When and why were the factions driven out of Sigil?

[Remathilis]

TSR also trashed every single setting they created. They Faction War'd Planescape, Pristine Tower'd Dark Sun, Vecna'd Ravenloft, brought down a cataclysm on Dragonlance and killed half a dozen gods in Toril, decided Oerth needed it's own world war . . . did they do anything to Spelljammer?

Nah. Nobody cares about Spelljammer...

To be complete, they Immortal War'd Mystara and Canceled Birthright. And Lets not even get into the Great Cataclysm of Ravenloft...

 

[Dausuul]

And we wouldn't have a tenth of the flavor and detail in those settings if they had. TSR could do setting support, something WotC isn't doing remotely near the levels of 2e or even a fraction of what we had for 3e.

Meh. I'm not convinced there was enough good stuff in the post-release materials to justify the havoc wrought upon the settings - havoc which would then persist into future editions and re-releases, as TSR/WotC felt it necessary to preserve the setting's established lore, however crappy that lore might be.

I also think setting detail is overrated. In my opinion, a good D&D setting should have giant unexplored areas on the map, and grand mysteries that are never "canonically" resolved, so that DMs can fill in those blanks with their own ideas. Every time a new release fills in some blanks, it narrows the scope of the setting; it also creates a headache for DMs running established campaigns in that setting, since some of the new material may clash with what the DM has created.

Novel tie-ins, if treated as "canonical," are the worst, because fantasy fiction has a long tradition of calamitous events and world-altering plotlines. Which is fine... in a novel. But any D&D setting with novel tie-ins, unless the tie-ins are rigidly controlled, is going to be torn apart and rebuilt - repeatedly, if the tie-ins keep going long enough. Dragonlance is the poster child for this problem, but as Nymrohd pointed out, TSR did it to pretty much every setting they published.

Each of those cataclysms is likely to a) trash the setting's original concept, and b) sever ties with the setting's existing fanbase, since "their" versions of the world - the ones their campaigns are set in - are now fundamentally incompatible with the "official" version on which all future releases will be based.

...Hmm. Now I'm thinking about ways to avoid these problems while still providing support for a popular setting...

 

[Piratecat]

I think all the Planescape expansions up to Hellbound were superb. It remains my most loved and most used campaign setting. I'm of the opinion that a game like 4e would port over to it just beautifully; in some ways, I think I could run an even better 4e Planescape game than I did my 2e and 3e games.

Crap. Now I want to. See what you've done?

Planescape support eventually weakened, I think, but for a while they were cutting edge in both quality and design.

 

[Dyson Logos]

In my opinion, changing a game setting through supplements is a great idea. It allows game masters and players to decide which VERSION of a setting they like best.

Prefer the "changing world" of Dark Sun 2 to the "quest for survival" of Dark Sun 1? No problem. Pick the one you prefer and play it.

Same thing for every setting. This particular change allows GMs who weren't fond of the existing structures of Sigil to play in a more chaotic, changing Sigil without having to deal with people telling them "that's not how it works". And the GMs who love the original factions and setup of Planescape can just ignore this material.

Don't like the disarray of the Imperium after the assassination of Emperor Strephon by Duke Dulinor? No problem, you can play in a pre-assassination environment instead of following that part of the Traveller timeline.

Fourth Corporate War get in your craw and ruin CyberPunk for you? Ignore it! Or do you want a more military style of game with more open fighting between the corporations? Then run with it.

Multiple versions of a setting are a boon, not a bane.

 

[Primal]

TSR also trashed every single setting they created. They Faction War'd Planescape, Pristine Tower'd Dark Sun, Vecna'd Ravenloft, brought down a cataclysm on Dragonlance and killed half a dozen gods in Toril, decided Oerth needed it's own world war . . . did they do anything to Spelljammer?

I can't recall any of them (except for Dragonlance) being trashed and convoluted to the degree WotC did with 4E FR...

 

[Oryan77]

Personally, I'd like to keep them as if that had never occured, as they made the multiverse much more interesting, as I loved the idea that "belief" is what's important

There is no reason you can't do this in 4e. It sounds like you have the original 2e PS box sets, and that's all you need. All of the PS books are pre-Faction War. So there won't be any confusion there as far as the setting goes. Just don't run the Faction War adventure and you won't deal with any post Faction stuff.

I've been running a 3.5 pre-Faction War game for 8 years. The great thing about PS is it was mostly fluff. Just because the official 3.5 Manual of the Planes book might say one thing, as a DM, you are allowed to ignore it and use the info from the 2e PS books

I always tell players, "If you read planar info in any 3e books, consider that to be what Prime scholars have written about the planes. It may contradict what you might read in a 2e Planescape book or what you learn when playing in our campaign. If it does, assume those prime scholars are wrong...only a planar knows the real truth."

 

[avin]

The big question these days, I think, is: where are the Dabus?

As far as I remember there's no mention to it on 4E. The closest things are the keepers of Gloomwrought.

 

[Shemeska]

All of the PS books are pre-Faction War.

IIRC, 'The Inner Planes' was post-FW. In publication schedule as well as in-game content.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Variously:

a) Aye, it's so damned annoying they trashed so many good settings! :/ Bloody wasteful snd uneedeful. Change is one thing, but major revisions/wipeouts = BAD except when the *players/DM do it*

b) HEY!! I care about Spelljammer, see my signature

b) Agreed, what the hell did they do with Dabus in 4th ed? There's just vague mentioning of civil servant-ish things in the Manual of the Planes, and iirc, somethting said someplace about the dabus being driven off for being part of faction plots?

c) FLuff for the older stuff was awesome!!

 

[Oryan77]

IIRC, 'The Inner Planes' was post-FW. In publication schedule as well as in-game content.

The Inner Planes is one book that I haven't read much of. From what I have read & used from it, I don't remember there being anything related to post-Faction War fluff.

Is there actually content in The Inner Planes that a DM would need to know is the result of the Faction War? I'm just curious what it might be.