Planescape musings

I think the problem with the Planescape line, if it can be said to be a problem, is that it needed to strike a balance between the gonzo-crazy potential of the setting and maintaining it as D&D setting (which carries a lot of expectations along with it). When you describe the planes as basically large dungeons with their own monster ecologies, I think that you're running up against that balance.

I want to say more, but I can't collect my thoughts well enough right now.

I agree with the original poster. Zeb Cook's style was just different from subsequent Planescape authors, a fact that's obvious when you see the rare followups he did in magazine articles. He had a real handle on surrealism, while Monte Cook, Colin McComb, Wolfgang Baur, Ray Vallese and the rest wrote what was closer to a typical D&D experience. This was necessary to some degree, as pure surrealism makes for engaging reading but is difficult to craft a D&D adventure from.

Other Planescape products have their own strengths, but they don't exactly match the original vision.

As for the boxed sets, Planes of Chaos was disappointing. The Pandemonium sites and things like the Infinite Staircase are awesome, but the rest was pretty rote. In Planes of Conflict, Colin McComb's Liber Malevolentiae was pretty great, but the Liber Benevolentiae was mostly weaksauce. In Planes of Law, Wolfgang Baur's work (Acheron and Mount Celestia) was by far the strongest, though Colin's stuff (Baator, Mechanus) was okay.

Like Vini Lessa in the original post, I also wish there was a little more of the bizarre ideas; but in general, I don't think I've ever been horribly disappointed with a Planescape product.

Another pro/con with the gonzo ideas is that its hard to put out something that appeals to everyone. Look at "The Faction War": that's an "out-there" concept that would have made a great thread on this board but I know very few people who actually implemented the changes in that module. (Of course, it doesn't help that in addition to being a wild idea, TSR wanted to charge us $15 (or whatever) for the priviledge of reading it. If it had been a free thread on this site, I might have found a lot more entertainment in its epic premise)

One of the reasons that I lurk about this site is that so many posters come up with some great ideas. While I might personally only like about one in five, and might only plan to use one in ten in my personal campaign; I love when people push my imagination.

With regards to the position of "it's not wierd enough for you, change it"; I fall back to the argument I make concerning the Forgotten Realms. Even though that setting is WAY too magic-intensive for my tastes; I like the setting in general (except for Elminster who is a complete Mary Sue whom I wish would fall into a bottomless hole in the Abyss - sorry not the time or place for that rant).
While I don't have as much magic in my campaign as FR does, I like that someone is pushing the boundaries of how magic is used in the "normal world". I don't need help building a low-magic medieval city; I know enough to do that. But my imagination hasn't come up with some of the inventive concepts those writers have. I might only use one in five of the ideas presented but still, that's one idea I didn't have before.

I would also like to second the hurray for the re-emergence of VanWormer!

There's also the question of what TSR's expectations were for how DMs would use the material. I think the original box earns the title of "meta campaign setting" in terms of emphasizing the infinite expanse of weird potentiality out there and implicitly inviting DMs to run a little wild. Whereas the later stuff is a lot more straightforward "campaign setting." And this is probably a little unavoidable - explaining that the major sites in the book are approximately 0% of the interesting things to see in Elysium would make a weird read.

If they had continued to push the meta angle I could, in some sense, imagine how presenting the broad themes in less-surreal fashion might make sense. But as they did it, yes, more weird please.