let such things ruin a friendship. There are exceptions, of course, and you should expect regular conflict between members of diametrically opposed philosophies, such as the Fraternity of Order and Xaositects, or the Society of Sensation and the Dustmen. Factions also have a little more control over their members than modern day political parties (or even most religions)...a factol can always contact a member and say, "Do this or else." That's also an easy way to set an adventure hook. "One day, one of the faction highups calls you to his office..."  There's no need to focus on character beliefs in a Planescape game, although doing so provides a much more rewarding roleplaying experience. ALL characters have belief systems...the player just might not realize it. At the basic level, a character's alignment is his or her belief system, and you can equate them to some of the factions (LN for the Guvners or Hardheads, CN for Xaositects, etc.). If the character uses divine magic, he or she has a belief system based on how that power is obtained -- either a god, a force of nature, or a particular philosophy. Any character that worships a god also has a particular belief system -- gods have goals, and they want their worshippers to promote those goals. Planescape is an opportunity to explore a character's motivations much moreso than standard D&D, but if the players aren't comfortable with that, you can avoid it.  People who want a quiet and safe life don't become adventurers. If your players have become complacent, however, you can "prod" them with a multitude of tools from the Planescape campaign setting. The Blood War regularly spills over into countless places across the planes, from the streets of Waterdeep to the entry hall of Crius's temple on Carceri. Regular incursions of demons and devils (or both!) into the area where your PCs are might be motivation enough to get them on the move. The factions also butt heads from time to time, and winding up in the middle between Hardheads and Xaositects might also spur them into action. Planar creatures such as the githyanki, formians, paraii (now called visilights in MMIII), and others are expansionist groups that regularly attempt to take over new territory, which can include a Material Plane location. The 1E planar supplement Tales of the Outer Planes had a number of planar adventures that started on the Material Plane...a duke's daughter is kidnapped by a dao and taken to the Elemental Plane of Earth; a cleric of Poseidon recruits adventurers to help him rescue his crew from a sea hag on the Elemental Plane of Water; the characters end up owing a bard a debt and have to track down a special dog for Hecate to breed with her hellhounds in order to pay back the bard. With a little work, you can take any adventure and use it as a springboard into Planescape, which is what I do in my campaign. Check out the Manual of the Planes web enhancement for the World Serpent Inn at <a href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/World_Serpent.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/World_Serpent.pdf</a> for yet another way to move the PCs out into the multiverse. God, I love Planescape!</blockquote>

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