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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 6399237" data-attributes="member: 20323">I don't know if there is singular clearly identifiable conflict built into the Planescape setting...perhaps the closest thing to an overarching conflict is pragmatism vs. holding onto one's ideals. That seems to be behind a lot of the faction stories and planewalker quips in the boxed set.I think your criticism that the setting's treatment of philosophy is &quot;childish&quot; could more precisely be described as &quot;opaque&quot; (in that the writers don't lay the philosophical conflicts out clearly). IMHO that's a very valid criticism. In the Planar Renovation Project (at <a href="http://www.planewalker.com" target="_blank">www.planewalker.com</a>) myself and others have put a lot of effort into clarifying, identifying, and creating conflicts for each plane and faction.Planescape broadly is about the &quot;clash of ideals&quot;, but which ideals depends on the individual gaming group and the current adventure.Love the Casablanca comparison <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />For your Xaositect example, I would use chaos theory. My layman's understanding is that chaos theory says you can't predict cause and effect with highly dynamical deterministic systems. So that creates tension right there, if a Xaositect were to create/plan a reliable change to a dynamical system (e.g. Weather or Politics) in advance. By relying on predictable cause and effect (which might be really helpful in an adventure) the Xaositect would be refuting his or her belief in Chaos. However, the benefits of prediction might motivate the Xaositect to consider not supporting Chaos in that situation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 6399237, member: 20323"] I don't know if there is singular clearly identifiable conflict built into the Planescape setting...perhaps the closest thing to an overarching conflict is pragmatism vs. holding onto one's ideals. That seems to be behind a lot of the faction stories and planewalker quips in the boxed set. I think your criticism that the setting's treatment of philosophy is "childish" could more precisely be described as "opaque" (in that the writers don't lay the philosophical conflicts out clearly). IMHO that's a very valid criticism. In the Planar Renovation Project (at [url]www.planewalker.com[/url]) myself and others have put a lot of effort into clarifying, identifying, and creating conflicts for each plane and faction. Planescape broadly is about the "clash of ideals", but [b]which[/b] ideals depends on the individual gaming group and the current adventure. Love the Casablanca comparison :) For your Xaositect example, I would use chaos theory. My layman's understanding is that chaos theory says you can't predict cause and effect with highly dynamical deterministic systems. So that creates tension right there, if a Xaositect were to create/plan a reliable change to a dynamical system (e.g. Weather or Politics) in advance. By relying on predictable cause and effect (which might be [b]really[/b] helpful in an adventure) the Xaositect would be refuting his or her belief in Chaos. However, the benefits of prediction might motivate the Xaositect to consider not supporting Chaos in that situation. [/QUOTE]

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