Trying to motivate myself about planes

[Jon_Dahl]

I was considering some kind of Planescape-adventuring in my current Greyhawk-campaign and at first I was excited. However the more I researched the material the less interesting it seemed.

IMO some of the major problems are strong alignment divisions, one-sided planes and alienity (is that even a word?). Let me explain:

Many of the outer planes are divided into good/bad planes. In evil planes there's no one to help, no one will give any value to your heroics. There are only enemies all around. In good planes everything is ok and nothing needs to be done. Adventure thrives on conflict of good vs. bad. Therefore many of the outer planes are - if I may say - useless.

Also basically all the outer planes are somehow aligned. Of course the charisma penalty is nothing serious, but it still is unnecessary punishment for PCs and hardly rewards them for planewalking.

Most of the outer planes are inhabited by petitioners and for some reason they are extremely unappealing creatures. They have absolutely no skills so they can't have any functional communities. You need a skill to be at least a farmer or have a tavern. Petitioners in a certain plane are also all of the same alignment, so it's not overly exciting when you can easily predict their behaviour.[FONT=&quot]

[/FONT]Predictability is a re-occurring theme with planes, since when you go to the Plane of Fire, you know you gonna get burn. And you do (a lot). I'm afraid if I set an adventure in one of the elemental planes, it's going to get boring pretty quickly. "Earth there, earth here... And more earth. Let's go somewhere else!"

One thing that I find extremely controversial about the planes is that while Planescape introduces the idea on "infinite possibilies" they offer very limited encounters. For instance in Ysgard basically everyone is good-aligned (or has the Anarchic-template) and everybody just fights for the heck of it. It seems kind of pointless... Who wants endless fights without any real goal and without any bad guys?

Planes are also emotionally distant because they are filled with the surreal and fantastic. Lack of normal people and nonmagical things creates a bit disconnected atmosphere. It kind of lacks the base. It's hard to explain really.

So enough of my ramblings. Please, can anyone change my mind about the planes? I'd appreciate it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In evil planes there's no one to help, no one will give any value to your heroics.

Not so: there are the kidnapped, the unjustly held, the ones cheated of better destinies. There are those who may have been given a second chance at life...whose release has been delayed or denied. There are the party's rivals, doing the same kinds of missions as they are...but who made critical mistakes.

In good planes everything is ok and nothing needs to be done.

The Garden of Eden had its Serpent (Satan). Asgard had Loki. Many of the evil gods of any given pantheon live alongside their good rivals, not in the planes of evil.

Who wants endless fights without any real goal and without any bad guys?

Ask the Vikings who thought it up. They clearly felt that this was the best thing in the afterlife.

 

[Empirate]

I think you haven't put enough thought in what strong alignment traits may mean.

Take hell, for example. "Here there be only enemies" would result in every non-devil traveling to one of hell's layers to be attacked on sight, and likely destroyed in short order. That's no fun at all, you're right about that.
But hell can easily be imagined as a very diverse place with an awful lot of different things going on all the time, with murder plots, love affairs, betrayals, parent-children conflicts, people looking for a good job, court intrigue, and a stroll in the (equivalent of a) park all possible activities. It's just that all these activities and stories take place within a fiendishly complex bureaucratic nightmare of a place where Hitler married Stalin, and their offspring is now the head of state. And everything that happens is slightly skewed to end in such a way that the bank wins, and good and upright people (or what passes for such in hell) lose. All the time.

It's a bit like greek tragedy: every story, every activity is bound to come to a bitter, tragic, unfulfilling end, and everybody's just a player on a stage, knowing or guessing what will ultimately happen, but unable to stop it. And everybody accepts it, if they like it or not, because this is hell, and that's just how things are.
Enter the heroes. These guys are not from around here, and they have some remarkable ideas about how their story is supposed to end.

Can they make it happen? Can they overcome the stooges of the local Bone Devil sheriff, who holds a deep and personal grudge ever since they came into town openly violating regulation 417/B ("eye or other visual perception organ coloration limitations")? Can they woo and beguile (and later escape the clutches of) Baroness Bolton, a petitioner who might remember the BBEG's true name from when she was his paramour, and who is very hungry for male company but very easily offended once one tries to leave? Can they discover who murdered their treacherous last employer, who still hates their guts and plots against them, even though he's dead and in hell now? Can they disprove charges of goodliness and altruism in judicial combat to the death (against an unarmed child)? Can they avoid being drafted into the army to fight (or rather, end as cannon fodder) in the Blood War? Can they successfully blackmail an Ice Devil sergeant major after discovering his secret tryst with the regiment commander's Erinyes confidante? And finally, can they get through the portal for Sigil without paying the outrageous fees involved (two spotless souls, a hope and a dream each, and a measly 10,000 gp)?

While it's true that devils will often attack PCs on sight in the material plane, that's only because they're normally summoned or called there to do just that. And you know, devils are men (and women [and other things]) of their word, so they'll massacre you to the best of their ability.
However, when you're on their playing field, and you're forced to play after their rules, they have no reason whatsoever to beat you into a red pulp. Unless you slip up, that is, naturally.


I think roleplaying in Hell (or any of the outer planes) can easily be two tons of fun in a one-ton barrel!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Don't worry about what skill points petitioners do or don't have -- if you want them to have communities, give them communities. Being a prisoner to the skill points of non-combatant NPCs is crazy.

 

[GregoryOatmeal]

I'm just getting into Planescape and haven't really found your experience to be true. If anything I've just been overwhelmed with the possibilities and the amount of stuff you have to learn and buy. But it's worth it.

Limit your scope. I'd stick to one or two planes to start. Read up on them and you'll find they have some conflict and a lot of depth. Try and get a feel for the plane and flesh it out. While some of the good and evil planes blend together lots of them seem to be based on really vivid ideas (I'd suggest Mechanus or the Beastlands). If you try to wrap your head around 16 different planes at once they'll lack flavor. Check out some of the published adventures. Maybe just explore one of two layers of hell. The deeper you dig I think the less you'll find they lack a base.

Sigil is a really cool interdimensional city. It's an awesome springboard for adventures. Factions are crazy and break that good/evil duality. There's a ton to digest.

The Planescape monster appendices are simply the most creative monster books ever. No shortage of ideas there. Most feel like they were designed for roleplaying rather than slaughtering. The supplement Well of Worlds also has some cool RP-focused scenarios (a secret love affair between an old devil and a succubus). These books have such a high ratio of ideas to crunch that they're worth picking up if you don't play 2E. I hear the other Planescape adventure books are good albeit more expensive. The adventure books give you a good idea of what kind of NPCs and conflicts can occur on the planes.

Most of the 2E books on the planes are almost entirely edition-neutral. This means they have almost no crunch and are just awesome reads.

I haven't found a useful way to address the plane of fire but I haven't read up much on it. The 4E approach seems much cooler and addresses that problem. The Elemental Chaos merges all of the elemental planes into one where all matter is made. I can't recall if there are NPCs but there are crazy rivers of mud and lava in the sky and tidal waves of lightning and madness. I wouldn't know what to do with it but it seemed vivid. I seem to recall it hosted the City of Brass where djinn come from.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I absolutely love Planes. I've only played more Grayhawk-stlye and not Planescape, so adapt what I suggest to what you're considering.

Have you seen the movie Avatar (Arborea)? Imagine the awe when the humans first look upon the world, it's exotic nature, all that unknown. How about Jurassic Park(Beastlands)? Where people arrive on an island with completely new dangers? What if Players could arrive on the Dark Side of the Moon(Acheron), when the decepticons are rising up out of the ground?

You can have those experiences for your players.

-I use Beastlands for hunting trips. Testing combat skill to an extreme. Think African Safari. The party could escort a stuffy Noble who wants to take home a trophy, or you need to find a Dire Celestial Tiger's tooth for a material component for a medicinal cure.

-Activity on Ysgard for me occurs almost exclusively upon the Plains of Ida, nearby Kord's home. I imagine Woodstock-for-combatants, (think Hippies+Native Americans+Greek/Viking gladiators) who wrestle for fun, tents stakes haphazardly around loose open circles for combat, everyone drifts around, making new friends, learning various combat techniques, making contacts. People fight, some die, feasting in the evening, and a celebratory breakfast for those who died the night before as they are welcomed back.

-My Players have gone to Gehenna to literally trade personal memories in order to gain a map of a secret passage in the Nine Hell's of Baator on how to pass from the first to second layer without catching the eye of Tiamat herself, passing through a cracked crevasse in the earth. This was a rescue mission to extract heroes from the city of Dis who pissed Tiamat off by fighting a campaign against evil dragons. Baator was played not so much as a "Every monster will try to kill you on sight!" but more a rough environment (Think the Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars or Tortuga from Pirates of the Caribbean) where villains with size you up and decide of it's worth the trouble to mess with you, or rat you out to somebody, if it's worth the price. My players swapped out gear to look tough, worn and edgy, so Bluff checks from the party face warded off many encounters.

-Celestia is a place to trade goods with Sea Elves, who in one of my games have a network of underwater portals used for trade across the Multiverse. It's also worth stopping by Castle Mahlhevik (See Manual of the Planes p.134) to attend a dinner party with that guy.

-I Play Byopia Dothion layer just like the Lord of the Rings Shire, with hills, comely villages, and Gnome experiments that you cannot find anywhere else in the Multiverse.

-Pandimonium is the place where very powerful people hide very important things that they do not want anyone else to find. The Elemental Plane of Earth I've used the same way, with sealed vaults in random uninhabited places within the ground.

-The Elemental Plane of Earth was a place where characters needed to win the rights to a emerald mine from some Djinn.

-Mechanus can be a place where a massive legal trial is held, think the 1986 Transformers cartoon movie, where Hotrod and Kup are trapped on the planet Quintessa. Dinobots try to find their captured comrades, while the sentenced heroes fight a pit of Sharkticons.

-Archeron is one of my favorite places. small planetoids of metal cubes where war is raging everywhere. Think Kelly's heroes meets Saving private ryan) where the party needs to pick their way across a war-torn area, staying in the outskirts, occasionally getting caught in skirmishes as rival sides mistake them for enemies (keeping the troops a few levels lower than the players makes the encounter interesting but not really threatening).


...These are just a few examples of how I've played Planes. Let me suggest 3 quick and easy Planar campaign ideas:

-Scavenger Hunt. Your Players have been invited to participate in a Multiverse-spanning Planar scavenger hunt. The event is simply a subplot of the Dragon's Great Game Xorvintaal (MMV p.38) (Which is outside the understanding of lesser mortals, so you don't need to explain it). The Players receive a vehicle (Airship, modified Daern's Instant Fortress, a small cottage, whatever) that can Plane Shift them to the various locations and serves as their housing and storage space. They arrive at a fantastic location, than need to solve a riddle to grab an item. The item can be a sword at the top of a spire in Gehenna which they must fight their way to the top of, or a single flower from amidst a field in Elysium which they need to find and follow a single honeybee to locate. Etc, Etc. Players encounter other parties of your NPC adventurers who are also playing the game, and they must decide if they will fight, cooperate, or compete to get the prize.

- Bounty Hunt. A dangerous Fugitive Possesses a Cubic Gate (DMG p.254) and is on the run. An NPC Bounty Hunter has enlisted the aid of your party to track down the criminal. Have your players Plane Shift in nearby where the criminal is hiding, take in the surrounding area, enlist the aid of locals or fight your way though, get through the Fugitive's hideout, engage him in combat only to lose him as he escapes, and continue the hunt.

-Merchant Escort. Inter-Plane traveling merchants following the River Oceanus on a large barge, or along a chain of Portals. Sure, they are Neutral and have developed a reputation of being the best business anyplace, and so Demons and Archons alike welcome their arrival, but that doesn't mean Banditry and monsters can't jump the caravan at any time. An entire adventure could be played in the Outlands as this merchant caravan travels the great circle of cities that link to all the other outer planes.

 

[cjosephs1s]

Why not make the home base on the material plane but their adventures take them all over the different planes. They can be simple things like go get this item or complex things like political espionage.

Get a copy of the Planar Handbook, Manual of the Planes, Fiendish Codex 1 and 2 and do some reading. For starters its an interesting read and it will give you numerous "sample encouters" and ideas.

Regardless it will give your PCs a different plane from adventure to adventure and if they like a certain place then you can keep sending them back again and again with different themed quests.

Remember, there's always some crazy wizard or rich king in the world that wants something he heard tale of that nobody else has.

Sounds like a fun campaign. Good luck and hope it works out well!

 

[Gray Lensman]

I never had Spelljammer so I used Astral travel to get the PCs from Oerth to Krynn to Faerun, ect. I did use the etheral plane as travel within the "Current" Prime Material Plane. Got some limited use out of the Elemental planes as well.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

Thank you all for the advices but I just wanted to share that my players got so intimidated by the planes that they took the first ticket back to Prime.

They were invited to Ysgard and I described the place as an "intense natural paradise of Nordic flavour, where the air is fresh and all the colours are intense. It's like Norway depicted by the same guys that did '300'".

They met some friendly natives who told them about the eternal battlefields and gave some general idea about the plane. Then he asked my players would they like to return back home or maybe have a look around.

My players ran back home, without any fighting. They were worried that they might have their asses kicked, even though they were 100% aware of the minor positive trait of the planet.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Thank you all for the advices but I just wanted to share that my players got so intimidated by the planes that they took the first ticket back to Prime.

They were invited to Ysgard and I described the place as an "intense natural paradise of Nordic flavour, where the air is fresh and all the colours are intense. It's like Norway depicted by the same guys that did '300'".

They met some friendly natives who told them about the eternal battlefields and gave some general idea about the plane. Then he asked my players would they like to return back home or maybe have a look around.

My players ran back home, without any fighting. They were worried that they might have their asses kicked, even though they were 100% aware of the minor positive trait of the planet.

I like your descriptive summary of Ysgard, it's excellent that you gave your players the option, and they've opted out.

Sounds like you did your players great justice, while still trying it out. Well done!