whats the deal with faction war and die vecna die

[awa]

I came across some comments on this and i understand they were plane scape adventures but i couldn't really find any detail it sounds like they pretty substantially altered the setting but all i could find about them by searching on the internet were very bare bones details and that it may or may not have killed planes scape and i was curious so here we are.

[BWR]

"Faction War" is Planescape, "Die Vecna Die" is not.
FW was a shake-up, with a civil war in Sigil that left much of the city ruined and the Factions, the political/philosophical/social/governmental bodies that played an enormous part in everyday life, were destroyed or banned from the city.

DVD, a true masterwork of Vecna-wank and utter excrement, possibly eclipsing even L5R's Spider/Daigotsu-wanking, is Vecna's bid for godhood which has him bursting out of Ravenloft and sneaking into Sigil and somehow fighting the LoP to a standstill to the point where she would fail if the brave heroes didn't mess up his plans.
They semi-succeed, making sure he isn't the new true infinite powered god he tried to be, but he still became a god and was cast out of Sigil to go on his merry way, enjoying the changes he made to the Multiverse.

Basically, DVD was a set-up for an in-game explanation of why the rules suddenly worked different than they used to when 2E was killed off and 3E came in. Nevermind that the adventure knowingly broke several established rules, like how people don't get into Sigil any way but portals, how gods aren't allowed, how the LoP has in the past killed off more impressive gods than Vecna, etc.

This was perhaps the single worst module I have ever read, despite a few nifty ideas (like Tovag Baragu), made worse by the fact that it was co-written by Bruce Cordell, whose other work is generally stellar. So I can only assume that the breaking of the rules was intentional 'because he's Vecna'.

[awa]

ahh i assumed that becuase the lady of pain was in die vecna die it must be planes scape.

[BWR]

There were a few planar-based non-Planescape products that came out after PS was cancelled, like "Warriors of Heaven" which introduced a number of new ideas which were later assumed to be canon, even they were at odds with (or at least thematically at odds with) PS.

[awa]

so i heard faction war was hated as well as die vecna die was faction war actually bad or did it just change the setting and people don't like change.

[BWR]

It was hated by some, disliked by many, liked by a few and ignored by several.
The basic thing is that Factions were much of what made PS unique, and there was a deep-rooted feeling of Sigil=Factions. Throwing this out seemed like ruining much of the flavor ofthe game. Factions were not actually eliminated to a man. The Lady said 'abandon Sigil or abandon your Faction', and most Factioners either left or splintered off to lesser groups. Some people enjoy such upheavals, others (like me) are very much adherents to the status quo.
There were folks who started up sites examining Sigil post-FW because it was an interesting idea.

I think that the real reason FW was disliked was because it spelled the end for PS. It was not the last product (I think that was The Inner Planes) but it seemed like the first nail in the coffin.