Planescape (+) What would you want for 5e Planescape?

[Kobold Avenger]

I want to see a rewrite/redesign of the Planetouched races, including Tieflings, Aasimar and Genasi. While maybe not the random table of abilities (random table of appearance traits can remain) or Dragon Magazine Skills and Powers, but something more like Tasha's Cauldron pick your ability bonuses, then choose a package of abilities that's usually spells (1 paragraph each), and pick a resistance/natural attack trait.

As for Sigil, I feel they can either push the timeline back, or push past Faction War and Die! Vecna! Die! where Sigil is somehow back to the way it was before those events.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The one thing that Planescape always desperately needed was more stuff that works as plot hooks.
It's supposedly the setting where everything is possible, but as always with these things, it ends up actually being there's nothing to do.

The Factions are all cool, but they mostly have no goals. The Harmonium can just randomly terrorize some village because of ORDER! and Doomguards can randomly decide to wreck somethig, but even then there's no real plan or purpose behind it, other than order and destruction being their own reward.
What does a Dustman or a Cypher want? What kind of things are they working on that gets them into conflict with other factions?

Planescape has incredible style and texture, but under the surface there is actually no substance.

The Harmonium are Authoritarian for the sake of Authoritarianism, they believe that's the only way to bring their version of peace to the Multiverse. The Doomguard are divided amongst how fast the Multiverse is decaying, some think it's happening too slow, others think it's fine and others think it's happening too quickly.

The Dustman are a twisted version of Buddhists they believe in the True Death as their form of Nirvana, and some would like push the multiverse towards that. The Ciphers are Taoists, the Cadence of the Planes is the Tao, and they often bring up their version of Wu Wei and they believe in inner harmony.

 

[Stormonu]

I want to see a rewrite/redesign of the Planetouched races, including Tieflings, Aasimar and Genasi. While maybe not the random table of abilities (random table of appearance traits can remain) or Dragon Magazine Skills and Powers, but something more like Tasha's Cauldron pick your ability bonuses, then choose a package of abilities that's usually spells (1 paragraph each), and pick a resistance/natural attack trait.

As for Sigil, I feel they can either push the timeline back, or push past Faction War and Die! Vecna! Die! where Sigil is somehow back to the way it was before those events.

I think those three races have been a bit locked down and to change them now would probably go over poorly.

Could, however, create a “planetouched” generic race that has a couple tables for random appearance (and possibly a linked ability - for example, solid black eyes might give you Darkvision, flowing glowing hair may give you telepathy or somesuch). Could have up to three tables, so you can have up to three minor traits. Leave it with a “choose two ability scores to increase by 1” along with the three traits (or “build your own” guidelines), and I think we’d have quite the lineage that could handle anything from an Aelfiem touched, to a Hellborn to a reborn Hadesian through a clockwork infused to a slaadson.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

They kept some of it, but they didn't include Necropolis, or of Malocchio ousting Gabrielle. So to me that suggests that they'd likely keep Sigil pre-Faction War.

Also, I just remembered, that Tasha's specifically referenced "Guildmaster Rhys," so that's another good sign.

I'd be surprised if they kept all of the factions... it just seems like a lot to detail, especially if Sigil itself only takes up a portion of the book. I think it more likely that this will be set after the Faction War, but some of the factions have returned while others are gone for good. They may even consolidate some old factions into entirely new ones.

 

[Parmandur]

I'd be surprised if they kept all of the factions... it just seems like a lot to detail, especially if Sigil itself only takes up a portion of the book. I think it more likely that this will be set after the Faction War, but some of the factions have returned while others are gone for good. They may even consolidate some old factions into entirely new ones.

Ravnica included Ten Guilds, and Theros had 15 gods spelt out in some detail as central to a PC's identity. Ravnica spends 70 pages just zooming in on the Guilds, including ~6-8 pages focusing on each Guild. Theros spent 50 pages on the Piety system and gods, with 3 pages for each god as part of that. That's before the adventure generation material that focuses in on the guilds and gods.

I would expect a similar coverage for the Planescape factions.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Ravnica included Ten Guilds, and Theros had 15 gods spelt out in some detail as central to a PC's identity. Ravnica spends 70 pages just zooming in on the Guilds, including ~6-8 pages focusing on each Guild. Theros spent 50 pages on the Piety system and gods, with 3 pages for each god as part of that. That's before the adventure generation material that focuses in on the guilds and gods.

I would expect a similar coverage for the Planescape factions.

I doubt it. I'm in the camp of thinking a Planescape book would also be a manual of the planes book (but not Spelljammer), and that means covering a ton of ground, from the Inner Planes to the Outer Planes and everything inbetween, including Sigil and the Outlands. I know people would prefer them kept up into two book (and they probably will skip the Feywild/Shadowfel) but I'm definitely thinking they're covering them all in one.

If they do cover all of that, I don't see how they could cover 12 factions with 6 pages per one. If they did feel like they need to print them all, I'd say they get more like 2 pages each, and more likely even less (2 factions per page).

Ravnica and Theros are unique for being pretty small in scope settings, so there is a lot of room to go deep with their gods and guilds. A Planescape book kind of needs to go wide, so I don't see how they can give the factions nearly as much detail.

 

[Malmuria]

Separately, if they didn't want to do Sigil or a comprehensive manual of the planes, I think a plane-hopping adventure module would be potentially interesting. Perhaps a Tales From the Infinite Staircase with short adventures of various levels.

 

[Sithlord]

I love sigil. But I would love to see other cities developed just as much. The city of brass. I would like to see the elemental planes made just as important and see the genies and elementals. developed just as much as the demons and devils. Want to write more but I got a game to play in. And as I almost always DM I am looking forward to this.

 

[Zaukrie]

I love sigil. But I would love to see other cities developed just as much. The city of brass. I would like to see the elemental planes made just as important and see the genies and elementals. developed just as much as the demons and devils. Want to write more but I got a game to play in. And as I almost always DM I am looking forward to this.

Not that they are from WotC, but there are several versions of City of Brass out there......IIRC.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Not that they are from WotC, but there are several versions of City of Brass out there......IIRC.

There are a lot, but a lot of those do not have the same level of professionalism in art and layout as WotC 5E. Although I think PAthfinder did an AP there that is pretty good.