File: the-planes-dmg-2024-v0-6r(...).png (1.27 MB, 1080x1397)

1.27 MB PNG

To answer some of my own questions:

One tiny aspect I dislike is that the realm of dreams is located in the Ethereal rather than the Astral. That kind fucks up the substance/thought duality that those two have going on. Why is it even necessary for dreams to be physically real while we're dreaming them? Just have them be visions in the Astral that influence the Outer Planes

Don't care much for the Feywild and the Shadowfell because I think they're glaring remnants of 4e. They work as demiplanes, but not as "reflections of the Material Plane".

On the topic of the Ordial, I'm split. On one hand, it does fulfill the Rule of 3s and the Unity of the Rings, and explains how the Outer Planes can have elements and positive/negative energies despite being made of belief and psychic energies. On the other hand, it confuses the meaning of the transitive planes. Ether is protomatter that can transform into any other type of matter, and the Astral is raw thought, but then what is the Ordial that funnels elements into the world of philosphy without being made of ether?

File: image-asset.png (3.19 MB, 2173x1624)

3.19 MB PNG

As for the origins of the multiverse, I think the Inner Planes came first. Either they were born from a primordial chaos and their union formed the Ethereal, or the Ethereal IS the chaos from which the elements were born. It then carried the elements to a lower dimension like a river carrying sediments, creating the Prime Material. The Astral Plane may or may have not always existed, but the thoughts of sentient beings interacted with it to create the Outer Planes.

Sigil and the Spire it sits on probably play some role in how the belief of material beings shapes the Outer Planes. LoP is either an avatar of multiversal balance, or a remnant from a previous iteration of the multiverse.

The size of the Planes is reliant of the size of the Prime Material. If the Prime Material is infinite, then the Inner Planes must also be infinite in order to supply an infinite amount of substance and energy. The Outer Planes must in turn be infinite to accomodate an infinite number of souls and the infinite gods they worship.
If the Material is not infinite then the other planes aren't either but are of a similar scale (except for the Ethereal and the Astral which play by different rules).

Every time I try to get into Planescape I keep being reminded how much I hate the Lady Of Pain.

>>96619623
1. too much planes/dimensions stuff
2. too many rules changing by plane for spells
3. its all settings at once plus everything else, its tiresome
4. dm has to do too many things behind the screen and when preparing if he is to consider all mechanical and lore issues
5. sigil looks interesting in the computer game, but a boring smoggy shithole in the tabletop
6. Some factions are fine and add to the game but most are just a burden and make little to no sense
7. the cant and slag of sigil and the planes is moronic
8. too many dead ends, too many rigid limitations despite being in the planes (too railroady even for people which are fine with it)
9. Lady of pain has a nice sketch but is a DM do whatever you want like a donkey character and just is an intrusive presence
10. flatness and narrowness despite the supposed diversity and vastness
11. hooks sucked, little motive to proceed or just boring material
12. DiTerlizzi is great for light-hearted (elves and faerieland etc) stuff but for sigil he was made things look silly
13. the dustmen 1-3 level adventure has you fight hobgoblins at a point, what an exotic setting and game we are having....plane vs plain they confused the two
14. Where did paladins, good clerics, good knights etc, or any sane race of peoples, fit in in a world of fiends and monsters walking around Sigil?
15. A world and city, Sigil, with all sorts of monsters walking around made monsters nothing more than actors in plastic suits, like that old godzilla film series.
16. The neutrality of sigil makes it utterly boring.
17. Deva spark adventure was horrid and so were many others. Most if not all adventures were very bad and made the exotic and rare into a mundane plastic monotonous mono-dimensional presence.
18. The "actors" in suits for monsters walking around sigil (mind flayers, demons and devils, drow etc) ruined all immersion.
19. No series of adventures for each faction were developed.

>>96620407
>>96619623
continued
20. Some faction abilities were too powerful or too weak (no healing worked) and most were just a dysfunctional parody.
21. There was no market for mundane yet unique weapons from each setting in sigil.
22. The underworld (and "underdark" of sewers of sorts for the city) of Sigil was from non-existent to underdeveloped.
23. The races did not work logically, tieflings were horrid part fiends, sheep-people did not fit in most places and other planar races could not function as PCs.
24. The text color could not be read and was tiresome causing headaches and the language used (some planar slang) made reading the books even more tiresome.
25. The setting could have been called PlaneLame as a more fitting name.
26. Planescape and Sigil should have been the best (races, classes, items, spells, deities, organizations etc) of all settings combined into one (Sigil) so the vast dimensions (Planes) could be explored. But we got ram/sheep people, tieflings that smelled and looked like monsters and books with a font and a color and a language that could not be read. And all monsters became mundane actors.
27. Planescape was an extremely bad draft and equally bad adventures.
28. setting's vast scale often made player characters feel insignificant while at the time the setting seemed small, that is quite an achievement
29. NEUTRALITY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2WD1SJiRjo

>>96619623
>>What is an aspect of Planescape you dislike and/or would change?
>>Do you prefer 2e or 5e's take on Planescape and the Big Wheel? Are the Feywild and the Shadowfell good additions?
>>Do you also include Spelljammer's cosmology, or do you prefer the older concept of "alternate Material Planes" linked by the Plane of Shadow?
>>Do you think the planes are literally infinite, or just bigger than what any mortal could comprehend?
>>Do you like the concept of the Ordial Plane? Is it necessary to fulfill the Rule of Threes and the Unity of the Rings?
>>If the Astral doesn't touch the Inner Planes in 2e, should stuff like Teleport, Dimension Door, Portable Holes, etc, work there?
>>In what order do you think the planes were created?
>>What's your theory/headcanon about the origin and significance of Sigil and/or The Lady of Pain?
1. sigil is not neutral but good and is besieged by all kinds of chaos and evil, so this gives the place the capacity of constant action
2. no they both suck, feywild is wimpy (reminds me of a girlfriend named fay), the proper names are Seelie Court & unSeelie Court, dump shadowfell as well
3. they all need to be rebuild from the bottom
4. makes no practical difference, let them philosophize about it
5. no and no
6. the whole cosmology is a burnt meal
7. in no order this why the setting sucks
8. she does not exist and some janitors just thought her up

>>96619623
>What is an aspect of Planescape you dislike and/or would change?
The DMs.

>>96619623
>>What is an aspect of Planescape you dislike and/or would change?
its very existence, as now we pretty much have Sigil and Planescape in the prime material. There is such racial and monstrous diversity in the Forgotten realms especially that going to sigil makes no difference.

Nothing is special, its all the same.

>>96619623
>>What's your theory/headcanon about the origin and significance of Sigil and/or The Lady of Pain?
She is actually riley reid's anti-social alter ego from another dimension. Opposite in almost every way.

>>96619623
>>What is an aspect of Planescape you dislike and/or would change?
The Lady of Keeping Players From Changing the Status Quo

>>96619623
>>Do you think the planes are literally infinite, or just bigger than what any mortal could comprehend?
The planes being canonically infinite is actually a huge problem since it means nothing you do will ever really matter, like if the BBEG is a Pit Fiend and you kill him at the end of the campaign there's still infinity more Pit Fiends.

>>96619623
>>What is an aspect of Planescape you dislike and/or would change?
1. there is no blood war, they fight but not like the blood war
2. the blood war scale war is against Sigil.

now we have a setting

What was the point of asking what was the aspect you dislike of planescape but not the one you liked the most? If you don't like the setting then don't play it. Otherwise is just a threads for haters.

>>96620566
What's the aspect you like the most?

>>96620566
>If you don't like the setting
you can like a small part of it and improve it with great changes thus have something playable and fun. Its not all junk, just most of it.

Its like a draft, a very incomplete setting like dragonlance. A few good parts and many incomplete or bad parts.

It can be salvaged like a bad adventure with good artwork, good maps and a few other elements. Sometimes a bad adventure has parts that make it a useful accessory that you can build upon a part of the setting and a new adventure.

Its recycling alchemical process of sorts.

File: 2e Tiefling Random Charac(...).png (946 KB, 923x1205)

946 KB PNG

>>96619623
>incentivise discussion:
i do not like tieflings as pcs (good for npc villains or something) but the chart they had for them was great. It made them into really fiendish spawn.

>>96619623
>>What is an aspect of Planescape you dislike and/or would change?
mind flayer pc-race brain souvlaki and moon hot-dog street vendors would definitely have to go

>>96619623
>proper Planescape
the most important part of a setting is the adventures, because even if the setting is bad or average if the adventures are good and enough people will play and have fun in it (or use them for other settings).

Where were the entry adventures for characters from level 1-3 from each setting, with good capacity for scaling so they could be adjusted for higher level parties.
About 6-12 adventures were needed for low levels, so there would be an entry and stuff happening at the very low levels so they can learn the new settings. But this did not happen.

then a series of adventures to take characters from level 4 to perhaps demigod status.

instead we got some hobgoblins to fight.

To be honest, I have no idea what to do at all in Sigil.
Except look for a way out.

>>96620566
Because "what's your favourite X" is a very trite question. Thinking about the things you dislike requires more brainpower and leads to more discussion and ideas on how to fix them.

>>96620684
>the most important part of a setting is the adventures,
Do you not realize you can come up with your own?

>>96621058
>come up with your ow
you can come up with as many as you like just like i did, but we are talking about a published setting and its adventures. Reading good adventures from other people, official or unofficial, is fun (though not as much as when writing your own) but the issue is what we got from the official creators.

I write my own, others make their own, and i also want to see good adventures and good settings published by the official creators.

>>96619676
>One tiny aspect I dislike is that the realm of dreams is located in the Ethereal rather than the Astral. That kind fucks up the substance/thought duality that those two have going on. Why is it even necessary for dreams to be physically real while we're dreaming them? Just have them be visions in the Astral that influence the Outer Planes
Adding to this, there is in fact a monster species called Astral Wolves, which are specifically said to drag sleeping people to the Astral Plane through their dreams, so I don't know what they were on when they linked dreams to Ether.

>>96620791
Found a whole thread answering this question.
https://desuarchive.org/tg/thread/85257458

>>96620535
>>96620551
It's understandable that many do not like this aspect of Planescape because it goes against what is commonly held as pillars of fantasy roleplaying.
But I think the whole point of Planescape is to make you feel small and insignificant in comparison to the vastness and misteries of the multiverse. It's a very post-modern take on fantasy that deliberately goes against D&D's classic fantasy tropes.

>>96619623
What do you think is the most interesting party to play?
1. planars in general
2. sigilites, born and bred in the city
3. primes from some fantasy world
4. primes form some strange fantasy world like Athas or Ravenloft (lets call them primes, or assume its from oerth and they migrated to a domain)
5. a mix of primes and planars, sigilites or not
6. other

any experiences with similar parties

>>96619623
>dislike
planescape only feels correct with the wealth of options 3.5 has and i dont think anything will ever change this
>2e vs 5e
The shadowfell is easy to slot into traditional cosmology, the faewild is a bit harder and I prefer to have it overlapping the outlands
>add spelljammer
this is the wy
>infinite planes?
of course. every soul is made of many infinities so why not the planes?
>ordial plane
stroke of genius
>astral touching
planar cosmology and wonky physics, classic spells not functioning is core to the setting and part of the fun
>order the planes are created.
I have never thought of this before but I think the world would start with a prime prime material world and the elemental planes and then spin outward as iconic energy gathers and legends rise and fall
>oirigin of sigil and the lady of pain
Dolores used to be a barmaid at the inter dimensional tavern before some phoenix force avatar psion burned down the tavern, the lady and the portals. I once stole a kiss from the lady of pain.

>>96620584
If you only like a small part of the setting then you probably don't like it at all. Which is ok but OP seems to be up on his own ass with his shit questions.
>>96621033
>"what's your favourite X" is a very trite question.
No, you're just retarded. Coming up with ragebait and "why we hate X" especially on 4chan is easy as fuck. Now, asking for IMPROVEMENTS that's actually hard. So far there's 0 improvements proposed in this thread which is expected because OP is a lazy retard.

>>96630248
>Now, asking for IMPROVEMENTS that's actually hard
>What is an aspect of Planescape you dislike and/or would change?
Seems to me like you either have shit reading comprehension, or are acting intentionally retarded to shitpost.

>>96619623
I hate the change from nirvana to mechanus.
Modrons were not supposed to be mechanical at all. D&D wasn't supposed to have mechanical/tech advancements (except unique artifacts) in the world. It's not steampunk. Golems were as close to robots as one should be able to get.

>>96632035
Barrier Peaks was written by Gary Gygax.
Stop being a faggot.

File: DMG firearms.jpg (37 KB, 990x242)

37 KB JPG

>>96632062
and you could use any items once you left, nor reverse engineer them. same goes for gun shit.
>faggot
Right back at you.

>>96632089
*could NOT use any items once you left

>>96632089
this is a rule because of wargaming and the wheel of time has several chapters about what happens when you break this rule

>>96632035
Other planes are supposed to be weird and different from anything you would find on the Prime. Breaking established D&D conventions is a deliberate aspect of Planescape.
A steampunk world it's a perfect example of the weirdness that Planescape was shooting for, and it demonstrates how a world of absolute law can be just as alien as the fluctuating chaos of Limbo.

>>96619623
What races & classes do you think are the most interesting to play in a planescape campaign?
What are the best and worst? What created the most problems and conflicts?
What party combination of classes and races do you recommend?
any adventures that are not written for planescape that you think would best fit there with a some work?

any experiences with your own campaigns in general? funny, funy, anything.

>>96619623
>What is an aspect of Planescape you dislike and/or would change?
The lady of pain being unstatted and invincible. It's not fair. Everything should have stats. Nothing should be an unkillable auto win button for the DM.

>>96634838
>The lady of pain being unstatted and invincible.
the main problem is not her lack of stats, its that she not anything else other than "dm, you do whatever and say its the lady of pain, this bizzaromatic product of bad writing" and that she makes no sense whatsoever. She could have had call of cthulhu stats where cthulhu kills 1d20 investigators per round or something despite having stats (so Lady of Pain would kill 1D20 number of characters per round as long as they were under level 20). Then we could say, well its a very powerful divine being, but only inside Sigil. But she would require to have been written properly.

I would vote for the Riley Reid version.

>>96634838
>lady of pain being unstatted
could have been this in 2e, within Sigil (cannot manifest or exist outside of the city)
Armor Class: -10
Hit Dice: 300 (Effectively immortal)
THAC0: 1 (literally cannot miss a mortal target)
Damage/Attack: Kills 1d20 creatures per round as long as they are up to level 20. This is directly ported from CoC. Alternatively, he physical attacks would be described as "strikes for 10d100 points of damage" or simply "death."
Special Attacks:
Gaze of Terror: Save vs. Death Magic or be driven irrevocably insane (as the insanity spell) or die of fright. Can activate at will.
Gaze of Banishment: Save vs. Death Magic or be banished from Sigil, expelled in another plane of her choice. Can activate at will.
Magic: Use of any spell-like ability at will. Can cast maze, power word, kill at will on any number of targets within sight.
Aura of Madness: All within 1 mile must save vs. Spells each round or suffer the effects of a confusion spell. Can activate at will.
Special Defenses:
+3 or better magical weapon to hit.
Regenerates 20 HP per round.
Immune to all forms of mind-affecting magic, elemental damage, and non-magical weapons.
Only the most powerful divine magic or artifacts can truly harm or effect her.
Magic Resistance: 95%
Sanity (House Rule): Any character viewing the Lady of Pain in her wrathful state must make a System Shock roll. If they fail, they are permanently and incurably insane. This is a common house rule to emulate the CoC feel.

>>96619623
how many have ran long campaigns in the planescape setting? having played all or most of the official adventures and/or many of their own?

>>96634936
>The lady of pain
i would rather remove her altogether and redo the whole setting.

the destruction of Aoskar made clear that this was a badly written draft that was published several years before it ought to have been.

>>96635147
meant to answer the other fella, not myself

>>96634838
>>96634936
Lady of Pain is a force of nature, not a character. It's wrong to think of her as a character or a being of any kind, she's simply a symbolic representation of balance and neutrality imposed on Sigil. Statting her makes as much as sense as statting gravity or time itself.

>>96635147
By that point it might as well be a different setting altogether.

>>96636901
Fuck you I should be able to kill time and gravity too.

File: dnd_the_cosmology_by_geek(...).jpg (220 KB, 863x926)

220 KB JPG

>>96619623
Does anyone have any advice for creating alternative cosmological models, for DnD or in general?

>>96636901
>By that point it might as well be a different setting altogether.
yes its the worst setting of tsr, its at best a draft with a few salvageable points.

>symbolic representation of balance and neutrality imposed on Sigil. Statting her makes as much as sense as statting gravity or time itself.
too pain-inducing to be actually neutral, even her appearance shows a non-neutral female

>>96639627
use the model of tibetans or other real-world metaphysics as the d&d model is a mess.

>>96636901
the only good thing about the existence of the setting of the planescape torment computer game and some of the artwork, mostly some covers.

>call for haters
>Get haters
OP is a faggot~ OP is an idiot~ OP sucks cocks~

>>96619623
having 2e campaign setting threads and specific 2e adventure threads (even better) is great but most will not discuss, or most 2e players are retired or busy and gone. Ravenloft threads, dark sun, etc

>>96636901
>Statting her makes as much as sense as statting gravity or time itself.
If you don't stat The Table Itself as a secret boss, you've failed as a GM

Any tips for a sandbox campaign?
The campaign setting box doesn't give much in terms of hooks and I don't wanna use only Sigil.
I'm new to DMing so I'm having trouble creating adventures and moving players without railroading them.

>>96644957
ask chat gpt for random leads and improvise from there

>>96646196
I'm not too fond of GPT but that does sound useful.
I also was asking to see if anyone has experience running sandbox campaigns and how/what to prep. I'll probably have to do a lot of theater of the mind as having maps for every location is absurd.