Why Planescape?

[Kobold Avenger]

Here's my input Planescape, was the best quality campaign setting in 2e. It had many tongue and cheek references. And it was the one of the few campaign settings that actively tried to encourage role-playing, a lot of the characters you faced were far more powerful than you (like most fiends when your lower level), and so you actually had to talk to them.

It also gave you the freedom as a DM to develope a lot of things and come up with your own strange places.

 

[Zappo]

Missing on Planescape because of the cant would be a real pity.
You can avoid it entirely in your games and the setting will be mostly the same. Since it's incredibly tough to translate well to Italian, we have never used it.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I love the cant! I might be in the minority, I guess. Just something about calling someone "barmy" or a "bubber", or saying "sod off." Just a few games ago the PCs were looking for an NPC informant in Sigil and heard that he was "Out of Touch" which raised a few eyebrows and they wondered what he could be doing on the Inner Planes.

I think the point is to use it in moderation and make certain characters stand out as far as their background is concerned. For example, noone speaks Cant in my games outside Sigil, and its mainly used by those from the Lower Ward and the Hive ward, with exceptions like "canny" and "cutter" and "blood" being used throughout. So, if they see someone on, say, Acheron speaking Cant, they know he's from Sigil and small subtleties like that.

And I just love the "alternate" Cant presented in the back of (I think) The Planewalker's Handbook.

 

[Pants]

I'm not sure where you get the idea that the fiends of PS were non-evil.[/b]

I never said they weren't.
More like humans, just always evil. It's a minor gripe and easily fixed.

They were all scheming, malevolent and generally really nasty. There weren't fiends who ran coffee shops with 'evil' coffee. If a fiend ran a shop, it was something really unpleasant, and you had to be damn careful about what you were buying, and what you were paying for it with. And the fiend had some appropriately fiendish reason for running it.

I just can't get over the idea of a Fiend running a shop of any kind.

ThirdWizard: Finally someone else who doesn't mind the cant. I thought the cant would actually add flavor to the game. If used in moderation, it could be pretty cool.

 

[Orius]

Hm good point. The Lady fits the 'logic' of PS but the Chosen seem to be uber-NPC's. Although, I will say that if anyone uses either as a slapdown character, then they are being misused.
Also, The Lady seems kinda Deus Ex Machina to me, the powerful entity that can beat you no matter what. Which is essentially a god, however the Lady takes an active role in rooting out those who piss her off.

Well, like I said, she's not there for the characters to beat the crap out of. That's why she was never given stats. She's basically there as a way to prevent PCs from taking potentially campaign-breaking actions (that is taking control of Sigil, doing things that might knock it off to another plane, etc.) Also, some people have differing ideas of just how powerful she is.

So, if I ever run a PS campaign (and I will... someday) it'll be very different from Canon PS. Very little focus on Sigil at all, no tanar'ri or baatezu and only one Prime.

Any planar campaign can pretty much ignore Sigil, actually. PS put a lot of emphasis on Sigil because Sigil's portals made plane-hopping easier or more accessible for PCs, espcially ones that might not have some of the magic necessary. You can pretty much throw out the factions and their conflicts if you want (I think the Lady did just that in Faction War, in fact).

And by no tanar'ri or baatezu, do you mean no fiends as portrayed in PS, or no fiends period?

 

[Pants]

Well, like I said, she's not there for the characters to beat the crap out of. That's why she was never given stats. She's basically there as a way to prevent PCs from taking potentially campaign-breaking actions (that is taking control of Sigil, doing things that might knock it off to another plane, etc.) [/b]

Restricting creativity?
j/k

Also, some people have differing ideas of just how powerful she is.

I believe what I read on the WotC boards was that she should be able to beat level 100 characters with ease.
That is by no means, official though, just fan perspective.

And by no tanar'ri or baatezu, do you mean no fiends as portrayed in PS, or no fiends period?

No fiends as portrayed in PS, they're demons and devils dagnabbit.

 

[shadow]

I could never get into Planescape. Essentially, I thought that it was just too weird. The whole planar concept in itself was a little complicated, but Planescape was downright surreal.
The three things that turned me off about the setting (besides the overall bizareness) were the fiends, the factions, and the cant.
Originally fiends were fairly generic. I'm probably one of the few people who liked it that way. They had an aura of mystery and malevolence around them. Planescape changed all of that. Now we learned that fiends were just another high level evil creature. They were a lot less demonic and evil when you can meet them in the local tavern. Besides they're all too engaged in some stupid perpetual war with themselves to be much of a threat to the rest of the world. Well, so much for evil incarnate.
The factions never made much sense to me. They essentially seemed like philosophy clubs that granted members supernatural powers. Why exactly are they fighting one another? What exactly are their tenets? Most of the factions seemed to follow some vague stripped down version of some historical philosophy, but they were all so stripped down of any specific tenets that they seemed a little hokey.
Finally I hated the cant. It's sort of ironic since I'm a linguistics major. Normally, I like languages and special vocabulary to add atmosphere to role-playing games. However, the psuedo-Cockney cant gave Planescape a weird atmosphere. Why does everyone in the multiverse talk like 19th century characters out of a Dicken's novel? It's just a little weird to have a fiend telling a character to "sod off".

Of course these are just my opinions. Most people I know really love Planescape.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

The cant seems to turn a lot of people off...
And it can be hard to follow with out reading the definitions over a few times...

The funny thing is I would have a distinct group of characters associated with the PCs refusing to use the cant, and using more modern speech patterns. The only thing out of the cant that still remains for those characters is the word "sod" interchanged with "f-uck" since it's still used in the UK even today.

 

[taotad]

Why Planescape?
I've edited this post three times all ready. Seems like I can't control myself from seeming fanatical about this setting.

Maybe just stating facts will suffice:
I've DM'ed Planescape since it came out (can't remember the year anymore), and it still surprises me and my players.
If you wanna bash monsters for a session, send them off anywhere the action is, and you're off.
If you wanna play intrigue, play the Kriegstanz with the Golden Lords of Sigil.
If feeling philosophical, factions provide you with hours of fun, frustration and total confusion.

Most settings have the upper two. Planescape has all and much, much more.
It provides you (the DM) with the tool to realize any notion or idea you ever had, and still keeping the world intact.

+

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

What am I missing about the Blood War? There has to be a reason for demons and devils to fight for eternity other than Law vs Chaos, that would be just silly.