Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse

[Silva]

Oops, my bad. I meant Robh Ruppel.

 

[Caim]

Calling it now: they're going to ruin the Lady of Pain.

 

[mondblut]

Calling it now: they're going to ruin the Lady of Pain.

Thanks, cap. Water is wet, and they are ruining everything they touch.

 

[HeroMarine]

they are eliminating alignment from D&D.

 

[Erebus]

> Get Tony DiTerlizzi back on board to draw Planescape art again.
> Codex hates this "new shit".

It's not surprising that his art style has changed during the past 25 years.

Has it changed for the better ? According to him :

Improving as an artist is incremental. It has taken years for me to realize my technical skills have advanced. One exercise that helped me is to revisit older pieces.

One of the older pieces in question is this eladrin from 1995 :

And the newer version from 2020 :

The 1995 eladrin is one of my 4-5 favorite Planescape drawings. But the newer one is very good too (well, except for her eyes).

Expecting the art to be exactly the same as in the 90s is a sure road to disappointment.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

The coloring on the above piece suffers from the pains of early digital coloring. However, digital coloring always looks like ass.
The new one looks fine, imo. More expressive and better forms (compare the arms).

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

The new one looks fine, imo. More expressive and better forms (compare the arms).

DiTerlizzi has beat himself up in the past for making too many "Person standing around" pictures. Can find mention of it in the big fat "Art and Arcana" book and in the D&D art documentary "Eye of the Beholder". Plus I know he's been doing children's books more recently and hasn't been as involved with WotC outside of doing a smidge of MTG art fairly recently so it's understandable that his style's changed.

 

[Glop_dweller]

What I wonder is how the hell they plan on doing Planescape when they are eliminating alignment from D&D.

Am I correct in assuming that they removed the alignment aspect from D&D because of [1] it removes the potential of racial alignments—as seen with the whole Drow mentality so perfectly described in R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt novels, and [2], because that the near entirety of the newer D&D players are incapable (and uncomprehending) of playing in character, a PC who is not simply themselves in situ equipped with the abilities of the PC?

IE. it's now no longer possible to describe a PC (within the rules) who is not the player at heart; now utterly impossible for them to roleplay their near opposites—part of the very premise of roleplaying itself. There is no longer a way to indicate what the PC believes. This is a parallel of Newspeak, and this design mentality [across the board] is why we can't have nice things, and why that the world is becoming a sadder place with the passing of every minute. (...and they think they're improving it.)

> Get Tony DiTerlizzi back on board to draw Planescape art again.
> Codex hates this "new shit".

It's not surprising that his art style has changed during the past 25 years.

Has it changed for the better ? According to him :
...
The 1995 eladrin is one of my 4-5 favorite Planescape drawings. But the newer one is very good too (well, except for her eyes).

Expecting the art to be exactly the same as in the 90s is a sure road to disappointment.

We're lucky it's not this (on the right) by choice of the artist, but even so, it could be ordered changed by the client.

 

[Silva]

I for one welcome the end of Alignments. Let's be frank, it was a moronic, childish, judeo-christian bullshit from the beginning.


And I actually prefer the second art above. The nose piercings give it more personality.

 

[Caim]

Alignment matters in Planescape to the point where you can infuse water with it and bottle the stuff for later use.

Literal chaos water.

 

[Silva]

Alignment matters in Planescape to the point where you can infuse water with it and bottle the stuff for later use.

Literal chaos water.

Notice though that all planes - and all factions - have core ideas and philosophies that work fine without alignment: Grey Waste is apathy, Carceri madness, Limbo chaos, Mechanus order, Beastlands feral instinct, etc. Free League is freedom, Harmonium authority, Doomguard entropy, Signers solypsism, etc.

Indeed, the very setting acknowledges that the Great Wheel is just one cosmological model among many, and give at least one other example that ignores alignment altogether (the Chinese Imperial Court or something).

 

[Tweed]

"Lady of Pain"

Oh wow, did they just assume their gender? Might as well relabel it Problematicscape: Tales of the Shitlordverse.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Alignments should be a mechanic in PST. But in more mundane settings they just tell you in which way a peasant is going to fart.

 

[Silva]

I think Belief should be a mechanic.

Maybe tie it to Inspiration? It's some time since I played 5e.

 

[Caim]

I think Belief should be a mechanic.

Maybe tie it to Inspiration? It's some time since I played 5e.

The belief system was a thing in AD&D but it was a bit janky and not very well defined. Tying to inspiration is... eh, but that's more the inspiration mechanic's fault.

 

[PapaPetro]

Planescape is more fun when you meta-game.
It's kinda the purpose of Planescape.

 

[Silva]

The belief system was a thing in AD&D but it was a bit janky and not very well defined. Tying to inspiration is... eh, but that's more the inspiration mechanic's fault.

A tentative attempt (no different from shit we already have in other games):

1 - Inspiration is given when you uphold your faction beliefs in dire circumstances (by getting hurt, taking big risks, creating trouble for the team now or down the road, etc).

2 - In return you can spend it to fuel faction-exclusive abilities. Say, a Signer can "wish" small things to happen/materalize, while a Bleaker becomes immune to mind effects or inflict 'em upon others, etc.

3 - Those "belief abilities" should get stronger the deeper you are on your faction shit. Maybe tie it to those fancy names in the box (Namer, Factioneer, Factor, Factol?), so each rank lets you spend more Inspiration pts to fuel more powerful abilities. It could be as simple as each faction providing a single ability that gets more super-powered as you rise in the ranks... or super crunchy and having an "ability tree" for each faction that is getting unlocked progressively.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

> Get Tony DiTerlizzi back on board to draw Planescape art again.
> Codex hates this "new shit".

Comparison to Tony DiTerlizzi's original Planescape art:
(1) Gith on left of new art versus gith representing the Xaositect faction
(2) Human to the left of Lady of Pain in new art versus human representing the Clueless (people from the prime material plane)
(3) The Lady of Pain
(4) Modrons

Somebody had to have given Tony some guidance; it can't just be coincidence that his flavorful art turned into Tiny Tina's Wonderlands.

 

[Silva]

Yep, the facial expressions are too cartoon, like a Disney animation. I mean, look at that Slaad face and tell me it's not some Disney villain.

 

[Eldagusto]

I always thought it would be fun to do a setting where they only made contact with maybe one to three other alternate reality worlds, that way you can really focus on things like culture, or do the whole idea of a similar world that diverged at a specific point in history each and play off of the alternate setting and different paths cultures and powerful individuals took, with things like Heavens and Hells as locations that intersect all realities.
If you didn't want to do alternate realities you could just do it with discovering portals to Moons and Planets in the same star system.

But the trade of resources and information and technology (both scientific and magical advancements) would be interesting.

 

[Silva]

I always thought it would be fun to do a setting where they only made contact with maybe one to three other alternate reality worlds, that way you can really focus on things like culture, or do the whole idea of a similar world that diverged at a specific point in history each and play off of the alternate setting and different paths cultures and powerful individuals took, with things like Heavens and Hells as locations that intersect all realities.
If you didn't want to do alternate realities you could just do it with discovering portals to Moons and Planets in the same star system.

But the trade of resources and information and technology (both scientific and magical advancements) would be interesting.

To explore cultures I'd recommend Runequest (with sourcebooks like Cults of Prax or Griffin Mountain*). Planescape is like a Star Wars canteen really, a kitchen sink where the appeal is in the weirdness of the mixture, not it's individual parts. For all amazing possibilities it offers, it's utterly vapid on cultural substance or even lore/history.


*or just play Six Ages or King of Dragon Pass videogames.

 

[King Crispy]

This doesn't look like any Lady of Pain to me. It looks more like some Lady of Weeaboo bullshit.

DING DANG BING BANG DOWWW

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

It just looks like mediocre euro graphic novel art. The Lady's mask is more like "black supermodel" than the solemn icon it should be.

 

[Eldagusto]

> Get Tony DiTerlizzi back on board to draw Planescape art again.
> Codex hates this "new shit".

It's not surprising that his art style has changed during the past 25 years.

Has it changed for the better ? According to him :

Improving as an artist is incremental. It has taken years for me to realize my technical skills have advanced. One exercise that helped me is to revisit older pieces.

One of the older pieces in question is this eladrin from 1995 :

And the newer version from 2020 :

The 1995 eladrin is one of my 4-5 favorite Planescape drawings. But the newer one is very good too (well, except for her eyes).

Expecting the art to be exactly the same as in the 90s is a sure road to disappointment.

It’s the Changeling the dreaming’s biggest artist. I think they did illustrations for the bridge to Tarabithea as well

 

[Silva]

It just looks like mediocre euro graphic novel art. The Lady's mask is more like "black supermodel" than the solemn icon it should be.

Yes.