Planescape thread

Ad&d post gygax in a nutshell. While tables exist for all kinds of shit it's mostly combat or survival. Non-combat shouldn't rely on a dice roll unless there's a chance of failure, and outside of specialized skills, like thief abilities or lore checks.. or nonweapon proficiencies, you should just do it. Describe what you're doing, and then try to do it. If there's a downside to failure, one that'd be no repeatable, then you roll. Having to ask 'can I do that' based on needing skill ranks or the like kills the flow of the game.

>apart form rouges

In Birthright there's a Guilder class that's all about owning and running trade concerns while still able to, not THAT well, participate in adventures having thief nwp, full armor and weapons abilities, but thief saves and thac0.

That's like Dark Sun's Trader. Still little posibility of portraying truly non-combatant character. Maybe with higher lethality you mentioned (I have experience only with godlike field tanks of 3.5, never more) you can argue about it, but at this point no one would be ,,combat character" at all!

Explorers and adventurers can't always avoid combat, so some degree of ability is called for. Can't always talk the baatezu from ripping your arm off, for instance. That, or a cave bear, or a falling rock hitting your head... Need to be durable to travel the planes!

I think I should read some Gygax now, for this seems lot more reasonable.

I remember 3.5 DnD as "hp bloat game" for most characters shrouds lethal damage- from fall, for exaple- easily if it's not coup the grace. More lethal combat should make it less problematic.

I know that dehydration damage in the Dark Sun was handled by temporaly Con loss and works well.

I have started the occasional Planescape General thread in the past, but I had gradually stopped due to the declining interest in the setting in Veeky Forums.

The previous threads can be found here:
docs.google.com/document/d/1EC4fQ7qW0dNveXRDD2UZsB2NXbyIpEm-jCtTjwBQH3I/edit

Well of Worlds is another good starter pack of assorted adventures, some of which are good introductions to the Great Wheel.

Planescape works well under a great variety of systems. I have been leaning towards PbtA hacks to run the Great Wheel, although I had also tried Fate and Strike! for it in the past.

I think that this is the wrong way to go about it. Contrary to popular belief, Planescape is *not* a multiversal, dimension-hopping setting in the traditional sense of Sliders, MtG, GURPS' Infinite Worlds, The Strange, or the OGL "Beyond Countless Doorways", all of which are multiverses where there are myriad planes floating around, waiting to be adventured within.

The Great Wheel has shades of that, particularly with the demiplanes of the Deep Ethereal and the crystal spheres of the Prime (the latter is more Spelljammer than Planescape though), but it is ultimately *not* that kind of multiverse.

Planescape's core boxed set and its supplements present a setting that is utterly alien in terms of the way the different components of the setting interact with each other, but they are actually structured somewhat akin to a "standard fantasy setting" and intended to be run like one to a degree. It is a setting where the major places are interconnected and interact with one another regularly, because planar travel is commonplace; many conflicts and plot hooks are shaped by this interplay of places and factions.

(Continued.)

There are "nations" (e.g. Mount Celestia, Baator, the Abyss, the Elemental Plane of Fire), each with their own dominant races (archons, baatezu, tanar'ri, efreet) and rulers (the Hebdomad, the Lords of the Nine, various warring Abyssal lords, the sultan of the efreet), major cities (e.g. Empyrea, Dis, Broken Reach, the City of Brass), half-explored, half-uncharted wildernesses and dungeons (the Tower of Fire, the depths of Cania where the ancient Baatorians lie frozen, too many Abyssal layers to count, the Plain of Burnt Dreams), "guilds" (factions and sects), and religions (gods as usual, except in person). There is also a "global trade and transport city" (Sigil).

The underlying principle behind the setting is that "belief shapes the planes," but this principle is personified by these major "nations," races, rulers, "guilds," and religions conflicting with one another due to cosmic forces of belief, like law and chaos. Look at the Blood War.

Planescape was never meant to be run as a truly multiversal, infinite-planes setting, and is instead written to focus on a more standard fantasy setup with a very alien twist. Keep places and factions interconnected and constantly playing upon one another to generate conflicts and plot hooks. Do not make the mistake of having any one locale or faction operate in a metaphorical vacuum, unless it is supposed to be a completely isolated and backwater Ethereal demiplane or Prime crystal sphere or whatnot.

Though it can be ran in the multiversal dimension-hopping way as well, and I felt that the video game focused on this aspect at times. I like a combination of both, desu, with the aspect of newer planes not having established proper travel between the other planes.

I tend to suggest a Sliders style game under the assumption that "stuck on the planes don't know how to get back" is a good way to introduce a group to the setting without needing them to read a large amount of fluff. Let's you lead them around and get them involved with the politics of the various factions as they trade favors for leads and the like making enemies along the way without necessarily realizing it.

Planar travel and commerce is common but trying to find a particular prime world can potentially be hard enough to run a campaign on (or at least to run on long enough for the players to get completely sidetracked by dealing the consequences of their own actions along the way.)

Running it as a game, it's also better to center it in Sigil, and have adventures focus on just a few planes, to best get the most out of the planes while not hopping to a new universe every other session. It's not weird anymore if you're always encountering brand new things, after all.

There are an infinite number of prime material world's, so locating a specific portal or gate to your specific world is quiet a challenge, not to mention getting the key to it! And really, once they've done all that in the planes... Do they really WANT to go home anymore?

>but I had gradually stopped due to the declining interest in the setting in Veeky Forums.

It's not declining interest in Planescape, it's declining interest in your fucking anime version of planescape that pisses off so many people.

I second that. Anime it up however you want in your own game, but don't expect it to be received well elsewhere.

>but I had gradually stopped due to the declining interest in the setting in Veeky Forums.

>It's declining interest in your fucking anime version of planescape that pisses off so many people.

Thiiiiiiiiiiiis! So much this. I hate your furry futa loving ass and wish you would die.

Sigil and Beyond, 2E softback supplement. The Factol's Handbook is also a pretty quality supplement for 2E imo.

Hellbound: The Blood War is an excellent add-on set if you're into the infernal/diabolical, and Planes of Neutrality was pretty good imo of the three 'Planes of' sets. Finally, Dead Gods deserves an honorable mention.

Strange to see anyone on tg against that shit, but the fucking obsession with 'lewd' and degeneracy like that is the norm in every fucking general.
Changing the blood war to some fucking tsundere tiff was the fucking worst and enough to kill any interest folks might have in Planescape.

>Wizard
>Artificer
>Bard
>Rogue?

>Possible Blasphemy

I ran a four session game of planescape running the Cypher/Numenera/Strange system
(used some modifications that are suggested on the Numenera board and one or two from here)

The four Player's were Numenera and Planescape newbies but varying degrees of other systems experience, seemed to LOVE it which gave me such a mental boner. But the group couldn't last due to life reasons.

It works fine there, those rulesets allow for a pretty good Planescape feel, cyphers being charms or potions it whatever, artifacts being more classic magic items, and folks are pretty baller (which isn't true in 2e until level 9 or so), good for a high action game if that's what you want out of the setting.

Furries? Whatever. Futa? Comes with the territory of Veeky Forums sadly.
THAT man-child? Fuck him. Basically ruins any decent change I have with talking to fellow user's about my favourite system.
>Sorry for the venom to everyone else, must be all kinds of pent up internet-rage. Promise I'll stop at this point.

Had plans to lift and modified a version of the Dresden Files/Fate "Social Hp" system too, but never got to that point. In hind sight it might have been too much.

Why does everyone in Sigil talk in what sounds like an American's bad impression of cockney?

Why is the Blood War called the Blood War? Why not the Battle War or the Kill War or the Violence War?

Why is the Lady of Pain such an edgy, DeviantArt OC-tier character?

Ran a party through Acheron recently, had the joy of their encounter with a swarm of rust monsters in Thuldain. They lost all their armor and half their weapons, then had to pay a toll to enter the nearest town, doubled because they sasses the guards. However, they had just had a big payout from saving a goblin general from assassin's sent by hobgoblin on an adjacent cube, and bought some greensteel armor from scavengers, barely escaping the scavengers that tried to murder them when they left town. Acheron is fun!

>Why is the Lady of Pain such an edgy, DeviantArt OC-tier character?

Because Planescape was intended to compete with White Wolf games.

Why not?

Why not? It's like a blood fued, but an infinite war, so a blood war.

She exists to keep Sigil independent from other settings, explaining why some level 40 fucko from Athas hasn't conquered it already, much less demons, dragons, liches, or gods.

Same person, pathetic

Had some of the same writers at some points. Also for all the
>LoP is Unkillable!!! And Kills you!!!
There are three official adventures dedicated to her/sigil on the brink of something about to kill it/them, thus the PCs are roped in to save the day. Admittedly many don't like the Faction War, but it straight up says one of her weaknesses, and gives you a blurb if the PCs decide to destroy her.
>Probably another reason people don't like her.

Yeah it can't possibly be that people are fucking sick of your fucking garbage. Must just be 1 troll! Who doesn't love Loli demons having fucking concerts to solve an infinite ideological war? Surely everyone loved it, thus the drop in interest like a fucking brick.

Check out the Fire and Dust novel for an adventure set in Planescape, including keys and guild-characters as PC's. It's available online for free and not that long.

>Time codes say otherwise.

I'm running a Planescape campaign IRL right now, we use 3.PF rules.

Player Characters:
Put-upon Fraternity of Order swordmage gold-dragonkin who tries (and fails) to get the party to do the right thing.
Pyromaniac Doomguard rogue whose mission is to destroy the Doomguard
Kleptomaniac Godsman catfolk rogue whose mission is to rob the Lady's Ward and Clerk's Ward to build orphanages in the Hive, so as to educate the orphans in pickpocketing
Megalomaniacal Godsman cleric whose mission is to expand his cult in the city, sparing captives only when they cut off one of their ears and join his cult.
And a rotating cast of people from our social circle who play an exasperated Mercykiller, an enthusiastic goblin inventor

Highlights:
Battle with gem smugglers in the Plane of Minerals where the wisest PC continually shifted gravity so as to rake the foes (and friends) over the razor-sharp minerals.
Rival Fraternity of Order Judge attempts to assassinate Fraternity PC. The Judge was a green dragon. After the battle, the catfolk rogue butchers the body and sells the parts.
Sigil establishes a trade post in the Astral Plane on a rogue disk from Mechanus. A githyanki raid sparks a war between Sigil, a githyanki tribe and a trade post built on the ruins of a Giff city by exiled yugoloth. During the war, a civil war breaks out in Sigil between the Law Factions and the Doomguard et al. After the destruction of the githyanki, the Fraternity dragonkin takes their princess as his concubine.
The PCs remove a curse from a lovelorn Void Dragon so he can wed his lover in the Demiplane of Dreams after he rescues them from the Far Realm.
The PCs are involved in a Blood War struggle over a hag bog in the Gray Waste. In the process of sneaking into a tanar'ri base they are caught by the demon lord Dagon, who places a nasty geas on several of the party and later uses it to force them into allowing demons into Sigil.

AMA

Can I play?

>Why is the Lady of Pain such an edgy, DeviantArt OC-tier character?

Look at PS fans, that is your answer. PS was a mistake, the great wheel was fine without it. But now anyone with any interest in expanding the D&D planes in their games has to read through this joke of a setting to get anything useful.

Reading that makes me happier and happier that I never touch pf, but as long as your players are having fun you do you. Rescue from the Far Plane is effectively impossible, it's like an ant trying to rescue someone that's not only on another planet in another galaxy but also constantly on fire and dipped in acid and having their soul eaten by quintillions of microscopic hateful OTHER beings.
But you do you, as long as you don't bring it to my table!

Then why not make your own thread about it champ? Instead of bitching like a touhou bitch? Typical channer, rather rage about being triggered than fix things.

How does one deal with the inevitable situation of PCs joining opposing factions but still needing a common goal?

hehe do you live in Redmond, WA, USA?
Your table sounds autismal t.b.h.

>Why does everyone in Sigil talk in what sounds like an American's bad impression of cockney?
Because it was based on Victorian Cant? And is by no means a bad impression and is literally a pastiche of urban London

>Why is the Blood War called the Blood War? Why not the Battle War or the Kill War or the Violence War?
Why are ducks not called squats or crouches?

>Why is the Lady of Pain such an edgy, DeviantArt OC-tier character?
Because she is not a character in any meaningful sense, she is the a constant, possibly the only constant in a setting like Planescape. She is cliche and obvious because the majority of the setting is designed not to be.

>Redmond, WA, USA?

YES!

Don't let them? That, or come up, as a group, why they work together. As an aside, fucking nobody works with an open anarchist, but a Guvner would work with a Xaositect, a Harmonium with an Indep... Given the right motivation. Collective profit being the easiest, it's when they're actually engaged in faction business that things might get tricky.

It worked out pretty well for me. The Doomguard PC turned stag for the Faction War because they hated her for doing too much to help Law Faction PCs

I gambled and lost. I'm afraid we don't really wanna upset the equilibrium right now by bringing in another PC at this point in the campaign

...

maybe stop shoving anime in it.
you double nigger

Entropy isn't inherently chaotic buddy! It's as lawful as any rule in the planes, thus no alignment restriction for the faction... Just a general desire to see the planes break down, perhaps favoring certain parts falling before others. A Doomguard is totally ok with doing things that, at first glance, are anti entropic... If they create greater entropy later. Repairing a bridge, for instance, that would let siege weapons later obliterate the land with ease. They do BUILD after all, their Chaos Ships. They even have created life, albeit life that exists to destroy the barriers of the inner planes.

>She is cliche and obvious because the majority of the setting is designed not to be.
One thing PS is, is ... well I'm not sure the right word. It seems to take the piss out of other settings, and regularly breaks it's own rules or guidelines, and intentionally goes out of the way to break other settings rules. Always rattled-off-in-a-laughin'-Cant. But If you've ever met Mr. Zeb Cook in person you'd easily figure out why. He loves over complicating things just to end up with an over simplified pun at the end. One of the first professional trolls.
Probably why I always liked the setting: a deconstruction and Laughing at the rest of the system it existed in, but like it was playing they joke with a straight face the whole time.

>Entropy isn't inherently chaotic buddy!

It is the breakdown of order you fucking tard. It is the undoing of all that stands, it is the rendering of all that would seek to defy time and age.

this guy gets it

Seems to be a fair assessment. Not the whole setting, but definitely aspects of it. Of all the campaign settings, PS does seem to be one of the more difficult to create a campaign within.

Yet entropy is also a law, all things must wear down and break that new can replace it. Stagnation is what you get in Limbo, for all it's roiling creative chaos. Progress is what you get in Mechanus!

Touhou is not a anime you stupid faggot.

>And is by no means a bad impression and is literally a pastiche of urban London
That doesn't mean it's not shit

>Not on /a/- or the rest of Veeky Forums for that matter. You are on Veeky Forums. The difference doesn't matter here.

Not everyone in Veeky Forums is a retard like you.

Oh I'm sorry, "weeabo fighting game"

Yes they are. We are on Veeky Forums.

...

No, it is not. You confuse unity of purpose with law. Entropy is indiscriminate in how it accomplishes it's goal it is mindless in it's pursuit of it. It simply is.

I do not deny, nor intend to discuss how much order and how much chaos you need in a society/plane/etc for it to be balanced or successful, that is not what I am debating.

My point Entropy is disorder, to tear down law and to increase it's level and presence in all places and times.

Not liking what I like means you're retarded! Thus people DID like my shitty weebed up garbage, despite them dying! Therefore I win!

...

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>There are an infinite number of prime material world's,
But only one Prime Material Plane, so it's fine. Hop a Spelljammer and go looking.

Could you fine folks please post the image that best describes Planescape to you?

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That stupid anime-planescape faggot infests every planescape thread that comes around, that's why.

sure a amine cat girl really proves me wrong.

Tell me more about how "Project Shrine Maiden", is anything less than some Japanese nonsense.

you besotted moron

One of the best character(s) I love trying to put into my PS game is the priest hood of Set (may he be praise and feared). I just like the weird yet evil, but trying to sometimes do good, but still very much and evil asshole that planescape portrays him as.

If that is true, then why does it exist on planes of law? Planes are composed of belief, and belief in law and order would naturally exclude chaos as a power, so thus entropy must be considered if not a law, a universal, neutral constant.

There actually is an official Touhou fighting game.

Buddy, get it through your thick head that a LOT of people don't like your constant anime-spamming of Planescape. Just fucking quit it. You'd be doing yourself - and your favorite game - a big favour by leaving the anime/loli/weaboo shit out of it entirely. Keep it in your game, whatever, but don't push it here constantly.

...

Anime fans should be drafted and confronted with the same bullying that Russian conscripts are. Maybe then things will improve.

I also live in Redmond. I don't want to join your game. But god damn that was unlucky.

Yeah, but that is more of a side thing. The main games are bullet hell.

penis cannibal thread?

But user, that entails rolling for anal circumference.

On the bright side, I hear Russians are issued socks now.

Please go back to tumblr.

Please go back to /v/ or reddit.

>Was thinking what snacks/food to bring
>Was thinking up suitable concepts and ideas
>was thinking how to make a good impression
>Oh...o-okay, nevermind

I think a lot of people misunderstand the role of the Lady of Pain. She's not there to be the GM's invincible, gently ribbed penis extension. She's there to explain why none of the other super-powerful entities in DND take over such an incredibly valuable location. Sigil allows you to remake the entire rest of reality (look at Die Vecna Die), and the Lady is there to explain why Sigil is possible at all without being a warzone fought over by a million powers and demon lords.

...

>the Lady is there to explain why Sigil is possible at all without being a warzone fought over by a million powers and demon lords.
Yeah, that sounds so boring.

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Then I guess it's not the setting for you, buddy! Here's your coat, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

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>mfw they still have hilarious foot wraps that got changed weekly

Yeah, the giant melting pot of denizens from all across the planes plotting and conspiring against each other for personal/national gain could not be entertaining. The fact that it allows a cocky upstart Gnome to plot and scheme against the likes of tanar'ri without combat could not possibly be interesting.

I've been wondering this myself.
We're currently playing a cross between D&D and Star gate, and when this campaign ends

Planescape seems like the logical place to go next.
Not that I have anything pertinent to add, I'll just be lurking

>oh planescape thread
>wonder how berks 'r doin'
>by abyss, they surley 'av som' histry here!
>find ya a room, cutters?

Would strongly recommend it, user.

This thread went downhill quickly.