Faction War Discussion

[*Neerepha]

Am I the only one who is happy this was a joke? I really don't like the Mind's Eye. Sorry, Godsmen.

[*Xndar]

No, I hate the Faction War and everything it ends up doing to Sigil.

"Oh hay, you know those Faction things that everyone loves and that make the setting unique? Let's get rid of those and make way for elected civic servants, cause that won't suck the fun right out of everything!"

Notice how Sigil and Planescape in general kinda effing dissapear from source material immediately after this? Because no one gave a crap about it anymore.

[*Hydra]

Am I the only one who is happy this was a joke? I really don't like the Mind's Eye. Sorry, Godsmen.

Don't worry, I hate the Mind's eye as well, Kala would rather join the Athars or the Doomguard.

No, I hate the Faction War and everything it ends up doing to Sigil.

"Oh hay, you know those Faction things that everyone loves and that make the setting unique? Let's get rid of those and make way for elected civic servants, cause that won't suck the fun right out of everything!"

Notice how Sigil and Planescape in general kinda effing dissapear from source material immediately after this? Because no one gave a crap about it anymore.

I couldn't say more, Faction Wars is just an excuse to bury planescape.

[*Tomekk]

Notice how Sigil and Planescape in general kinda effing dissapear from source material immediately after this? Because no one gave a crap about it anymore.

That isn't necessarily true, as Sigil is mentioned in the Planar Handbook.

What most likely happened is that WotC dropped Planescape along with the majority of AD&D2 settings once they acquired the license to Dungeons and Dragons. Ever heard them mention Birthright, Dark Sun (the 4th edition one doesn't count), Al Qadim, Spelljammer, Ravenloft or Mystara afterwards? Nope, all gone.

[*Taihou]

I'd say because sigil is the nexus of the universe and everything meets there, while primes are just backwater worlds mostly cut off from everything else. People who were born and live in sigil see and hear much more than primers do. The factions that have gathered and hold influence there are massive plane spanning organizations, with their philosophies shared across every race and creed imaginable.

One does not logically follow from the other, if ask me.

[*Mander]

How so? Broader experience begets more educated viewpoints. The more you know about your world/reality the better equipped you are to form opinions.

For example, on Toril the faithless dead are doomed to be trapped in The Wall in agony. Nowhere else is this true, and a primer who would believe it applies to everyone else is objectively wrong.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

"From objective point of view, who says, that primers are wrong in their views and 'sigilians' right?"

I never said either were right or wrong. I'm arguing from the perspective of setting being interesting. "Gods did it" is the most boring and overused concept in games, what planescape does is challenge that idea and instead broaden it, and one of the tools to introduce it is Factions. That's my argument. I don't think settings are made better if you force the same principles in everything, they simply offer something different and that on my opinion is something to be cherished. If players happen to like space traveling there's the spelljammer, people who like that can find spelljammer setting. Those who enjoy the bog standard fantasy like FR, Dragonlance or Greyhawk will be quite able to find their way to those. Post-apocalypse, meet Darksun! Gothic horror, Ravenloft.

The point I'm getting at, is to try to keep these settings apart rather than try to force all of it into same gray mess. While planescape may be as much about "mixing it all together" it also is very much about introducing its own principles, and that on my opinion is the core of planescape.

[*Taihou]

How so? Broader experience begets more educated viewpoints. The more you know about your world/reality the better equipped you are to form opinions.

For example, on Toril the faithless dead are doomed to be trapped in The Wall in agony. Nowhere else is this true, and a primer who would believe it applies to everyone else is objectively wrong.

On the other hand primer may come there and feel like British marine of the era of "The Great Game" and "White man's burden" stranded in some part of that time's Africa, where one person may possess another as property, there are laws and customs, demanding someone be cannibalized, they run around with little to no clothes etc. :P

The most important, hen judging concepts and societies is how well the system works as whole. In Sigil system resulted in flourish of crime and mayhem, which is not necessarily the case in Primer's homeworld, whereas religion is an important part of Prime's cultures and social systems.

Some concepts do not work here or there indeed, like wall of faithless, but one should view them as such (laws of local nature in any world) and nontheless keep in mind, that if he gets dead in Toril, he better remember to worship someone, or in afterlife his arse ist grass.

Would the fact that wall of faithless does not menace him be relevant for Torilian native, happened to come to Sigil, while faithfully believing, that teaching of Tyr or Ilmater for example are good and virtuous, as they make believer a better person? I would doubt this would matter.

[*Mander]

Post-apocalypse, meet Darksun!

Athas is my favorite setting of all, truly the meaning of "death world". One of the domains in Ravenloft is made up of people from the desert world, everyone else thinks they're crazy because to them the demiplane of dread is paradise. Plentiful water and not every living thing/plant with psionics is trying to eat you, they love it.

[*Taihou]

"From objective point of view, who says, that primers are wrong in their views and 'sigilians' right?"

I never said either were right or wrong. I'm arguing from the perspective of setting being interesting. "Gods did it" is the most boring and overused concept in games, what planescape does is challenge that idea and instead broaden it, and one of the tools to introduce it is Factions. That's my argument. I don't think settings are made better if you force the same principles in everything, they simply offer something different and that on my opinion is something to be cherished. If players happen to like space traveling there's the spelljammer, people who like that can find spelljammer setting. Those who enjoy the bog standard fantasy like FR, Dragonlance or Greyhawk will be quite able to find their way to those. Post-apocalypse, meet Darksun! Gothic horror, Ravenloft.

The point I'm getting at, is to try to keep these settings apart rather than try to force all of it into same gray mess. While planescape may be as much about "mixing it all together" it also is very much about introducing its own principles, and that on my opinion is the core of planescape.

I see. Perhaps to some extent it is a reasonable view. Such state of affairs at least also gives my characters an opportunity to reveal themselves interesting as they struggle against it as well.