Well it's been hinted that it might happen, but Planescape is on the list as a 4e campaign setting, along with Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Dark Sun and Spelljammer as mentioned settings that will be released down the line.
The only really new news out of this, is that every campaign setting including Forgotten Realms, is only going to get something like 3 or 4 books max.
3 books per setting plus web enhancements. Adventure Guide, Player's Guide, and DM's Guide.
Also note, this is a list of *possible* settings to be released. It is not a certainty that Planescape will actually be published yet.
Planescape with the 'new' cosmology? ... Uhm... You know, you're probably going to have to pay for Insider to get the web enhancements and whatnot.
3 books, is most definitely part of their plan to really push D&D Insider.
Also note, this is a list of *possible* settings to be released. It is not a certainty that Planescape will actually be published yet.
Also Michelle Carter said she was behind Sigil getting a mention in the new DMG.
And where would the "assumed setting" (Tieflings and Eladrin and probably more to come later) be without it's original source that they're doing a lot to plunder in 4e...
Since the 4e background of eladrins and tieflings is so different that they're essentially new creatures, it would be very difficult to reference any Planescape books when talking about them.
I'd like to see a 4e Planescape book that described Sigil, the factions, attitude, gate-towns and major NPCs, and I'd like three such books even more. I wouldn't even care so much if they used the classic cosmology or not, or if they moved the timeline forward a hundred years, just because I'd be so happy to see the above in print.
But it sounds like it'll be a long time before that happens, if ever. I think Greyhawk is pretty locked in for 2010, and there seems a good chance that Sigil will only be described in "core" materials rather than released as part of a campaign setting of its own.
I think its likely that we'll see Planescape return in some form (there's been a manual of planes for decades - I just hope the new planar info will be more PS friendly than the 3.0/3.5 stuff) but it will also be even more of a "re-imagining" than the forgotten realms are getting. This doesn't necessarilly mean that it will be unrecogniseable however. To use a Sci Fi example, I'd hope for something like the remake of Battlestar Galactica - recogniseable but updated and changed in some major ways but (hopefully) with the thematic vibes and strength of the original... as in 'not like the The Phantom Menace ' 
I'm in favour of this. It would be great to see Planescape return with some books that could get new players involved.
A pity we will not likely see any adventure modules for it though.
Given the composition of the 4e design team with the major folks behind the Planar Handbook and the BoED... I'm wary to see them attempt a 4e Planescape book. I'm not sure they've got the background with the material, or the desire to make it (it sounded like Michelle had to do some arm twisting to get a Sigil analog into the 4e PoL cosmology). Plus, it would directly compete with their new 4e cosmology they're trying to promote (and it doesn't have the "antithesis of fun" that was the Great Wheel's quasielemental vacuum).
Wary is the baseline of my feelings on the matter (even though Michelle Carter is awesome).
If you're at GenCon this year Rip, expect me to gripe about this stuff.
I don't see how the new cosmology can do Planescape justice.
Guess it depends on what you think Planescape is about. Maybe it's a new concept of planar adventures, just calles Planescape...
The new Forgotten Realms setting, for example, might be interesting itself, but it is (as far as I can see it) a new setting that does not have much in common with what the previous setting of the same name has been.
Who is Michelle Carter?
editor lady. Or she did lots of proofreading for Planescape.
Someone got a link for these shiny proposed setting books?
The announcement article is in the 4e news section of ENworld. There are no anounced books yet.
If these planned boks go ahead, will that effect planewalker's work at all?
Kal
For one, I dout they'll release PS--it competes with their "new and more fun" cosmology. If they do, their work will probably resemble the 3.5 MotP. :shock: If they do release it, it may get more antention for PW.
If they release a Sigil hardcover, that would make me very happy, regardless of what planes they link it to.
Edit: But Shemmy's warning is well taken. I mean a good Sigil hardcover.
I guess that we shouldn't worry about that much ... We still have good old 2ed and 3.5ed with a lot of great material on original Planescape. Wizards can't MAKE the players to give up and trade an old, but nice setting or system for something new. Especially, if this "something new" is the twisted and mocking shade of an original. I for example already dislike the flavor of "new forgotten realms\faerun" thing. And I doubt that I'll be impressed with new cosmology or revised planescape\spelljammer\whatever too. So, I personally (as well as my fellow players and DMs) will just stick to the old school rules and settings and that's it. No worries.
And if some day Wizards will come up with some kind of completely new and interesting setting for the 4ed, only then I'll give it a try. It's just IMHO. And all I want to say is that discussions of such kind are mostly pointless. Because whatever happens - people will play not in what developers throw at their faces (no matter how "revolutionary" or "brand new" are those projects), but in those things, which are already settled in their hearts and minds.
you'd be surprised how many minds if not hearts have swallowed Wizards advertising Lies) which they paid $20+ no less....hmmm perhaps its to justify the cost to themselves...
supposedly devils are now tempters though the pitfiend can no longer grant wishes and has lost a lot of magical power.
supposedly fey are no longer the cute and cuddly...you know, like the Queen of Air and Darkness was? :roll:
the evils gods finally have servant races....oh, you get the idea....
It's my understanding that "wish" the spell doesn't exist anymore at all. Since standard PC lvls now go all the way to 30.
Ah, another narrative hook removed for the sake of the system. It's pretty much a general trend to make the game as palatable and as bland as possible.
Looking at the Phanes, who could once summon past time duplicates of your characters to fight, I see now has a ray that makes you old. Unless I missed something in those stats, that's really dull comparatively.
With a poorer cosmology and mechanics rather distinct from D&D, I have little interest.
I think the trend that I find most upsetting is a general tendency to focus more on rules and "crunch" and to treat the game as more of a wargame. Sadly it seems to be at the expense of fluff.
What made the game fun was the motivations and stories behind the creatures, not that Monster A could do 3d6 points of damage in a round.
Listen up, berk, because I'm not talking just to hear my bone-box rattle.
There are three rules to everything. The Rule of Threes, the Unity of Rings, and the Center of All.
The Rule of Threes is easy to see. There are three levels of existence: the Elemental Chaos, the World, and the Astral Sea. The World has three layers, too: World, Feywild, and Shadowfell. The Elemental Chaos has three layers: Deep chaos, the stable realms, and the Abyss. The Astral Sea has three layers too: the sea itself, the Dominions, and the trackless sky above it.
The Unity of Rings is harder to discern; you have to be a true blood to see the dark of it. It means everything that goes around comes around. Life comes from death, and death comes from life. Fire becomes ashes, which become earth, which become wood, which burn again to fire. Evil turns on itself. Day becomes night becomes day, summer becomes winter which becomes summer. They say if you travel the Astral Dominions long enough, you'll end up back where you started. They say the World is circular, like a ball. They say the Abyss devours itself like a snake eating its own tail.
The Center of All means you're not as important as you think you are. The planes don't revolve around you or your little kingdom or your little world. No matter how big you think you are, there's always something bigger. It also means you are the center of the multiverse because every point is equally the center of it all. No matter how insignificant you think something is, it just may be the crux that holds everything together, because everything is the crux that holds everything together. A butterfly's wings in Bytopia might create a storm in the Shadowfell that sweeps across the boundaries between worlds, destroying a realm in the Elemental Chaos and stirring up thoughtwinds that drive them mad in Pandemonium. This is the secret the Sign of One know, how to take advantage of the fact that they are the creators of the multiverse, because all of us are, all of the time. We dream the worlds into being.
Where is Sigil? It's in the space between night and day, between dream and memory, between thought and action, between chaos and law. It's between this moment and the next. It's between yesterday and never. It floats in the womb of unborn worlds. It's on top of infinity, and at the bottom of nothing. Some say they can see it hovering in the sky in the Astral Dominions above a mountain so high that you could climb or fall from it until the end of time or the beginning and never reach your destination; I never have, but maybe I just haven't found the right Dominion. Who knows? If Sigil is really the Center of All, it's everywhere and nowhere. You'll find its doors or you won't.
Who is the Lady of Pain? Some say she's a Primordial who betrayed her own kind to the gods, and others say she was a god who betrayed her kind to the Primordials. Some say she's nothing but an illusion, or a rumor spread to keep the citizens of Sigil in line. Others say she's an elder fey, or a human sorceress who got lucky, or a shadar-kai who stole some of the power of the Raven Queen and found a place to hide from her wrath. No one's learned the true dark of the Lady, not ever, and I don't think anyone ever will. You'd have an easier time finding the center of a ring.
Oooh, awesome application of the core Planescape concepts to the new cosmology, Rip! 
I didn't read Worlds & Monsters, but was there mention of a "Trackless Sky" region in the Astral Sea, and "Deep Chaos" & "Stable Realm" in the Elemental Chaos, or was that your own ideas?
Ummm..where would I find said modules?
I didn't read Worlds & Monsters, but was there mention of a "Trackless Sky" region in the Astral Sea, and "Deep Chaos" & "Stable Realm" in the Elemental Chaos, or was that your own ideas?
Well, I made up the names, but the Astral Sea does have a sky (most of the action is sailing on the sea part), and the Elemental Chaos does have stable regions (essentially demiplanes, created by powerful wizards, elemental lords, githzerai and the like).
Nice work, rip - another proof that Planescape doesn't essentially need the Great Wheel being used to work. Moreover, as Omar was persuading on his home page, also alignments can be obsolete. And why we should not combine "Wheel" (and every other cosmology) with the new conception, altogether with Astral Sea, Dominions etc.? For example describing Great Wheel as a set of permanently linked Dominions?
It won't be the same, but it still can be Planescape. What's important is the theme - and the tone of the game.
Have I mentioned recently that Rip is a proxy of the god of awesome?
Without some sense of alignment, the game suffers imo. The idea of subjective interpretation of supposedly objective forces of Good, Xaos, etc. to me enhances the game. How does a person be Good and believe that Entropy must destroy all things? How does a Lawful Sensate feel about experiencing Chaos? Mind you there doesn't need to be the problematic issues of translating alignment into tangible player powers.
I don't doubt that Rip could make even the derivative/dull 4e cosmology into something fun, original, and worth playing in. But imo then why not expand on Monte's Countless Doorways or the White Wolf material 4e rips off?
Instead of trying to find a diamond in the rough, why not work with treasures already there?
How would you like that weapon info transmitted to you?
I don't doubt that Rip could make even the derivative/dull 4e cosmology into something fun, original, and worth playing in. But imo then why not expand on Monte's Countless Doorways or the White Wolf material 4e rips off?
Instead of trying to find a diamond in the rough, why not work with treasures already there?
But the alignment thing is something that really took the basics of D&D ethical system one step further I think. Loosing it is kinda sad, but there is so many other things that make up for it like the rule of threes described by rip above, the sheer mind-boggling crazyness of it all and the effortless ease the setting lets everything fit. In some way or another.
The point I´m trying to make is that Planescape is supposed to be the soul of D&D, not its mother.
Offhand, I don't see any problems with using the 4E cosmology in a Planescape context, while maintaining the original alignment system and its significance for the original Planescape setup, if so desired.
Personally, I intend to continue playing in the old cosmos while also trying out the new cosmos in separate games on their own premises. In the end, I’ll probably incorporate specific parts of one version into another as the homebrew planar game for my group (probably take parts from the 4E cosmos into original Planescape, rather than vice versa).
My point isn't that Planescape won't work in 4e, but that I'd rather take a creative setting (even a Shadowrun or d20 modern take on Earth) and run PS in it than spend too much time trying to spice up 4e's bland ideas based on idiotic premises. In 4e planar travel is almost completely about changing scenery, they've flat out stated that things like surviving the Plane of Vacuum or the bizarre laws of the Astral are "not fun". The thoughtful ideas on alignment or even elementals have been replaced with elementals with helmets and faceless astral angels that look bored being placed in such a cosmology.
The only planes really worth using without a lot of improving are the Shadowfell and Feywild, and both those are hardly original and the former at least is much better done when it was in Wraith: TO.
All that said, I'm willing to give the new MoTP a chance to show off this childish homebrew made official but I don't have overly high hopes.
If alignments have already been changed in the 4th E, maybe they could be thought of as a part of the fluff--yet another element of character's psychology--and not necessarily as a system rule? Alternatively, one could use the allegiance system from d20 Modern and forget about alignments altogether.
Dunamin - yes I know. Nevertheless, there still are alignments in 4E, although changed (aren't they supposed to work like: "LG, G, U, E, CE" now?). I only suggest to get rid of them completely and instead use something similar to the allegiances if someone want to retain them in game.
It's no trouble houseruling them back in so I'm not worried, though our group will likely downplay alignment altogether anyway.
It's not linear. Apparently LG isn't the highest good nor CE the lowest...
First thing I house rule is bring back all 9 alignments with "unaligned" thrown in as the 10th.
unaligned = neutral?
One wonders why WotC decided to eliminate CG and LE in the first place. Isn't Chaotic Good a popular choice for player character alignment?
...You know, looking again at the 4e alignment choices, it looks like Chaotic is now conflated with Evil; there is no non-Evil choice for a chaotic alignment.
...You know, looking again at the 4e alignment choices, it looks like Chaotic is now conflated with Evil; there is no non-Evil choice for a chaotic alignment.
They're showing previews of the new edition up to the release date of 4E and the last one is scheduled to be about alignment, so I guess we'll get an explanation at that point.
I think most creatures are expected to be unaligned, while aligned creatures are more those who actively pursue a cause (but I’m not so sure about this last part).
I can see unaligned as useful for defusing arguments, but really as a general guideline those two words gave you a sense of how to run the character.
I don't doubt that Rip could make even the derivative/dull 4e cosmology into something fun, original, and worth playing in. But imo then why not expand on Monte's Countless Doorways or the White Wolf material 4e rips off?
Instead of trying to find a diamond in the rough, why not work with treasures already there?
Huh. I've always found alignment as just a needlessly restrictive game mechanic. I only ever used it because certain spells and such were predicated upon its usage. Outside of that, it just struck me as a way to shoehorn moral and ethical systems into a drastically oversimplified XY axis. I worked with it as a structure most of the time, but never took it too seriously because basically it forced chracters into limited moral or ethical outlooks. A thief with a strict code of honour, and a rigid set of rules he follows, but who sees the current legal system as oppressive because of differences in ideology, but who becomes a revolutionary, overthrows the regime, and implements a new government that reflects his different set of rules. This is a guy who uses "chaotic" means to achieve a lawful end, against a lawful government. The mechanics tell us this guy is at some point violating his alignment (either by switching from chaotic to lawful, or being a lawful guy who works against the law), despite the fact that his ideology may be 100% internally consistent.
Basically, the way I see it, any well thought out philosophy will produce tons of alignment contradictions when applied situationally, because well thought out philosophies are generally much more dynamic than alignment allows for. More generally, ends justifies the means thinking isn't inherently evil or good, or lawful or chaotic, but neither is it really neutral. Instead it is situational in response with a moral reasoning that is based on a long term outcome, which may never even manifest itself. A persons goal can be entirely in opposition in alignment terms when compared to their methods. Yet D&D would have us penalizing people for such a very human thing. You can't accurately define almost anyone's principles using alignment as a guide.
Personally, I think ditching the mechanics of alignment is one of the things 4e sounds like it will be doing right. It's mechanical baggage developed from an undynamic polarizing view of metaphysics. It's sort of interesting in its own right, and I think is fun as an isolated metaphysical viewpoint. What irritates me about it is that this is the one metaphysical viewpoint that exists not just as a viewpoint, but as a universal truth that is manifested as game mechanics. So, when some guy murders a peasant and argues its for the greater good, according to D&D rules, he is in fact objectively wrong. His act was evil. This is a universal truth, even in planescape, the home of the most relativistic campaign setting in D&D. Good, Evil, Chaos and Law are static, universal laws. Ultimately, this begs the question, why do such laws exist, and why are they universal? The Unity of Rings, Rule of Three and Center of All are supposedly the three great universals in planescape (unless you want to throw in the All Rules Must Be Broken). Apparently they forgot to mention Alignment Mechanics somewhere in there.
Personally, I prefer an overall looser set of game mechanics (i.e. mechanics that aren't inherently moralizing), combined with a rich campaign setting (which can be as moralizing as you like). Alignment as a setting concept? That's fine with me. Alignment as a built in game mechanic? That just forces me to pit good versus evil and law versus chaos, when I dont necessarily want the world to work according to such black and white oppositional dynamics. I am ready to do away with that entirely.
I agree with you (I think it said I in another thread but not as clearly as you) that alignment shouldn't necessarily be a mechanic but instead another aspect of the game worth examining through role playing.
Allowing one to question even the Multiversal system, to attempt to answer why or why not to your posed question, is what makes Planescape so amazing and so revolutionary. Similarly with Mage: The Ascension, and in some ways many White Wolf games.
4e isn't doing anything revolutionary - that would be an examination of alignment much in the way that Vertigo comics and Moorcock examined ideas of Law/Chaos, Good/Evil. 4e is simply throwing out the baby with the bathwater and replacing it with something I personally find the "anthesisis of fun".
It was already done away with in Eberron, in play if not in text. I'm not saying everyone has to deal with alignment or objective/elemental forces if they don't want to. You never did. But removing alignment and the Great Wheel completely is an insult to the people whose shoulders they've been standing on, and even material they've hawked just a year ago.
I guess in this case I wasn't particularly attached to the baby, so I am not all that disappointed. In general, I think my attitue about 4e is a lot different than many people on this board because 90% of my interest in a roleplaying system lies in their mechanics. The setting I can generally take or leave because I am heavy on creating my own mythologies and my own settings (planescape is the only AD&D setting I have any interest in). So, to me, if 4e gives us an elegant mechanical system (which remains to be seen) with shitty fluff, I am happy with that, because D&D fluff has always been fairly boring to me. If the mechanics turn out to suck, I will quickly join the chorus of boos. Personally, I've ended up developing my own rules system for almost all my different gaming stuff, just because my needs in a gaming system were never reflected in any product out there, except to a limited extent the World of Darkness stuff (which has a couple mechanical gems in there), and also (purely by coincidence, as I hit upon the whole bell curve distribution of dice thing independently, albeit 10 years too late) the GURPS dice mechanics.
What I look for in game mechanics is something simple, elegant, fast paced and adaptable that produces the mechanical results that can be scaled to the level of realism I want in the setting. That is a pretty tall order, so it practically requires creating something from scratch, and doing that naturally takes a lot of time, effort, and trial and error. So when a system works well enough for the setting it is designed for, I am happy with that. I am fairly skeptical that 4e will be any good, I am just not prepared to make any judgments until I see the finished product. I thought 3e was going to be shit, and continued thinking it was shit until I finally played it, essentially because of all the reasons people are complaining about 4e here in this forum, but eventually I came to appreciate the fact that it was more streamlined and was more adaptable than 2e. I don't like to repeat my mistakes, so I continue to withold judgment on 4e.
I don't have a problem with the rules per se, though I find some changes to monsters I've seen as making them less interesting (see pitfiend). For me D&D is about options, and that philosophy is what endeared me to 3e and why 4e is so distasteful.
I don't want to go into an insane rant so I'll refrain from expounding on my dislike of the 4e design team. :oops: :x Suffice to say that Erik Mona has managed to disagree or severely criticize the works of past authors while maintaining a healthy level of respect. One of many reasons my cash will go toward Pathfinder RPG.
A lot of my bad thoughts goes towards James Wyatt and Rich Baker, since I don't really know what they're about or what they think is appealing or many of their arguments on subjects/changes I don't like. I'm alright with Mike Mearls, since he never had much to do with story elements which he isn't that good on anyways, but he has perhaps the best insight into rules and mechanics. Everyone else out of the 4e design team, I don't have much of an opinion.
Unaligned can mean balancing extremes (the goddesses Sehanine and Ioun are unaligned, and both are interested in that) but it can also mean completely amoral (like the fey, who are almost all unaligned), and it can mean beings who would be considered chaotic neutral (like Kord, as he's described in 4e) or lawful neutral (like the goddess Erathis) in 1e-3e terms. It can also include beings who have decided they are "above morality" (like the Raven Queen and her followers). For whatever reason, unaligned beings don't side with either Good or Evil, but they can choose any reason they want to for this.
So basically, yeah, I think unaligned is the same as neutral. In 2e, creatures with animal intelligence or lower were sometimes given alignments of "n/a." Unaligned can mean that, too.
In any case, the "unaligned" alignment isn't different enough from the various neutral alignments in previous editions to be worth including as a tenth alignment.
Anyway, after having read the alignment section in the 4E PHB I'm thinking our group will simply deemphasize the concept altogether. If we maintain the focus it used to have, CG and LE will at the very least be included.
I don't think there's a contradiction between what Bruce Cordell said and what I said, really. It's not the same as the neutral alignment because it contains within it the alignments formally known as lawful neutral, neutral, and chaotic neutral, as well as the "n/a" alignment that occasionally appeared.
Reading the description of "unaligned" in the new Player's Handbook, unaligned is described in terms virtually identical to how the various neutral alignments were before.
Which is with 3-4 books more than I was expecting.