Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Sep 11, 2003 15:50:21	Hej folks, I am a very beginner with planescape although I played the realms for four years. But my players and me need some "change". I just have a copy of the basic box because I cannot get anything else in the store nor can I achieve it at ebay as it is tooooo expensive. Thus I have some very basic questions. 1. I have heard that Sigil is a very dangeorous place as you can meet fiends or devils in the same tavern at the same time. Thus I have the impressions players are not to mean anything. How to make them feel that they are important? 2. After reading the basics I think everything depends on the factions. I want to try to build up an entire new campgaing. I want my players to get away from their stats and focus more on roleplaying. Am I right? Should they start within a faction or shall they learn to know them and have the feeling that they have to join one faction if they want to achieve something? 3. Could you give some basic tips to build an adventure. Which places shall they meet within Sigil. Staying in Sigil or starting planehopping. 4. Is there some 3E stuff for Planescape? Thank you very much and surely I will have new questions as we develop our campgain. Your Crazy_DM.
#2 sildatorak Sep 11, 2003 17:52:54	Originally posted by Crazy_DM 1. I have heard that Sigil is a very dangeorous place as you can meet fiends or devils in the same tavern at the same time. Thus I have the impressions players are not to mean anything. How to make them feel that they are important? The odds of meeting a really powerful fiend, celestial, or whatever are still pretty slim, but it can happen. Also, different locals have different flavors and tend to have differing fiend types, for example the Styx Oarman is a fiendish bar that bans baatezu from it. As for making your players feel important, I would really advise getting Uncaged: Faces of Sigil if you are planning on playing in Sigil. Have them start out working some missions for some people higher up the food chain and they will get a sense that they are accomplishing something. 2. After reading the basics I think everything depends on the factions. I want to try to build up an entire new campgaing. I want my players to get away from their stats and focus more on roleplaying. Am I right? Should they start within a faction or shall they learn to know them and have the feeling that they have to join one faction if they want to achieve something? If you are new to Planescape, it is probably best to bring the PCs in as primes who got to Sigil by some accident (blasted by a wizard to another plane and a native helps them out (and the 'loth do grin so when they stubble on those in need), accidentally activated a portal, get sent through a portal by someone who knows more of the dark than most, etc.) If you do that, you could introduce them to the factions over a series of minor adventures, and let them come into the politics more naturally. The greater reliance on roleplaying rather than stats will come through if you construct your adventures with a little more intrigue rather than hack-n-slash. Also, make sure that your fiends use the full extent of their abilities; they have so much more power beyond hit points and damage, and they all know how to use them strategically. This will make your PCs think of using their heads rather than just bashing critters, even if they are pretty good at bashing things. 3. Could you give some basic tips to build an adventure. Which places shall they meet within Sigil. Staying in Sigil or starting planehopping. At low levels, I'd keep them mainly in Sigil with some quick jaunts to other planes to run errands for people who are too important to bother with that sort of work. The Planes are probably to dangerous for a low-level party to go wandering around in without much direction for an extended period of time. This also plays in with #2. Make your PCs carry some shady goods (trafficing weapons for the blood war is big buisiness) and they find out what they are doing, or something like that. Make them face ethical and moral challenges. 4. Is there some 3E stuff for Planescape? Planewalker.com This site has 3e info for Planescape, though it is post faction war (toward the end of the product run, the factions got into an all-out war in Sigil which ended with the Lady of Pain barring the factions from opperating in the city). The feats and skills will still be applicable. Mimir.net This site is actually a 2e site, but there are so few game mechanics (if any at all) that I don't think it will matter. I'd use this as a good base of knowledge if you want to run a pre-Faction War campaign (along with the boxed set, of course).
#3 zombiegleemax Sep 12, 2003 3:52:17	Sildatorak made some excellent points. I would simply like to add that most of the material is also available as downloadable PDF's from SVgames.com The documents aren't that expensive (only $5), and you can print and bind them yourself if you fancy the hardcopy stuff. I'm sure there's a list of what products to get, and which are best on the boards here. I'll just put up my personal top 5 up here 5) The factols manifesto - dirty secrets on the factions 4) Uncaged - faces of sigil - dirty secrets on the rest of sigil 3) In the cage - a guide to sigil - the title says it all 2) Harbinger House - an exelent adventure featuring lots of factions and a few interesting locations in sigil and the outlands 1) faction war - adventure and an interesting finale to a long planescape campaign.
#4 zombiegleemax Sep 12, 2003 4:01:23	I forgot to mention that although the material I mentioned is all 2e, a lot of it isn't game mechanic related. Converting adventures is pretty easy, as most monsters have been done in the monster manuals (I and II) and the fiend folio. Manual of the planes has some mechanics for dealing with planes. If that's all you are going to use it for, though, I don't think its worth the cash. Planewalker.com will soon finalise the cruncy stuff related to factions. (most of it has allready been published on the site.)
#5 zombiegleemax Sep 12, 2003 7:09:54	Thank you Sildatorak, this was a very good introduction. It will also be a challange to me to create new sorts of adventures. In addition to that it was a good idea with SVgames.com and the top 5 books. I think I am going to get them. Greetings your Crazy_DM
#6 primemover003 Sep 12, 2003 19:08:46	Start small. Your PC's should be Primes and you should probably stick to one Ward of the city at first. My PC's always loved the Lower Ward to start with, probably because of the portals to the lower planes that abound there (and the fiends that come with that). The Guildhall ward is good for a combat weak party (bards, rogues, sorcerers, & wizards). Because it neighbors the Clerk's ward and the Market ward it gives ample opportunity to see many beings from varied planes (less fiends, more neutrals and goodly creatures). Although I found Harbinger House to be a bad adventure, the maps that come with it and the personalities within are fantastic. The DM screen it comes with (if you can get it) has nice full color maps of a few neighborhoods of the Lower and Lady's wards. Definitely a good thing to have in such a sprawling city. Another Option is to choose a Gatetown to start in. They're much smaller than Sigil and easier to acclimate the PC's to. Discovering a few like minded factions is easier than jumping into the middle of the Kriegstanz with all 15 factions. Sylvania, Tradegate, Glorium, and Ecstasy are easy on the Clueless. Course I love Torch, Ribcage, and Plague-Mort moreso cause they're towns with Evil power bases.
#7 zombiegleemax Sep 13, 2003 3:51:18	I disagree with primemover on one aspect. The PC's don't have to be primes they could just as easily be planars. That doesn't mean that they have to be tieflings or aasimar they can still be humans, elves, etc. The only difference is they're expected as characters to know a minimum about either the planes or the place they start, whether that be Sigil or a trade town or somewhere on the planes themselves. If the players know nothing than it is up to you as the DM to clue them in to the minimum that they can reasonablly be expected to know. The greastest thing about the planes is it is what you make it. While official products make a DM's job easier most everything and anything is up to you. Personally I think the PC's should feel that some factions are pushing them to join, the Harmonium and possibly the Free League come to mind. Other than that Sigil is the original city of intrigue and noncombative play style. The rest of the planes are very firmly set in thier alignments, Sigil is like America in that it is a melting pot, for the diabocially evil and the sanctimonusly(sp?) good and all points in between. As such they have had to develope more nonconfrontational methods of opposing one another or suffer the Lady's wrath. That's not to say that fights and minor wars don't still happen just not on a city wide scale, witness the out come of the faction war.
#8 zombiegleemax Sep 18, 2003 10:34:21	1 show them a traumatic firs encounter with the fiends, so they get impressed when look in a tavern and sees 10. 2 less fights, it's alwais the answerd!
#9 heretic_apostate Sep 18, 2003 22:08:18	Originally posted by puk Sildatorak made some excellent points. I would simply like to add that most of the material is also available as downloadable PDF's from SVgames.com The documents aren't that expensive (only $5), and you can print and bind them yourself if you fancy the hardcopy stuff. $4.74. Plus, if you buy enough, you'll get a quantity discount. And just recently, they offered an additional discount (but that ended about a week ago; wish I had the money to buy buy them and the connection to quickly download them...).
#10 clueless Sep 27, 2003 3:54:52	Well - new PS DM and new players eh? This is one of the things the development team for Planewalker has been trying to figure out how to approach, since we want to get new blood playing... I guess this is as good a place as any to sound off on my views on it. Prime or Planar PCs: Prime gives the players the excuse of not knowing whats going on, lets them not be involved in the factions, and otherwise build up their knowledge of the setting as they go. On the other hand it means their major goal will probably be "I wanna go home!!" .... it also means you have to take the time to introduce them to things, and they may not have the coolest race choices. Talk to your players. A lot if you have to. And make sure they have a solid understanding of their character - their characters values. In the best Planescape games, characters should be able to answer certain ethical/moral questions almost at the drop of a hat. Sometimes the plot hinges on this. ;) You may want to insert a cute adorable NPC to handle some of this for you. I recommend NG tiefling rogues. ;) Fiends/Celestials: the thing to remember about Sigil is that it is the ultimate *Nuetral Ground*. Yes, it's the center of things, yes big bads from all over the place come here (just not Gods). But if they cause too much trouble, the Lady will show up and kick their rears. They know this - so they may grumble, insult or sneer at other people and mortals. But if the mortals stay out of their way, generally they don't care. Unless you're in the Hive - but walking around in the Hive is asking to be robbed *anyway*. But the point is - yes, PCs might be small - but the big bads don't just throw their weight around because they can either. One thing to note - rarely does someone hire a party to do something they don't think they can do, or waste clearly skilled people - unless theres backstabbing going on. So there's no reason in the setting alone to *have* to toss players against something they can't take. There's really two things a new Planescape DM has to keep in mind: 1. planning and 2. scope. Planning: You've got a complex setting, a big *huge* one. Infinate even, but highly detailed. You can run an entire campaign in one city alone if you wanted to. So you're going to want to plan out some things very far in advance to use it the best. Sorta like how Babylon 5 left hints of season 5 plots in the first episode? That sort of thing. Now don't go too overboard, players are unpredictable. But you'll want to consider it. This is when you decide the tone of the game - 'adventures for hire', 'lost and trying to get home', 'oh my god I don't want to die, I have to kill the people trying to kill me!'. If you have a player who particularly wants to do some grand plot... weave it right on in. Or if you have some major planes shaking event you can make that a recurring theme. But *plan*. Scope: The Planes *are* infinate. Players can affect things, but you know, it's aweful hard to clean out Ba'ator. It just *is*, if not impossible. The Blood War is stalemated, and who really wants one side or the other to win? (Hush up, Shemeska!) The thing to remember is scope - pick one and stick with it. The players might be able to protect themselves and some friends, maight be able to clear out a domain on the Outlands for themselves, might be able to play some factions off each other and get the Hardheads out of power, if you play pre-Faction War... Her Serenity said 15. She didn't say *which* 15. Keep the party in your focus, they may realize their beliefs and choices sort of snowball later - but you don't want them getting disappointed that they're small individuals and can't just fix things all at once. Encourage them to make those small changes that snowball into big ones if they're going that way with it. Let them set and achieve goals.