I do think a reason people like Planescape is the work of Mr. DiTerlizzi really helped to define the setting.
For sure! If it weren't for Tony's artwork and PS' writing style -- including the Cant -- I don't think I'd remember PS with such fondness twenty years later. Or even five years later; it'd be just another one of 2e's niche settings, like Spelljammer.
Tony's work for PS may have been a bit goofy and more than a little chainmail-bikini, but it just works with the setting. It's dynamic, it's inventive, it's evocative, and it brings out the setting's character wonderfully.
And even DiTerlizzi fans have to admit, his glabrezu art was kind of..uh, puppy dog.
Oh, definitely. And his bodak isn't without a vaguely goofy posture...but it's still ten times better than the gray martian-man bodak that 3e gave us. Not sure if D&D has another official rendition of the bodak, but Tony's is the one I'll always think of when I hear that word.
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Sir Urza, it's a matter of taste.While it's technically true that the ALL CONSUMING GREATNESS that is the development of The Great Wheel is a matter of taste, it's the only taste that counts. It's the only taste that's really good. All other flavors for cosmology suck in comparison.
Use the planescape to get started.
Planescape is probably the best starting point for someone who wants a ready-to-use cosmology, but a lot of the details feel like round pegs forced into square holes. And no wonder -- PS is an effort to cram the creative work of, as Todd mentioned, many different authors and several decades of haphazard creativity into a single coherent setting. It works for the most part, but I'm sure you'll agree that it could be better.
We need Tony DiTerlizzi to illustrate....Corrected:
"We need Tony DiTerlizzi to illustrate "
We've had enough string-bean bodied & armed creatures.
I never thought I'd say this, but I'm with Sissyl on this. Tony is without a doubt the best artist D&D has ever had.
And if you disagree, you're just wrongity-wronger-wrongest.
...Wrong. ;)
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You have an excellent example of a taste that sucks, (Ray).
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LOL
nicely done.
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I'll still take (for 2E guys) Larry Elmore.
AND BRING BACK EROL OTUS AND THE DAVES, SUTHERLAND & TRAMPIER. And KIETH PARKINSON!!!!
Give Wayne Reynolds some more competition.
And all you wrongity-wrongy-wrongestes can go fly a kite.
No more string-bean monsters.
Hey! What's wrong with Clyde Caldwell? =)
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Happy now? ;p
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It's just a style thing, not my cup of tea; YMMV (especially if you're a wrongity-wrong-wrongest). But, you know, when you grow up with mostly Trampier and Sutherland and Parkinson, well, you grow up with tastes outside of DiTerlizzi. At least I did. (And I'm not a wrongity-wrong so neh.)
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Planescape is probably the best starting point for someone who wants a ready-to-use cosmology.
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Agreed. (Except your adverb, "probably" -- it's "definitely."
But a lot of the details feel like round pegs forced into square holes.
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Agreed. (But it's not as bad as some of the other stuff like that in 2E -- see "Ravenloft.")
I never thought I'd say this, but I'm with Sissyl on this.
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That's funny because when I saw you disagree with my taste (on DiTerlizzi) I thought, "Man, how is it possible that Tequila Sunrise and I disagree; I've agreed with the almost all of his posts over the last 6 or 7 years."
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Monte Cook. You write engaging worlds and characters, but your grasp of how good and evil works makes my inner philosopher want to gnaw through steel chains.
Too much good is evil is like my madness mantra. Its like 'If not for that horse, I'd never have gone to college.'
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Monte Cook. You write engaging worlds and characters, but your grasp of how good and evil works makes my inner philosopher want to gnaw through steel chains.
Too much good is evil is like my madness mantra. Its like 'If not for that horse, I'd never have gone to college.'
So Monte Cook is True Neutral? ;)
To be fair, the whole, "Too much good is bad." thing was in Dragonlance, too (and it was very strange there as well) even without Monte Cooke. And I'm pretty sure Mordenkainen was all about that particular philosophy, even way back in Greyhawk.
But yeah... weird ideas.
As far as defined ideas: ...the nature of gods versus planar lords like archdevils etc,
Hey Todd, I've been reading up on the Great Beyond and you've got some great ideas! Love the proteans and the Four Horsemen in particular.
Anyhow, do you mind expanding a little on the above? I haven't run across anything on this topic on the wiki or the pfsrd, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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As far as defined ideas: ...the nature of gods versus planar lords like archdevils etc,Hey Todd, I've been reading up on the Great Beyond and you've got some great ideas! Love the proteans and the Four Horsemen in particular.
Anyhow, do you mind expanding a little on the above? I haven't run across anything on this topic on the wiki or the pfsrd, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
In D&D the nature of and power scale of gods and non-deific planar rulers like Abyssal Lords, Archdevils, members of the Celestial Hebdomad, Slaad Lords, etc well, it wildly varied by edition and even within an edition in different sources. Frankly it was never handled in a defined matter and rather than being mysterious far too often it came off as poorly referenced and multiple conflicting viewpoints on the topic being advanced by different authors who may or may not have been aware of prior material.
Without going into my personal side of preference on that continuity mishmash (which let's make clear it's a personal view that is specific to the Great Wheel), it was honestly refreshing to have the question defined from the start by Jacobs et al.
And that definition is: Deities are singularly more powerful than non-deities regardless of pretty much anything else. Things other than personal power are what prevent deities from just smashing demon lords left and right, prevent them all from openly and personally interfering on the Material plane, etc. Demon lords can have home field advantage on their native plane, but Godhood is still going to be something that they're all going to strive for to increase their own power.
Of course some entities like the proteans' Speakers of the Depths, the Oinodaemon, and the Axiomite Godmind haven't been defined as to their deific status or not (or their status as actual entities or not in the first case). So for some entities they might happily use that ambiguity as to their deific nature or not to their benefit in myriad ways either to puff up their power to others, or perhaps alternately avoid the notice of their peers.
James I think has expounded on this whole topic before, and did so in a very well put way if you can find it.
While I like the well-thought and neatly organized system under which the Golarion powers have been introduced, I also enjoy the byzantine complexity of the Planescape powers, which I personally like to interpret as the myriad of alternate and often conflicting natures their followers from an endless number of worlds give them.
Although I'm sure it was more the result of multiple heads and years of development rather than a purposeful thing, the end result is precisely one of the things I like about Planescape.
Then again, I am of the view that the world beyond the world should be both complex and complicated, which I understand is not necessarily a popular view. It's one of the reasons why I couldn't enjoy the 4e cosmology, even if I fully acknowledge the well-put-togetherness (is that even a word?) it has.
And that definition is: Deities are singularly more powerful than non-deities regardless of pretty much anything else. Things other than personal power are what prevent deities from just smashing demon lords left and right, prevent them all from openly and personally interfering on the Material plane, etc. Demon lords can have home field advantage on their native plane, but Godhood is still going to be something that they're all going to strive for to increase their own power.
So the official PF take is that deities are more badass than the 'alignment lords,' as a rule. This pretty much matches my own personal take, but I'm curious to hear your own take too.
And that definition is: Deities are singularly more powerful than non-deities regardless of pretty much anything else. Things other than personal power are what prevent deities from just smashing demon lords left and right, prevent them all from openly and personally interfering on the Material plane, etc. Demon lords can have home field advantage on their native plane, but Godhood is still going to be something that they're all going to strive for to increase their own power.So the official PF take is that deities are more badass than the 'alignment lords,' as a rule. This pretty much matches my own personal take, but I'm curious to hear your own take too.
Entirely cosmology dependent really.
In a classical Planescape game I'd have gods more powerful in general, except for on the alignment lord's home plane in which it's very much reversed in most cases. You might be a greater deity on your little backwater material world, but make no mistake, the Oinoloth is older than you and if you start something in the Gray Waste don't be surprised if your worshippers all start bleeding from their eyes followed thereafter by you (exaggeration, but point made).
Home field advantage basically. Gods are granted wide ranging powers by their worshippers, but at the expense of having to depend on them in a way. Alignment lords are limited in their powers to their home plane or layer, but oh God within that sphere of influence they're not to be messed with.
Golarion is different, but Golarion isn't the Great Wheel and has different assumptions to work with, so it makes sense that being a deity means more in Golarion regardless of if you're a mortal or an Abyssal Lord seeking to become a full-fledged deity.
I'm not really sure which I prefer if I had to pick between the two. But I do like corner cases that bend the rules or don't appear to make sense. :D
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And that definition is: Deities are singularly more powerful than non-deities regardless of pretty much anything else. Things other than personal power are what prevent deities from just smashing demon lords left and right, prevent them all from openly and personally interfering on the Material plane, etc. Demon lords can have home field advantage on their native plane, but Godhood is still going to be something that they're all going to strive for to increase their own power.
Yeah, a good god who decided to overstep his bounds in that way would probably return to his heavenly palace to find mountains of dead angels and a trio of evil gods raping the corpse of his herald. So...bad idea.