Why the disdain for Planescape?

[virgil]

I've noticed that several people here hold a disdain for the setting, after having searched around for the word on the forums. This brings up a question from me, why do you hate it?

[RandomCasualty]

Most people tend to dislike it because it hoses clerics with that crazy rule about reducing their caster level by 1 for every plane removed they are from their home plane. The bad part is that you can't use the prime material as a go between here, you've actually got to follow the great wheel plane by plane. So if you got your power from a CG god and went to the nine hells (LG) you're basically screwed over.

That being said, I don't think there's that much reason we hate planescape more than any other settings. Really, we tend to hate everything fairly equally. You'll find no love for FR or Eberron here either.

[virgil]

I remember that rule, but that was an old 2e thing that never carried over into the new edition (thankfully, it was stupid). I've seen at least two people state that they hated Planescape with a burning passion, but I couldn't find much explanation for it; unlike Eberron and Forgotten Realms, which I could find reasons for why those settings are considered less than stellar.

[Captain_Bleach]

1186797701[/unixtime]]Most people tend to dislike it because it hoses clerics with that crazy rule about reducing their caster level by 1 for every plane removed they are from their home plane. The bad part is that you can't use the prime material as a go between here, you've actually got to follow the great wheel plane by plane. So if you got your power from a CG god and went to the nine hells (LG) you're basically screwed over.

That being said, I don't think there's that much reason we hate planescape more than any other settings. Really, we tend to hate everything fairly equally. You'll find no love for FR or Eberron here either.

So, what do you hate about Birthright? Or Kingdoms of Kalamar? How about Greyhawk?

[rapanui]

1186797701[/unixtime]]Most people tend to dislike it because it hoses clerics with that crazy rule about reducing their caster level by 1 for every plane removed they are from their home plane. The bad part is that you can't use the prime material as a go between here, you've actually got to follow the great wheel plane by plane. So if you got your power from a CG god and went to the nine hells (LG) you're basically screwed over.

That being said, I don't think there's that much reason we hate planescape more than any other settings. Really, we tend to hate everything fairly equally. You'll find no love for FR or Eberron here either.

I like FR. There's a lot of retarded crap in there (both in rules AND flavor), but you simply will not find a more completely detailed fantasy setting. Plus, BG2 was set in Faerun and that's basically my favorite RPG ever. I should say I also like Planescape: Torment quite a bit. They managed to make the setting work within the context of the computer RPG.

[MrWaeseL]

Planescape!

[Koumei]

1186800606[/unixtime]]
So, what do you hate about Birthright? Or Kingdoms of Kalamar? How about Greyhawk?

"Huh? Birthright? What's that?"

At any rate, I'm curious as to why people vehemently hate Planescape too. I haven't been playing as long as most others, so the only Planescape game I've played was a 3.5 one that didn't last very long and was quite enjoyable. I probably missed something that is inherently wrong with the setting.

[JonSetanta]

1186801600[/unixtime]]Planescape!

Maybe that's the kind of person you're thinking of. If you like Planescape, just ignore em. You are entitled to your own opinion, but others also have their own.


Regardless, I love it since Planescape allows practically any race, any template, any combination of technologies (as long as it's pseudo-magical) and Sigil is Da Bomb. It's FR meets Greyhawk meets Ravenloft meets Dark Sun meets d20 Modern or Future, and more.

Just house rule the "Clerics suck" arbitrary shit, and you're good to go. Also, fake cockney accent is optional and tends to get annoying...

[RandomCasualty]

1186800606[/unixtime]]
So, what do you hate about Birthright? Or Kingdoms of Kalamar? How about Greyhawk?

Well I'm not too familiar with Birthright or Kalamar. As far as Greyhawk, basically Greyhawk has many of the same problems FR does. It's a pseudomedieval setting that turns a blind eye on the effects of having high level magic present.

Greyhawk is slightly better than FR in that you don't have quite as many uberNPCs walking around, but it doesn't have anything special to it. Really, I've never seen a great reason to run Greyhawk. It's bland, it's boring and you're better off just homebrewing a random world to put people in.

I like FR. There's a lot of retarded crap in there (both in rules AND flavor), but you simply will not find a more completely detailed fantasy setting. Plus, BG2 was set in Faerun and that's basically my favorite RPG ever. I should say I also like Planescape: Torment quite a bit. They managed to make the setting work within the context of the computer RPG.

The games did rock, but as far as the details go, FR doesn't make much sense internally. If you read one of the novels, the action plays out more like you're playing GURPS instead of D&D. The world is supposed to be high magic and all, but none of its heroes are running around with 2 magic rings, a magic cloak, magic boots, a magic amulet, enchanted armor and a magic set of glasses.

The thing with FR is that a lot of the stories are pretty awesome, but they just don't make any sense when you apply the D&D rules. It feels like the entire setting was ported to D&D from some other more low magic rules set, because the way the stories portray everything is almost completely opposite to how the game actually runs.

FR tends to just be a hodgepodge of random stuff that people decide to plop down with no apparent rhyme or reason.

Really, while BG2 was awesome, it didn't have to be set in FR, they could have pretty much set it anywhere and achieved the same effect. It was good because it was such a well made game, I don't give any real credit to the setting. I mean, while killing Drizz't was an added nice effect in the game, we probably wouldn't have cared if it was set in another world instead.

[Catharz]

Birthright was a game where PCs were "blooded", meaning infused with divine power, and therefore had Divine Right to hold kingdoms.

They also got a stack of arbitrary abilities, which I can't describe too well in the normal case because all my group played were "abominations", basically blooded on steroids. Anyway, the blooded manifest powers based on the god they're infused with, and it ends up more or less acting as a template. In fact, the system could be done pretty easily with templates in 3e.


Kingdoms of Kalamar was a cross between Mystara and D&D Quickplay, which was publeshed from the start by a third party (IIRC the same one which owns Fairy Meat). Editing on it was bad, and balance was generally bad too.




Planescape was one of my all-time favorite settings, but that probably owes a lot to Torment and playing heavily house-ruled 2e campaigns. As far as I can tell, some people hate it for the mechanics and others for the flavor. I can see reasons for both, but basically the Tony Diterlizzy artwork makes it all better. I liked Dark Sun too, so maybe I was just a munchkin or had bad taste.

[josephbt]

Planescape gets a special "FO" from me. The last campaigh i played was PS(rymes with BS). I had no clue what to expect, so i went for cleric. Big mistake.

We played on Acheron, i was from Ysgard. No caster level to speak of. Couldn't buff, couldn't fight, what good was my cleric if the party fighter outshone it. Quit that char.
Next was a wizzard. Then the planehopping started. Every damn plane has its own damn dumb rules. I had a page of crunch for every damn plane. The spells, the skills, the environment, sometimes everything changed. I like consistent settings, the ones where you know gravity or common physics won't go away at some point. That wizzard got crited so i made a psy rogue. 1-page char sheet. It was sweet.

And now some other pointless stuff about PS. Weapons aren't the same whereever you go. A +1 sword in Baator isn't +1 anywhere else. I couldn't get a reasonable explanation why that was so. Ditto for armors. So i shruged and threw some flasks.

Factions are mostly okay, but the crazy ape-shit rules that follow them aren't. Eg. Doomguard are sorta fun, but the drawback is - no magical healing for you. It's because these guys promote entropy...and...healing is against it?? Sensates get various bonuses to skills and init and some darkvision. Hell yeah, sign me up. This happens all the time. Some factions are leetzor(fluffwise), but utter crapzor(cruchwise), and vice versa.

The economics of the setting are seriouslly weird. Why everyone(anyone) uses gold, beats me.

I had more problems while i was playing, don't remember them all now.

[Koumei]

Wow, I had none of those problems. The worst I got hit with was "You can't summon a Water Elemental in the Dark Sun world".

We only played in a few places before it folded due to the player of the Paladin being too annoying for the DM to handle: Generic Asian Setting, Sigil itself, the Dark Sun world (where thanks to my cleric trying to explain to them what deities are, and using Create Water in front of them, Loviatar practically gained the Water domain and was viewed as the most amazing person in existence. We also left that plane in a really bad situation. Good times) and (briefly) Mechanus.

I don't think we even did any combat or spellcasting while in Mechanus, so if the DM was going to use any "Clerics get hosed" rules, it didn't come up.

And we never even saw the shadow of the Lady. Seriously. The DM played her the way she's apparently meant to be played: not at all, just a feature, like traffic lights. She's there, just not doing anything worth noting that has an immediate effect on the PCs.

[Cielingcat]

I hate Planescape for a number of reasons. One, its sycophantic suckups on every D&D forum I've ever been to (save this one). They fucking piss me off so fucking much I can't even say it without using "fuck" like ten more times.

Second, the Lady of Pain. Fucking hell man, that is the dumbest shit I've ever heard of. You have someone who's apparently not supposed to do anything, and yet she stands there as a setting supported way for the DM to fuck you in the ass whenever he wants.

Third, the fluff. I just don't like any of it. Really, Sigil? Hate the place. The fluff behind every single planar entity? I do not like it. The whole "you can never be important at all, and the best you can do is suck off the NPCs" vibe? Also hate.

[Koumei]

Note to self: Don't become a sycophantic suckup, or I'll ruin the board

And I have to say I never ran into the "You can't be important" bit. Sure, we weren't important in Sigil, but we had the entirety of the Dark Sun world lining up just to give us head, and offering to pay money for the privelage.

I take it that just doesn't happen very often though?

[virgil]

I never understood why any GM would use the Lady of Pain as an excuse to play out their juvenile whims; these are the same people who have gods descend from the clouds if you so much as say their name, jack off in your face, and disappear (I hate those DMs). She's supposed to be a background piece, and shouldn't do anything except to stop someone from blowing up Sigil (or worshipping her, but that's a stupid thing to do as it's an established fact of doing nothing except killing you).

I myself love the fluff for Planescape. Enough even for me to wade through the boards that cater to the fans. Granted, I have to wade through alot of crap to find the gems, but that's true for any collection of fan material. I'm not saying everyone should like it, just that I do.

Oh, Cielingcat, you only said 'fvck' five times to describe your loathing of it

[Username17]

All of the 2nd edition settings existed to explain how society could continue under D&D rules. They were like a Tome Series made by various groups with wildly disparate talents at writing making various incompatible assumptions about the universe and social dynamics of the powerful. Also, each setting was based on only a very narrow look at D&D and its problematic assertions.

• Birthright: How can life continue if people keep getting levels?
  The answer: People don't, Player Characters do. Birthright was an attempt to clear away levelled character clutter by intoducing an in-game reason why NPCs didn't gain levels. Unfortunately they were never super clear that that's what they were doing so the end result had more of a "roll to see if yur character will ever amount to anything" feel and gets a thumbs down.
  
  
• Darksun: How can life continue if people keep getting levels?
  The answer: It can't. Characters go epic, they turn themselves into giant psychic dragon gods, and then they destroy the entire fvcking planet. Life as we know it collapses, your medieval shit is so over, and the world is blighted unto a thousand generations. The setting never really went far enough actually, there wasn't any reason why you couldn't rebuild society with the magical tools you apparently had.
  
  
• Planescape: How can life continue if there are infinite demons in infinite demon armies trying to end it?
  The answer: Contingent infinities based on the expectations and moral stature of the people in the prime. Planescape tried to encompass the entire Great Wheel architecture, which is unfortunate because a lot of it is contradictory and a lot of it is extremely retarded. The basic problem with the entire setting is that while you're in it, basically nothing you do makes any difference. The root cause of all your problems is the moral ambivalence of people in Primes, but you're fighting demons in infinite hellscapes that are contingently recreated so long as people in on Oerth are still fucktards. There's been a lot of cool stuff for Planescape (Torment, Diterlizzi art, the Planescape Modron), but 2nd edition planar rules were extremely retarded. A lot of people use the Planescape setting as a platform to bring back stupid AD&D rules - which is bad.
  
  
• Spelljammer: How can we have medieval society with all these wizards making magic items for thousands of years?
  Answer: Beholders in Spaaaaaaaccccce.... Apparently wizards just plain have been making magic items industriously for thousands of years. They accumulate in piles, and there are planets that have been hollowed out by magicians to make room for more magic wands. The whole thing is specifically over-the-top. Unfortunately, it's still D&D so it nevr really gets the futuristic feel. It just feels like you're playing in the X series of Gygax mods all the time.

-Username17

[Captain_Bleach]

In your opinion, what is the best D&D setting that you have stumbled across, official, third party, or otherwise?

[JonSetanta]

Frank, I've also seen (and am one) many people that use 3.5e as a platform to bring back Planescape flavor, without the fucktard rules...
Although I did get that awesome box set years ago, I don't even bother looking at the crunch now when I introduce it to gamers. It's the setting, the style, the dynamic between weird cultures. Apparently the way I present it (without dumb rules) goes over very well, but I can't sum exactly how I'm presenting it.... Just common sense, I guess; when in doubt, favor the players not the deities. Or something.


My favorite setting: my brother's extended "archipelo" nation, I believe inspired by Forgotten Realms/Dark Sun/The Odyssey/LOTR/Magic The Gathering and more.
Levels progressed slow, which was fine because there was so much to do; the fun was in the process, not acquisition of goods or power.
Then again, any RPG is really only as good as the players, DM, and interaction between both.

Might explain a lot of problems with Planescape IMHO. If you don't like a rule, CUT IT OUT!

[Rob_Knotts]

For me it was the most outspoken fans of Planescape that made me avoid it like the plague. They were like the semi-literate people I met who kept telling me Watchmen* was the end-all/be-all of superhero comics.

*I didn't read Watchmen until recently, and I do think it's a very good book, but "gods with feet of clay" is a limited theme to begin with, and since then it's become one of the most tiresome cliches of modern superhero comics.

The overall tone for Planescape is cynical, in a way it's a huge deconstruction of D&D as a genre. In & of itself that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it has a strong appeal to immature players looking for something iconoclastic, subversiive, something tha appeals to the adolescent rebellion they haven't grown out of.

Planescape was something I was able to appreciate years after the initial popularity, but many of the players who made it popular were people I wouldn't game with in the first place.

[tzor]

I never really had much disdain for the setting, I just never bothered to play it much. Oddly enough it's one of the few scenarios whose fluff I really disliked. The Gothic punk feel didn't appeal to me at the time. I wasn't interested in the whole new language thing either.

[Cielingcat]

1186817108[/unixtime]]Oh, Cielingcat, you only said 'fvck' five times to describe your loathing of it

Yeah, but I couldn't describe my loathing of the Planescape fantards without at least ten more "fucks" in that one paragraph. And that's a conservative estimate.

Oh, I also hate how Planescape bends over backwards to fellate alignment. And if I have to read one more post by Shemeska the Furfag (no offense meant to any specific furries save the aforementioned fucktard) about how awesome Yugoloths are, I swear I'm going to puke.

[Rob_Knotts]

Ah man, I forgot the drooling Yugoloth fanboys:ugone2far:

[MrWaeseL]

I read Rob's post before Ceilingcat's, and Shemeska whatever is indeed the first name that came to mind

[Koumei]

1186863560[/unixtime]]
And if I have to read one more post by Shemeska the Furfag (no offense meant to any specific furries save the aforementioned fucktard) about how awesome Yugoloths are, I swear I'm going to puke.

Yugoloths can't really be that awesome.

1. They got booted out of their home plane because the Devils and Demons decided it'd make a better football pitch.

2. Arcanaloths. The whole furry thing means that they, like the furfag Celestials, are only allowed to do things on Friday. See: "It's not Friday"

Although I will admit that I do like the idea of them being "EVIL" instead of "Ambivalent Evil", the one that isn't really Chaotic or Lawful, so no-one cares. But that doesn't make them awesome.

[Cielingcat]

I don't like the idea of them being "Evil incarnate" because that makes for stupid. Seriously, the whole "evil for evil's sake" thing is dumb, and is only made even dumber by the fact that D&D alignments make no sense.

If they left the fiends like, say, Warhammer demons, "evil because they're evil" would be fine because WH demons are little more than monsters, albeit often intelligent monsters. They don't need to make sense because they're a horrific force from the Warp that doesn't even have a physical form until it manifests. But if you start explaining how Bloodletter society works I guarantee you it will be fucking stupid as fuck.

Of course, Planescape also explains both too little and too much. They pretend not to tell you anything by saying "but this is only a theory", but they've already ruined it by that time.

I fucking hate you, Deities and the Planes board. Fucking hate you almost as much as Races, and even more than Classes.