Review: Planescape Core Set (AD&D, 1994)

tl:dr; talking Planescape, the 800lb gorilla of planar settings on the eve of its re-issue. Factions are pitched hard but there is so much more in here.

Planescape is coming back this October and I wanted to take a look at what we got before to refresh our memories before that. So credentials - I was known as a Planescape GM for most of my 2e/3e time. This box set was bought on holiday in Italy, I saw it in a shop after having read about it in Dragon and persuaded my parents to get it for me. I was riveted from that point on.

What actually lives in my Planescape box after ~ 25 years

The books themselves are gorgeous, filled with DiTerlizzi art in its slightly fiercer whimsical incarnation. I think a major part of the setting appeal was the world portrayed through the art.

I picked up most of the major Planescape releases bar the adventures and as you can see the bestiaries from all the sets together with the Guide to the Outlands migrated into the main box over time. All the maps ended up in the Outlands box - I am sure I had good reasons at the time. That box has moved ~ eight cities., five countries, two continents. The saddle stitching used has gotten a bit ragged in places but mostly has held - I think only one sheet has come off in all this time.

Cards on the table, I got a ton of use out of this. I was known for most of the 90's/00's as a Planescape DM. I had a home game, then I got this box and it became a Planescape game. I ran Planescape in college, I ran a play-by-text campaign shortly afterward. I got a *lot* of use from the setting. Let us come back to this after a cold eyes review of what was *actually* in the box.

Actual Play - Splinters of Hope: Mechanus

First of what I hope will be a couple of one-shots visiting the planes (see Great Planar Scavenger Hunt) I also took this as a personal project to get better at running one-shots. My natural home is long run campaigns so there were a couple of learnings for me in this.

The pre-game brief was: "elves are dying, you are one who has answered a call for aid by the local temples trying to do something about it - whether for coin, glory or favours I leave to you. Only steer I would give at this point is
- build someone who can work as part of an adventuring band - no lone wolves
- you will be venturing out onto the planes so will be far from your networks - a character who's whole schtick is their networks will likely be cut off from those
Build classic adventurers of whatever stripe, going to run 5e, start at level 3. This is going to be more puzzles and exploration than high crunch combat."

The puzzle, that they needed to figure out was that the thing, a long forgotten remnant from a lost elf world, was going to be crushed in the turning of the gears of Mechanus. The players would get a 128 cog 'local atlas' list and then eliminate various places the thing could not be and arrive with a singular location. I hoped that the process of elimination would allow exploration of the nature of Mechanus and flex the unique conditions of the plane.

I built this as a hex-crawl to give lots of freedom to discover new things. The players got an opening clue, an oracular vision that the thing they sought was going to be lost in 30 days.

Some sample clues I thought up:
Clue 1: access is lost abruptly, which eliminates all the slow turning cogs (target cog must be one within an escapement group, moving suddenly at intervals).
Clue 2: the thing is still here, so is on a cog which has a long turning cycle - eliminating any cogs that have cycled within the time frame since the item was lost.
Clue 3: it is on a cog unoccupied by locals - modrons, formians and inevitables all fully adapt the cogs the occupy, consume or use everything they find.
Clue 4: the thing is still accessible today and therefore is not on a cog with a climate that would prevent decay - either hot/dry or very cold or bare metal.

Mindful of the three-clue rule, I tried to make sure that there were multiple routes to get to the same answers.
- players thinking it through themselves
- interviewing locals for how things work around here
- accessing local observatories or archives to do some research
- doing observations of the cogs

** What worked well:
- Captured the flavour of Mechanus, the gears, the strange terrain, the 'not in Kansas any more' side. I think those that participated really felt they got a jaunt to elsewhere. The instant nightfall, instant dawn shift was a good part of that.
- The few mechanics I threw in to make the place feel different worked well - checks to cross the between gears and average damage in combat.
- The mission / central puzzle was interesting enough that it kept folk engaged and let them explore the environment.
- Great fun role-playing was had; two completely different flavours from the pair of core groups that went through.
- Feedback on the NPCs was good, interesting and reflected the locale well.
- The different groups founds lots of different ways to eventually get to the answer which showed it did not bottleneck too badly anywhere.

** What needed improvement
- I tightened up the launch significantly, the first run burned a chunk of time getting to 'boots on the ground' which was my fault. They got background briefing and 'why this matters' flavour which is good for long-form campaigns, needs to be skipped for one-shots. Start in media res - "you step out of the gate. The reason you are here is..."
- Need to clear more time so be ruthless with interactions. The flip-side of having fun with NPCs is recognising when the interaction is no longer giving them fresh info or moving things along. At that point zoom back out and wrap it up, otherwise it can be a time burn that leaves you squeezed later on.
- Kill random encounter tables - they were good sources of flavour, great for multi-session crawls, great for me getting my head around the setting, not good for one-shot format. You can see the Mechanus Encounters table I created here.
- Better clue hand-outs to really highlight critical information.
- Inject energy with combat, hazards as needed. Particularly with a puzzler, if the players get stumped you can either feed them the answer which doesn't feel great or kick them into a different activity which ramps up the energy but also sets their minds working on something else. When they return to 'what were we doing?' after the combat then someones subconscious will likely have some fresh thoughts to get them going

Group 1 - In House Testing Team: Ran the theory with a stats generated average group of nameless adventurers led by a Cleric of Kord

Group 2 - Scholars and seekers
Quogon - tortle cleric of twilight
Nar Norsa - firbolg druid
Jan - dwarf ranger
Lykoe Errie - high elf Warlock
Ivy - eladrin Oath of the Ancient Paladin

Group 3 - Planars
Parvina Loren - Human Barbarian
Kayleigh Evendur - Valkerie Paladin from Ysgard
Dak'hal - Githzerai Monk from Limbo
Leddwi - Gnome Warlock (Celestrial patron)
Zanna "Muffins" Tusen d'Sivis - Gnome Druid

** Most favoured moments:
- The Scholars, independently came up with a pair of wise old scholars, a scout for hire and a pair of lore-hunting elves - when these seekers of knowledge ran into some of the sages that dwelled in Mechanus there was a wonderful meeting of minds and deep discussions
- When the Scholars stepped out and caught sight of the skyful of gears for the first time, there was a beautiful OC table-wide in-draw of breath and an IC flask of hard liquor was handed around
- When the planars figured out that their attacks were doing average damage every time - "I hate it but I love it"
- The Planars, unaware the mission would be Mechanus, cooked up the most chaotic bunch possible, hailing from Limbo, Ysgard and other points on the opposite side of the Great Ring. The table masterfully played them *hating* the place, with laser-tight mission focus so they could get the hell out and go home.
- Both groups like the sites they ran into - these are written up in the Hinter-Cog sites post.
- The Guvnors gravity clipper: every party, given the choice between trekking out to the cog once it was identified or taking the scary short cut of a ride on the Guvnor experimental gravity clipper took the ride. This was fun, recognising that a gravity sling-shot around the flat, double-sided gravity of the cogs that are sometimes at angles to one another would be a both something fanatical mathematicians would try to master and would be nerve wracking to put in practice.
- I was pleased the players came up with an in-hindsight obvious question of 'which cogs will complete a turn soon' (compared to my thought of which ones have not completed a turn yet. This let them narrow down a shortlist and skip another filter.

So, despite some squeaky moments and sessions ending in a rushed montage once the objective had been found, I count these as success - people got to see Mechanus and it was fun.

3d10 Mechanus Encounters

tl;dr: things you can run into on the move in Mechanus. Tends more towards chaotic than the sites because they keep on the move.

Inspired by the old Monstrous Compendium II, the 3.5e Manual of the Planes and boosted by a sweep up of creatures that are lawful. Use these as the wandering component between hinter-cog sites described previously.

Roll 3d10

d20 hinter-cog sites of Mechanus

The great central locations of Mechanus are well known - Regulus of the Modrons, the Guvnors Fortress of Disciplined Enlightenment, Delon-Estin Oti the symmetrical town. But the Plane of Gears is infinite and there are a great deal of other sites out there. Attached are a few cooked up for the Mechanus cog-crawl part of the great planar scavenger hunt I ran recently.

These attempt to capture typical Mechanus sites encountered in the depths of that infinite plane - not any of the core realms.

1. Modron Invasive Fauna Collation Post 45-B-2 - crewed by a bunch of low level modrons tasked with sweeping the local cogs with a gear-rider and collecting samples of non-native fauna. They will also happily count anything that turns up in their catchment area such as a party of adventurers. Any creatures will be tagged with paint on their largest visible flat surface, provided with 1/100th of their weight in concentrated nutrient supplement, beige flavour and the same amount of distilled water that tastes very flat. In other bays of the compound are a resigned looking pair of humans (Guvnor couriers), a furious hobgoblin in Acheronian armour and a meditating hound archon.
2. The Slide-Rule Inn (Gnomes of Erathis) - shaped in geometric swoops and laid out inside like an amphitheater centered on the bar. The inn-keeper is an enthusiastic and hospitable gnome who regards their establishment as a beacon to the weary, a place for the tired to rest before venturing out into the wonders of Mechanus again. They will be surprised at anyone who thinks any less of the great gears than they do. The inside is decorated throughout with symbolism of Erathis and wall decorations in a 'glory of industry' theme.
3. Turnwise Dustlands and Sage tower - mounted on a trio of gears that are wedged into a corner between three swift turning cogs, this little tower shudders as it is held in place by the equal pressures. An old aasimar sits within charting the movements of the local gears. They are deeply annoyed to be disturbed and very cranky to deal with. They will refuse to answer questions but cannot stop themselves from correcting a statement that they know to be wrong. They write on wax tablets with a quill cut from their own golden-feathered wings. When they think you have stopped talking they will pluck another feather and sharpen a new nib. Beyond the tower on the many-tracked cog, local histories can be read in the undisturbed dust.
4. Mathematicians observatory - an active facility with extensive outworks and cultivated gardens that support a group of Guvnors making a long term study of the gears from this particularly fine vantage point. Very well connected and knowledgeable about the gossip in Sigil and the news of the local region. Crewed by enthusiastic but aged Guvnors and a staff of surly servants. Anyone physically fit enough to carry some instruments and inclined to venture outside the compound will be eagerly offered the chance to earn coin by taking measurements. They have an extensive library and a comprehensive workshop supporting the elaborate 1:10000 scale model of the local gears.
5. The Long Watch - a settlement of warforged from lost worlds, nations and peoples. Here there are warforged of many forms and long-gone species - saur, trilobites, nautiloids. The entry ways are deep archways with racks of weapons, deposited by the warforged. The inner parts are carved with memorials to wars long forgotten elsewhere. The huge, realistic friezes provide fascinating insight into battlefield tactics and equipment of these peoples. The optical illusion in the carvings makes them appear deeper than they are. The warforged themselves engage in a perpetual cycle of maintenance of their weapons and themselves and between times either expand the memorial carvings or patrol the walls.
6. Modron signalling tower - with great mirrors reflecting light on semaphore style arms this is crewed by a group of medium level modrons. They are tasked to interact with non-modrons where necessary to stop them interfering with modrons on more important (any other) tasks. Within this stronghold, modrons are tracking activities, monitoring gears and dispatching repair teams. Busy, possess comprehensive local plans.

d12 Attitudes of the denizens of Mechanus

tl;dr: how to differentiate inhabitants of the plane of Neutral Law.

From prep for the first of the Splinters of Hope planar scavenger hunt campaign one-shots these thoughts on how to run the inhabitants of Mechanus. Three major groups live in Mechanus - how should one differentiate between them?

1. Modrons - at a low level, they act like the tin-toy versions of the Borg - unless you are in their 'task' you will be worked around and ignored. Once their focus comes upon you then the lower levels will initially come at you ineffectually but tactics will evolve as they adapt - killing some of them at range will lead to the next bunch advancing under shield wall, etc.

The higher level Modrons are going to act like stuffy vulcans 'that would be illogical' type stuff. They can be conversed with but are still operating under a completely different logic paradigm and a rule book that is completely alien. They are going to talk about being entirely logical and then come to conclusions that are bizarre. The underlying patterns they are working to are ineffable to most non-modrons to the point they can appear chaotic.

2. Inevitables - these things are bad news with attitudes ranging from Judge Dredd to a 40k Space Marine - "purge the heretic", "you have been judged and the sentence is death". Totally task focused and viewing violence as the first option. In their view, by the time they have been sent to deal with a thing, it is already long past the point of discussion. At best you are going to run into these things while they are focused on something else. Next best, they are going to turn up to engage whatever was attacking you and you can flee in confusion.

3. Formians - ant centaurs - not a complete hive mind in that individual Formians have their own sentience but they are going to be completely focused on their group activity. Ant hives provide the model for this - constructing great structures, executing incredible feats of cooperation like living bridges or waging total, scouring warfare. Formians claim everything for their queens, a colonising wave, claiming and carrying off everything, including you, for service to their hive and its ruler.