Planescape Game Idea I Had

[Gazirra]

I just got done watching Time Bandits (loved it), and I've been compiling info for a Planescape game (stuff like official/fan-created races, classes, magic items, NPCs, etc.) and I had an inspiration: a Planescape thieves' guild campaign!

Basically, it'd be PCs who start out as a minor thieves' guild in the Hive and moving up in the.... world? I kind of like the idea of an interplanar crime spree, leaving planar targets pissed and Prime targets confused as hell!

I'm running into a couple of problems. First, adventure ideas. I have a good inkling of what to run as far as thieves' guild games: robberies, turf wars, frame jobs, fencing, increasing influence, making contacts, etc. I'm having a bit of trouble with the Planescape part. That's been one of my sticking points in a previous campaign: how to write my own Planescape adventures. I love the setting, and know TONS about it, but the nitty gritty of a campaign is what gets me. Plus, I'd like to maybe know some additional interesting things for a thieves' guild to do. I've already realized that they could occasionally do a legit adventure now and then, but I've never ran nor been in a thieves' guild campaign.
My other minorish problem is what rules system to use. I love Planescape, and don't mind AD&D 2e, but I'm also looking at other possibilities for flexibility in character and content creation. Savage Worlds seems alright, but I'm not sure how to do PC races. My idea is to have pre-written "biological" traits, like infravision and poison resistance, and then the PCs' Edges would be their "cultural" backgrounds, like Giant Slaying for gnomes and sloping passages for dwarves.

[Reluctance]

I know there's 3e fan material for Planescape, and would be shocked if there weren't 4e conversions. Planescape is highly tied to D&Disms (most notably alignment), but the idea of an interplanar/intertemporal transit hub isn't unique to Sigil. Ask yourself how much you really want things like the Blood War and tic-tac-toe alignment grid outsiders, vs. how much you like the idea of a cosmopolitan city that draws heavily on Victorian england.

(Tangential note. While Sigil is a vibrant setting, it comes from a period that the industry has learned from. Specifically, of having a vibrant, living setting, that ironically makes you feel handcuffed to the setting and afraid to let your players wreck it too much, lest they deviate from printed material. Don't feel the need to follow printed material down to the letter.)

You might want to say sod the guild, and have the PCs be freelancers. I doubt a guild would care about crimes committed in completely different worlds, after all. Committing the crimes there and getting away with the minor crime of unauthorized portal access here could be the crux of the campaign.

Other notes that everybody should know:

Starting small is good. Trying to make a complete world before the first player makes a mark on a character sheet is a good way to ensure burnout.

Movies live or die based on the quality of their writers. Unless you have Michael Palin or Terry Gilliam at your table, understand that players are generally much more pragmatic. Translating ideas across mediums is sticky business.

[Cieyrin]

There's at least 2 books in 3rd of relevance to Planescape: Manual of the Planes and the Planar Handbook, which provide lots of info for dealing with planar adventures. Alternate systems that would work well for a Planescape game have similar feel or are set there: Legend and Dungeons the Dragoning. I don't know Savage Worlds, so I can't be any help there.

As for adventure seeds, you already had the initial seed from Time Bandits and you can garner additional ones by checking out other films, comics, books and series. Look into Ocean's 11 and Swordfish, Leverage and Burn Notice, James Bond, Sleeper, Jason Bourne. Thief-oriented adventuring is all about the heist and outsmarting everyone else, friend, foe and random bystander alike.

[Cirrylius]

You might want to say sod the guild, and have the PCs be freelancers. I doubt a guild would care about crimes committed in completely different worlds, after all. Committing the crimes there and getting away with the minor crime of unauthorized portal access here could be the crux of the campaign.

Or if the guild itself controlled/had proprietary knowledge of portals to easy or profitable settings.

[Eldan]

There's at least 2 books in 3rd of relevance to Planescape: Manual of the Planes and the Planar Handbook, which provide lots of info for dealing with planar adventures. Alternate systems that would work well for a Planescape game have similar feel or are set there: Legend and Dungeons the Dragoning. I don't know Savage Worlds, so I can't be any help there.

Actually, both of the 3rd edition books felt incredibly sterile when compared to original Planescape material. There was none of the originality left in there, none of the discussions on philosophy and consensus reality, none of the weirdness and the anecdotes, mere mechanical discussions of the planes without any of the locations and inhabitants on them that made them worth visiting.

And Dungeons: the Dragoning? Seriously? That was Exalted meets 40k, with some Planescape names haphazardly stuck on it, without any thoughts on what fit and what didn't.

I'd recommend looking up Planewalker if you want to find 3rd ed material.


As for adventures: Planescape is fundamentally about Faith. Belief. You do things because success makes people believe that your way of life, your philosophy, is correct. Which, given the nature of the planes, means you are correct.
That goes on to connect to criminals as well. If you want to be successful, start by making people believe that you can be successful.
Then, you want to find goods that have value in Planescape. Objects of spiritual significance. If you want to blackmail someone ,threaten their belief-system. Get paid for sabotaging a faction, so that people lose faith in them. And so on.

[Thunderbelly]

Did run a succesful thieves guild campaign in Sigil many years ago. The Biggest goal the players had was a bank heist... so they hit the First Bank of Sigil... with an army of rattatosk to cover their actions as they moved on the bank.

But the biggest problem I have had with running the planes, a setting I consider myself at home in, is that the other players I usually have in my groups prefere to be spoon fed setting info rather than doing any research on the setting. This can really put a cramp on stylistic things that you want to convey... they just miss the uniqueness of the setting.

With most other settings it can simply be as easy as buying a few novels and telling them to read them (usually with an EXP bribe assocuiated). I am running the dragonlance setting at the moment and I think a few players are getting involved. If I ever run the Foregotten Realms again... I will be very much prone to doing the same thing.

Unfortunatley the Planes has but one book printed... Pages of Pain. and while its a good read it really falls short of giving a clueless berk the kind of overview that I would prefer.

I suppose that you could suggest they read many of the boxed set materials. I ran a group back in the 90s that did that and it was by far the most successful group I ever ran... of any setting.

[Cirrylius]

I suppose that you could suggest they read many of the boxed set materials. I ran a group back in the 90s that did that and it was by far the most successful group I ever ran... of any setting.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about those. The boxed sets each had a "player's guide to X" with relevant common information that plain-savvy characters could have, without giving them access to the DM's Dark stuff.

[Cieyrin]

Unfortunatley the Planes has but one book printed... Pages of Pain. and while its a good read it really falls short of giving a clueless berk the kind of overview that I would prefer.

You could make them play Planescape: Torment...:smallbiggrin:

[zorenathres]

"The Adventures of Baron Munchaunsen" is also by Terry Gilliam, & though not directly connected, there are some great adventure ideas, traveling to the moon to face the mad Moon King, being swallowed by a colossal fish, falling to the center of the earth to meet Prometheus & his titans (as well as Aphrodite), & of course stealing the sultans fortune & fighting his army.

my previous planescape experiences have always been on the strange side, but that's part of the draw of it, stuff that shouldn't/ can't happen in the material planes happens there every day.

[rexreg]

are you planning on running your campaign pre- or post-faction war?
inter-faction intrigue is always fun; 1st lvl characters who are already faction-members give rise to easily-planted plot hooks...
should you use the factions, the Fated could be used instead of a traditional thieves' guild...