Parmandur
Book-Friend
Maybe use the Cant for something like the flavorful newspaper articles in Eberron?
Theros & Ravnica were worth the price just for the maps, for real.
Planescape (+) What would you want for 5e Planescape?
- Thread starter Urriak Uruk
- Start date
Theros & Ravnica were worth the price just for the maps, for real.
- Strong mechanics for Faction allegiance/powers and "Belief Is Power".
- Restore tieflings to their former depictions. or, better? Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Planetouched.
- Githyanki and Githzerai
- A followup supplement with law/chaos planetouched and para- and quasigenasi. (This doesn't fit in the main book.)
- A whole bunch of Oaths, Pacts, and Domains
- The full Great Wheel in all its wonky glory
- A full chapter each on the Inner Planes, the Upper Planes, the Lower Planes and Sigil.
cbwjm
Seb-wejem
I think I'd like to see it set before the faction war so that the original factions are all still present. I actually think that it would look similar to Ravnica as the factions would be something where you gain bonuses as you level up your reputation and, of course, Sigil is the main focus of the setting would be similar to Ravnica's endless city. I guess to make it a little more different, it should explore the outlands some more with the gate towns as links to the outer planes, definitely a focus on planar adventures for lower levels.
I played through torment not too long ago, this was the first time that I talked my mortality into non-existence, I had no idea that could be done!
Faolyn
(she/her)
Well, both renown and piety are actual rules in the DMG, so I don't think they'd need to rename them for Planescape. And they'd be used for different things. Renown would be for Factions. Piety would be for deities. For simplicity's sake, I think the piety should be done by cleric domain, not by god. (Also, they should probably stick to the gods of the various D&D settings--minus the Eberron gods, since it's not official if they exist or not, or how they exist--and avoid using any real-world gods at all, no matter how ancient they are. Let individuals decide if they want Zeus or Osiris or Odin in their planes.)
I went over the guilds in Ravnica. They... vary quite a bit on what is involved at any particular rank, but that's OK, and the factions in Sigil should be similar.
I do get what you're saying, because belief can cause things to actually happen in Planescape.
A thought: change requires massive numbers of people believing things. If you want to affect a change, adapt the rules for creating objects in Limbo, from the DMG--but with much higher DCs. Like, in the hundreds or thousands. However, the more people who actively believe in the thing, then the easier it gets (the DC goes down or something like that).
As much as I love the setting a lot of it breaks down in play, especially the "philosophical" aspects. The mechanics of "belief is reality" as mentioned, for example. The factions are another example--their philosophies are caricatures, don't make sense, and most importantly don't inherently lead to game-able, adventuresome situations.
Second, the planes are many and they are infinite, and this makes a setting book inherently difficult. The planes and variety of planes don't make sense...if it's based on the alignment system why not just have 9? Large portions of the upper planes are just infinite pastoral landscapes where everyone gets along. Each plane has some idiosyncratic number of layers that don't really add much variety to the plane itself. 2e's solution was to spread the material over 4+ box sets (plus guides for the astral, ethereal, and inner), though some of this can be attributed to TSR's "business" practices of that era. But what was worse is that while all the box sets have interesting ideas, they are a) buried in mountains of prose, b) often not game-able (where is the conflict in bytopia? How does anyone survive the abyss? etc), and c) still only one little piece of infinity. Further, the designers often went too far in offering typical dnd-fare, so that for some reason you knew what kind of armor is available for sale in carceri or the name of the halfling tavern owner in arborea.
Finally, planescape is not planescape without DiTerlizzi's art. They might not need his art in particular for a new setting (though I'm assuming they still own it), but they do need someone with a unique vision to make it new and weird. If they do planescape in 5e's fantasy superhero art style (with 5e tieflings) I'm going to be sad.
That being said, here's what they could do: a Ravnica-style book covering Sigil, with new factions, and with modular adventures to go on both in the other planes and within sigil (especially undersigil). The book should be full of steampunk whimsy mixed with dark city aesthetics. The planar adventures would cover specific locations and provide examples how weird, dangerous, challenging environments for characters of all levels.
That being said, one thing I hope they do not do is actually cater to us old fans. I was disappointed to the reaction to the ravenloft book in some quarters, with fans saying it had betrayed the original in x, y, z ways, and what they wanted was the same setting but with an updated timeline. That's very backward looking, and especially silly given a setting like PS which deals in terms of infinities, both spatial and temporal. The ethos of PS is forward thinking and genre breaking, and I'd rather the designers and writers experiment and risk producing something not to people's tastes for the aim of producing something truly new.
That being said, I'm not sure anyone at wotc is up to that task, so I guess I'll have to go play Electric Bastionland.
Second, the planes are many and they are infinite, and this makes a setting book inherently difficult. The planes and variety of planes don't make sense...if it's based on the alignment system why not just have 9? Large portions of the upper planes are just infinite pastoral landscapes where everyone gets along. Each plane has some idiosyncratic number of layers that don't really add much variety to the plane itself. 2e's solution was to spread the material over 4+ box sets (plus guides for the astral, ethereal, and inner), though some of this can be attributed to TSR's "business" practices of that era. But what was worse is that while all the box sets have interesting ideas, they are a) buried in mountains of prose, b) often not game-able (where is the conflict in bytopia? How does anyone survive the abyss? etc), and c) still only one little piece of infinity. Further, the designers often went too far in offering typical dnd-fare, so that for some reason you knew what kind of armor is available for sale in carceri or the name of the halfling tavern owner in arborea.
Finally, planescape is not planescape without DiTerlizzi's art. They might not need his art in particular for a new setting (though I'm assuming they still own it), but they do need someone with a unique vision to make it new and weird. If they do planescape in 5e's fantasy superhero art style (with 5e tieflings) I'm going to be sad.
That being said, here's what they could do: a Ravnica-style book covering Sigil, with new factions, and with modular adventures to go on both in the other planes and within sigil (especially undersigil). The book should be full of steampunk whimsy mixed with dark city aesthetics. The planar adventures would cover specific locations and provide examples how weird, dangerous, challenging environments for characters of all levels.
That being said, one thing I hope they do not do is actually cater to us old fans. I was disappointed to the reaction to the ravenloft book in some quarters, with fans saying it had betrayed the original in x, y, z ways, and what they wanted was the same setting but with an updated timeline. That's very backward looking, and especially silly given a setting like PS which deals in terms of infinities, both spatial and temporal. The ethos of PS is forward thinking and genre breaking, and I'd rather the designers and writers experiment and risk producing something not to people's tastes for the aim of producing something truly new.
That being said, I'm not sure anyone at wotc is up to that task, so I guess I'll have to go play Electric Bastionland.
Faolyn
(she/her)
It's possible to assume that the philosophies are more or less just excuses and window dressing for powerful organizations of like-minded individuals.
Sadly, you'd have to go back in time and yell at Gygax for that. I wouldn't mind seeing 9 planes only.
They did stop using DiTerlizzi after a while. Whether you liked the replacement art or not doesn't matter; it just means that they can do it without him.
...I really prefer his art, though.
Sadly, that game seems a bit too expensive for me.
Demetrios1453
Hero
Urdlen and/or its minions attempting to burrow their way into the Golden Hills.
Epimetheus just being his normal stupid self and accidentally letting the evil in (remember, he accepted Pandora as a gift from the gods).
That's just two I came up with (other than your typical weather/creature issues found anywhere) without even digging up my copy of Planes of Conflict...
EDIT. Now that I think more on it - merchant disputes, given Bytopia being a mercantile hub. Whether your typical petty disputes, to merchants smuggling in things they shouldn't, to evil creatures smuggling themselves in as "cargo", to whole caravans just being evil creatures in disguise, just waiting for the perfect time to throw off their disguises and attack. The possibilities are pretty endless there...
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