It may be a bit early to ask this sort of thing, and you lot may not want to give such things away besides, but I had a question about the future plans of Planewalker.
A lot of people dislike what Faction War did to the setting. And many of us know that the displacement was intended to be temporary. What I'm wondering is if the PW crew has plans to bring the factions back to Sigil at some point in the future.
One more thing:
DMs, If you DON'T plan on killing off the factions, I would strongly suggest you not allow the PCs to get a hold of the Factol's Manifesto (in adventure, I mean... no WAY should they ever be able to read the actual gamebook). Even if some of the info in there is made obsolete by changes in faction leadership, there's simply too much information in the FM that even faction members would not have access to... and it's kinda tough to find a logical pretext for telling the adventurers "Nope. You HAVE the Factol's Manifesto, and you need it to complete the adventure, but you're absolutely not allowed to gander at the information within".
DMs, If you DON'T plan on killing off the factions, I would strongly suggest you not allow the PCs to get a hold of the Factol's Manifesto (in adventure, I mean... no WAY should they ever be able to read the actual gamebook). Even if some of the info in there is made obsolete by changes in faction leadership, there's simply too much information in the FM that even faction members would not have access to... and it's kinda tough to find a logical pretext for telling the adventurers "Nope. You HAVE the Factol's Manifesto, and you need it to complete the adventure, but you're absolutely not allowed to gander at the information within".
Of course, it's the DMs perogative to decide that some or all of the information in the Manifesto is simply wrong or at least misleading. It might be fun to just rotate the secrets of the various factols, so that Darius is plotting to take over the Cage and Erin is gathering a horde of undead.
In that spirit, my favorite of Faction War's proposed endings was the one where the Lady of Pain forces all the factions to switch duties with one another, so the Harmonium soldiers have to clean up corpses and the Xaositects collect taxes.
Remember, too, that the post-War situation outlined in Planewalker's Sigil chapter isn't the end of things - the exiled factions may eventually be allowed back in, or they may disband as many factions did and return without official power, or new groups may take their place so that once again the city gains an equlibrium.
It's my understanding that the folks at Planewalker are different from the folks that wrote PS3E, though there is some overlap. Staff details here:
Perhaps you can petition Gabriel Sorrel to write an option for a pre-Faction War Sigil description.
I personally favour the pre-Faction War setting as well, for pretty much the same reasons catharsis cited.
My 2cp: Sooner or later there's gonna be another great adventure, involving the mysteries behind the Ring-Givers, Jeremo the Natterer, and his apparent immunity to the most recent Edict. Ignoring the description of the helm of the dabus printed on planewalker.com, it's probably the biggest mystery facing us right now, and an important one too... if Jeremo really did find a way to circumvent Her Serenity's will, everybody and their cousin would want in on a dark like that.
It really seems to me like a module dealing with that secret as entwined into the post-Faction-War Sigil will be the best segue into a repeal of the faction ban.
Of course, there's always Peter's explanation:
I would like to point out that just because the factions were 'politely' asked to leave Sigil this does not mean they are *gone*. If anything it means you'll be seeing a spread of the faction conflict to other parts of the Planes, which is something we've been kicking around in terms of plot ideas when we start putting out full modules. It'd also likely up the intrigue levels in Sigil as you would have the percieved vacume for others to step into, and tons of people trying to influence the city from a distance.
Potential spoilers here or there.. If you haven't read Faction War, don't read the below text.
Can't speak for ps3e's plans.. but I can't help but find it unfortunate that they've adopted the post-Faction War timeline, which I simply find much less interesting.. and that's a shame, because I rather like the adventure itself. I never did have the chance to DM Faction War (unfortunately, my RP group fell apart long before then), but having read through the adventure now, I can't help but think I'd do a few things differently.
The City of Doors to me has always been driven by three (go figure) main political conflicts - the strife between (and within) factions, the economic conflicts between the Golden Lords and their ilk, and the Blood War (in the sense that any fiend worth his salt is gonna try to make Sigil a staging ground). And of those three, I can't help but think the factions are by far the most compelling.
Naturally, given the above, I'm predisposed to dislike the changes made in Faction War, but it does a few things right. It's the only adventure I can think of off-hand that truly shows Sigil's reliance on the Lady, and it does wonders to scare PCs into the realization that Her Serenity will do much more than maze a troublemaker here or there if she feels Sigil is threatened. Especially when one considers the closing of the portals - what DM wouldn't love to play up the panic and mania caused by cutting off Sigil's source of.. well... everything.Secondly, the adventure puts forth a few interesting threads regarding Sigil's major NPCs (A'kin and Shemeshka never get old).
The other problem, as I see it, is the dissolution of the Mercykillers and the institution of the Sons of Mercy as Sigil's police force.. Although it's nice that the module points them out as ineffective, it simply goes against the nature of the City of Doors to have a bunch of namby-pamby oh-won't-somebody-please-think-of-the-innocent paladins in control of the law. More importantly, the split between the Sodkillers and SoM destroys the most interesting facet of the Mercykillers - the schism between camps within the faction who have different ideas of how justice should be served. The most interesting thing about Sigil's factions has always been the fact that a single faction can welcome people of many different alignments, because the philosophies they espouse are abstract enough that they can be interpreted many ways. The new "Let's kill everything that moves" Sodkillers and "Let's spend our lives making Sigil a better place for the unjustly accused" SoM are just too one-dimensional to fit into Planescape, IMO.
Anyway, in terms of a possible solution, I'd recommend, quite simply, that the lady appear to maze Gifad as per canon.. and then disappear completely, without making any pronouncement about the factions. So the factions rebuild, they find new leaders, and they start thinking about the possibility that all of this pain and death was a warning, and that some day they'll take their animosity too far and ALL end up dead. Plus, this keeps the Lady's aims a little more mysterious than the FW treatment, and that can't help but be a good thing.
Of course, factions which aren't constantly at each other's throats are no fun... but this approach will force them to think about more subtle ways to foil each other's schemes - working through independent adventurers more often, or (and this could have a very interesting impact in and of itself) taking their struggle into the Great Ring. After all, virtually every faction has a power base somewhere outside Sigil - these become a much more viable target when one considers the fact that the Lady's pissed. And keep the Sons of Mercy and Sodkillers... but keep them combined into a single faction, arguing about the philosophical ramifications of tainting justice with concerns of good or evil.
Remember, folks.. if you don't like it, don't use it.
Anyway, that's my two cents... but there's something I'm still undecided on - what do you all think of the Mind's Eye? I'm not averse to merging the Godsmen and Signers, esp. since the Sign of One would've lost incredible amounts of credibility in their attempts to raise Aoskar (morons). Are they better together or apart?