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

[Urriak Uruk]

Fewer Factions than Theros has gods. Most people will only have to think about their characters Faction, and their specific rivalries. The point is that they are a story engine, thst can give form to Adventures in a very wide open space.

Like I said before, Theros doesn't need to cover nearly as much ground as Planescape does. If anything, the writers of Theros were struggling how to fill more pages with material. Planescape will have the opposite problem; what material can they put in the book, and what needs to be cut.

Now, I'll concede that if the factions are tied explicitly to specific planes, then it makes more sense to give them material. The Dustmen for example could serve as a dual-purpose section on not just their faction, but on how to survive and run adventures in the Negative Energy Plane. But if they are used (as they largely have) as just factions in Sigil, I think they need to be consolidated or given sparse detail.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

This is 5e we are talking about. The most on brand thing would be to include it all but at a level of detail that makes it useful for almost no one.

I really do have the opposite experience to some folks here... the 5e setting books, with the exception of possibly Wildemount, are extremely useful to me. Even if I never run a game there, their monsters and tables can be applied to any game and are great for getting my creativity flowing.

 

[Parmandur]

I really do have the opposite experience to some folks here... the 5e setting books, with the exception of possibly Wildemount, are extremely useful to me. Even if I never run a game there, their monsters and tables can be applied to any game and are great for getting my creativity flowing.

Wildemount has a lot of detailed BPCs to steal, many of whom never even appeared in the show.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

Sharn got a chapter of over 30 pages, I would expect something similar for Sigil, which is still a very wide open sketch.

Each campaign setting has been different from the previous
Not a lot of patterns

They might give Sigil a lot of pages. Or it might just get a 2-3 page spread

Factions have been done. In the Realms and Ravnica. Planescape needs to do something else
The unique thing about Planescape is adventuring in the afterlife. Playing a dead character and running dungeons in heaven or hell. That'd be a good hook
That could be the unique mechanic like dragonmarks or dark gifts. Rules for dead characters
Give advice on designing new demiplanes and realms inside planes. And lots of adventures for the living and the dead

 

[Parmandur]

Each campaign setting has been different from the previous
Not a lot of patterns

They might give Sigil a lot of pages. Or it might just get a 2-3 page spread

Factions have been done. In the Realms and Ravnica. Planescape needs to do something else
The unique thing about Planescape is adventuring in the afterlife. Playing a dead character and running dungeons in heaven or hell. That'd be a good hook
That could be the unique mechanic like dragonmarks or dark gifts. Rules for dead characters
Give advice on designing new demiplanes and realms inside planes. And lots of adventures for the living and the dead

Discounting SCAG and WIldemont (both outsourced), there is actually a great deal of pattern in terms of structure and page allocation.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

Discounting SCAG and WIldemont (both outsourced), there is actually a great deal of pattern in terms of structure and page allocation.

Other than RISING FROM THE LAST WAR, which book received a twenty-page deep dive into one area?

And the Sharn pages came at the expense of longer descriptions of the nations. That can't happen in a planar book, as each plane needs more description than in the DMG. A single page on Bytopia or Ghenna isn't enough to make them interesting

Sigil is fine but it's not a place to have adventures, like Sharn
It's a place to go between adventures
Move the focus from the city and onto the selling feature of the setting: the sixteen infinite planes full of divine realms, afterlives, and fantastic vistas

 

[Parmandur]

Other than RISING FROM THE LAST WAR, which book received a twenty-page deep dive into one area?

And the Sharn pages came at the expense of longer descriptions of the nations. That can't happen in a planar book, as each plane needs more description than in the DMG. A single page on Bytopia or Ghenna isn't enough to make them interesting

Sigil is fine but it's not a place to have adventures, like Sharn
It's a place to go between adventures
Move the focus from the city and onto the selling feature of the setting: the sixteen infinite planes full of divine realms, afterlives, and fantastic vistas

Chapter 3 of Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica is a ~22 page guide to the Tenth District, a zoomed in area of the Ecumenopolis that is very comparable to the Sharn Chapter in RftLW. For Theros, the "known world" is very small, so Chapter 3 is a Gazateer of everywhere. In Ravrnloft, Chapter 3 is a rundown of all of the Domains of Dread.

 

[Malmuria]

Sigil is fine but it's not a place to have adventures, like Sharn

Sigil (and Sharn and cities in general) are great and classic places to have adventures.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Each campaign setting has been different from the previous
Not a lot of patterns

They might give Sigil a lot of pages. Or it might just get a 2-3 page spread

Factions have been done. In the Realms and Ravnica. Planescape needs to do something else
The unique thing about Planescape is adventuring in the afterlife. Playing a dead character and running dungeons in heaven or hell. That'd be a good hook
That could be the unique mechanic like dragonmarks or dark gifts. Rules for dead characters
Give advice on designing new demiplanes and realms inside planes. And lots of adventures for the living and the dead

That's not Planescape, beings in afterlives such as petitioners are completely an afterthought in Planescape. The factions and Sigil are an essential element about Planescape and it's identity.

Playing dead characters that's Ghostwalk's thing.

 

[Sithlord]

That's not Planescape, beings in afterlives such as petitioners are completely an afterthought in Planescape. The factions and Sigil are an essential element about Planescape and it's identity.

Playing dead characters that's Ghostwalk's thing.

Planescape was about finding portals and keys to cool new worlds and strange places. And then interacting with people with different cultures and customers. Some quite bizarre. Factions were a part of it. But they could easily be background, but they were there and a tool for the DM to use as a saw fit for an adventure, but in sigil they were way more integral to the city. There force was a major presence I sigil.