Tuesday, August 2, 2022

Adaptation and Focus: Converting Planescape to 5th Edition

 A couple years ago, I downloaded the PDF of Ravenloft: Realm of Terror, the original campaign-setting sourcebook for the Ravenloft setting that was published in the early '90s for 2nd Edition D&D.

And it was really disappointing, frankly. For such a popular setting, the details were sketchy, and it felt like the writers occasionally forgot they were making a horror setting - one region, for example, is basically described as just having a lot of Drow. Now, I don't know, maybe teenage D&D players in the early 90s might have found Drow terrifying, but it didn't really live up to expectations.

Thus, I was really happy to see how 5th Edition's Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft overhauled the setting in a lot of great ways. One of my least favorite elements of 2nd Edition Ravenloft was the idea of "The Core," which placed each of the domains of dread on a contiguous landmass (or on islands off the coast,) essentially making Ravenloft just another world that happened to be very spooky. 5th Edition's change here instead turned the domains into islands of reality floating in the mists, isolated in such a way that enforced the idea of being trapped. The implication, as I see it, is that most people in each domain aren't even aware of other domains. They just know that this land is where they live and where they're stuck.

By contrast, reading the 2nd Edition Planscape content, I haven't really seen a ton that I'd change all that much. Sure, there are some updates that I'd make: given that the Satanic Panic has run its course, I think it's fine to identify the archdevils who rule the layers of the Nine Hells (which they have in the 5th Edition DMG) and we can use terms like Devil and Demon, rather than having to insist on Baatezu and Tanar'ri, respectively (though in my headcanon Baatezu is the Infernal word for Devil and Tanar'ri is perhaps the Abyssal word for Demon).

As a matter of personal taste, I'd de-emphasize the presence of real-world mythologies in the setting. I think it's fine if we retain the canon that, for example, the Greek Gods mostly live on Mount Olympus in Arborea, but I'd rather keep things fully fictional, with more of a focus on figures like Gruumsh, Corellon, etc. I think this is particularly important when it comes to religions that are still commonly practiced - most Westerners I think can feel comfortable cavorting around with Zeus and Thor, but placing Hindu deities in there at a time when there are 1.2 billion members of that very active and modern religion risks getting things wrong and disrespectful in a pretty bad way. (While the D&D team has been trying to address their previous missteps in cultural representation, this seems like something it wouldn't be that hard to avoid by simply not getting into it).

What I might do, though, is expand the pantheons of various humanoid races - 2nd Edition still carried with it an assumption that Orcs, Goblins, and such were inherently prone to evil (hell, that was even true in early 5th Edition) and so I'd love to see, for example, new Orcish gods found on the upper planes. (I could actually imagine that some Orcish god of honor and valor would be a really strong fit for Mount Celestia).

One thing that I think could be a tricky thing to pull off is the treatment of planar effects. In the 5th Edition DMG, they suggest that even if you're going to invent your own planes, that there should be some mechanical effect on play there to enforce the idea that you're in a different universe. For example, on Mechanus, damage for attacks and spells is always the average (if you're doing 1d10+3 with your glaive, for example, that amount should aways be 8 on Mechanus, or a crit for 14, and a base 3rd level fireball or lightning bolt will always do 28 damage to creatures that fail the saving throw).

The Planescape books get very crunchy when it comes to these kinds of restrictions. Spell keys and Power keys are the types of objects you'll need to carry with you into the planes to access certain types of magic. For example, because the Outer Planes are ultimately planes of thought and philosophy, while the Inner Planes (like the Elemental Planes, of which there are a whole lot in 2nd Edition) are the planes of physical material, a lot of times any kind of elemental magic requires some special item to work on the Outer Planes. Similarly, deceptive spells like those in the Illusion school simply don't work on Lawful planes like Mechanus.

I think I'd maybe pull back on some of these restrictions. I think it makes perfect sense that the planes would affect how magic works, but I might change immunities to something like resistance - maybe saving throws against illusion magic in Mechanus is made at advantage, for example.

Another striking absence in Planescape is the Feywild and Shadowfell - these planes were only introduced in 4th Edition (Ravenloft as a setting was in the Ethereal Plane, rather than the Shadowfell,) but I think their role within the planar system could be interesting. One of the ideas in Planescape is that "Primes" (aka those who are from the prime material plane) are regarded as ignorant and clueless compared to the "Planars" (mortals who were born and raised in the other planes). But given the Shadowfell and Feywild are closest and most similar to the Prime Material Plane (at least in theory) I wonder how Planars feel about folks from those planes - is an Eladrin from the Feywild considered clueless, or are they embraced as someone who truly knows what's what?

One of the things that gives Planescape a lot of its tone and flavor is that the text is all written in this odd lingo that's loosely based on Cockney slang. People are referred to as Berks, Bloods, or Bashers. The generally accepted knowledge about a place is called the Chant of it, while the secrets that only a few people know and most merely speculate about is the Dark of it. If you get yourself killed, that's winding up in the Dead-Book. And talking, particularly to excess, is rattling your Bone-Box.

In general, 5th Edition has separated out in-character text from more neutral text - books like Xanathar's Guide to Everything have virtual post-it notes written by the Xanathar, commenting on things, but the actual main text is all from a kind of omniscient and impartial perspective. I suspect that a 5th Edition Planescape sourcebook would likely stick to the more recent format, which could be clearer though maybe a little sad.

Another thing that gives Planescape a really distinctive feel is that throughout the entire Planescape line in the 1990s, the artist Tony DiTerlizzi did literally every piece of art (except, I think, for some of the cover art and the iconic Lady of Pain face that I think was actually constructed out of metal and photographed to create the Planescape header).

The Factions of Planescape are a big part of the setting as well, though I've found they're not quite as similar to the Guilds of Ravnica as I'd worried they might be. In Sigil itself, they play a big role, but as soon as you go adventuring among the planes, you're likely to only encounter one of them on any given plane. Whereas on Ravnica basically everything is going to involve one Guild or another (or often two clashing with one another,) the Planescape factions can act more like the factions you'd find in any other D&D setting - just as you encounter the Flaming Fist and the Order of the Gauntlet while exploring Chult in Tomb of Annihilation, your travels to Acheron might involve meeting with (and likely fighting/fleeing) the Mercykillers. But you can have plenty of other encounters with other planar denizens.

I think the main thing that will make any 5th Edition sourcebook significantly different is that WotC's attitude toward D&D has been far more quality-over-quantity. TSR's attitude toward its settings was that they'd produce entire product lines - the PDFs I've gotten for Planescape are the equivalent of four whole 5th Edition books, and I don't even have all the sourcebooks, not to mention the published adventures. (For example, there's a book about Sigil and another one that's about the Inner Planes that I don't have.)

For 5e, I wouldn't expect us to get more than one publication, and while they're clearly experimenting with new ways of publishing things - the Spelljammer box set coming out this month being an example - I don't expect WotC to pump out a whole lot of books dedicated to Planescape during this edition.

So, any sourcebook they do produce is going to have to cover a huge amount of ground - again, we're talking about 17 outer planes, the city of Sigil, and then the Inner Planes. Frankly, I would not be shocked if a 5th Edition Planescape downplayed the Inner Planes in favor of really focusing on the Outer ones, which I think are probably considered more iconically linked to the setting. Indeed, I could even imagine focusing almost entirely on the Outlands, though I think that'd be a shame because the whole premise of the setting is traveling between planes.

The angle of attack I'd take is to get into the vibes of the planes more than simply listing existing locations. Each of the Outer Planes is infinite in physical space, so it should be clear to DMs that they can make up whatever they want to put there - simply give them the appropriate building blocks with which to build appropriate stuff in those settings. Places in Arcadia should feel very orderly, with the partial goodness of the plane manifesting in the fact that the orderliness is meant to serve a greater good, but the stronger emphasis on law presenting the opportunity for danger and adventure when the party doesn't necessarily follow all the rules. I'm currently reading the section on Arborea, and even though this plane is just as good as it is chaotic, it's still got plenty of dangerous monsters, and even the good-aligned denizens might be overcome with passion and still pose a threat. Really, it's that the reasons why a monster might attack you in Arborea is different than why one might in Mount Celestia. And, of course, all the lower planes are terrible, bad places to be, so plenty of opportunity for conflict and danger - but on Acheron the danger is being conscripted into some hopeless army where desertion gets you summarily executed, whereas in the Abyss, demons are just going to hunt you down and torture you for the fun of it.

I do think there's a decent chance they're working on a new Planescape book, and it's something I'd be very eager for them to do. But whatever scope they decide on, it's going to be a big project.

No comments:

Post a Comment