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Why this blog about Planescape?

The Planescape setting has the best art, the most spectacular locations, and amazing characters and themes.  But how in the Nine Hells do you actually run a game with it?

Planescape is vast.  

Outer planes, inner planes, transitive planes, the worlds of the prime, Sigil, the Outlands.  And all the planes are infinite.

Planescape is esoteric.

The creators summarize the setting as “Philosophers with Clubs” (Sigil and Beyond, p.8), saying:

The Planescape setting is about ideas and philosophies, about “the meaning of the multiverse”…A planar doesn’t just ask the question, he lives the answer….This is a campaign where ideas are backed by actions and vice versa — swords, fists, magic, and ideology as needed.

DM Guide to the Planes, p.7.

Planescape is complicated.  

There are 15 factions in Sigil, each with its own logic-contorting philosophy.  The Blood War rages, the Modron March, and the River Styx somehow winds everywhere.  Every berk also happens to be rattling her bonebox in Sigil “cant” (slang) that was inspired by the 18th-century British underworld.

Planescape is…out of print.

Planescape materials were last published in 1999, during second edition.  When THACO was a thing. Sure, you can buy the pdfs on DriveThruRPG. And DND 5e is relatively easy to convert to on the fly.  But it’s not the same as running Ravenloft or the Forgotten Realms, which have been officially updated for 5e.

In short, we need to make Planescape materials more accessible for GMs wanting to drop them into their games.   Specifically, I want to help GMs drop small amounts of Planescape material into existing campaigns. Although Planescape-centric campaigns are great, the challenges I listed above are legitimate, and unless Wizards of the Coast publishes a DND 5e Planescape update, I suspect most GMs will choose a different primary setting.  

But just dropping an adventure into the Beastlands or Acheron into an existing campaign?  Or having the characters witness the Modron March or battle Githyanki on airships circling the body of a Dead God in the Astral Plane?  That’s timeless material that will have a place in any DND campaign or ruleset.

That’s why this blog.

Oh right, and Who Am I?

Just an experienced DM who loves creating and sharing DND material.