Do you play PS more as a sandbox style campaign, or more as a plot-centered campaign?
I've wanted to run a PS campaign for a while, and it recently occurred to me that a great way to showcase PS's awesome scope is to let the players decide where they want to visit. Of course, that awesome scope is what makes PS probably the most burdensome setting to run as a sandbox. Anyway, I'm just curious.
I'm fairly familiar with PS, though I'd be adding a few of my own tweaks to the campaign -- such as no faction war, and a slightly different faction lineup.
I don't think any of my players know anything about PS but I don't think that'd be a problem: my plan is to draw a simple map of the multiverse. I'll then have one player point to a plane and say "we're going there for a dungeon crawl/diplomatic mission/walkabout/whatever." With that basic info, I'll work out an adventure based on that player's tastes.
The biggest problem I see is having the factions be at least somewhat relevant and noticeable to players who have no PS experience.
If they don't know anything about the planes, though, that's not really any better than just rolling a die and choosing a plane that way. It might be the player choosing it, but it's not the player choosing it based on their personal taste, since they don't know anything about what they're choosing. I'd suggest you to at least put together an info packet on the multiverse first for the party, so they can choose based on what sounds interesting to them. Or let them read through the player's guide in the boxed set or a couple chapters in the PSCS3E. They might even end up preferring an adventure based around a specific organization or concept than a location.
Another possibility you might want to consider is just outright ask the players what it is they want to do adventure-wise, and design it based on that, choosing an appropriate location for the plot they want to play through. They might not have a specific location in mind, but have a general idea of the kind of plot they'd enjoy doing as a group, and then you can figure out where that kind of plot would best fit.
Also, the faction problem isn't necessarily a problem. They're pretty important in Sigil, yeah, but outside Sigil they honestly aren't all that relevant in the big picture. There's exceptions in certain specific cases - the Harmonium in Fortitude and to a lesser degree Arcadia, things like that - but in the big picture they're fairly Sigil-centric in terms of importance to the planes. Early Planescape adventures and sourcebooks made the mistake of giving pretty much every NPC that showed up anywhere a faction affiliation, which contributed to something of a false impression of how big they're supposed to be multiverse-wide, but if you look closely, you'll see that later products scaled back on faction affiliations outside Sigil to a huge degree. I've been running a sandboxy Planescape game with the party all members of the Planewalker's Guild for about a year now, and the factions haven't even been involved in any of their plotlines to any big degree. They've shown up now and again, but that's all.
My bad: when I say I'll draw a map of the multiverse, I'll also give them a brief description of it. Most of my players aren't the read-a-campaign-guide type of players.
I don't expect the factions to be a major part of the campaign, but I'd like them to be more than just a mostly-forgotten backdrop. I plan on giving my players portal info and gate keys through their factions, but that in itself doesn't make them very memorable. I don't want to ram them down my players' throats, but I would like if they remember what the factions are years in the future.
Anyway, I'd love to know how others run and play their PS games.
Aha. Then yeah, that sounds like a perfect way of going about it. And it sounds like you are having a Sigil-based game? Okay, you definitely want them to be a fairly important force, I'd say. The way it sounded, I was thinking it wasn't going to have much to do with Sigil, but if it is, you should definitely tie them in strongly.
Personally, the way I do it is every time there's downtime, I solicit a plothook from one or two of my players. Then I work with that player to expand the plothook into a full adventure. Meanwhile, each player has their own personal character-based storylines as well, that advance at their pace; I check with them every so often to see if they feel like it's time to move ahead in it, and if it is, I work to tie it into events in the game.
Yeah, it'd be a Sigil-based game. Or at least, Sigil would be their base of operations. I thought that was the default assumption for a PS campaign?
My plan is that every adventure would be a character based story. For example if a character wants to become a monarch, every fourth adventure will be dedicated to that goal. (I have four players.)
My players are a bit diverse in their tastes. One is happy so long as he has things to kill, while the other really likes to explore the in-game world. The other two haven't been very expressive about what kind of adventures they want, and I'm hoping that this "tell me what and where you want to adventure" plan will get them talking a bit more.
Of course, it depends if you want them to be plane walkers or clueless just stumbling their way into the planes for the first time. If the latter, then having them know next to nothing about the planes is fine ... and in fact having them mislead by poor information, shady characters, etc. is a good way to introduce them to the idea that the planes are more complicated than anything that can be encompassed by a simple map and traveler's guide.
If they are clueless it is far simpler to have them hire a planar tout and tell the berk what kind of place they're looking to go and have him make recommendations ... of course those recommendations are going to be self serving, but they probably won't discover that until it is too late ... if at all.
Me, I tend to slide back and forth between the sandbox and plot approaches ... I let them decide where they want to go then build a plot that works ... between stories they might go anywhere and their random wanderings may - after a low pressure adventure or two - dictate what their next plot shall be.
Something to keep in mind for Planescape is that every encounter is a potential plot hook and everything they do - success or mistake - has the potential to open unforeseen doors ... in fact, that is something of a setting theme is it not?
I'd think that to run a sandbox styled PS game, you (as DM) would have to be really familiar with the PS universe. Maybe not so far as NPCs go (the Planes are a big place, so you're not going to run into celebrities every time you visit a place), but certainly in terms of the character, look and feel of each place that gets visited.
Likewise, the players themselves would have to have slightly more than a passing familiarity with the setting, otherwise they'd risk getting bogged down due to the sheer scale.
If you had both of those things going for you, there would be no reason to jump in and get to the meat of the setting: heavy amounts of philosophy and adventure set against a fantastic background. Where the overall populace is jaded and cynical, but the true believers are the movers and shakers.