Some of my friends want me to run a 5E game with the Planescape setting.
I'm not familiar with Planescape since it's before my time; some reading revealed it's all from 2E. But there is very little information about it out there.
What exactly is Planescape like, and what makes it fun? Are there any resources to use for running Planescape in a 5E game? Can 5E even handle it?
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;824265Some of my friends want me to run a 5E game with the Planescape setting.
I'm not familiar with Planescape since it's before my time; some reading revealed it's all from 2E. But there is very little information about it out there.
What exactly is Planescape like, and what makes it fun? Are there any resources to use for running Planescape in a 5E game? Can 5E even handle it?
There will be no problem with rules. Planescape is just a campaign setting so the rules were no different, really, from standard AD&D of the day. There were a few tweaks added here and there but nothing major.
I recommend going on eBay and seeing if you can find the original boxed set. Afterwards changes were made (metaplot) which were stupid.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;824265Some of my friends want me to run a 5E game with the Planescape setting.
I'm not familiar with Planescape since it's before my time; some reading revealed it's all from 2E. But there is very little information about it out there.
What exactly is Planescape like, and what makes it fun? Are there any resources to use for running Planescape in a 5E game? Can 5E even handle it?
Planescape is a setting that deals directly with the multiverse of D&D's meta-cosmology. The ostensible "home" of the game, is the City of Sigil, which is a hub of portals to anywhere in the multiverse. The city itself continues to exist without being torn apart by Gods, demons, what-have-you because its watched over by the enigmatic Lady of Pain. Sigil is home to numerous factions who deal with the reality of the Planes (ie knowing for certain not only that gods and demons and heaven and hell are real, but that they are ALL real) by developing specific philosophies.
All in all not only my favourite D&D setting, but one of my favourite fantasy settings period. DiTerlizzi's fantastic artwork really made it too. The supplements go for ridiculous amounts on ebay these days, but with some hunting you can still find the original boxed set for under $100. Thats all you really need, but anything else you can get your hands on is pretty much worth it, up until Faction War. YMMV, but I'd avoid this like the plague.
Also, BTW, Planescape: Torment is generally considered one of the best rpg to videogame translations of all time, and still holds up surprisingly well.
For a fun introduction to the Planes, google up (or rather Bing, since google filters their results pretty bad these days...) some mp3s of the original Planescape CD.
That sounds kind of like Amber.
Note that a lot of the key supplements--including all the big boxes--are on Drive ThruRPG/DNDClassics.
You might find this site very useful:
http://daedaluswing.wikidot.com/faction-backgrounds
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;824305That sounds kind of like Amber.
Amber is more taking on the roles of gods or demigods.
Planescape is more Time Bandits.
Planescape is an awesome setting, but its not traditional D&D. I highly recommend getting the original boxed set. It will be more than enough for a campaign. If I had to choose one "official" D&D setting to run, I would absolutely run Planescape because its "different enough, yet familiar enough" to be tremendous fun for players who have done fantasy to death.
For 5e, you may have to tweak some of the Faction abilities, but its probably minimal work.
You can get the pdf of the campaign box for 2e here. (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17267/Planescape-Campaign-Setting-2e?it=1)
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;824307Note that a lot of the key supplements--including all the big boxes--are on Drive ThruRPG/DNDClassics.
this dont pay hundereds of dollars on ebay when you can pay a few dozen on d&d classics
i dont have planescape but as far as i can tell its literally just the great wheel given a fancy name for that edition because they decided to focus a lot on it for 2e so unless im massively mistaken you can also check out any of the other editions manuals of the planes
Quote from: tuypo1;824356i dont have planescape but as far as i can tell its literally just the great wheel given a fancy name for that edition because they decided to focus a lot on it for 2e so unless im massively mistaken you can also check out any of the other editions manuals of the planes
You are massively mistaken
oh ok then
Planescape Torment is less than 10 bucks on gog.com so well worth picking up for a darn good intro to the planes.
Quote from: TristramEvans;824357You are massively mistaken
Indeed he is, which is why I felt the Planes in 1e and later in 3e were both better than Planescape, which made the planes too pedestrian.
Quote from: RPGPundit;824805Indeed he is, which is why I felt the Planes in 1e and later in 3e were both better than Planescape, which made the planes too pedestrian.
To each their own I suppose. I felt that Planescape went out of its way to set an atmosphere of wonder and mystery, with intentionally open questions and a sense of deep history for the planes, whereas 1e (and to an extent 3e) largely presented the planes as just extraplanar dungeons with bigger monsters to fight.
Quote from: Shemmy;824830To each their own I suppose. I felt that Planescape went out of its way to set an atmosphere of wonder and mystery, with intentionally open questions and a sense of deep history for the planes, whereas 1e (and to an extent 3e) largely presented the planes as just extraplanar dungeons with bigger monsters to fight.
See, that's exactly what I think Planescape did...sucked all the awe and majesty out of the planes and turned it into Dickensian London (one where everyone talks like chimneysweeps) with dungeons (on other planes) you could enter by going through portals.
I never thought 1e portrayed the planes as dungeons. More as wilderness as anything else. Though there wasn't a lot of stuff set in the outer planes, you mostly had encounter tables. I guess the published outer plane stuff was dungeony, but I think that was just the last part of Q1.
Yeah, I absolutely do not get that "planes as dungeons" thing; there was all kind of sandbox-roleplay potential in both the 1e and 3e planes.
I've never understood why anyone feels Planescape in anyways changed The Planes themselves. They're pretty much exactly the same in Planescape as they are in my 1E Jeff Grubb Manual of the Planes book. The only thing Planescape did was provide a jumping off point with Sigil, a city that exists directly connected to the Planes, so they are easier to reach than the complex rigamarole of jumping off from a Prime Material, and then developed a culture for Sigil that attempted to explain how a society that had knowledge of and access to the planes could function and how it was different from Prime civilizations. Making it vaguely Victorian showed a progression in civilization from the default medieval mindset that most of the Prime Material Planes of D&D perpetually exhibited.
Basically, however, remove Sigil from the equation, and you had the exact same planes that were detailed in AD&D. Sigil simply facilitated games taking place there.
Quote from: RPGPundit;824805Indeed he is, which is why I felt the Planes in 1e and later in 3e were both better than Planescape, which made the planes too pedestrian.
I think the problem was that Planescape presented the planes of the GODs as if it were just another street to walk, another odd country to traverse. It felt disconnected from its location?
On its own though its pretty interesting if you treat it as its own alien setting and more or less ignore the "home of the gods" part.
Quote from: Omega;825266I think the problem was that Planescape presented the planes of the GODs as if it were just another street to walk, another odd country to traverse. It felt disconnected from its location?
Yes, precisely.
QuoteOn its own though its pretty interesting if you treat it as its own alien setting and more or less ignore the "home of the gods" part.
I would have loved an "interdimensional city full of secret gates to all kinds of worlds of the multiverse" deal. The problem was that instead Sigil was placed in a central position in the Higher Planes, stealing the entire prominence of the setting.
Quote from: Omega;825266I think the problem was that Planescape presented the planes of the GODs as if it were just another street to walk, another odd country to traverse. It felt disconnected from its location?
On its own though its pretty interesting if you treat it as its own alien setting and more or less ignore the "home of the gods" part.
Quote from: RPGPundit;825631Yes, precisely.
I would have loved an "interdimensional city full of secret gates to all kinds of worlds of the multiverse" deal. The problem was that instead Sigil was placed in a central position in the Higher Planes, stealing the entire prominence of the setting.
I like Planescape a lot. It's probably my favourite D&D "official" setting.
That said, I do think there was a bit too much going on thematically. It ends up a bit of a mess. On the one hand you had the Outer Planes representing the different alignments and shades in between (which mostly worked really well) and the Inner Planes representing the matter from which the multiverse was created (which mostly also worked really well), and then the Prime Material Plane providing the souls which populate those Planes...which all kind of makes sense as a D&D cosmology if you squint at it hard enough.
But then you had this weird urge to want to throw in the Gods, or "Powers" as they were called, and have PCs interact with them; and for some reason that meant having real world pantheons (Norse, Celtic, whatever) alongside D&D ones (Elves, Dwarves), and also setting-specific D&D ones (from Krynn or wherever).
And then on top of that you had the Blood War, which was billed as this big epic struggle, except never really taken anywhere.
And then on top of
that you had the struggle between the different factions.
It was just a bit too much of a crazy spaghetti of different themes tugging you, as a DM, in different directions.
Quote from: noisms;825634And then on top of that you had the Blood War, which was billed as this big epic struggle, except never really taken anywhere.
It's been going on, basically, forever, in an endless, amorphous stalemate. Where exactly, would they "take it?" I always assumed it was simply an excuse for interesting hooks, not something to be taken somewhere...
Quote from: noisms;825634having real world pantheons (Norse, Celtic, whatever) alongside D&D ones (Elves, Dwarves), and also setting-specific D&D ones (from Krynn or wherever).
i did not know it did that that would explain why there was a pharonic god in layer 73 of the abyss the wells of darkness
i have to agree though keep the Olympian pharonic and asgardians patheons each to there own cosmology connected to each other through the plane of shadow
Quote from: Bobloblah;825726It's been going on, basically, forever, in an endless, amorphous stalemate. Where exactly, would they "take it?" I always assumed it was simply an excuse for interesting hooks, not something to be taken somewhere...
That was badly worded. I mean they never really made it very interesting. It just got lost amongst all the other many different things going on within the setting.
Quote from: RPGPundit;825631Yes, precisely.
I would have loved an "interdimensional city full of secret gates to all kinds of worlds of the multiverse" deal. The problem was that instead Sigil was placed in a central position in the Higher Planes, stealing the entire prominence of the setting.
to be fair sigil has a strictly limited floor space you will run out of things to see eventualy then you are forced to the other planes
Quote from: RPGPundit;825631I would have loved an "interdimensional city full of secret gates to all kinds of worlds of the multiverse" deal. The problem was that instead Sigil was placed in a central position in the Higher Planes, stealing the entire prominence of the setting.
People are funny. I ran Planescape for over a year and while Sigil was home, it never stole anything from any of the myriad places the characters went to anymore than Waterdeep steals from the Realms. Hell, I still own almost the whole line and I go back to it fondly often to pull ideas and situations for other games.
But hey, some people like water chestnuts or macadamia nuts and I won't ever understand that.
It changed the whole tone. Suddenly it wasn't about epic god-level adventuring; it was about college sophomore philosophy with punk aesthetics.