Most D&D campaigns are set on worlds that are largely the same as ours. Yes, they have magic, but the magic is extraordinary and interactions with the grand cosmic forces of the multiverse are usually subtler (at least to begin with) than the interactions of ordinary peoples.
I got the 2nd Edition Planescape Campaign Setting book on DM's Guild (as a PDF, because I think print copies are like a hundred bucks) and I've been reading through it.
Now, there are sometimes references to 2nd Edition rules that mean very little to me (like "THAC0," which I eventually figured out was "to hit at AC 0" - a strange notion given that in 5th Edition it's literally impossible to have an AC of 0, or even less than like 6, I think unless you're an inanimate object) but most of it is lore, describing the primary location of the setting - the Outlands, which is the True Neutral outer plane.
The whole notion of Planescape is that the Prime Material Plane, where most of the D&D worlds are, is largely set aside. Instead, you navigate life in the Outlands and the city at its center that may also be its own plane given you can only access it via planar portals, Sigil (also known as the Cage.)
What I think is really interesting about the Planescape Setting is that there's almost a conscious effort to keep things from being normal. Yes, there are taverns and inns and shops and such, but in a place like Sigil, beings from all the outer planes are constantly coming and going, and given its emphatic neutrality, all visitors are supposed to be treated the same - meaning that if you're a healer there, you might be expected to treat demons just as well as you'd treat an angel.
As a side note, one of the consequences of this setting coming out I believe first in 1989 (this book was published in 1994) is that mention of "devils" and "demons" was considered too risky given the singular fixation the Christian Right had on D&D as a gateway to... whatever bullshit they thought kids would get up to. So Wizards renamed Devils as Baatrezu (I wonder if this is when they made the Lawful Evil plane "The Nine Hells of Baator" and Demons as "Tanar'ri." I believe it's also at this point that Daemons were renamed Yugoloths, though that name seems to have stuck (probably because having Neutral Evil fiends sound so similar to Chaotic Evil ones was confusing.) While I, of course, think that the social movement that pushed them to make these changes was and is toxic and horrible, given the disorienting nature of Planescape, it actually kind of works for the setting to give you less established cultural notions to judge the bizarre monsters you encounter there.
And bizarreness feels like a really good vibe for this setting. I'm reminded a bit of the sort of alien space stations and hubs that you find in Rick & Morty - places where you're an outsider and you've just to go figure things out and catch up.
And this notion is enshrined in the way that the setting divides humanoid characters.
Primes are people from the Prime Material Plane, meaning that they are from more Earth-like worlds (including Earth - early editions apparently talked a lot about real-world mythologies, where Thor is like, a big D&D deity) and in Sigil, they're known as "Clueless." In fact, Prime is kind of a derogatory term, because some of the basic principles of the outer planes have to be explained to them. For example, if people of a certain philosophy occupy a part of one Outer Plane, over time that area will actually shift and become part of the plane where that philosophy and alignment is prevalent. Meaning if you camped out in the Abyss long enough in a well-ordered, benevolent kingdom, that area would at some point get taken and become part of Mount Celestia. To keep the Outlands True Neutral, a lot of places - particularly its "gate towns" where there are gates to the other outer planes, need some kind of balance to keep the town from slipping into its affiliated plane.
Planars are humanoids who are from the Outer Planes, and have always dealt with stuff like that. It's not exactly clear to me if these people have just always been there, or if they died and successfully assimilated into their appropriate plane. I actually think they're the former, though I don't really know how they interact with those who have gone on to these planes in their afterlife.
Petitioners, I believe, are the souls of the dead who are now attempting to go to the plane that suits them best.
I think this opens up a ton of ideas when it comes to campaigns and characters. Even if you primarily set your campaign in the prime material plane, you could have a planar character - like Strix from Dice Camera Action.
But I think by avoiding the Prime Material all together, you could have a campaign where weird and unexplained things happen constantly - the DM should have a sense of the logic behind it, but the players might be playing Primes, and thus not have the context to know, say, who "The Lady" is (to their peril.)
My homebrew setting has its own Outer Planes, but I never thought to create a True Neutral Plane. I suspect that if the players ever get to the Outer Planes (currently their world is very firmly locked away from the Outers, but that is likely to change at some point I'll keep vague on the off chance one of them reads this) I imagine I'll borrow a lot of ideas from Planescape.
In fact, while Sigil is fairly cool, I think the Gate-Towns are the most interesting aspect to the setting for me. Each is like a microcosm of its associated outer plane, but with that required counter-balance. For example, Automata, affiliated with Mechanus, is incredibly orderly and rigidly scheduled, but underground there are gambling halls and taverns and all sorts of chaotic debauchery there to ensure that the town doesn't get absorbed into the Clockwork Nirvana.
That kind of planar mechanics stuff feels like it could be a really cool opportunity for adventures. Maybe you get hired on the down-low from a bunch of Githzerai monks who want to claim a piece of territory for, like, Bytopia, and they set about just meditating somewhere and your job is to hold off the demons or slaadi who are trying to balance them out. Or even crazier, maybe you need to protect a group of pacifist celestials who want to project Neutral Good in an area that Yugoloths are trying to claim.
While grounded fantasy can make for compelling stories, it's sort of a more interesting challenge to take something bizarre and heightened and see if you can make something relatable with it.
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