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5 years ago ::
Jan 30, 2008 - 7:34AM
#61
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2002
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This is a good point. Planescape without the factions is not Planescape. And without the alignment system, can there still be factions? (I suppose so; they're no longer hard-wired into the rules, but these philosophical debates could still exist. But they don't seem as powerful when they're divorced from the Great Wheel.)
I think that they seem even more powerful without the great wheel. Now, rather than having to do with alignment, and balance, the factions will be more a testament of being created and affecting the world, as it were, through sheer force of will. This is better than just being a balance/representation of something else. JMHO
My first exposure to Planescape was from the game, Planescape: Torment. To this day it remains the best computer game I have EVER played. But, I didn't know about the great wheel at the time, didn't know about the where it was supposed to be located. Did this ruin the enjoyment? No. Did I understand that it was a meeting point/doorway to everywhere? Yep. Do I think that Sigil needs to be in a specific place? No, I don't. Why can't it just be. I can see Sigil being a place that you can only find it if you aren't looking for it, but it's always there somewhere and nowhere at the same time. Hell, Sigil = Schrodinger's Cat. It both exists and doesn't exist at the same time.
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5 years ago ::
Jan 30, 2008 - 7:55AM
#62
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Date Joined:
May 26, 2006
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The only issue I have with moving factions from the 2e Great Wheel to 4e PoL world concept is that several factions were intrinsically tied to one plane or another as a strong base of operation. Even before the Lady of Pain's "everybody out of the pool" decision they added in 3e, several of the factions (I don't remember which off hand) had strongholds on different planes along the wheel. Where are the strongholds going to be now?
If each astral domain is a deific creation, then excepting for a few dead deities, all faction strongholds in such domains would exist at some deity's approval. I hope WotC goes with the concept that there are some domains in the Astral sea that seem to exist without some deity's direct intervention. This would then allow for certain conceptually based domains (a domain of imprisonment similar to Carceri for example) to exist that players and factions could use with bowing and scraping to a god just to visit.
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5 years ago ::
Jan 30, 2008 - 8:08AM
#63
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2003
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The factions were never more than tangentially related to alignment. The removal of overt alignment from the game doesn't impact them in the slightest, and honestly, it makes them stronger and of more importance since they're about philosophies rather than alignment.
The Doomguard is about entropy, not Law or Chaos. In fact its most powerful doomlords run the range of alignment from LG to CE, with each of them having a particularly different perspective on the nature and role of Entropy as a concept.
Notions such as True Death, Action Unhindered By Thought, WhImSy + DIsOrDeR = FUN, etc aren't defined by alignment tags being part of the game. Their own underlying philosophies remain intact, and even more poignant.
Shemeska the Marauder, Freelancer 5 / Yugoloth 10
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5 years ago ::
Jan 30, 2008 - 8:04PM
#64
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Date Joined:
Oct 27, 2007
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The factions were never more than tangentially related to alignment. The removal of overt alignment from the game doesn't impact them in the slightest, and honestly, it makes them stronger and of more importance since they're about philosophies rather than alignment.
Notions such as True Death, Action Unhindered By Thought, WhImSy + DIsOrDeR = FUN, etc aren't defined by alignment tags being part of the game. Their own underlying philosophies remain intact, and even more poignant.
Poignant indeed, but urgent? I think what makes the factions' activities vital is (was) the reality-by-consensus pseudo-mechanic. If the Xaositechts conduct some sort of successful programme, something big should change in the PCs' universe. Otherwise the faction conflicts can come off as a bit academic.
1) Maybe drifting astral realms could be brought "closer" by the prominence of a "sympathetic" world view? Like, if some contested area is fought over and changes hands in a war many times, the Gray Wastes are "drawn" closer on the astral sea, sending subtle "waves" of "Gray Wastishness" over the beleaguered place, and making "travel" easier between that place and the Wastes. Then if the PCs can bring lasting peace to the area, or even somehow inspire great hope, the place becomes less "sympathetic" to the Wastes, which then drift further away on the astral sea. That way we can have stories of lands or cities that "ascend" or "succumb" to some astral realm.
2) Maybe if the Harmonium wax in power, the Feywild becomes more and more difficult to reach, stranding beings on either side and cutting off some characters from their Fey powers. Maybe, for example after a major war or plague, some Dustmen led cult becomes widespread, and the (Shadelands? Shadowlands? whatever) starts to bleed through into the prime material.
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5 years ago ::
Jan 31, 2008 - 5:17PM
#65
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Date Joined:
Jul 20, 2006
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1) Maybe drifting astral realms could be brought "closer" by the prominence of a "sympathetic" world view? Like, if some contested area is fought over and changes hands in a war many times, the Gray Wastes are "drawn" closer on the astral sea, sending subtle "waves" of "Gray Wastishness" over the beleaguered place, and making "travel" easier between that place and the Wastes. Then if the PCs can bring lasting peace to the area, or even somehow inspire great hope, the place becomes less "sympathetic" to the Wastes, which then drift further away on the astral sea. That way we can have stories of lands or cities that "ascend" or "succumb" to some astral realm.
2) Maybe if the Harmonium wax in power, the Feywild becomes more and more difficult to reach, stranding beings on either side and cutting off some characters from their Fey powers. Maybe, for example after a major war or plague, some Dustmen led cult becomes widespread, and the (Shadelands? Shadowlands? whatever) starts to bleed through into the prime material.[/quote]
I like. Yoink!
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5 years ago ::
Mar 29, 2008 - 8:16PM
#66
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2003
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This is actually one of the biggest stumbling blocks between me and 4th edition. It's good to see one planar hub (and the best, IMHO) still around, and not gone the way of the Rock of Bral...but I love my Planescape cosmology, and I've used it in 3rd, and gods willing, I'll probably keep it in 4th, if at all possible...I mean, sure, I can see the entire Inner Planes becoming more accessible to one another, and the Astral becoming a bigger deal than the Two Rivers or Sigil as a means to get from one place to another...but Shemeska knows me well enough to know I'll be keeping the best no matter what gets chipped off...
/hops in his Illithid Dreadnaught and flies away!
EDIT: And does it really offend anyone else that while Grayhawk and the Realms and Eberron aren't getting fundamentally whacked stupid, like Sharn floating off to Xen'drik or Waterdeep suddenly in the Dalelands, but every edition, we walk out our front door, and our entire setting is entirely rewritten? "The Inner Planes are not a fun place to visit, so we're screwing the Abyss and Limbo into them and calling it the Elemental Chaos!" Pike that, I have an human fighter/monk/warblade/elemental warrior in my party now. Travelling to Air every day is a -class feature-. I don't know about everyone else...but if I didn't like the planes...I would just make my own. I didn't need a rewrite...and certainly not a different cosmology for Eberron, the Realms, Krynn, and Grayhawk. I mean...can someone tell me how to 'walk from Sigil to Xoriat? Anyone?
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5 years ago ::
Mar 31, 2008 - 3:11PM
#67
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Date Joined:
Jan 28, 2004
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What about the ones who did NOT want Planescape imposed on their favorite setting?
I means, as in many things, there was alternative viewpoints and dissent ideas from the Multiverse... Fans of Mystara, by example, disliked getting the Wheel of Planescape, I am told. And more recently, there was FR fans who cheered for being now a bit more independant setting.
the Eberron fans are very much against getting Planescaped also, note. They like generaly being a separate cosmology.
Just to say.
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5 years ago ::
Mar 31, 2008 - 3:19PM
#68
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2003
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I can accept that each setting has their own spectrum of viewpoints...but even so, the frustration that all these changes keep happening without even so much as an explanation. If you're going to collapse the inner planes and explode the Great Ring...I want a canon reason WHY. If I see one, I'll be happier, same as with Die Vecna Die -trying- to explain 3rd's changes.
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5 years ago ::
Mar 31, 2008 - 3:19PM
#69
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2007
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I honestly would be quite happy if they just took Sigil, made all the philosophies and factions work with the 4e cosmology and plopped it down as a Domain in the Astral Sea, it can still look the same and everything.
Imagine sailing on the Astral Sea and seeing a towering mountain at the top of distant floating object that you know is Sigil.
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5 years ago ::
Mar 31, 2008 - 4:29PM
#70
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Date Joined:
Aug 21, 2007
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I liked Sigil and Planescape, but I worry about trying to import it into 4e without some very careful consideration. The 'primes are clueless' attitude that seemed inherent to the setting was very offputting to me, as did the opening up the homes of the gods to 1st level adventurers. It definitely took some of the epic, grand, feel of the planes away from the setting. Of course, the one campaign I actually played in for it didn't help things much either...
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