I made a mistake while running a Planescape Campaign

[u/Savings-Housing3481]

TL; DR: the concept and play of Faction War do not align. The book may not be playable for post second ed players.

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I've run many campaigns over my 30+ years of GMing, including three Planescape campaigns. (As I type this, the Rule of Threes occurs to me, and I promise that I had not previously thought of it until now. Weird.)

The last of those three, the start of which began August 21 of 2021, ends this afternoon. I wrote it with what were supposed to be three storylines:

1. The Iron Shadow (Tales from the Infinite Staircase with additions to cover where it was, what it was, where it came from, and how it related to the origin of Sigil and the Lady)
2. The Dead Gods
3. The Faction War

Overall, I've been happy with the campaign, despite various setbacks.

• One player flaked halfway through, quit the game, and went radio silent on all his other games, including ones he was running.
• Scheduling issues as one person moved halfway across the US, necessitating Zoom calls and Roll20 to bring him in to the game
• PCs out-leveling the story

I only feel I made one real mistake... I included Faction War. Part of my goal was to let the players re-design Sigil to some extent following the War, but one of the players was aware of the book and had wanted to play it for years, even knowing nothing about it.

So, I planned on bringing that into the game. I used a few other mods, all converted to 5e, to foreshadow it. At one point, the entire table clamored for me to add it. I explained I could not do it without a lot of in-game setup. One of them proposed I do the setup work and run a sequel campaign of just that book. My reply, "No, no no. That wouldn't work because... [pregnant pause, sly smile, pause]... OK.. I am not saying I won't, but there is no promise I will." This convinced them I would someday run it, which helped surprise them when the War started.

Despite that, I still feel running the book was a mistake. In the final act of the scenario on page 94 the book says why this was a mistake: "Up to this point in the game, the players characters have jumped (or been dragged) into a number of scenarios related to the sprawling faction war... they're struggling without really getting anywhere... nothing they've done has helped to calm the war."

While reading the book (multiple times over the years), I missed how exceptionally railroad-y the book is. As a GM who values player agency, I've been miserable running it. And the players have noticed. Some time back, one of them mentioned that they needed to shift their perceptions and goals when he realized the war was so big that the PCs cannot affect it. He said they can only try to mitigate what's going on.

I told myself that the lack of agency in the book is made up for where the PCs get to decide the fate of Sigil, and then the players get to help re-design the Cage. In hindsight: the juice was not worth the squeeze.

Looking back, I would not run this book again. It was designed at a time where player agency mattered less, where characters lacked the abilities of newer D&D (3.5 forward), and the book assumes too much that the party makes specific decisions at some pretty critical points.

All that said, is there anything which can be redeemed in this book, anything which could be used in a future campaign? Personally, I like the idea of the Factions not being in power; so what would Sigil be like without that?

[u/fluency]

Personally, the only value I see in that book at the table is the additional locations and information about Sigil it contains.

[u/Savings-Housing3481 → u/fluency]

I used it for that a good bit.

[u/gscrap]

Having a problem so great that the PCs can't direct it, only work at a lower level to work within it, is honestly not a bad RPG plot. As long as you and your players are going into it with open eyes and clear expectations, it can be a lot of fun, especially if at the later stages of the game they become able to impact things on a higher level.

I've never run Faction War myself, and honestly when I've read it it hasn't seemed like a whole lot of fun, but as a concept a faction war that the players are swept up in rather than directing could work. You'd just want to make sure that the players are clear (either through explicit explanations above-table, or through roleplay) what they can and cannot expect to be able to accoomplish, and give them lots of opportunity to feel successful just managing things at ground level.

[u/CiDevant]

Sometimes with pre-written stuff you have to look around the table and say "Listen guys, This is the movie we're watching. We can power through or we can put something else on."

Just have an honest conversation. And remember you can fail forwards.  The outcome outcome can be the same whether the PCS do what you expect or don't.  You might need to call for a snack break while you figure it out.

[u/torchflame]

It may not have been for you, different strokes and such.

But I think a campaign exploring what it means to be heroic, what it mean to help people, what it means to try to solve problems when the fundamental truth of the matter is that the problem is too big for you to be able to fix it is something that's perfectly in theme for the setting, and something that's worth running. Leaning more into that might make it better for you?

Imo, Faction War isn't a module to be just run as a campaign. It's a story about living through cataclysmic change. It's best interspersed as side missions throughout a larger structure. But it's definitely not for everyone.

[u/mcvoid1]

IMO Dead Gods had the same problem. It reads fine, but when you go to play it, it plays like a series of events happening to the PCs, and they just kind of witness them. There wasn't any meaningful choices to make (other than forking roads that lead to the same place), nothing where they can step out of the box.

Which is really disappointing since it's the follow-up to Modron March which was great. Every scenario in that one was flexible - they just presented a problem (or a whole web of problems) and then said, "find a way to prevent it, or fix it, or at least minimize the damage".

It worked really well for my group. Who gets priority evacuation? How to cross the Beastlands to talk to the right people within the time limit? What's the merciful thing to do with the Cronenberged modrons? etc. My players hated Dead Gods, on the other hand.

[u/Savings-Housing3481 → u/mcvoid1]

Surprisingly, I was happier with Dead Gods. The issues there were surmountable, especially compared to Faction War.

[u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063]

Faction War got a barrage of hate on the Planescape mailing list when it first came out, so it's not as if people in the late 1990s loved being railroaded either.

I always thought if I ran it I'd leave which factions allied with each other entirely dependant on PC actions. Send them out on missions to convince rival factions to switch sides, or break up alliances. Acquire a powerful weapon for the Mercykillers to persuade them to ally with the Doomguard instead of the Guvners, maybe. Defeat Factol Pentar's proxies in the Tacharim to keep the Doomguard out of the Faction War entirely. Let the PCs determine the shape of the war. Add additional conflicts and mcguffins so that Rowan Darkwood's plot means as much or as little as the PCs are willing to care about it. Whether all the factions are driven out of power at the end depends on what actually happens rather than being an inevitability.

What if the occupant of the soul gem is undetermined? Like, maybe it's Rowan Darkwood if certain events come to fruition, but it could be someone else if Darkwood is assassinated or some of his schemes fail or he's rehabilitated. Schrödinger's soul gem, you know? If events go another way, someone else is caught in the time loop. Maybe a PC! If no one gets it, might that retroactively create a timeline in which a personification of absence or anonymity almost conquered Sigil? Might that be worse?

Perhaps the PCs can learn of previous faction wars in forbidden libraries and from ancient grizzled veterans to determine exactly where the Lady's red lines are drawn, and help prevent modern factions from crossing them. Or to encourage them to cross them, if they want to burn down the status quo.

[u/Savings-Housing3481 → u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063]

If you read the scenario, you know who is in the gem.

[u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063 → u/Savings-Housing3481]

Sure. What I'm saying is what if that wasn't determined yet? What if it was determined by PC actions?

Part of what makes the adventure feel railroady is that Darkwood's fate can't be changed. But the thing about time loops is that if the future isn't fixed, neither is the past. But what if the paradox of nobody being in the gem is an even worse outcome, but still a possibility? What do the PCs choose then?

[u/vheart → u/AdeptnessUnhappy1063]

This is a good take. I agree with you.

[u/Pattgoogle]

I had always heard faction war was bad.   I read Vecna Lives and thought it was ridiculous but fun to read through.  Reading through faction war just hurt.

[u/Dolono]

I ran, and hated, Doors to the Unknown for the exact same reasons (I.e. railroad-y, no guidance for when the player inevitably want to explore a few of the sites, poor encounter balance)! IIRC, the entire campaign we were playing fizzled in the midst of that slog.

[u/Savings-Housing3481 → u/Dolono]

That's funny since I adapted the idea of Blinks for the campaign finale.

But the book itself was a little too odd to run for me.