# Redemption: A Planescape Design Diary



## I'm A Banana (Jun 17, 2005)

Okay, my previous attempts at Story Hours have been abortive attempts at fictionalizing what happens in the game. So now, I'm instead going to keep a running Design Diary of the events and processes involved in running the campaigns, with notes for how sessions went, etc., hopefully to keep my interest, as well as the audiences'. In exchange, for less personal story-like insight, you'll get something not a lot of story hours give you: crunch straight from a published d20 designer! (I know, saying you're a designer on these boards is like saying you like computers over at slashdot, but  ) You can use my stuff in your own games! OH BOYS!

So let's get into it.

Meeting the Long Haul Challenge

One of the hardest thigns about getting together a regular D&D group is finding a day that everyone can attend, and making them do it regularly, for several weeks. It's a commitment, and much of the time, that commitment gets missed because, after all, it's only a game.

In an effort to control this, a friend and I discussed having fewer sessions that were longer in length. Instead of spending four hours a week, we'd spend 12 hours, and we'd do it just three or four times, total. Rather than having to get an afternoon off every week, people would just have to get a few days off, and resign themselves to not doing much more than rolling dice and taking breaks from rolling dice. Sounds like fun? That's what I thought.

So the seed is planted: I will DM a 3e game for five other players: Christina, Scott, Alicia, Sean, and Tom (those who check my livejournal may be able to recognize some faces). 

Now, this inherent set-up imposes some restrictions on me as a DM. They expect a story arc, and they expect it to be resolved with only four meetings. My usual D&D campaigns are four *months*, and they're a little short...so I have to cram roughly four times the adventure into each meeting, which is going to mean MOUNTAINS of prep time...right? Well, maybe...

I decide I want to run a Planescape campaign. It's been a few months since my last one. Unfortunately, the players are not very familiar with the setting. Now, I'm used to running "introductory adventures" for worlds, to expose bits of their flavor as I go along. So much so, in fact, that I'm a bit tired of explaining things. I needed to expose them to the flavor of Planescape without boring myself repeating what I've done dozens of times before (rule of threes, center of the multiverse, unity of rings, etc). I had to do it in a fresh and interesting way, both for my sake and for my players'.  And then I had an inspiration for this campaign in an unusual place...

I thought of the Dukes of Hazzard. I thought of WWII-era movies about the possibility of escape. I thought of O Brother, Where Art Thou. I thought of crime, punishment, justice, and how the system could go awry....and then I thought of how it could go awry on _the planes_.

This interestingly tied up the loose end of not particularly wanting to give another dry "clueless berks" kind of campaign in that I could instantly give them an excuse for being on the planes, and being completely ignorant: the PC's were jailed, braught to the planes by forces beyond their own world for some of the most unspeakable crimes that a being could perpetrate. War crimes, genocides, dark necromancies, cannibalism, crimes of twisted passion...the PC's would begin their lives in jail. For any PSer, this means one thing: Carceri. 

Of course, any DM knows that one of the things that annoys players the most is having this kind of railroad put on them. So the best way to get rid of that is to remove it. Before the action even starts, before the PC's even meet, they have suddenly and mysteriously become free from their prison. And so have the rest of the inmates. Who freed them? Who cares! THEY MIGHT BE FREE!

Within the next few minutes, I had developed the central theme and question of the campaign. The game is about a group of criminals (perhaps falesly convicted) who stuggle against the bonds of their planar boundaries and the burdens of the sins (that may not even be theirs!) that they bear. Over the course of several adventures, they uncover who released them and why, and vindicate themselves by become agenst of justice themselves. The central question is: "Will the PC's uncover why they are released, and can they stop their releaser from a greater evil?" I had a focus. I had a theme. And I had all of Carceri to play with...it would be good for improvising (limiting my selection to a few things that must cleave close to the story), it had an obvious resolution, and could present the PC's with challenges without making them feel overly frustrated.

Making Mechanical Sense

One of the biggest problems I had to solve very quickly for the PC's was their lack of equipment. Again, players don't like to feel helpless, and nothing is quite as helpless as a wizard who's been in jail for a decade. So, after an initial encounter where the monks and sorcerers of the party could excel (a good ol' fashioned prison riot), the plan was to have them stumble accross a cache of equipment that was equal to starting equipment.

I couldn't swallow it, though. Having newly released criminals suddenly stumble on a crate of perfect equipment that no one else had already looted just seemed....wrong. So I followed the tradition of years of other GM's, and I house ruled it. I used the same rule I have used in the past when items get in the way: the Themed Powers concept.

New Rule: Themed Powers

Kind of bootlegged from Four Colors to Fantasy, I separated the treasure I would award into three different categories: Wealth, Magic, and Powers. Wealth would be raw coinage, gems, artwork, things useful to buy other things; I set it at about 35% of the treasure being wealth, giving the PC's something to spend. Magic would be physical items, magic swords, scrolls, potions, etc. I set it at about 15% of the treasure being magic, giving the PC's some scrolls, wands, potions, and the occasional item. The remaining 50% of the treasure I designated powers.

In previous campaigns, I have used my homebrew pantheon to grant themed abilities in exchange for sacrifices of gold and magic -- you would get less treasure, and get powers related to the deity instead. Plant-based powers from the plant god, sun-based powers from the sun goddess, stealth-based powers from the wilderness god, etc. However, this being PS, I wanted something non-deity-related, more personal. And then I hit on it: I would have the crimes the PC's were convicted of be the theme of their powers. In your own game, the source obviously is something you should give some thought to. Most of the time, gods would work. In a typical PS game, I'd be tempted to make faction-themed powers, or plane-themed powers and have the PC's choose. But since these PC's wouldn't know Arcadia from Orcus, I thought that would be a bad fit. Instead, I managed to bring the PC's attention constantly upon the crimes that they are accused of.

I started the PC's at 3rd level, and since they had no wealth to begin with, I spent all 2,700 of their starting gold on five different "packages" of powers, related to the crimes. I did this by "buying" magical items with the gold, but making them not physical items, but simply inherent powers in the character. The advice in the DMG about doubling the cost is not ignored; however, the PC's also cannot sell these items, so they aren't precisely like items that don't take up a slot. Coming out a wash in the end, I had them "pay" market price for these inherent powers. For scrolls or wands, I gave them "at will" spells for the price of wands, and x/dy spells for scrolls (where X is usually an ability modifier of some kind, Intelligence or Charisma. I also multiplied the cost of each scroll by 10 for this purpose). For potions (effects that can be given to others to use) I'd make it 1/dy. They then will choose one package for themselves at character creation: cannibal (including a ring of sustenance), war criminal (including magic weapons), organizer of war crimes (including charisma-based spell-like abilities), indulgent to passions (including illusion and emotion effects), or weaver of wicked spells (including a robe of bones). 

As the game progresses to the next level, the percentages will remain the same: I will give 50% powers, 35% wealth, and 15% magic. Going by the wealth/level table, I know this means that 270 GP worth of powers per character needs to be assigned before the next level; and also that 945 worth of Wealth needs tob e handed out, and that 405 worth of magic items need to be handed out.

Simplification: Agathys, Carceri

Every time Carceri has been presented in a rule book, it has been slightly different. According to 2e's Planes of Conflict, Agathys deals 1d2 points of cold damage per round of exposure. According to the 3e Manual of the Planes, this stays, but the place is ALSO minor negative-dominant, which means that people are dealt 1d6 damage per round. However, according to the 3.5 DMG, the only unusual feature is mild evil. 

The Manual of the Planes has Nerull's home here, which I took to explain the negative energy dominance. Since I didn't want to have to deal with deities, I took out Nerull, and I also took out the negative energy dominance. But I replaced it with Impeded Magic [Healing], which also reflects the 2e convention that healing necromancy was harder to do.  Instead of having the plane do cold damage, I consulted the 3.5 DMG's cold weather rules, which say that someone is dealt 1d6 cold + 1d4 subdual damage per minute. There is some slight confusion, because the rules don't state that exposure or protection would help that at all.

So in the end, it wound up a mild evil plane with impeded healing and some savagely cold winds. Those escaped prisoners would need some protection....

Tiefling!

The first NPC the PC's will encounter in their escape iis a tiefling named Fraz. And he's a sorcerer.

GASP! Yes, that IS a less-than-optimal choice for the tiefer. But there are a few things he does to make his hit to Charisma slightly less painful...

First of all, Tieflings, as a major PS race, could use some changes from their LA +1 MM version. So, as a default, tieflings IMC are LA +0. They are humanoids with the Evil subtype. They also don't have their elemental resistances. So Hello, spellcasting advancement! These are kind of minor changes -- they don't change how the tieflings function in the campaign, just alter their abilities in a party to suit players better than monsters. 

Then, we have that niggling little -2 Charisma. It doesn't take a genius to see *that's* a problem with sorcerers...and neither does it take a genius to say "wait a minute, isn't the dark evil alluring and tempting? Why the -2?"

Fortunately, the planetouched has access, by being a sorcerer, to the Vile Heritage feat. These are basically the Draconic feats from the Complete Arcane, but changed so that they reflect heritage from fiends, rather than dragons. In a Planescape game, with less emphasis on dragons, sorcerers have many different ways to trace the origins of their powers -- most commonly to powerful outsiders.

The attatched document gives the three Vile Heritage feats that Fraz has, and also presents Fraz's statblock. Instead of giving him a familiar, I took advantage of UA's specialist rules, and swapped out the familiar for the transmuter's Enhance Attribute ability, to further help compensate for his lowered Charisma. Before he got the cloak, he would've used that to pump up his Charisma to normal levels, now he uses it to jump his Dex or Con.

 Coming Up...

How do you help low-levelings survive on the harshest of the harsh lower planes, and do so under their own power? Well, lemonade never was a nonviolent process...


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## Shemeska (Jun 17, 2005)

*serves self a dainty helping of other folks ideas on running PS campaigns*


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## Tanager (Jun 18, 2005)

Sounds like an interesting game. I look forward to seeing more.


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## Spider_Jerusalem (Jun 18, 2005)

Nice story hour angle you've got yourself here. 

Hope your players enjoy Carceri - though I've heard it's become a bit touristy in the past couple of years. Shame.

Anyway - it will be nice to read through the DM mechanics of the game as it progresses. 

Spider J


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## I'm A Banana (Jun 19, 2005)

Emphasising a Theme: Verticality

DMing is a kind of performance. Using the imaginations of the players, you can create a meaningful experience that can have real emotional and symbolic *weight*. I consider it a feather in my DM cap that I've made players cry at the tragedies I've generated, or made them stand up in rage at a villain, or made them dance with joy. Perhaps I'm lucky enough to have very expressive groups...

Anyway, the performance of Carceri is one of backstabbing, suffering, self-interest, paranoia, and punishment. And it is represented by one defining theme: verticality.

Drawing from the 2e _Planes of Conflict_, it tells a planewalker that the portals between Carceri's layers are located at the highest and lowest points on the spheres. The high mountains will lead one closer to freedom, while the low valleys and trenches will lead one away.  Because the PC's are here to escape, this means they will be in a continual vertical passage, always going up, up, and away. So I begin at the bottom....and make sure they know (through their fellow prisoner, Fraz) that up is always the escape. If they go up, sooner or later, they will go out. 

The first thing to escape is the prison....

Because the players aren't too familiar with the planes, I start them in a place that is fairly familiar -- a one-room cell whose doors mysteriously open on the day of liberation. Fraz notes that they are probably underground. To get out, they must go up. At first, it is through simple stairs. But as they go, it changes...

See, the idea of this sphere of Carceri is to be HUGE. MASSIVE. WORLD-SIZED. And the PC's were imprisoned near the center. Of course, they don't know this right away, But as they discover how nested their cells were....

As they head up different floors, I constantly note (and map out) that there are scads of identical floors just beneath them. When they emerge from their first staircase, they see behind them thousands more like them, leading down into thousands of rooms like theirs, which each leads to hundreds of cells like the ones they were freed from. But only one way up. After the second staircase, there are even more doorways and passageways behind them, trailing away deep into the earth. But only one way up. Only one path to follow...hundreds of ways to fall back, but the path ahead is frought with danger. And every time they think they may be at the exit, they have another stair to climb, and realize that hundreds of thousands of creatures shared their imprisonment.

One of the most dramatic examples of this happens after a few hours of climbing stairs...they emerge in a large hangar, about 150 ft. accross. And as they leave the hangar, they notice that the hangar was just one of millions, extending miles in all directions, alongside a great stone wall, all identical. In front of them looms a dark gulf of nothing. Behind them lays prison. Freedom lays in only one direction -- up. More stairs. Up a wall like a honeycomb, stairs connecting each immense hangar. 

After climbing the stairs for hours (and probably fighting off a riot or monster or two) they come to the next part of their climb. The stairs peter out, and are replaced by a nearly vertical wall...made out of living, breathing, grasping humanoid figures. Naked torsos moan and flail. Feet kick out. But they are motionless, stuck in their position by the press of bodies on all sides of them. They are Carceri's petitioners, too bitter to despair, and for the PC's to get out they have to literally climb over those who have come before. As the wall of people thrashes and kicks and tries to shake them off, and as Fraz's betrayal suddenly comes, the PC's need to climb this press of bodies. Tired. Stressed. Exhausted. Desperate, they climb up and up, over those who are pinned by the weight of the sinners above...

It's horrific. But that's Carceri for you...

This has the virtue of constantly emphasising the vastness of the planes, the magical, mystical torment of Agathys, and the nature of the vilest prisons in the multiverse. In order to succeed, others must fall beneath you. That is the betrayal of Carcerian deapths....


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