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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 2184616" data-attributes="member: 4937">Yeah, considering how I've said over and over again that I'm not saying that you are wrong, I'm just saying that I don't like.  The question was why do so many DM's not like planar campaigns, not why is it wrong to like planar campaigns.  See the difference?  If you want to run it your way, fine, do so.  If you can't understand the difference between me having a different opinion than you, and me saying you are wrong, this discussion probably is futile.I fully agree.  Which is why I don't run planar centered campaigns, but instead only would occasionally jump over thier when I wanted to do something metaphysical that I just didn't felt could be made part of the setting.   Whereas, you do not have a problem with turning the planes to into a prime game with a different window dressing, and some don't have a problem with a hack-n-slash game of epic proportions.  That's fine and good, but it doesn't explain why many players do have problems with that, and that was the topic.Planscape hater?  I have as much or more respect for Di Terlizzi as anyone.  After all, I like his fairy tale stuff too.  His work leaves me in awe at the breadth and depth of his talents.   And I've always admired the way Monte Cook's can combine his old-school rolicking unashamed hack-n-slash sensibilities with a carefully crafted setting filled with intimate detail.  But admiring the craft that goes into producing a setting is not nearly the same as wanting to run a game in that setting, and until you can make such subtle distinctions you are going to have a really hard time with me.That's the part of Planescape that I most liked and which I think is most likely to be difficult to do in actual play.  You are basically right in that what I like about the setting is the highly surreal and the fact that it is a setting in which ideas are made manifest as objects.  But, understand that in my ordinary fantasy games, ideas are made manifest as objects.  I mean the whole point as far as I'm concerned of fantasy is it lets you explore philosophy at little more easily by taking abstract things and making them more concrete.  The difference for me is that on the planes objects are to me ALWAYS manifested ideas.  The planes are where I would go for a setting in which NOTHING is mundane.  If only some things are fantastic, then its not that different from 'normal' fantasy.   But Oryan77 is right in that there is no way that I could run such an alien setting because _I_ couldn't relate enough to it, much less get the PC's to relate to it.  Which is why I read every page of the Planescape books with alot of fascination and alot of admiration, but ultimately decided that as cool as the setting was it belonged to the class of game settings which could not be run on the long term without betraying the very thing that I thought made them cool.  To that roster, you could add other highly internal metaphysical games like In Nomine and Vampire the Masquerade, which I'm sure alot of people had fun playing, but few probably played in the spirit of the setting.  I happen to know for a fact that most VtM games ended up playing like Supers in Goth Clothing, and most players ended up min/maxing and trying to become more vampiric rather than struggling to preserve thier humanity.   In VtM, the problem was that not only is it really hard to stay intrested in the daily horror of becoming a monster, but the rules set didn't actually reward the style of play that the flavor text of the setting seemed geared for.  The same thing may well be true of D&D, which handles hack and slash really well, but seems really poorly suited to handle metaphysics and character psyche.</blockquote>

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