Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

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Brickroad's picture
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Joined: 2004-07-18
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

After several years of disinterest, I've finally convinced my gaming group to let me run some Planescape. I ran it several times with my old group and had a blast. It definately is my "baby" setting.

I was faced with two major challenges right out of the gate.

First, this is a group that hasn't done much fantasy roleplaying (much more of a White Wolf group). The concepts of race and class are difficult enough to get across, I didn't want to stack faction on top of it. Solution: talked it over as a group, I described some of the various factions, and we decided all the players would be Sensates. Easy enough.

Second, aside from one guy nobody in the group has ever played Planescape before, so I had to design a game where all the players could be relatively clueless without ACTUALLY having to be Clueless. Solution: the first scene of the first session, everyone gets dragged out of the Styx by yugoloths.

The goal for the players, of course, is to piece together their former lives and figure out why they were dunked in the Styx to begin with. All evidence points to them having done it voluntarily, just to make all the experiences new and fresh again, but so far nobody's buying it.

Feels good to be immersed in the setting again. Feels very much like coming home.

Clueless's picture
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Webmonkey
Joined: 2008-06-30
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

You know - you're in a good spot there too. White Wolfers, with their focus on Natures/Demenours are going to be in a better position when it comes to playing in Planescape than some of the more alignment oriented players. Expose them to the other factions as the game goes on, I'm willing to bet they'll get the hang of it and grow up to be nice proper bloods. Eye-wink

Invite them to hang out with us too! We like meeting new folks. Smiling

Krypter's picture
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factotums
Joined: 2004-05-11
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

Given how philosophically-structured most White Wolf books are it might be wise to keep the factions and drop the levels/classes. As in, use the Storyteller rules to play Planescape. I believe someone out there had a conversion all made and everything (for Storyteller 1.0). Since PS deals so mush with belief, reality and reality-manipulation anyone familiar with White Wolf's Mage universe would be right at home; the factions have some correspondence to Mage's Traditions or Werewolf's Tribes already. I've personally found the D&D 3.5 rules to be more of an impediment to playing PS than a help.

Regardless, welcome back to the fold!

Clueless's picture
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Webmonkey
Joined: 2008-06-30
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

Should you happen to recall who made that conversion or where it is hosted - let me know so I can ask them about co-hosting it here. Smiling

simmo's picture
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Joined: 2004-05-11
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

Here is the information that I managed to find on the PS mailing list relating to the Mage: the Ascension conversion by James O'Rance: http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0007D&L=PLANESCAPE-L&P=R7687&D=1&H=0&I=-3&O=T&T=1.

I'm afraid to say that the links in the posting do not seem to work so I would recommend either finding some website archive that may have an old copy or to contact James O'Rance. Last I heard he was active in the Dragonlance setting.

Hmmm... just done some digging and it appears that the website can still be accessed via this archive site: [url]http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://travel.to/TheOuterPlanes.net[/url]. The zip file downloads on the other hand do not appear to be accessible.

Clueless's picture
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Webmonkey
Joined: 2008-06-30
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

Gotcha - I'll see if I can track him down, my roomie is to her Dragonlance online RPG site as I am to Planewalker and stands a decent chance of being able to find him. Eye-wink

BTW - I have a copy of the old Book of Belief for the bariaur that I'm in the midst of cleaning up and updating to 3.0/3.5 for classes and the like. I would love to be able to get an introduction to this text from some of the folks originally involved in creating and editing it - just to fill in on the history of how it came about. Smiling

ripvanwormer's picture
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Factol
Joined: 2004-10-05
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

I have a copy of James O'Rance's Planescape for Mage: The Ascension conversion, if anyone wants it. It's a 450 KB rtf file.

Last time I saw him was on the Malhavoc boards.

Clueless's picture
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Webmonkey
Joined: 2008-06-30
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

Yes please. Smiling I'll see if I can find him over there to ask permission to host it. Smiling

simmo's picture
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Joined: 2004-05-11
Hurrah, finally running Planescape again!

'Clueless' wrote:
BTW - I have a copy of the old Book of Belief for the bariaur that I'm in the midst of cleaning up and updating to 3.0/3.5 for classes and the like. I would love to be able to get an introduction to this text from some of the folks originally involved in creating and editing it - just to fill in on the history of how it came about. Smiling

Gary Ray first asked for an editor to work on "The Bariaur Book of Belief" here: http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9912A&L=PLANESCAPE-L&P=R16244&I=-3.

The first editor could no longer work on the project (http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind9912B&L=PLANESCAPE-L&P=R18071&I=-3) as announced eight days later. I volunteered by sending him an email and after a couple of months sent him the final version as announced here: http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0002C&L=PLANESCAPE-L&P=R992&I=-3.

It was the first time I'd edited someone else's document in the Planescape community. Gary's work was great and did not require much editing, it was a pleasure working with him.

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