Games in Other Planes

[Avonar]

Not too long ago I ran a short campaign set in the Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral Plane of Arcadia. Looking up the information, it turned out to be a fascinating place and ended up being a pretty awesome setting (the main goal was to try and reunite Arcadia with the third level that broke away to Mechanus). Cities entirely symmertrical, days and nights controlled by a giant sphere on top of a mountain, trees with metallic bark and animals with metallic fur, it was cinematic and just overall different.

What other planes have you guys played in that worked out really well? I'd like to do some more interplanar adventures at some point and any possible suggestions would be very much appreciated.

[Dragovon]

I've never run a game set in another plane. I have had countless games where the party dropped in to a plane for a short period of time...for a variety of reasons.

I'd love to hear more about the game you ran as well as other games people have run as I'm wanting to run a planar game in the near future and I'm looking for more ideas to steal. :)

[dascarletm]

I ran a game on Ysgard, I took some liberties, and players were legendary heroes that reside battling every day on the plane. This gave them some creative liberties to write backstories of heroes from different material planes and what have you. The first session was them fighting to the death, and partying all night when they raised.

[kivzirrum]

This is a fascinating idea, but I have never done it. When you ran the game in Arcadia, were the Player Characters natives, or were they from the Material Plane?

[Avonar]

This is a fascinating idea, but I have never done it. When you ran the game in Arcadia, were the Player Characters natives, or were they from the Material Plane?

They were from the material plane, they'd had adventures before. It was really quite interesting, I dug up the old Manual of the Planes for some good info and dropped them into a perfectly ordered forest with identically spaced trees with metallic bark. Let them know right away that stuff isn't going to be what they know.

I would highly recommend it, I've look through the lore on a fair few planes and there are some good campaign ideas. Pandemonium, consisting of tunnels with strange gravity and home to Loki's city, Acheron, a plane of eternal battle between the armies of gods, all based on enormous metal cubes floating in an endless space, lots of bizarre stuff.

[Nifft]

Not too long ago I ran a short campaign set in the Lawful Good/Lawful Neutral Plane of Arcadia. Looking up the information, it turned out to be a fascinating place and ended up being a pretty awesome setting (the main goal was to try and reunite Arcadia with the third level that broke away to Mechanus). Cities entirely symmertrical, days and nights controlled by a giant sphere on top of a mountain, trees with metallic bark and animals with metallic fur, it was cinematic and just overall different.

What other planes have you guys played in that worked out really well? I'd like to do some more interplanar adventures at some point and any possible suggestions would be very much appreciated.

I've done planar visits, and even a few arcs on specific planes (e.g. "go to Carceri, find the Sinmaker, and then escape"), but never a low-to-high campaign based around a non-Material plane.

That's a really cool idea and I'm going to use it some day.

[Beacon of Chaos]

I've never played in or DMed a game of Planescape but it's one of my favourite settings for the variety and wonder you get. One campaign idea I had involved the PCs starting on the Material Plane, then getting betrayed by their patron who traps them in Carceri. Most of the campaign is attempting to escape, only to end up treking across the lower planes trying to find a portal home. Acheron, Pandemonium, the Abyss, and Gehenna all being destinations they'd have to survive. The Abyss is pretty fun as a plane as it gives you free reign to create your own layer. I created an endless bottomless pit layer for the players to fall into.

The elemental planes have great potential too. How about a campaign in the plane of Air, where the players have to find a way to get into the centre of a giant infinite tornado in order to acquire a magguffin from within? Or a pirate themed adventure sailing in a fire-proof boat on the seas of magma in the plane of Fire?

[Elricaltovilla]

I always thought the City of Brass in the Elemental Plane of Fire was really cool (not literally, of course). But I could never figure out how to run a game in a city that basically scorches anyone not immune to fire damage.

[Beacon of Chaos]

I always thought the City of Brass in the Elemental Plane of Fire was really cool (not literally, of course). But I could never figure out how to run a game in a city that basically scorches anyone not immune to fire damage.

A big part of the City of Brass is that criminals are used as slaves until they work off their sentence. So as an idea, perhaps the players were wrongfully accused of a crime and sentenced to slavery. They are forced to wear collars that make them immune to fire, but only as long as they stay in the city limits. The campaign is then finding another way to gain fire immunity and escape the city.

Alternatively, everyone is a fire genasi or devil of some kind.

[Avonar]

I always thought the City of Brass in the Elemental Plane of Fire was really cool (not literally, of course). But I could never figure out how to run a game in a city that basically scorches anyone not immune to fire damage.

Yeah the elemental planes have always been on my list of places to consider. Would take some setup to make them viable though, as you mentioned.

[sktarq]

I'll be honest and say that running a full campaign in another planar setting is something I've never seen work because it is really, really, hard to keep the logic train going. I suppose it might work in a beer & pretzels type game but if you are there long enough for the novelty to wear off things generally start having problems. One of the major issues is that driving strong conflict within the plane can be difficult and/or difficult to get the players to care about. Also most of the time when dealing with the outer planes issues of how players each read alignment becomes an issue eventually. Sigil skips this somewhat as most adventures are about hopping into another plane and I have heard of success there (but my group failed massively as a fun game). Now I have never been a fan of planescape myself but most of the group was and the issues were.

I have seen it work for an adventure or two. and I have seen games that spent as much time in the Shadow Plane (and heard of an Ethereal Heavy one) that worked.


I have not tried it in years so maybe newer editions work better for this. But that's been my issue

[Mechalich]

Yeah the elemental planes have always been on my list of places to consider. Would take some setup to make them viable though, as you mentioned.

I have a hub city for the Inner Planes you might find useful.

[Bohandas]

The one attempt I tried at this failed due to a combination of lack of interest and the site it was on closing but I'm convinced that the concept is still sound:

An advanture in the Abyss, playing as demons, seems like it would be easy to do well. Hack-and-slash is roleplaying.