Quote from: RPGPundit;709813There's literally NO point in going to the higher planes anymore that makes it different or more special than going to, say, Waterdeep.

At least Spelljammer, which was not a great product, still managed to make their game about Space.  
Planescape, on the other hand, turned the realms of the Gods, demons, and angels into just another Greyhawk.

RPGPundit

1: You got there for them hawt Tiefling babes obviously.

2: Hence why I called Planescape... Hikingjammer...

Spelljammer was not great. There was soooooo much more that could have been done with the system. Or at least done better. But. It at least spread out and did not overfocus on known worlds. And the ones that did focus tended to at least flesh out the unknown territory in the settings starsystems.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;709628While we're on the subject of Planescape, has anyone ever run a campaign in Acheron for any length of time? The place fascinates me as a mini-setting in its own right.

I have.
I am a big fan of Archeron. I call it Evil Vallhalla.
Each floating block is like a little realm.

The main tricky part for me was defining how death works there, especially for natives.

Its a great plane, and the blocks make it manageable in bite sized pieces.

The main challenge for natives is avoiding being invaded by other blocks, and scavanging resources.

I also have the plane prevent flying and teleporting between blocks. You have to either wait for them to bump, or leap towards one and hope like Acheron you don't get crushed.

Quote from: RPGPunditPlanescape, on the other hand, turned the realms of the Gods, demons, and angels into just another Greyhawk.

Like I said, Planescape is about marrying and juxtaposing the mundane and the marvelous, so in one sense this is exactly right: Planescape makes the Planes accessible, and thus "reduces" them in a certain way.  

But on another level the complete opposite is true, because Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms and all those old tired settings just replicate the same well-worn fantasy tropes again and again ad nauseum: Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, Orcs, your usual array of pseudo-medieval kingdoms and Earth-like geography, all the same tired Middle Earth stuff that's been overdone for decades.  Planescape goes in completely the opposite direction, substituting weird goat-centaurs and Astral zealots and demon-human hybrids and sentient polyhedrons and Chaos-obsessed frog-folk for the usual panoply of boring demi-humans.  Instead of ye olde mountains and forests and plains and tundra Planescape has landscapes made of gears or roiling amorphousness or ooze or congealed hatred, palaces made from the spines of primordial fiends and towers built on the corpses of forgotten gods.  Instead of the same old thatched-roof semi-European city it has a quasi-Victorian metropolis built inside a giant torus.  Instead of done-to-death mages' guilds and thieves' guilds and cults it has militant philosopher cliques dedicated to esoteric ways of knowing.

So it's like Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms insofar as it makes the Planes a place to adventure and visit without having to be a 17th level Wizard with a Gate spell.  But in virtually every other aspect it is nothing at all like them.

I feel the need to say the somewhat obvious; I don't think you need to actually use planescape for a planar game. You can, but its entirely possible to do a planar game without it.

Quote from: BillI feel the need to say the somewhat obvious; I don't think you need to actually use planescape for a planar game. You can, but its entirely possible to do a planar game without it.

That's absolutely true, of course, although doing away with Sigil makes inter-planar travel much trickier.  Generally planar adventure becomes the affair only of very high level characters and tends to consist of brief jaunts to single planes.  What Planescape did is (1) flesh out the Planes themselves as adventuring locations and (2) outline how to run an entire campaign set in the Planes.  I think what RPGPundit dislikes is (2) - he wants to the Planes to stay special, exclusive, alien, and mostly unreachable, I think.  Where I think he's wrong is that by making them accessible they become indistinguishable from other fantasy settings (they don't) and that by mixing the banal with the bizarre you make everything boring and mundane (which isn't necessarily the case).

EDIT: I should point out that I have no problem with keeping the Planes remote and special - that's a fine approach.  I just take exception to the idea that by making them a place to live rather than just visit they're totally ruined somehow, or that the very idea of low-level adventure in the Planes is, like, blasphemous.

Quote from: RPGPundit;709813Its dreck.  That isn't the HIGHER REALMS its not the place of the Gods, its just reduced to another greyhawk or FR. The fact that its not happening on a prime material plane is just circumstance.

That's the problem.  When you're told "You are going to HELL", or alternately "You will ascend into Olympus!", you do not want it to be places that are mundane (by mundane, read "as mundane as some funky places you can find on a D&D material plane").  There's literally NO point in going to the higher planes anymore that makes it different or more special than going to, say, Waterdeep.

I don't really have much of an attachment to the D&D cosmology and I'm OK with writers and DMs tweaking it however they want.

What is it that the setting does, exactly, that you feel robs the planes of their mystique? I mean, other than making them accessible right off the bat.

Quote from: The Butcher;709868I don't really have much of an attachment to the D&D cosmology and I'm OK with writers and DMs tweaking it however they want.

What is it that the setting does, exactly, that you feel robs the planes of their mystique? I mean, other than making them accessible right off the bat.

Well one thing it missed out on that I played up on in my own books was... well... this is where dead people go right? Well... what about all those people the PCs have offed? Yeah... that...

Going to the netherworld/planes was a study in pain in the ass as yhe PCs had a 50/50 chance of being jumped by irate villains they bumped off previously looking for a rematch. Or of they were headed for less hellish realms... Getting jumped by the various innocent bystanders and simple soldiers they forcefully shuffled off the mortal coil.

In Planescape PCs wandering to Acheron for example should be running into veritible hoards of orcs and goblins they mowed down previously.

Quote from: OmegaGoing to the netherworld/planes was a study in pain in the ass as yhe PCs had a 50/50 chance of being jumped by irate villains they bumped off previously looking for a rematch

This is really cool!  Technically in Planescape in a few of the books it's mentioned that petitioners lose their memories when they die, but I've never liked that particular idea and pretty much ignore it.  Consistency was not always one of the setting's strong suits, anyway (since the Planes are constantly shifting and belief can sometimes shape reality in the setting, this isn't necessarily as big a sin as it might be).

Quote from: Steerpike;709596The Old World of Darkness and Planescape are interesting to compare.  I disagree that Planescape is a "White Wolf clone" by any stretch of the imagination, but there are certain parallels: the urban fantasy feeling, the punk sensibility, the internicine political landscape.  It's not nearly as uniformly dark, though, nor is it a horror setting by any means, but I do think that White Wolf had a definite influence on some aspects of Planescape.

It was explicitly stated that Planescape was made with orders that the authors try to do something in the style of White Wolf's products, to try to appeal to that kind of crowd.
Its obviously not just a WoD product, I'm not saying that, but rather its an obvious attempt to rip off several of the world-defining and especially stylistic concepts of the WW line of products, done D&D style.  Which makes it even more pathetic; its like when the Rolling Stones tried to do a disco album, it was a desperate attempt by a company utterly out of ideas to try to latch onto the 'big thing' of the time.

QuoteI think what may put some off is the overall irreverence of the setting, the way it upends a lot of standard D&D tropes.  Even though the Great Wheel bursts with Gods and spirits, many of those depicted in the setting are sardonic, cynical types who regard deities with suspicion and even disdain (most notably the Athar, but to a lesser extent the Bleak Cabal).  Planescape subverts the cosmological/religious assumptions that D&D usually makes.  Gods in D&D are usually either adored or feared; in Planescape their righteousness, their motives, and even their divinity itself are thrown into question.  The Planes in vanilla D&D are usually mysterious, nigh-inaccesible realms that stand out against the mundane, quasi-medieval setting; in Planescape they're a place where people and creatures live and build cities and politick, and their very borders and boundaries and nature are malleable.  Rather than the struggle between Good and Evil forming the crux of the conflict, as more mundane D&D settings frequently assume, Planescape is more interested in the clash between different epistemic and ontological points of view.

Exactly.  Its a direct and intentional SUBVERSION of the Archetypal nature of the Planes, stripping away everything majestic about archetypes, to replace it with 90s-era college-punk relativist sophomoric-rebellion; as if to say "nothing is allowed to be grand anymore, everything must be tainted and banal".  And of course some of that was probably also a kind of resentment (much like the famous inclusion of the "Lady of Pain") on the part of game designers who found the corporation they were working for to have at that point stripped away everything they had thought was wonderful and majestic about the game they once loved and turned the dreamed job they had once fantasized about having into shit.

Its pathetic. Its like a second-string grunge musician giving the middle finger to a picture of Jesus to show off how "edgy" he is.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Steerpike;709609It depends on how you play them, how the DM and players interpret them.  The philosophical sophistication of the Factions isn't so complex as to make the setting opaque.  It's quite possible to play them in such a way that they come off as little more than caricatures of their respective positions, cartoonish representations of the philosophies they represent, and there's certainly canon material that presents them in this broad light, but there are other sections that don't reduce them to parody.  One thing that's sort of weird about Planescape is the interaction between the crudeness of the D&D Alignment system and the relative complexity of the Factions, though, and navigating that can be tricky.

The D&D Alignment system (and the Great Wheel cosmology that spawns from it) is not "crude", its ARCHETYPAL.  
And the factions aren't "complex" they're just sophomoric cynicism and an attempt to infuse relativism into the idea of platonic ideals.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Omega;7098421: You got there for them hawt Tiefling babes obviously.

I'm not going to deny that claim...

QuoteSpelljammer was not great. There was soooooo much more that could have been done with the system. Or at least done better. But. It at least spread out and did not overfocus on known worlds. And the ones that did focus tended to at least flesh out the unknown territory in the settings starsystems.

For sure.  In a way, I think there's still a "spelljammer" to be made, to be done right, probably in an OSR context.  Maybe starting from the base of something like Hulks & Horrors or Machinations of the Space Princess, but shooting it back to fantasy.

In a way, the biggest problem with Spelljammer is that it ended up too tied with the idea of using it to interconnect the various pre-existing settings, when what it should have had was awesome random-generation rules for new star systems and the stuff to be found there.
But alas, it was the 90s.

RPGPundit

Quote from: The Butcher;709868I don't really have much of an attachment to the D&D cosmology and I'm OK with writers and DMs tweaking it however they want.

What is it that the setting does, exactly, that you feel robs the planes of their mystique? I mean, other than making them accessible right off the bat.

It turns Divine Realms into kingdoms with politics, commerce, bureaucracy, agendas, that are all on a "human" level (that is, while perhaps they market in "souls" or "emotions" or "doodads" or whatever instead of wool and spices, at the end of the day its entirely comprehensible what's going on); it makes Planes into countries. HUMAN countries (even if the "humans" in question are goat-people or mechanical cubes or whatever).

It intentionally pushes the idea that Archetypes can't be allowed to be Platonic Ideals, they have to be sullied somehow, they have to be in some way less than they're cracked up to be, and you're "cool" if you're all cynical at the idea of being impressed by grand notions. You shouldn't believe in grand larger-than-our-little-lives forces, you should believe in utterly human 'ideologies' instead.  Its a cheap cynical subversion of the "religious" concept of the Planes in favor of first-year college ideas about "philosophy".

And of course the whole hip-90s-rebel vibe, where if you wear something shocking and go around saying 'fuck' (in this case replaced by "berk" due to TSR company-policy censorship) all the time then you must be really "deep" and more "real" than all those stupid people who are just "conformist sheeple".

RPGPundit

Yeah, nope. Descriptions of the individual planes are pretty much the same as those in AD&D's Manual of the Planes. No commerce mentioned. Plenty of archetypes; the word archetype is even used liberally. And "berk" isn't an expletive.

Quote from: RPGPunditIt was explicitly stated that Planescape was made with orders that the authors try to do something in the style of White Wolf's products, to try to appeal to that kind of crowd.

Yeah, I've heard this was basically the idea from on high.  I like what TSR did with White Wolf's sensibilities better than I like White Wolf's take, though, personally - I'll take Planescape over the World of Darkness.

Quote from: RPGPunditThe D&D Alignment system (and the Great Wheel cosmology that spawns from it) is not "crude", its ARCHETYPAL.
And the factions aren't "complex" they're just sophomoric cynicism and an attempt to infuse relativism into the idea of platonic ideals.

I think this is where our philosophical differences probably come in.  I think that Archetypes are crude, and call me cynical, but I can't think of anything more "sophomoric" than Platonic idealism.  During the second year of my undergrad no one could shut up about the Cave.

I'm much more interested in the subversion of archetypes than seeing them upheld.  Good and Evil and Law and Chaos kind of bore me as absolutes.  And the alternate certainly isn't just relativism, although there are relativists amongst the Factions.  The Ciphers and Godsmen, for example, are very much derived from a Buddhist/Zen tradition (with maybe a little Hinduism mixed in here and there) and are very much about moral worth and harmony and balance of opposites.  The Sensates are philosophical naturalists, hedonists, and empiricists, the Dustmen are pretty clearly Stoics of the Greek school, the Guvners are scientific positivists, the Fated are Objectivists, etc.  They have values, real values; they don't all hold that everything's relative.  I don't think this has to be cynical, either; the Godsmen and the Sensates, for example, are very upbeat and optimistic factions for the most part.  Sure the Bleakers are gloomy disciples of Satre and Kierkegaard and the Athar are whiny atheist types but not everyone's a foulmouthed punk denigrating everything.

Speaking for myself, I find the Alignments a decent roleplaying tool (they're a great, quick way for a player to get into a character) but a very simplistic ethical and/or spiritual framework.  They can be fun to mess around with but I enjoy seeing them "sullied," I guess.

Quote from: RPGPunditIt intentionally pushes the idea that Archetypes can't be allowed to be Platonic Ideals, they have to be sullied somehow, they have to be in some way less than they're cracked up to be, and you're "cool" if you're all cynical at the idea of being impressed by grand notions. You shouldn't believe in grand larger-than-our-little-lives forces, you should believe in utterly human 'ideologies' instead.

I think this is the core of what I like about Planescape and what you don't.  While I like Lovecraftian fiction - which does feature grand, all-powerful forces, though they're certainly not Platonic Ideals - I enjoy the way that Planescape makes the Gods and Demons and Devils and Law and Chaos all grungy and political and messy and, yes, kinda "human" in a certain very broad sense of the word (although Modrons don't act like any humans I know).  Corruptible might be a better one.  It reads the D&D cosmology with suspicion.  It recognizes that you can't separate power from politics when we're talking about sentient beings.  I mean, I don't think we should be impressed by larger-than-life "grand notions" of the religious sort; I think we should be suspicious of meta-narratives and beware the man behind the curtain.

Basically, I can see that if someone was really into upholding the D&D Alignment system and the set of moral absolutes/archetypes/ideas that it channels - as I think you are - then they would not enjoy Planescape; fair enough, I get that.  Speaking for myself, I find the whole "Good vs Evil" archetypal myth thing sort of yawn-inducing, so I enjoy seeing it mixed up and complicated.

Quote from: RPGPunditin this case replaced by "berk" due to TSR company-policy censorship

Berk is a noun, not a verb, and refers to a fool.

"Pike it" (as in, shut up and/or go away) is probably the closest euphemism for "fuck" in Planescape.  That and "sodding," but that's just British slang.

EDIT: I think we are increasingly in agreement about what Planescape is and what it looks like, its features as a setting, just not about whether those traits are desirable or not.  Interesting discussion though.

Quote from: RPDPunditit makes Planes into countries.

I agree - but they're not countries like Amn, Blackmoor, Gondor, or Narnia, they're countries along the lines of Annexia, Wonderland, and Leng... they're certainly not all little quasi-feudal monarchies or something, they're pretty darn weird.