I'd want to turn the screw one more bit: when the Xaositect starts making the plan, beings of law somehow get dealt into the situation. I'm not sure how I'd do that - modrons don't strike me as having the write vibe, but maybe inevitables do - but I like where you're going.
For me, these are the sorts of things that leap of the 4e page at me, but don't when it comes to Planescape. It's good to hear stories from others who did have that page-leaping experience.
And you may see themes, hooks, etc for dynamic play in Planescape, but you haven't given any examples. Viking Bastard and Quickleaf have, and I've responded to those in some recent posts upthread, including explaining what I think they have seen that I haven't, and also what I might be inclined to handle differently from what they have described.
Part of the reason you haven't been hearing stories like these is perhaps because it's been kind of difficult to parse what you're saying/looking for at times.
I think I understand where you're coming from now, though. Here's an anecdote from my personal play.
I played a Harmonium. He was a former escapee of the Blood War who believed in Law as a lifestyle. Law, to him, was important itself due to his upbringing to be a soldier his entire life and the orderly lifestyle he lived, and his long association with fiends had caused a backlash in which he wanted to do the right thing from then on. That's what drew him to the Harmonium. He saw their ideals as aligning with his, and joined up in their ranks.
The other PC in the group (2 person party) was in the Fraternity of Order. He believed in Law as a means to an end, a way for him to understand existence, and propel himself forward. He had grown up on the streets, using every trick up his sleeve. He saw the Guvners as doing the same thing - taking Law to the obvious conclusion of strategizing and loopholes to gain every advantage that he could muster so that he would be in control of his own destiny.
These two characters were both lawful, both in allied factions, and worked well together
most of the time. However, their goals and means were decidedly different, which caused internal party conflict, which was the main focus of several key points in each session. So, the question wasn't, usually, who the enemy was but instead what to do with the enemy and how to approach the various situations we found ourselves in. As a quick example of one of the ways this came out in play, Harmonium have their own internal stance/beliefs as to who to arrest while Guvners have intricate knowledge of case law to back them up. This would lead to situations where the Guvner character could trump up charges against people to use as leverage against them, wherein my character would balk at such notations. It would also lead to situations where my character believed that a city ordinance meant one thing, but the Guvner would bring up case law to point out my mistakes. Who would buckle first, or what compromises would occur were the meat of the game.
The biggest issue that ever came to a head was when we went on a mission to recover distilled negative energy in liquid form from a necromancer. My character was all gung ho about vanquishing the necromancer, which the Guvner went along with because it was easier than telling me that his direct supervisor wanted to study the necromancer's experiments. When the liquid was recovered, the big question was what do we do with it? I wanted it destroyed because it broke the natural order and could be used as a weapon. The other PC wanted to examine it for the same reasons. In the end, it caused lots of drama between the two of us, and a rift that manifested for several sessions afterward.
There were also other things. My devotion to my religion vs. my devotion to the Harmonium. My hatred of fiends vs. my responsibility to remain neutral as a city official. My belief in following the city's rules vs. sometimes having to bend the law to make the city a safer place. Yes, sometimes he broke the tenets of the Harmonium. He wasn't a saint or a modron. He progressed to join a
third organization that was loosely related to his religion because of the way the campaign progressed.
So, I would say, the conflict between party members has been a big driving force in this style of play. If your party contains different Factions (which is almost certainly will) then even allied members can have wildly different perspectives to any given situation.
I don't think the Faction War is a good example at all (at least not in the way Pemerton means it, I don't really understand Hussar's stand), not any more than the line-ending-apocalypse-modules of oWoD. Without the factions, you don't really have PS anymore--you just have the Great Wheel, which is really just a string of adventure locales (which is fine for what it is). You loose the setting's character buy-in. It's like Vampire without the clans and the Masquerade.
PS didn't really have much metaplot and I don't think it takes well to it, either. In my mind, metaplot undermines the entire basis of the setting (much like it does for, say, Ravenloft).
I, for one, absolutely hated Faction War, and I dislike metaplot as a concept. If you're just going to invalidate a bunch of stuff in the original boxed set, then what was the point in my buying it. I hate what they did with Dark Sun as well. I know novels pretty much mean metaplot will happen, but it really bugs me when they change things about the setting or move the years up or whatever. I just want a starting point from which to make it my own. I don't want to have to keep up with shenanigans going on in novels or some adventure making my purchase of, for example, Factol's Manifesto worthless.
So put me down for never change anything, please.
OTOH, did the Blood War change? Or, look at the all the angst over 4e changes to any of The Planes creatures. That's the argument that I'm making. That the primary concern is maintaining The Planes canon, while, outside of The Planes, pretty much anything is fair game.
You might as well ask when D&D canon will have the githzerai and the githyanki form an alliance with the mind flayers. It
could happen in a very specific setting instance, but it will never happen in D&D Core, and criticizing the fact that the D&D doesn't have non-hostile githzerai and githyanki is no different, in most people's eyes, than criticizing the fact that D&D doesn't have non-hostile demons and devils in the default game assumptions.
