Wombat said:
I always looked upon plane-hopping to be the most munchkiny aspect of D&D. Don't even try to be like anything basic or mythological, go around slaugthering gods (or at least crashing on their home turf), creating bizarre sub-divisions of time and space for no apparent reason.
If the people you were playing Planescape with were doing this, they weren't playing the setting in the way it was intended (not to say people can't have fun doing that, but the author explicitly says that's not what Planescape is for).
I like Planescape for a lot of reasons:
Sigil: The City of Doors is still the most flavorful of any city ever in any WotC campaign world. It's a Neutral Ground in the afterlife, where the angels and devils can meet and draw up treaties. Where you can see Slaad behving at least semi-civilly, where you can run into any being imaginable, and with portals that lead almost anywhere. Where information, be it the location of a portal or the plans of the Baatezu is the most precious comodity.
Belief: In Planescape, belief shapes reality. Belief is
power. The gods play their intricate, never ending games with each other, attempting to get more believers. Wars are fought over belief. Entire cities can be moved by belief.
Epic: Even when you're not in "epic levels," Planescape feels epic. Just look at Dead Gods, or the relatively low level Fires of Dis.
Story: Planescape wasn't a static setting that never changed - but it didn't have un uneding line of novels either. Instead, plots and stories were imbeded in the supplements. They were (almost) never big, but you would often find a reference to Fires of Dis in Planes of Chaos or the resolution of a plot hook in another book, or a mention of an NPC that stands alone (but the NPC was mentioned in another book too, and now you know what happened to him as a result of the hook surrounding him that time). It was
very well done. You wouldn't even know you were missing another book in which somethig was mentioned. But if you had both... it just gave the setting a living, breathing, feel.
No Uber-NPCs: There was no Elminster or uber-NPCs to make the PCs feel worthless. Sure, there was the Lady of Pain, but she just kept the peace in Sigil. Actually, there were TONS of uber-NPCs, but only if you define them stat-wise. There was so much stuff that the PCs could accomplish (especially with belief, not raw personal power, being so important), that the world could be significantly impacted by PCs.
Yeah, it could be impacted by PCs: That's another point in and of itself. Look at the adventures we have now. Even high level ones, like Lord of the Iron Fortess, dont' change D&D. In Planecape, you could. In Fires of Dis, Menasus slid from Arcadia to Mechanus (a change still reflected in the 3e MotP). In Faces of Evil, the PCs could possibly have robbed the Baatezu and Tanar'ri of their Teleport Without Error powers. In Dead Gods, well, that's a huge spoiler, but the impact was felt as far as the Book of Vile Darkness. And DMs were
encouraged to do the same with their home-brew adventures, and the flavor of the setting was designed
to accomodate doing that kind of huge epic, world-shaking stuff.
NPCs: It had some of the most memorable NPCs ever. Shemeshka the Marauder, A'kin the Friendly Fiend, Tripicus, Rowan Darkwood, Hashkar.
Faces of Sigil is still one of the most unique, and best, supplements ever written, IMO.