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Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Planescape RPG
Planescape Campaign Setting
Fantasy ... Taken to the Edge "TM" This setting has hot attitude and a hard-edged style. It deals with the multiverse -- all the planes of existence in the AD&D game. So, explore Sigil, the center of everything, and then take your adventures to the next level of reality -- and beyond
288 pages, Boxed set
First published April 1, 1994
10 people are currently reading
279 people want to read
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Wizards of the Coast
429 books429 followersWizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 7, 2017
All fantasy is symbolic. Magic itself is almost purely a symbolic literary device, lending philosophical meaning to events and objects. Our hero wins because he is moral and good--yet we as readers know that morality or personality, or even force is not the deciding factor in mortal combat. So the hero wields a sword, and that sword's magic becomes a symbol of his moral might.
He can defeat ten men at once because his is a sword of Truth, or Justice, or Faith. His glowing armor represents a righteous power, as does his shining helmet. Even the castles and cities develop moralities and personalities, evident by their stately tallness or their crumbling walls or sturdy gates. Like the stormy night of a Gothic tale, these physical objects adopt emotional and ideological power.
But such symbols can only be as powerful, or as deep, as the ideas behind them. Most fantasy gives us simplistic 'us vs. them' tales concerned with simple notions of right and wrong. And since these tales operate primarily by symbol, right and wrong are not considered or debated, but clash against one another, black and white, until the one the author prefers dashes the other to the earth.
The ideals of bravery, righteousness, chivalry, love, and virtue survive the nationalistic epic poems that inspired the fantasy genre, ensuring that almost every fantasy world and story resembles the next. Likewise, 'evil' continues as a theme, because it is easier to believe in evil than to believe that anyone might disagree with your own personal opinions.
What is remarkable about Planescape is that it acknowledges this inherently symbolic form of storytelling without falling to biased simplicity. Why stop at good and evil? at righteous and greedy? Why not expand the symbology to include various and sundry views?
Hence we have cities and castles that do not represent dead metaphors like 'good and evil', but rather give us tangible representations of paranoia, cruelty, haughtiness, force of will, madness, lust, ennui, artistic drive, and the sublime. Why should a sword of bitter sorrow bite less deep than one of justice?
Planescape draws from many older traditions of literary symbol, including the more fanciful epics, the metaphysical poets, the self-searching existentialists, modern authors like Calvino and Borges who blur idea and reality, and other texts concerned primarily with questioning and exploring our ideas of humanity.
Indeed, it could be said that this is where my love affair weird fantasy began, playing this odd game with my friends as an adolescent. It was there I began to learn about symbols and metaphors, about warring ideas and philosophies, without even realizing I was doing it. It meant that years later, as I read works by Peake, Harrison, and Pavic, I instinctively recognized those strange places as the same ones I used to play in, as a child.
It made overt and obvious the simplistic symbolism of other games and books, so that I was no longer satisfied with such blatant and manipulative escapism. What thrill is there in crossing swords with an orc when you have pierced the heart of death, herself? Where is the charm in winking at a barmaid when the tongue of delirium has wet these lips? It pushed me to look for bigger games, and bigger ideas--which is to say it set me on the path I walk today.
In other settings, one often must play the hero, or sometimes the reluctant hero, because there is no ideological journey for the disenfranchised, the self-serving, the cowardly, or the incompetently well-meaning. Planescape leaves room for many paths, many ways and ideas. It does not destroy the possibility of the monomyth, which plays out in almost all other fantasy novels or settings, but it refuses to allow the monomyth to be an escape or an end in itself.
That may be the most remarkable aspect of the setting: that power and expansion are no longer viable goals, but unlike Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu, neither is death the ultimate endpoint. Rather, one is encouraged to develop something more ultimately satisfying than either extreme: a full and unusual life.
My Fantasy Book Suggestions
He can defeat ten men at once because his is a sword of Truth, or Justice, or Faith. His glowing armor represents a righteous power, as does his shining helmet. Even the castles and cities develop moralities and personalities, evident by their stately tallness or their crumbling walls or sturdy gates. Like the stormy night of a Gothic tale, these physical objects adopt emotional and ideological power.
But such symbols can only be as powerful, or as deep, as the ideas behind them. Most fantasy gives us simplistic 'us vs. them' tales concerned with simple notions of right and wrong. And since these tales operate primarily by symbol, right and wrong are not considered or debated, but clash against one another, black and white, until the one the author prefers dashes the other to the earth.
The ideals of bravery, righteousness, chivalry, love, and virtue survive the nationalistic epic poems that inspired the fantasy genre, ensuring that almost every fantasy world and story resembles the next. Likewise, 'evil' continues as a theme, because it is easier to believe in evil than to believe that anyone might disagree with your own personal opinions.
What is remarkable about Planescape is that it acknowledges this inherently symbolic form of storytelling without falling to biased simplicity. Why stop at good and evil? at righteous and greedy? Why not expand the symbology to include various and sundry views?
Hence we have cities and castles that do not represent dead metaphors like 'good and evil', but rather give us tangible representations of paranoia, cruelty, haughtiness, force of will, madness, lust, ennui, artistic drive, and the sublime. Why should a sword of bitter sorrow bite less deep than one of justice?
Planescape draws from many older traditions of literary symbol, including the more fanciful epics, the metaphysical poets, the self-searching existentialists, modern authors like Calvino and Borges who blur idea and reality, and other texts concerned primarily with questioning and exploring our ideas of humanity.
Indeed, it could be said that this is where my love affair weird fantasy began, playing this odd game with my friends as an adolescent. It was there I began to learn about symbols and metaphors, about warring ideas and philosophies, without even realizing I was doing it. It meant that years later, as I read works by Peake, Harrison, and Pavic, I instinctively recognized those strange places as the same ones I used to play in, as a child.
It made overt and obvious the simplistic symbolism of other games and books, so that I was no longer satisfied with such blatant and manipulative escapism. What thrill is there in crossing swords with an orc when you have pierced the heart of death, herself? Where is the charm in winking at a barmaid when the tongue of delirium has wet these lips? It pushed me to look for bigger games, and bigger ideas--which is to say it set me on the path I walk today.
In other settings, one often must play the hero, or sometimes the reluctant hero, because there is no ideological journey for the disenfranchised, the self-serving, the cowardly, or the incompetently well-meaning. Planescape leaves room for many paths, many ways and ideas. It does not destroy the possibility of the monomyth, which plays out in almost all other fantasy novels or settings, but it refuses to allow the monomyth to be an escape or an end in itself.
That may be the most remarkable aspect of the setting: that power and expansion are no longer viable goals, but unlike Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu, neither is death the ultimate endpoint. Rather, one is encouraged to develop something more ultimately satisfying than either extreme: a full and unusual life.
My Fantasy Book Suggestions
July 11, 2022
In the early nineties, TSR saw a lot of their playerbase moving on to the World of Darkness line, and they cried out "No, stop! Come back! We can do that stuff too!"
And they did.
They pulled off all the stops with the weird-ass philosophies, quirky factions, conflicts, and roleplaying. They shaped together a bizarre alien city at the center of the cosmos and filled it with all of the experimental Nineties edge they ever could. The result was some of the most memorable roleplaying writing of the decade and an absolute success of their mission statement.
But the thing is... World of Darkness is not Dungeons & Dragons. They're entirely different games with different strengths and different appeals. When I play D&D, I'm looking for, well, dungeons: I'm looking to kick down doors into dark places, to steal treasure and smite evil and maybe rescue a few attractive captives. To make a name for myself and eventually rule a small bandit kingdom. To seek my own destiny and to make the entire setting revolve around me and my friends. To kill dragons, too.
It was on these pillars that the Original D&D, Basic D&D, and the 1st edition of Advanced D&D, was built upon. But by the time Planescape came out, 2nd edition had moved well away from the stuff, indeed seemingly forgotten all about it. All the Planescape adventures are some of the most blatant railroads to be found anywhere outside Dragonlance. And the game revels in it: this core book proudly declares itself as more than just hack & slash... but if I wanted more than hack & slash, I would play something other than D&D. I would play World of Darkness, or perhaps Burning Wheel.
It's still got a lot of good flavour, though. Still a great and imaginitive setting, one where I could stick plenty of dungeon crawls, plenty of treasure, plenty of ways for player characters to make name for themselves and establish a small planar empire somewhere later. Or I could just use it as background material: set the game somewhere else - like my actual favourite setting, Wilderlands of High Fantasy - but have a bunch of background references and such things from here, maybe a quick visit. Plenty of things it's good for. Just that the writers themselves never realized it.
So it's a mixed bag. Good four and a half stars for just the flavour alone... but the actual gameplay content and support are minimum, as low as two stars, perhaps even less. We'll find a good average on three.
And they did.
They pulled off all the stops with the weird-ass philosophies, quirky factions, conflicts, and roleplaying. They shaped together a bizarre alien city at the center of the cosmos and filled it with all of the experimental Nineties edge they ever could. The result was some of the most memorable roleplaying writing of the decade and an absolute success of their mission statement.
But the thing is... World of Darkness is not Dungeons & Dragons. They're entirely different games with different strengths and different appeals. When I play D&D, I'm looking for, well, dungeons: I'm looking to kick down doors into dark places, to steal treasure and smite evil and maybe rescue a few attractive captives. To make a name for myself and eventually rule a small bandit kingdom. To seek my own destiny and to make the entire setting revolve around me and my friends. To kill dragons, too.
It was on these pillars that the Original D&D, Basic D&D, and the 1st edition of Advanced D&D, was built upon. But by the time Planescape came out, 2nd edition had moved well away from the stuff, indeed seemingly forgotten all about it. All the Planescape adventures are some of the most blatant railroads to be found anywhere outside Dragonlance. And the game revels in it: this core book proudly declares itself as more than just hack & slash... but if I wanted more than hack & slash, I would play something other than D&D. I would play World of Darkness, or perhaps Burning Wheel.
It's still got a lot of good flavour, though. Still a great and imaginitive setting, one where I could stick plenty of dungeon crawls, plenty of treasure, plenty of ways for player characters to make name for themselves and establish a small planar empire somewhere later. Or I could just use it as background material: set the game somewhere else - like my actual favourite setting, Wilderlands of High Fantasy - but have a bunch of background references and such things from here, maybe a quick visit. Plenty of things it's good for. Just that the writers themselves never realized it.
So it's a mixed bag. Good four and a half stars for just the flavour alone... but the actual gameplay content and support are minimum, as low as two stars, perhaps even less. We'll find a good average on three.
February 10, 2008
Before China Miéville brought the New Weird to a widespread fantasy readership, Planescape was rocking the boat in the RPG world. Controversial when it was published, Planescape has nevertheless demonstrated a lasting impact on fantasy role playing.
The premise of Planescape was to take the somewhat clunky cosmological "multiverse" of Dungeons and Dragons (most notably the "Outer Planes" where the heavens, hells, and other afterlives existed) and attempt to describe life in that surreal venue. The core theme of Planescape is that, in a world of pure thought, belief overtly shapes reality. As a result, the politics of the setting are quite literally philosophical, because strong beliefs manifest as real-world power. These philosophical debates and battles are fought most fiercely in Sigil (rhymes with wiggle), the setting's central metropolis.
Taken superficially, Planescape was an attempt by TSR (the makers of D&D) to respond to the growing market for more "mature" material, best exemplified by Vampire: The Masquerade, published by White Wolf three years earlier. Taking a page from the White Wolf playbook, designer Zeb Cook made the central conflict of the setting a political and ideological free-for-all between fifteen "Factions," each subscribing to a very specific philosophical creed. The "Believers of the Source," for example, are self-improvement-driven reincarnationists. By contrast, the "Harmonium" are unity-driven pseudo-fascist militarists and the "Bleak Cabal" are overt nihilists. Each Faction has its own special advantages and disadvantages, much like a White Wolf game.
What makes Planescape remarkable is that it is essentially the first attempt by modern roleplaying to directly address the role of ideology, faith, and debate in politics. Set in a sort of "high fantasy industrial revolution," Planescape dares to ask questions normally taboo in vanilla RPGs. These questions include such real-world-relevant issues as "is faith in the divine justified?" and "what is the role of protest and revolution in government?" Further, because the setting itself embraces (rather than shies away from) the darker side of the industrial revolution, questions about social responsibility toward the poor and the costs of high-density urban living are implicit to the setting.
It is said that conflict is the engine of narrative, and that our ability to sympathize with that conflict creates the emotional bond necessary to invest in a story. Where traditional D&D fell flat by recycling the same grade-school cliches of knights and monsters, Planescape was boldly inventive and brimming with conflicts that held strong emotional resonance. No matter your political outlook, Planescape laid the groundwork for stories you could invest in.
Without question, Planescape was met with intense skepticism by some gamers. Fantasy literature is famously conservative (in that it has, historically, avoided making central themes out of progressive issues), and Planescape had an in-your-face character that insulted traditional D&D gamers. Planescape went so far as to make "clueless" part of the setting's slang for describing the inhabitants of D&D's other settings. Despite alienating less intellectual gamers (who didn't want a gray area between Good and Evil), Planescape also formed an avid, possibly even rabid fan base. A testament to the durability of Planescape's following is that its fans remains active even today, updating the rules to the latest versions of D&D.
Since Planescape's release, a host of similar forms of dark urban fantasy have become popular. Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (1996), China Miéville's Perdido Street Station (2000), and M. John Harrison's Viriconium (2005) are just a few examples of bringing fantasy both into a more modern context and into a darker urban world-view. In a very real way, Planescape primed me for this new spate of speculative fiction by giving me a much more interesting world to explore than had existed prior.
The premise of Planescape was to take the somewhat clunky cosmological "multiverse" of Dungeons and Dragons (most notably the "Outer Planes" where the heavens, hells, and other afterlives existed) and attempt to describe life in that surreal venue. The core theme of Planescape is that, in a world of pure thought, belief overtly shapes reality. As a result, the politics of the setting are quite literally philosophical, because strong beliefs manifest as real-world power. These philosophical debates and battles are fought most fiercely in Sigil (rhymes with wiggle), the setting's central metropolis.
Taken superficially, Planescape was an attempt by TSR (the makers of D&D) to respond to the growing market for more "mature" material, best exemplified by Vampire: The Masquerade, published by White Wolf three years earlier. Taking a page from the White Wolf playbook, designer Zeb Cook made the central conflict of the setting a political and ideological free-for-all between fifteen "Factions," each subscribing to a very specific philosophical creed. The "Believers of the Source," for example, are self-improvement-driven reincarnationists. By contrast, the "Harmonium" are unity-driven pseudo-fascist militarists and the "Bleak Cabal" are overt nihilists. Each Faction has its own special advantages and disadvantages, much like a White Wolf game.
What makes Planescape remarkable is that it is essentially the first attempt by modern roleplaying to directly address the role of ideology, faith, and debate in politics. Set in a sort of "high fantasy industrial revolution," Planescape dares to ask questions normally taboo in vanilla RPGs. These questions include such real-world-relevant issues as "is faith in the divine justified?" and "what is the role of protest and revolution in government?" Further, because the setting itself embraces (rather than shies away from) the darker side of the industrial revolution, questions about social responsibility toward the poor and the costs of high-density urban living are implicit to the setting.
It is said that conflict is the engine of narrative, and that our ability to sympathize with that conflict creates the emotional bond necessary to invest in a story. Where traditional D&D fell flat by recycling the same grade-school cliches of knights and monsters, Planescape was boldly inventive and brimming with conflicts that held strong emotional resonance. No matter your political outlook, Planescape laid the groundwork for stories you could invest in.
Without question, Planescape was met with intense skepticism by some gamers. Fantasy literature is famously conservative (in that it has, historically, avoided making central themes out of progressive issues), and Planescape had an in-your-face character that insulted traditional D&D gamers. Planescape went so far as to make "clueless" part of the setting's slang for describing the inhabitants of D&D's other settings. Despite alienating less intellectual gamers (who didn't want a gray area between Good and Evil), Planescape also formed an avid, possibly even rabid fan base. A testament to the durability of Planescape's following is that its fans remains active even today, updating the rules to the latest versions of D&D.
Since Planescape's release, a host of similar forms of dark urban fantasy have become popular. Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (1996), China Miéville's Perdido Street Station (2000), and M. John Harrison's Viriconium (2005) are just a few examples of bringing fantasy both into a more modern context and into a darker urban world-view. In a very real way, Planescape primed me for this new spate of speculative fiction by giving me a much more interesting world to explore than had existed prior.
March 14, 2023
Knowing that they're going to be re-releasing PLANESCAPE this Fall for Fifth Edition, I thought I'd go back and go over my favorite setting. Planescape has its flaws (it never quite threaded the needle about what exactly you DID) but it was a great Dungeon Punk setting before that was even a thing.
It has a lot of similarities to Terry Pratchett's DISCWORLD oddly enough. Sigil is a vaguely Victorian London-esque anachronism stew with a bunch of fantasy elements and weirdness as well as hordes of gods present. The chief appeal for me was always the Factions and getting rid of them in FACTION WAR effectively killed the line the way Dark Sun killing its Sorcerer Kings or Dragonlance ending the War of the Lance did (even before Dragons of Summer Flame).
I'm starting a new campaign now, though. I'll be playing a Godsman Drow who owns a TARDIS but just uses it for a brothel.
It has a lot of similarities to Terry Pratchett's DISCWORLD oddly enough. Sigil is a vaguely Victorian London-esque anachronism stew with a bunch of fantasy elements and weirdness as well as hordes of gods present. The chief appeal for me was always the Factions and getting rid of them in FACTION WAR effectively killed the line the way Dark Sun killing its Sorcerer Kings or Dragonlance ending the War of the Lance did (even before Dragons of Summer Flame).
I'm starting a new campaign now, though. I'll be playing a Godsman Drow who owns a TARDIS but just uses it for a brothel.
June 11, 2019
Tony DiTerlizzi's fantastic artwork is what sold this as my favorite AD&D setting. I hadn't even realized I was a fan until looking back over the artwork from Planscape and comparing it to recent work of his that I liked. Once I realized it was all by the same artist, I threw myself whole-heartedly into collecting the rest of the Planescape material and infecting the rest of my table-top group with Planes-love.
September 25, 2018
An absolutely revolutionary AD&D setting, which led to one of the most highly praised computer RPGs ever.
While this is a great read, I never really ran it much because it is quite complex compared to other settings and teenage me didn't have enough patience to figure it all out.
While this is a great read, I never really ran it much because it is quite complex compared to other settings and teenage me didn't have enough patience to figure it all out.
May 24, 2022
Unquestionably D&D’s most unique and imaginative setting, Planescape eschews much of the Tolkienesque-trappings that permeate the genre (no goblin-infested caves, elven forests or dwarven mountain-fortresses to be found outside of the Prime Material!) Instead, Planescape depicts an infinite cosmology referred to as “the Great Wheel” that is not only richly detailed and carefully considered, but endlessly creative in a genre known for its recycling of tropes and cliches.
For example, the setting’s central location, Sigil, is a multiversal city located on the inner side of an enormous torus (i.e. a big donut) suspended above an infinitely tall spire. The city is governed by 15 philosophically-based factions who are constantly vying for power and membership and answer only to the Lady of Pain – a godlike being of immense power who cares only for maintaining the status quo, punishing those who openly worship or despise her through skin flaying or trapping them in maze-like demiplanes. This level of creativity is maintained throughout the Planescape setting, offering a nigh-endless resource for interesting characters, places and quests.
Tony DiTerlizzi’s artistic vision for Planescape also does much in bringing it to life. His depictions of fantastical landscapes, architectures and creatures painted within a uniformly muted palette are a consistent blend of otherworldly, unsettling and intriguing - a far cry from the bold, garish and oftentimes ugly illustrations that were commonplace in roleplaying games of the time.
With regard to the mechanics and content, it’s 2nd edition D&D, warts and all. For those who can’t stand 2nd edition (I’m looking at you THAC0), you’ll have to ‘port’ over the content to a system of your preference as I have (an unfortunate necessity given that WotC have yet to release any real support for Planescape in 5th edition).
I have no major criticisms for the book. My only nit-pick is that I find the layout to be more cumbersome than those in the recent editions of D&D, although it is by no means difficult to navigate. Planescape is an absolutely stellar campaign setting that, at least in my opinion, has yet to be championed within the high-fantasy roleplaying genre.
For example, the setting’s central location, Sigil, is a multiversal city located on the inner side of an enormous torus (i.e. a big donut) suspended above an infinitely tall spire. The city is governed by 15 philosophically-based factions who are constantly vying for power and membership and answer only to the Lady of Pain – a godlike being of immense power who cares only for maintaining the status quo, punishing those who openly worship or despise her through skin flaying or trapping them in maze-like demiplanes. This level of creativity is maintained throughout the Planescape setting, offering a nigh-endless resource for interesting characters, places and quests.
Tony DiTerlizzi’s artistic vision for Planescape also does much in bringing it to life. His depictions of fantastical landscapes, architectures and creatures painted within a uniformly muted palette are a consistent blend of otherworldly, unsettling and intriguing - a far cry from the bold, garish and oftentimes ugly illustrations that were commonplace in roleplaying games of the time.
With regard to the mechanics and content, it’s 2nd edition D&D, warts and all. For those who can’t stand 2nd edition (I’m looking at you THAC0), you’ll have to ‘port’ over the content to a system of your preference as I have (an unfortunate necessity given that WotC have yet to release any real support for Planescape in 5th edition).
I have no major criticisms for the book. My only nit-pick is that I find the layout to be more cumbersome than those in the recent editions of D&D, although it is by no means difficult to navigate. Planescape is an absolutely stellar campaign setting that, at least in my opinion, has yet to be championed within the high-fantasy roleplaying genre.
Read
October 13, 20221/30 of my new Planescape re-read project.
Why do I keep doing this? Am I really avoiding doing my own writing that much? No, avoiding writing is just one benefit of reviewing old D&D products. The other goal here is to figure out what I want to keep, what I want to sell, and what I want to buy if I don't already have it in physical form.
Now, if you were were to ask me in the 90s -- my height of roleplaying until now -- what my favorite D&D worlds were, I would've said (in no order) Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and Planescape. Yeah, I also liked Forgotten Realms, and sure, I had a few bits and pieces from other settings, but those three aesthetic-first campaign settings were what really got me going.
Now I've finished rereading Dark Sun, which has some strong accessories and some weak adventures, and was hamstrung by metaplot; and Ravenloft, which has some interesting ideas about horror, but rarely congeals around anything really horrific. In both cases, I have paused buying things I didn't have because having them on pdf is enough for me. But how will Planescape fare 20 years later?
Here's the short: I love this so much.
We can take a step back to figure out why I love it, but it won't really be a mystery. Ever since the Manual of the Planes (1987) -- or probably earlier in other works -- D&D has this idea that players start out on an Earth-like world, but that world is connected to different planes where gods and monsters dwell, often in the shape of a great wheel. Each of the segments of that wheel is dedicated to some alignment and the gods/monsters of that alignment, and at high enough levels, the PCs can jaunt off to Olympus to tangle with Zeus, etc., or may need to rescue someone stolen by the efreeti of the Brass City on the Plane of Fire, and so on. Some early published adventures have just that: you go to some hell to get a magic item to defeat some demon in another hell. It's all pretty standard D&D, but souped up.
(This was, or at least is now, a common complaint about the Deities and Demigods rulebook, which may have been meant as a way to bring divine wonder into the game, but was essentially treated like a high-level monster manual.)
Planescape (1994) takes the general idea -- there are other planes where the gods and monsters live -- and runs with the idea that, out on the planes, what people are fighting over isn't money, but ideas. So you have all the evil creatures, which would be bad, except the devils who believe in law and the demons who believe in chaos are locked in endless war over which is right. And while, say, the good guys are all good, maybe they don't always work together well because one of them believes that everyone is potentially a god and another believes that only sensation is true. And because out on the planes, worship and belief may actually change the world, these different philosophies may do more to make the world than any magical sword could. As they put it in the book, the game here is one of "philosophers with clubs."
So already, you can see this hits on two things I love: philosophical arguments; and mish-mashes with strong coherent throughlines. For a counter-example, Spelljammer was the space fantasy campaign where you could be from any campaign setting -- good mish-mash vibes -- but there was no coherence beyond "and you go adventuring in space!" In Planescape, you can touch any campaign world (more or less), but there's always the question: "what do you believe and how do you affect the on-going power struggle?"
Planescape is also very weird and fiddly for D&D -- like, you have a _dismiss_ spell that will banish a creature back to its home world, but what if you're fighting a fire elemental on the Plane of Fire? Or what if you get your power from a god who is on the other side of the Great Wheel? There's rules and charts here for how magic is affected, and it might look like a lot to handle, but everything is also made really accessible for players and DMs.
For instance, the 32pp player guide gives a real nice overview of the setting, nothing to get bogged down in, and with a good chunk of the book dedicated to the (nicely formatted with lots of whitespace) issue of the different philosophical factions that your character might belong to. So rather than get overwhelmed with questions about magical power, you just have to ask "what do I believe in?"
And rather than say "you start on Earth and have to wait until you get to a high level", Planescape makes the planes accessible by saying, "well, what would it be like to just live next to the gods?" So there's people who are born on the planes (the habitable parts, anyway), then there's people who wander in from elsewhere, and then there's some of the dead souls who came to be rewarded/punished by their gods.
As for the DM guide -- well, there are two guides: one is a nice overview of the whole setting, with a bunch of rules; the other is a more in-depth view of a central location, the neutral city of Sigil, along with a bunch of helpful advice and adventure ideas, broken down by character level. I like all that advice, especially when they have a few pages on dealing with problems of the setting. One of those problems is that this setting is really big, which is absolutely true, and they lean into that problem a bit by giving locations of interest in every plane, but they also lean away from that problem by giving the DM a central city for the PCs to make their headquarters: the neutral and contested city of Sigil.
Now, the idea of a neutral and contested city is not original in RPGs, but part of what makes this box set so good is just how well realized the city is. First, we have to recognize the art and the writing here as being inextricably linked. The whole book is not just peppered with little quotes from people, but written occasionally with the slang of a big city's underbelly -- as the author's note elsewhere, a lot of this is Dickens-era slang -- and the art really leans into the weird and wonderful and also gritty and petty aspects. (It's all by Tony DiTerlizzi, which gives it a real nice coherence.) Second, they tie the themes of the world -- fighting over philosophy -- in to the city by making each faction a part of the city, with a recognized role, from mortuary and garbage collection to law enforcement. Third, I don't know, I just think it's great, with the bureaucratic dabus who serve the city and only speak in rebuses, and the cranium rats who get smarter the bigger their hive grows.
Honestly, I really can't think of any major misstep they made with this box set: everything works together, everything is both mind-expanding and strange, while also offering enough handholds for the teen DM (as I was) to grab onto.
Why do I keep doing this? Am I really avoiding doing my own writing that much? No, avoiding writing is just one benefit of reviewing old D&D products. The other goal here is to figure out what I want to keep, what I want to sell, and what I want to buy if I don't already have it in physical form.
Now, if you were were to ask me in the 90s -- my height of roleplaying until now -- what my favorite D&D worlds were, I would've said (in no order) Ravenloft, Dark Sun, and Planescape. Yeah, I also liked Forgotten Realms, and sure, I had a few bits and pieces from other settings, but those three aesthetic-first campaign settings were what really got me going.
Now I've finished rereading Dark Sun, which has some strong accessories and some weak adventures, and was hamstrung by metaplot; and Ravenloft, which has some interesting ideas about horror, but rarely congeals around anything really horrific. In both cases, I have paused buying things I didn't have because having them on pdf is enough for me. But how will Planescape fare 20 years later?
Here's the short: I love this so much.
We can take a step back to figure out why I love it, but it won't really be a mystery. Ever since the Manual of the Planes (1987) -- or probably earlier in other works -- D&D has this idea that players start out on an Earth-like world, but that world is connected to different planes where gods and monsters dwell, often in the shape of a great wheel. Each of the segments of that wheel is dedicated to some alignment and the gods/monsters of that alignment, and at high enough levels, the PCs can jaunt off to Olympus to tangle with Zeus, etc., or may need to rescue someone stolen by the efreeti of the Brass City on the Plane of Fire, and so on. Some early published adventures have just that: you go to some hell to get a magic item to defeat some demon in another hell. It's all pretty standard D&D, but souped up.
(This was, or at least is now, a common complaint about the Deities and Demigods rulebook, which may have been meant as a way to bring divine wonder into the game, but was essentially treated like a high-level monster manual.)
Planescape (1994) takes the general idea -- there are other planes where the gods and monsters live -- and runs with the idea that, out on the planes, what people are fighting over isn't money, but ideas. So you have all the evil creatures, which would be bad, except the devils who believe in law and the demons who believe in chaos are locked in endless war over which is right. And while, say, the good guys are all good, maybe they don't always work together well because one of them believes that everyone is potentially a god and another believes that only sensation is true. And because out on the planes, worship and belief may actually change the world, these different philosophies may do more to make the world than any magical sword could. As they put it in the book, the game here is one of "philosophers with clubs."
So already, you can see this hits on two things I love: philosophical arguments; and mish-mashes with strong coherent throughlines. For a counter-example, Spelljammer was the space fantasy campaign where you could be from any campaign setting -- good mish-mash vibes -- but there was no coherence beyond "and you go adventuring in space!" In Planescape, you can touch any campaign world (more or less), but there's always the question: "what do you believe and how do you affect the on-going power struggle?"
Planescape is also very weird and fiddly for D&D -- like, you have a _dismiss_ spell that will banish a creature back to its home world, but what if you're fighting a fire elemental on the Plane of Fire? Or what if you get your power from a god who is on the other side of the Great Wheel? There's rules and charts here for how magic is affected, and it might look like a lot to handle, but everything is also made really accessible for players and DMs.
For instance, the 32pp player guide gives a real nice overview of the setting, nothing to get bogged down in, and with a good chunk of the book dedicated to the (nicely formatted with lots of whitespace) issue of the different philosophical factions that your character might belong to. So rather than get overwhelmed with questions about magical power, you just have to ask "what do I believe in?"
And rather than say "you start on Earth and have to wait until you get to a high level", Planescape makes the planes accessible by saying, "well, what would it be like to just live next to the gods?" So there's people who are born on the planes (the habitable parts, anyway), then there's people who wander in from elsewhere, and then there's some of the dead souls who came to be rewarded/punished by their gods.
As for the DM guide -- well, there are two guides: one is a nice overview of the whole setting, with a bunch of rules; the other is a more in-depth view of a central location, the neutral city of Sigil, along with a bunch of helpful advice and adventure ideas, broken down by character level. I like all that advice, especially when they have a few pages on dealing with problems of the setting. One of those problems is that this setting is really big, which is absolutely true, and they lean into that problem a bit by giving locations of interest in every plane, but they also lean away from that problem by giving the DM a central city for the PCs to make their headquarters: the neutral and contested city of Sigil.
Now, the idea of a neutral and contested city is not original in RPGs, but part of what makes this box set so good is just how well realized the city is. First, we have to recognize the art and the writing here as being inextricably linked. The whole book is not just peppered with little quotes from people, but written occasionally with the slang of a big city's underbelly -- as the author's note elsewhere, a lot of this is Dickens-era slang -- and the art really leans into the weird and wonderful and also gritty and petty aspects. (It's all by Tony DiTerlizzi, which gives it a real nice coherence.) Second, they tie the themes of the world -- fighting over philosophy -- in to the city by making each faction a part of the city, with a recognized role, from mortuary and garbage collection to law enforcement. Third, I don't know, I just think it's great, with the bureaucratic dabus who serve the city and only speak in rebuses, and the cranium rats who get smarter the bigger their hive grows.
Honestly, I really can't think of any major misstep they made with this box set: everything works together, everything is both mind-expanding and strange, while also offering enough handholds for the teen DM (as I was) to grab onto.
March 15, 2017
Probably my favorite D&D setting... at least fluff-wise.
April 9, 2011
Planescape is not just a cool Dungeons and Dragons setting, it is probably the closest to ‘art’ a game supplement can get. It jettisons -- or at least sets aside -- the usual Tolkien-inspired elements of DnD and instead crafts a genuinely unique fantasy universe, brought to life by Tony DiTerlizzi’s evocative surrealistic cartooning. Even if you don’t play DnD or prefer a simpler setting when running those games, Planescape is still worth flipping through at least once just for the oddball ideas it encompasses and all the great artwork.
July 26, 2021
A gorgeous sourcebook for whats gotta be the coolest setting in all of d&d, with great writing, fully fleshed out ideas, and art that just goes above and beyond at setting the tone for the setting. When it just starts listing planes and descriptions it does get a little monotonous however, but everything being said is still cool as hellllllll
February 1, 2019
I'm a fan of the computer game "Planescape: Torment," which is a Dungeons & Dragons-based game in the Planescape setting. I play D&D with friends and recently got the idea that I'd like to run a Planescape campaign. But we play 5th edition D&D, and there's not really Planescape stuff published for 5e (yet?)--there is a lot of relevant stuff scattered throughout the published books, but nothing focused. That might be OK, though, as Planescape is much more about the lore and feel of the setting--particularly the city of Sigil--than about mechanics that would change between editions. Thus, I decided to buy the original Planescape box set published for 2nd edition.
I think this was a good decision. There is a lot of good non-edition-specific content here, and a lot of really awesome art by Tony diTerlizzi. I also love that you can get old-edition D&D stuff in PDF format--Wizards doesn't release 5e stuff in PDF, I think partly to discourage piracy and partly to encourage patronizing local game stores (unless you use their special walled garden online portal, which, no thank you). The box set contains a few different mini-books, which varied in relevance/interest for me. The best one was "Sigil and Beyond," and actually I'm now planning to read a couple of the other old supplements focused on the city of Sigil.
So what is Planescape and why do I like it so much? The general idea is that the "normal fantasy realm" of existence is on the Prime Material Plane, which is just one of many planes that make up the multiverse. There are also "inner" planes that are elementally-based, and "outer" planes that are alignment-based (good, evil, law, chaos, in various combinations). At the metaphorical center of it all is Sigil, the City of Doors, which has countless portals leading to the different planes. For me, the atmosphere of Sigil is similar to that of the space station Deep Space Nine on the eponymous show--a sort of galactic crossroads of weirdness where a basic peace is kept even between entities that might otherwise be at each other's throats. Planescape also has a very philosophical bent. In Sigil, power is contested by several Factions, each of which is based on a different philosophical outlook on the meaning and goals of life. And there's a strong emphasis on the power of belief--sufficiently strong belief can cause a city to shift between planes, or reverse gravity in a place where "up" and "down" aren't clearly defined. Finally, I love Planescape because it has very little traditional "elves and dwarves" fantasy content (#NoOrcs), which it eschews in favor of weird and original stuff such as the gith, cranium rats, and the dabus.
I think this was a good decision. There is a lot of good non-edition-specific content here, and a lot of really awesome art by Tony diTerlizzi. I also love that you can get old-edition D&D stuff in PDF format--Wizards doesn't release 5e stuff in PDF, I think partly to discourage piracy and partly to encourage patronizing local game stores (unless you use their special walled garden online portal, which, no thank you). The box set contains a few different mini-books, which varied in relevance/interest for me. The best one was "Sigil and Beyond," and actually I'm now planning to read a couple of the other old supplements focused on the city of Sigil.
So what is Planescape and why do I like it so much? The general idea is that the "normal fantasy realm" of existence is on the Prime Material Plane, which is just one of many planes that make up the multiverse. There are also "inner" planes that are elementally-based, and "outer" planes that are alignment-based (good, evil, law, chaos, in various combinations). At the metaphorical center of it all is Sigil, the City of Doors, which has countless portals leading to the different planes. For me, the atmosphere of Sigil is similar to that of the space station Deep Space Nine on the eponymous show--a sort of galactic crossroads of weirdness where a basic peace is kept even between entities that might otherwise be at each other's throats. Planescape also has a very philosophical bent. In Sigil, power is contested by several Factions, each of which is based on a different philosophical outlook on the meaning and goals of life. And there's a strong emphasis on the power of belief--sufficiently strong belief can cause a city to shift between planes, or reverse gravity in a place where "up" and "down" aren't clearly defined. Finally, I love Planescape because it has very little traditional "elves and dwarves" fantasy content (#NoOrcs), which it eschews in favor of weird and original stuff such as the gith, cranium rats, and the dabus.
December 5, 2021
Maravilloso setting para el universo de Dungeons & Dragons y fuente de inspiración para la fantasí en general. David "Zeb" Cook se luce con esta idea, uno de los más queridos settings para el juego.
Ahora desaparecido, esta caja nos brinda la posibilidad de vivir aventuras en la Jaula, la Ciudad de las Puertas, Sigil. Donde la Dama del Dolor, un ser preternatural rige neutralmente e impide que hasta los dioses puedan acceder en la ciudad.
No tiene precio jugar en este lugar. Un 10.
Ahora desaparecido, esta caja nos brinda la posibilidad de vivir aventuras en la Jaula, la Ciudad de las Puertas, Sigil. Donde la Dama del Dolor, un ser preternatural rige neutralmente e impide que hasta los dioses puedan acceder en la ciudad.
No tiene precio jugar en este lugar. Un 10.
February 12, 2023
Planescape Torment is easily one of the best fantasy stories of all time and with some of the best background lore ever seen in recent fantasy. Most of it can be discovered in the game, but if you want to learn more, this guide could proof useful (and, of course, to play games set in the campaign setting).
January 14, 2022
Writer has the tendency to contradict himself, or just not be clear enough, which is annoying since this is a setting source book. However, it's too fascinating and inspiring not to give it a good rating nevertheless.
December 1, 2022
Zeb Cook's final major contribution to D&D, taking the rather dry treatment of the planes the game had previously been lumbered with and making it vivid and flavourful. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
June 29, 2020
One of the richest and most imaginative campaign settings to ever come out for any rpg game.
March 11, 2017
Another of Dungeons and Dragons' 2nd edition campaign setting that came after the Forgotten Realms made settings a "thing" at TSR.
This one is all set in the planes (other dimensions) and encompasses all the others settings of D&D. Plus you the gods, the elements, demons, angels, a city that is at the center of it all (Sigil).
This was a fun setting different from the traditional sword and sorcery mix.
Another D&D must.
This one is all set in the planes (other dimensions) and encompasses all the others settings of D&D. Plus you the gods, the elements, demons, angels, a city that is at the center of it all (Sigil).
This was a fun setting different from the traditional sword and sorcery mix.
Another D&D must.
February 3, 2014
The best AD&D setting. High fantasy with philosophy in settings made of the pure aspects of all mythologies. Endless possibilities for adventuring with the most exotic themes and moods. What else could anyone ask for?
February 11, 2012
Planescape was without a doubt my favorite AD&D setting. This boxed set barely scrapes the surface of what planescape was all about, but it was a good place to start.
September 27, 2013
A good introduction to the Planescape Setting, with thousands of ideas and environment information. Still, just a scratch in the surface of such a complex and appassionate muliverse.
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