Why the disdain for Planescape?

[Catharz]

Ya man, those Egyptians were so lame. I can't stand the sight of those pyramids. Every one of them was a fucking furfag.

[virgil]

Meh, I never thought of yugoloths as 'awesome', just a kind of evil that works by making people think they're more awesome than they really are. All in all, the various kinds of fiends are just the dominant styles of each 'flavour' of evil...baatezu with their rules/laws (that part needs to be emphasized), tanar'ri with their undirected rage and fluid form, yugoloth with conspiracy theories, etc.

They keep it pretty vague, partially as a cop-out, but it does give a GM room to play around with a couple different ways to mess with the handling of alignment. Technically, all of the evil in the Great Wheel is simply mortal evil given a face, so it's going to be fallible & inconsistent (supposedly the higher up ones will be less so).

But really, the Great Wheel was their attempt at trying to make the D&D philosophy of good & evil work; and end up with a semi-angsty clump with shades-of-gray all over the place.

I've been tempted to run a Planescape game with a more primal/alien alignment, but I'd have to scrap the neat little borders given by the Great Wheel.

[Koumei]

1186870588[/unixtime]]Ya man, those Egyptians were so lame. I can't stand the sight of those pyramids. Every one of them was a fucking furfag.

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm there? Point taken though.

[Cielingcat]

1186870588[/unixtime]]Ya man, those Egyptians were so lame. I can't stand the sight of those pyramids. Every one of them was a fucking furfag.

The comment was directed at a particular WotC poster.

[Captain_Bleach]

Which one?

[MrWaeseL]

Me.

[Sir Neil]

...bring back Planescape flavor...

The only flavor I remember was the cynical, "been-there/done-that" attitude radiating from every NPC.

Fvck those jaded planar bastards, and the setting they rode in on.

FTVM.

[RandomCasualty]

1186972473[/unixtime]]

...bring back Planescape flavor...

The only flavor I remember was the cynical, "been-there/done-that" attitude radiating from every NPC.

Yeah, that's the planescape I know.

[Lago_AM3P]

Yeah, that's the planescape I know.

One of the few things I hated about Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (though I'm sure some people enjoyed it) was that every goddamn NPC always had some sort of snappy comeback no matter what the conversation tree was or who they were.

I hated the game giving you some layman's response and then the game not only awarding the NPC the last word but writing a wittier response to it and NOT BEING ABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Goddamn it. Except kill them. Well, that was pretty awesome, but I couldn't kill EVERYONE. And it's not like I could extract some kind of apology. Fucking assholes.

I heard that the Planescape cRPG was especially bad at this.

[Catharz]

Heh, everyone had an atitude in that game, but you could be a total asshole too if you wanted.

[MrWaeseL]

If you told enough people you were Adahn, Adahn would appear at the smoldering corpse bar, created by the belief of people there was a Adahn. That was pretty cool.

[Sir Neil]

I hated the game giving you some layman's response and then the game not only awarding the NPC the last word but writing a wittier response to it and NOT BEING ABLE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Goddamn it. Except kill them. Well, that was pretty awesome, but I couldn't kill EVERYONE.

*reminiscing* Oh yes you could.

Except for that invulnerable cocksucking lizard man slaver in NWN:Shadows of Undrendtide...

Icewind Dale was good about sharing the love. Some giant gets in your face, asking about your business in his lair, and you tell him "killing's my business, and you're my next customer."

"Is that so? Well you'll have to do business with my brothers. All of them."

"Keep up that attitude," your character said, "and I'll toss in your mom and dad for free."

When they don't give you good ones, I fall back on my old standby. "I know a secret. You're a D&D villain, which means I'm going to kill you and take your stuff."

[JonSetanta]

1187037515[/unixtime]]Heh, everyone had an atitude in that game, but you could be a total asshole too if you wanted.

Seems not many players remember this is an option. Hell, I'm just now learning that (outside of home) it's a valid option and does indeed 'get your way' at times.
The trick is knowing or at least being open to learn WHEN to be an asshole.
You can't just go around doing it to everyone.
That earns you a backhand by Vecna or something similarly awful.

On computer RPG and NPC responses: hit Esc, attack. Usually works in NWN. Sometimes it's even possible to buff while they get that last word in and you leave the talk-box up, then when ready you accept their challenge and turn them into little red chunks (unless the coder was a railroading douche and made said NPC invincible, in which case just be smart and get past the plot so you can kill more)

[Cielingcat]

Well, in Baldur's Gate, you could could be an asshole to whoever you wanted because you were a fucking Bhaalspawn. Literally, Eliminster comes up to and says "holy shit dude, you could totally kick my ass."

[Catharz]

1187073093[/unixtime]]

1187037515[/unixtime]]Heh, everyone had an atitude in that game, but you could be a total asshole too if you wanted.

Seems not many players remember this is an option. Hell, I'm just now learning that (outside of home) it's a valid option and does indeed 'get your way' at times.
The trick is knowing or at least being open to learn WHEN to be an asshole.
You can't just go around doing it to everyone.
That earns you a backhand by Vecna or something similarly awful.

When did Vecna show up in PS:T?

[Koumei]

1187074270[/unixtime]]Literally, Eliminster comes up to and says "holy shit dude, you could totally kick my ass."

That's actually my lifetime goal. For him to use those specific words, too.

[Draco_Argentum]

Torment was a cool game. Thats the only Planescape I've touched. It ignored the rules everyone seems to hate. I can't help but think thats part of why people like it and not the setting.

[Lago_AM3P]

Literally, Eliminster comes up to and says "holy shit dude, you could totally kick my ass."

... then he'll just get his skank Mystra to teleport ambush you and dump like 30 delay'd blasphemies on you in a time stop chain and then have sex over your dead body with her.

Fucking Baldur's Gate/NWN games give people totally inaccurate impressions of what would really go down in monkey town. Monks being viable characters with basic feats? Puh-LEEZE.

[Cielingcat]

No, she can't do that 'cause in BGII you actually become the Lord of Murder. And Cyric himself comes down and says "I'm not allowed to kill you myself, but I am allowed to send my greatest champions at you." Naturally, you kill his champions, but you kill everyone who gets in your way.

[Lago_AM3P]

No, she can't do that 'cause in BGII you actually become the Lord of Murder. And Cyric himself comes down and says "I'm not allowed to kill you myself, but I am allowed to send my greatest champions at you." Naturally, you kill his champions, but you kill everyone who gets in your way.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Granted, even if he had this limitation for some reason, he shouldn't have had to resort to a plan of sending a bunch of losers after you. In 'real' D&D Cyric would devise a spell called 'turn all Bhaalspawn in a 10 mi radius into pedobears with no save/SR', make a bunch of scrolls containing said spell, and give it to his champions who are standing in front of a bunch of portals to Imoen's bedchambers. Or he'd make lil' Cyrics with some paragon pseudonatural great wyrm force dragons, stick them in the outer planes to let them grow a thousand years old in a few seconds of real time, and teleport them to you.

It's an even more idiotic outcome to be sure, I just want people to fully immerse themselves in the stupid rather than dabble in it. Because serious. Single-classed monks taking on adult dragons?

[Draco_Argentum]

Wait, monks weren't crap in the BG series? I never played one.

[Koumei]

I once played a monk and told it to attack a prismatic dragon. I wandered off to get something to drink, and when I came back they were still failing to hit each other at all.

It's probably bad to play the PC games before playing and running D&D normally - they'll give you crazy ideas like "Magic Missile and Fireball are good spells", "Fighters and Monks are good character choices" and of course "You can write any crazy shit for the plot, and the players will go along with it without trying dumb things."

Take, for instance, Whores of the Underdark. Halaster the Irritating Geases you into going into the Underdark for him.

Normally, if a DM just said "You've been Geased, you have to do it, no Save/SR, and the spell will never go away!" the players say "Dude, railroad much? We were about to wander on in there anyway, but now that you forced it on us, we're going to cast MDJ on ourselves just to remove the damn thing, flip you the finger, then go do something else. Because you're a dick."

So many silly things that they teach you.