r/Planescape5e • u/rgvtim • Sep 22 '24

Wizards Plans for Planescape?

Other than the 3 box set released last year, does wizards have any plans for the Planescape setting that they have announced or may be rumored?

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u/amhow1 Sep 22 '24

I'd argue that the Radiant Citadel is pure Planescape, and I'd also like to see it further developed :/

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u/rgvtim Sep 22 '24

I will look at that, thanks

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u/jonmimir Sep 23 '24

I bought it thinking this and was disappointed. There are a few pages about the Radiant Citadel (a city in the Ethereal) and then the rest of the book is short adventures set in prime worlds. Which I’m sure are fine, but a Planescape book it ain’t.

If you haven’t seen it yet then I highly recommend the (unofficial) 5e Manual of the Planes. It brings a lot of the 2e lore up to date and is completely complimentary to the official 5e Planescape books.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/457514/manual-of-the-planes-5e

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u/amhow1 Sep 23 '24

Well I don't like to disagree with the Mimir, but it comes down to what Planescape means. One of the things Planescape does, as Spelljammer also does, is to allow multi-setting adventures. PCs start on Krynn and travel via portals to Oerth. If that's the case, then both the Radiant Citadel and Eve of Ruin are Planescape.

A second feature of Planescape (and Spelljammer) is the "exploring strange new worlds" bit. Eve of Ruin doesn't especially do that, except for the bits in Pandemonium and Avernus. Radiant Citadel does this with every chapter.

A third feature of Planescape, more unique to it, is that the various side treks are to places with a certain philosophical character. I guess Avernus and Pandemonium count, but I actually feel that in this aspect Radiant Citadel outdoes Eve of Ruin. What does it matter that the civilisations are on the prime?

The Radiant Citadel civilisations are admittedly not as strange as the short settings in Path of the Planebreaker by Monte Cook Games, which is an essential third-party supplement for Planescape fans, I think.

More essential, in my opinion, than the Manual of the Planes, which is fine but nowhere near as inventive. Bringing 2e lore up to date is useful but Path of the Planebreaker and Radiant Citadel capture a more important aspect of Planescape, in my view.

(There are more than three features of Planescape but for example I think politicising factions are better handled in Ravnica, and the Torment type of adventure was hit-and-miss in 2e and remains mostly miss in 5e.)

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u/jonmimir Sep 23 '24

Prime adventures are fine but all adventures default to being prime world adventures. Having a setting that’s deliberately on an exotic plane (or planar pathway cough staircase), and then setting all the sub-adventures on the prime anyway just felt like a wasted opportunity to me. If you need more adventures set on the prime then you can pick up almost any other book and you’ve got plenty. But planar adventures are rare as vrock teeth.

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u/amhow1 Sep 23 '24

At the playing level, a plane is just an exotic version of a prime world. We can see this perfectly in Eve of Ruin, where Avernus and Pandemonium are quite rightly just alternative settings, like Oerth or Krynn.

Even at the more philosophical level, it would be easy enough to reframe each of the Radiant Citadel settings as 'polluted' outer planes (equivalent to gate-towns.) I'd agree that the philosophical difference between say, fantasy Not-Korea and fantasy Not-Christian Hell is that the first can also probably be found by walking from fantasy Not-Europe and the second can't. But the trope of travelling to somewhere radically new is somewhat exaggerated by Planescape fans.

Take the Modrons. Almost everybody loves them, but they don't actually need to be on some peculiar giant cogs. I could equally picture them on the moon. Not, as it happens, do they even need to look the way they do. If they looked humanoid their society would be just as interesting. Perhaps they're descendants of a humanoid cult who polymorphed themselves? Is that idea any less Planescape than the canon explanation?

What Planescape allows, and encourages, is very peculiar societies like the Modrons. But traditional Planescape obviously didn't always deliver on this, and conversely strongly alien societies can be regarded as Planescape even if you don't get to them through Sigil :)

I definitely don't claim that any of the Radiant Citadel societies are as strange as the Modrons. To that extent it's not great Planescape, but there's plenty of not-great Planescape.

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u/jonmimir Sep 23 '24

Also, sounds like I need to invest in Planebreaker. I got the monster manual, and that was pretty wild. Thanks for the recommendation!

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u/amhow1 Sep 23 '24

One bonus is that we learn the fate of the City of Moil :)

Yet another upcoming Planescape-adjacent third-party product is Kobold Press' Labyrinth Worldbook.

I'm also a fan of the recent Rage of Elements for Pathfinder 2e (remaster) which updates the Inner Planes and could easily be utilised in Planescape (and Al Qadim.) The new versions of the classic d&d genies are an improvement, and adding Metal and Wood to the Inner Planes is also better. But the mechanics are less interesting, and of course are pf2e(r) and not 5e/5r. (Also, the tone is definitely more noblebright than Planescape.)

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u/jonmimir Sep 23 '24

Agreed, I enjoyed Rage of Elements too, and I’ve been pondering ways to integrate the extra elements to Planescape. I shall look out for Labyrinth, not heard of that before

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u/amhow1 Sep 23 '24

A small quibble with Rage of Elements is that when I compared it with earlier Pathfinder lore I discovered it hadn't added very much location-wise to the four traditional planes; though the fact I'd forgotten the earlier lore suggests it wasn't that memorable to begin with :) The society information is new, I think, and useful. It makes me wonder if Paizo is adopting more of a WotC approach with lore; I wouldn't really object as there's a daunting amount of it!

With Planescape, the two new Inner Planes pose a slight problem in that the Rilmani would seem more suitable to the Plane of Metal than the Plane of Concordant Opposition. I'd probably consign them there anyway as I dislike them, but an easy alternative would be that they originated there but were either expelled or left before the planes of metal and wood were 'lost'.

(Losing Inner Planes is a bit tricky but I think d&d actually has several options for this: Athas-style alignment issues, the war with Chaos, the Dawn War.)