Month: March 2019

Planescape/2

Planescape has always been hugely fascinating. But everyone will agree that it is very big. And I think many will admit that perhaps it might be too big. 17 outer planes, most with three or four layers, some with much more than that; and 18 inner planes. It does get a bit overwhelming.

While I was working on my Green Sun setting, I was drawing inspirations for the Otherworlds very heavily from Planescape. However, only from a small number of planes, all of which I would consider to be among the somewhat more obscure ones. You know which ones are the famous and popular ones: The Abyss, Baator, Limbo, Mechanus, and Celestia, with Hades, Elysium, and Arborea also having some claim to minor fame. These happen to be the “even numbered” planes; the ones that correspond directly to the nine alignments. It’s the “odd numbered” ones between them that very rarely seem to be given any attention. And I have to say, after 20-something years, the primary planes have started to feel a bit stale and overdone, while the secondary ones still hold much more fascination for me.

This got me the idea: How about running a Planescape campaign in which the outer planes only conist of the secondary planes? And only having four elemental inner planes should also be enough.

I admit, Bytopia and Arcadia still look pretty bland and boring in the Lawful Good corner. But then, I don’t think Celestia and Elysium ever did any better. But I do think that you could do something interesting with players having to do errands in Arcadia and the place feeling slightly too lawful for being balanced in its lawful goodness. After all, this is where the Harmonium has its main base, and these berks aren’t quite known for their politeness and ompassion.

I’ve never been thinking much of either Bytopia or Archeron, but their crazy landscape should be able to provide some short term fun. I think the odd one out is actually Ysgard. I can’t really imagine it as anything other than Viking Land.

I fully admit that Gehenna, Carceri, and Pandemonium are where my real love lies. These are the more desolate hells, which I really like. Very Dark Souls, I might say.

I’ve put so much work into my Green Sun setting that is finally turning into something really playable, so my next campaign just has to be set there. But the idea of using only half of Planescape without the worn out standard planes makes me once more quite exited to jump into that setting as well.

Potions

Hemra

This potion is made from the boiled leaves of the hemra plant and some simple additional ingredients. The potion is a slightly bluish green and heals 2d4+2 hit points. Partiqularly high quality potions have a deep blue color and heal 4d4+4 hit points.

Rusan

This potion is an oil made from the leaves of the rusan shrub. A full dose causes unconsciousness for 1d4 hours, while drinking a third of that amount put a person into a hazy state that gives an advantage on saving throws against being frightened and disadvantage on all Dexterity and other Wisdom checks, which lasts for 1 hour.

Valkar

Eating one of these seeds gives advantage on saving throws against exhaustion for 6 hours. Eating another within 24 hours requires a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or it causes the poisoned condition instead.

Satak

This vile potion is made from a mushroom found in Venlad. For 6 hours it gives advantage on Strength and Constitution ability checks and saving throws, and disadvatage on Wisdom and Charisma ability checks and saving throws. When the effect ends, the drinker takes 1d4 points of poison damage and is poisoned for 6 hours.

Tamgut

This potion is made from specially prepared berries from the Tamgut shrub of the Wyvern Mountains, mixed with rusan oil. It causes incapacitation for 6 hours, at the end of which a DC 15 Wisdom check must be made. If successful, the drinker gets the effect of a divination spell.

Armor

Shield: AC +2, 50 sp, weight 1.

Helmet: AC 11 + Dex, 100 sp, weight 1.

Light Armor: AC 12 + Dex, 450 sp, weight 2.

Medium Armor 1: AC 14 + Dex (max. +2), Stealth disadvantage, 500 sp, weight 2.

Medium Armor: AC 15 + Dex (max. +2), Stealth disadvantage, 2,000 sp, weight 2.

Heavy Armor 1: AC 16, Stealth disadvantage, 750 sp, weight 3.

Heavy Armor 2: AC 17, Stealth disadvantage, 3,000 sp, weight 3.

The MEGACHURCH!

I am not usually a fan of megadungeons. Or to be more precise, I am not a fan of the concept of mega dungeons.

Dungeons that are on a colossal scale are a different story.

In a moment of inspiration, I got an idea for an awesome buildings to put somewhere in the forest in the Green Sun campaign and while I was doodling around with possible floor plans, it turned into something increasingly more concret and fun. It’s an absolutely enormous temple that looks similar to this.

But scaled up to this.

And on the inside, I think it would look something like this.

The floorplan consists of 29 vaults that are 30 x 30 meters at the base and between 120 to 180 meters in height. To not go insane with the maps, the platforms and bridges are arranged into 5 levels. To hold up the roof, there are also 4 solid “towers” of 30 x 30 meters in the corners, which have 10 internal levels of rooms, and 4 in the center of the building that have 12 levels.

That’s just shy of 200.000 square meters of floor space. Or 5,350 5-foot-squares. However, in practice most of that will either be open air for the vaults or solid stone for the towers. That’s still something like 400 “rooms”.

This should be fun.

The most useless RPG advice ever

“If you want that, you really should be running a different game.”

That’s not advice. That’s just stupid. You might notice that it’s always “a different game”, never any actual specific game.

This is not helping. Never suggest this to anybody if you can’t recommend a specific system and explain why this might potentially be an interesting game to take into consideration for the campaign in question.

Failure is always an option

Yesterday there was a post on Mythic Fantasy about the idea that “combat is a fail state” is nonsense. Sadly it’s not possible to comment there directly without a Google Account, but now Necropraxis also picked it up so let’s make this a proper discussion.

“Combat means that the players have failed” is wrong, I agree with that. But I think this is just an oversimplification resulting from years of careless repetition, about an actually significant observation.

As I see it, it’s not that “combat means the party failed their task of stealing treasure undetected”. For ease of use by people who assumed everyone already knew what they were talking about, critical details were no longer mentioned in the ongoing discussion of the subject. But what I think it really means is that “unprepared combat in an environment not of their chosing means the party failed their task of maximizing their odds of survivial”. Combat is always an option. It’s a tool in the toolbox and one of the original classes was specifically made for this job. But swords are only one tool and not meant to be used alone. You don’t just walk through doors, put your hands into holes, make a lot of noise, and see what happens. Because then the opponents prepare for a fight and pick a battlefield of their choice. When this happens and the players chose to stand their ground and fight under the conditions their enemies want them to, then they have failed.

If they die in a fight that isn’t stacked in their favor, then they have nobody to blame but themselves. They have plenty of options to scout the environment and the numbers and positions of potential threats, to plan for retreats and set ambushes, to protect themselves with spells and potions, and to prepare a battlefield by setting or clearing onstacles. If they don’t make use of these tools, they failed in playing the game right. Which they might not know, so it is one of the GM’s duties to show the players that these options do exist and to set up dungeons in which they can be applied. You don’t need to tell them what to do in a fight, but to players who are not familiar with such games, it is not obvious that your allowed options are not restricted to their character sheets.

And also: Just because something is stupid doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. There are lots of reasons why players might want to create situations they know could have been avoided. I think most of us don’t play for a score, but for excitement. RPGs are not meant to be an optimization exercise but an adventure.