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How to convince my group to try Planescape ?

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Sun, 2012-07-01 10:54
#1
vini_lessa
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How to convince my group to try Planescape ?

Dont know if there is a thread like this already. If so, please forgive me.

Me and my group are coming to a halt to our shadowrun campaign and would like to try different games. "Great opportunity to present Planescape for them!" I thouhgt. And then I remember they dont know the imagery of D&D the least (alignments, planes, deities, creatures, etc) AND they also never had contact with the Torment PC game NOR with the "multiverse" trope (as seen in games like Everway, Amber, Nobilis, etc - they dont know these games). So, basicaly, they are mostly shadowrun and vampire and gurps fantasy players that never strayed from that.

So, I need a little hand on selling Planescape to them. I already tried to introduce it to one player separated, and he said it seemed interesting but too "alien" overall. Honestly I didnt feel him too excited to try it.

Can you help me here folks ? Have you experienced a similar situation? How did you do ?

Thanks!

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Sun, 2012-07-01 13:53
#2
Wicke
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Re: How to convince my group to try Planescape ?

Let me turn around your question: What is it about Planescape that gets you excited and interested in it? It's your own excitement about the setting that's going to become the basis for your group's interest.

Sun, 2012-07-01 23:03
#3
VikingLegion
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Re: How to convince my group to try Planescape ?

I ran a Planescape campaign that masqueraded as a Forgotten Realms campaign. Let me explain: None of the 5 players at my table are anywhere near as D&D lore geeky as I am. However, all of them have played the Baldurs Gate video games (both the PC RPGs and the Playstation Action/RPG hybrids). 4 out of 5 had read the Drizzt novels (I hope that wasn't an audible groan I just heard).

So, I never even told them it would be a Planescape campaign. I picked a remote area of Faerun and built my own frontier town from scratch, giving me the freedom to plant whatever plot seeds I needed, but at the same time allowed the players access to places like Waterdeep and other such familiar and comfortable locales. From levels 1 to ...6ish? it ran like any humdrum terrestrial setting campaign, but as the full scope of the overarching plotline began to slowly unveil, it started to dawn on them just how far-ranging it would be. The party's wizard had a mentor in town who is an old, grizzled, and very accomplished planehopper - so I used him as my DM tool to explain a lot of the errata of planehopping, both in in-game dialogues, as well as expository emails sent a few nights before each session.

All in all it worked out very well. I felt like really only 1 of the 5 players was a bit lost (he was the type that really only comes alive for the combats anyway), and the other 4, who previously had ZERO knowledge of Planescape, became at least not totally Clueless over the course of six years of playing that storyline to its culmination.

I'm not saying this approach will work for every group, but without patting myself too hard on the back I have to say it accomplished what I wanted it to do almost perfectly - introduce 5 complete rookies to Planescape under the cover of a much more familiar/less alien or intimidating setting.

Mon, 2012-07-02 13:56
#4
Mask
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Re: How to convince my group to try Planescape ?

Simple put: If the players are clueless, the chars should not be planars.

I would take VikingLegions path as well, starting with a normal fantasy setting. So when the chars learn about the planes so do the players.

PS:T found one of the few ways explaining the setting to a char that should have known it. Starting with a group getting pulled out of the styx might be an interesting alternative.

Mon, 2012-07-02 19:57
#5
Anetra
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Re: How to convince my group to try Planescape ?

A group of characters beginning their adventure after a mishap with the Styx is a really intriguing campaign starter, but keep in mind that you'll have to work in what they did to who that landed them in that position, and then try to avoid TPKing them when those (likely higher level) enemies bump into them again.

Interesting possibility along this vein: Party styxed themselves after an encounter with the Far, desperate to unsee the horrors.

Tue, 2012-07-03 13:03
#6
Mask
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Re: How to convince my group to try Planescape ?

"An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path, right? He wasn't certain of which direction to go, and he'd forgotten both where he was traveling to and who he was. He'd sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him. She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: 'Now your *third* wish. What will it be?'"
"'Third wish?' The man was baffled. 'How can it be a third wish if I haven't had a first and second wish?'"
"'You've had two wishes already,' the hag said, 'but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That's why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes.' She cackled at the poor berk. 'So it is that you have one wish left.'"
"'All right,' said the man, "I don't believe this, but there's no harm in wishing. I wish to know who I am.'"
"'Funny,' said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. 'That was your first wish.'"

(PS:T)

Planescape, Dungeons & Dragons, their logos, Wizards of the Coast, and the Wizards of the Coast logo are ©2008, Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc. and used with permission.