Why do most groups avoid planar games?

[Psion]

I'm still waiting.

Getting snarky is not going to advance the dialog. Please try to be civil and consider my points. I know I am challenging your perceptions, but please try not to take it personally and consider that I am someone who is actually playing a planar game.

I addressed this point when I addressed assuming that the only mode of travel will be high level spells.

Isn't that what common sense is? The difference between 'common sense' and an opinion is only that in one case, the assumptions are well, common.

Common sense, to me, implies that the result has some validity. I would refer to what you present as a common misconception.

No, but I would consider them unusual. Let's be clear about what we are talking about. I'm fairly sure that in some campaigns might occassionally feature an otherworldly portal from time to time before 12th level, though I think that its far from a given that that is common. But that isn't at all what is being discussed here..

Is it not planar adventuring? You seem to admit that these sorts of adventures exist in some numbers; their GMs can utilize the same resource that long term planar games would. further, such an adventure often it the launching point for a planar campaign. The length of such a foray is entirely up the the GM and the dichotomy between planar and standard games is not so stark as you suggest. A campaign can include any number, length, or proportion of planar forays.

(Indeed, multiple of the ideas Phil's products have the best potential when introduced to an existing prime campaign, so I did not read that presumption in at all.)

Additionally, your assertion is that most planar games are 12th+ level. But yet here, you state that you are assuming only games that are entirely planar in nature. Surely, you aren't suggesting that all planar games are games that STARTED above 12th level? That is even more assuredly not the case. I can't say I have ever heard of a single session, adventure or campaign, that started in such circumstances. Even dungeon doesn't do that. Dungeon's high level planar romps start on the prime.

I think it's pretty clear that what is being discussed is not the occassional ethereal jaunt or wizardly or haunted demi-plane, but rather campaigns which revolve around planar travel as a central feature of the campaign. I very seriously doubt many such campaigns involve low to medium level characters.

Phil did not say so explicitly, and again, I think if you play 1 adventure or 10 in the planes you can use planar material. But even presuming you are correct:

You may have your doubts, but I think neither homegrown campaigns nor published campaigns and adventures bear your thoughts on the issue out. Indeed, a vast majority of Planescape adventures were less than 10th level. Does there exist any model for planar campaigning that is as ubiquitous as Planescape?

No, I assume exactly what you assume, and for the very reason you assume it...
(...)
Bingo. That goes right back into my point. Most DM's have a hard time managing things when players get that much freedom to travel anywhere they want. It becomes increasely hard to prepare anything in advance and keep track of all the things that might happen or all the things players might do and all the stacked up bonuses and defenses. Managing high level campaigns is often just a head ache, and planar campaigns are more often high level than not.

So why would you assume that most planar adventures would be those that would be the most difficult to prepare for? That simply does not follow. This sounds like a good justification for why you would not want to run high level games (and it certainly is a challenge), but it plays precisely against your assertion that all planar games are 12th level and above, for few GMs would want to take on such a challenge.

Ok, sure. Conceivably, you could throw a single Imp, Mephit, Hordling, Howler, Hellhound, Rutterkin, or Dretch at the players. But such creatures are the Orcs of the otherworld.

And balors are the great wyrms of the otherworld.

I think that illustrates my point there...

Are you suggesting that that image is an uncommon one?

Don't engage in false dichotomy. The notion I am challenging is that all planar adventuring is level 12+. That does not mean I am saying that all planar adventuring is less than that. Just like prime games, planar games occur at a variety of levels.

It's apparent to me that to you, planar adventures are high level affairs, and you don't like high level games, so that is probably why you choose not to play them. But the point here is that the people who actually are playing planar campaigns do not predominantly share your assumptions, so the presumption that actual planar campaigns are predominantly high level is false.

The question becomes though, if they are the stalking grounds of mundane things, why bother? The issue here is not whether or not some people run planar centric campaigns, or even whether some people run planar centric low level campaigns, the issue is why don't most people run planar centric campaigns.

Again, thats setting up a false dichotomy. Just because they are not instantly lethal to all PCs does not mean that they are mundane, or even not dangerous. But even at levels quite a bit before 12th, you might find yourselves setting up encounters that might make you question the verisimitude of including many such creatures can exist alongside your typical faux medieval society and natural world. But when you put yourself in another setting, another ecology altogether, all the sudden it is no longer laughable.

Of course the sorts of encounters in one plane are far from the only consideration that might make planar adventuring appealing. Settings, environments, societies, and implications of widely different physical laws or situations could alse be reasons a given plane appeals to me.

But I could make a widely variant setting like Dark Sun and get the same effect. The crux of any adventuring that is called planar adventuring is that you might encounter multiple such places over the course of the campaign. This gives the GM a great deal of latitude in setting up interesting and fresh situations and challenges for the players.

Of course, I sense that this is not really a question you are interested in hearing the answer too. You are obviously happy not planar adventuring and I have no real need to sell you on it. I can only tell you the advantages I see in it.

My point here, rather, it to disabuse you of the notion that there is some staggering predominance of actual planar games are high level.

 

[SWBaxter]

In discussing types of adventures with some people I had (again) the notion that planar games are boring thrown in my face. Time and again I encounter people that feel that planar games are either boring, too weird, or not fun. Any ideas why that is? In my opinion planar campaigns can be more exciting since they're open to a large number of unusual and non-standard adventures.

The planes can't both be unusual and also be used for a large number of adventures. I rarely run planar adventures specifically because I want them to be really special when I do run them. Of course, I also don't use the "everything-including-the-kitchen-sink" default cosmology, so in terms of setting the characters don't usually look at the planes as a place to go and see weird stuff.

I've played in campaigns where the planes were used a lot, and rather than being particular unusual or non-standard they just became another place to go and adventure. So for me personally, less is more and I'll stick to making planar adventures very rare.

 

[The Shaman]

For my part, the Great Wheel simply isn't a plausible setting - it strains my credulity to the point where I find the whole thing kind of silly and over-the-top.*

The cosmology of my homebrew world consists of the material plane (the Mortal Realm), a transitive plane (the Shining Land, the home of many spirit beings, the functional equivalent of the Ethereal Plane), and the outer plane (the Abode of the Gods).

Adventurers may find themselves travelling to the Shining Land from time to time at lower levels, as there are gates between the Mortal Realm and the Shining Land, but a journey to the Abode of the Gods is an epic-level proposition.

*Why? A finite Prime Material will always be at the mercy and whim of an infinite multiverse. Now some may see that as a good plot device - a precarious balance, the will of the gods, &c. &c. - but personally I think it relies too much on GM handwaving to be sustainable: for example, a GM who postulates a deific barrier that prevents fiends from invading the Prime Material en masse but still uses them as monsters and especially BBEGs? It violates my suspension of disbelief - I prefer that my game-worlds live on the edge of Occam's Razor.

 

[S'mon]

I'm currently running a 'planar' PBEM game where the solo PC is a 4th level Fighter, and it's going very well - but I'm using Parrallel Primes, Sliders or Moorcock (or CJ Cheryh's Chronicles of Morgaine) style, not the Great Wheel - which I definitely don't think is a suitable setting for anything less than Epic/Deity campaigning. Like Sliders or Moorcock's heroes, the heroine has no control of where she goes, only when she goes - so it tends to involve jumping from one bad situation into a worse one... great fun to GM.

 

[Shemeska]

I think it's pretty clear that what is being discussed is not the occassional ethereal jaunt or wizardly or haunted demi-plane, but rather campaigns which revolve around planar travel as a central feature of the campaign. I very seriously doubt many such campaigns involve low to medium level characters.

Ran a 3 year, 3e planescape* campaign with the players starting at 10th level.

I just started another campaign, again 3e planescape*, with the PCs starting out at 8th level. Not wet behind the ears n00bs, but they're not tossing around much more than a fireball at that stage.

And as has been said, none of the Planescape adventures ran higher than level 12. WotC had two planar modules 'Lord of the Iron Fortress' and 'Bastion of Broken Souls' that were mid to high level. However that's the exception really in published material it seems.

* when I say 3e Planescape in this instance I'm not making a distinction between Great Wheel, 'core cosmology', or Planescape as a seperate product line. Though the unique flavor of PS as a seperate product line does seep into my games, but according to other people including my players, so does Call of Cthulhu.

 

[Shemeska]

For my part, the Great Wheel simply isn't a plausible setting - it strains my credulity to the point where I find the whole thing kind of silly and over-the-top.*

*Why? A finite Prime Material will always be at the mercy and whim of an infinite multiverse. Now some may see that as a good plot device - a precarious balance, the will of the gods, &c. &c. - but personally I think it relies too much on GM handwaving to be sustainable: for example, a GM who postulates a deific barrier that prevents fiends from invading the Prime Material en masse but still uses them as monsters and especially BBEGs? It violates my suspension of disbelief - I prefer that my game-worlds live on the edge of Occam's Razor.

The prime material in the Great Wheel isn't finite. It's infinite. Individual prime material worlds like Oerth, Athas, Ortho, Toril, etc are finite, but there's an infinite number of them out there spinning around in the darkness.

It's also the incubator, so to speak, of the souls and belief that creates the outer planes and their denizens. Why invade the prime in an organized way if just sitting back and trying to corrupt it behind the scenes leads to more evil and more petitioners/souls/larvae heading your way?

 

[Umbran]

I wonder if perhaps the best way to get a real answer here is to ask the question a bit in reverse.

What would DMs get out of running a game centered on other planes that they wouldn't get otherwise? As a corrollary, ask what things become more difficult to get in a planaar game than in a standard one.

Assuming a reasonably educated DM, in the end, the things they get out of the planar game are outweighed by the things they lose.

 

[The Shaman]

The prime material in the Great Wheel isn't finite. It's infinite. Individual prime material worlds like Oerth, Athas, Ortho, Toril, etc are finite, but there's an infinite number of them out there spinning around in the darkness.

Is this listed in the 3.5 DMG, or is it a Planescape thing?

It's also the incubator, so to speak, of the souls and belief that creates the outer planes and their denizens. Why invade the prime in an organized way if just sitting back and trying to corrupt it behind the scenes leads to more evil and more petitioners/souls/larvae heading your way?

Why corrupt it behind the scenes when you can dominate it outright?

 

[Psion]

Assuming a reasonably educated DM, in the end, the things they get out of the planar game are outweighed by the things they lose.

I don't think you can fairly universalize this sort of argument. Sure, you can make a case that one sort of campaigning lacks some sort of attribute and grants others, but the relative "enjoyment" value of any of these attributes would vary widely from group to group or from GM to GM. So, any conclusion you come to would only be valid for you and your group (if that, but if you have a realistic estimation, it still might be a worthwhile exercise to evaluate if it is "for you.") But as a tool for validating your gaming choices as objectively pure and true, it's pretty much worthless.

On the other hand, I suspect Phil might be wondering why particular potential customers aren't interested in his products. Which is probably more useful to him in the long run than an argument for self-validation between planar fans and anti-fans.

 

[Psion]

Is this listed in the 3.5 DMG, or is it a Planescape thing?

It's certainly not a planescape thing. Planescape fell into lock-step with the (IMO) excrable Spelljammer cosmology for the prime, in which each prime was a single, bounded crystal sphere.

I'm sort of glad that Lords of Madness officially put the stake in that take on the prime.

But really, infinite planes -- or lack thereof -- are not implicit in planar gaming. Some like it. Some don't. Some could care less and don't give the implications a second though for the positive or negative.