Friday, September 20, 2013

Planes stat block

In discussing the planes we (my editor and I) came up with the idea of a "stat block for the planes," detailed below. 
  • Plane Name
  • Description (executive summary designed to get GMs very interested to play this plane)
  • Alignment (with a note about what exactly makes it evil/neutral/lawful/good/chaotic)
  • Conditions (describe the atmosphere, weather, gravity, fauna, flora)
  • Movement (is movement affected? how?)
  • Magic (how is magic affected, if at all?)
  • Key features (geographical regions, other types of regions, cool qualities, traits, quirks)
  • Key locations (major settlements, cool adventure sites, places of local legend...)
  • Dangers (potential cool encounters. booya!)
  • NPCs 
  • Optional: players lore - or maybe we use the Description for this - might save some writing, and the Description is meant to create strong desire to GM/play the plane anyway)
What, if anything are we missing from this idea?  When I  did a write up using this system, it didn't seem "right"

3 comments:

  1. most of my (published) notes on campaign and setting design can be found in posts linked to from http://www.kjd-imc.org/hall-of-fame/setting-design/campaign-and-scenario-design/

    In this case specifically I'd look at the Entity Definition template found in http://www.kjd-imc.org/2011/04/25/campaign-setting-design-definitions/ -- I try to capture everything important at a high level, then drill down to lower-level detail. The template contains elements that map fairly well to the fields you describe in the stat block.

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  2. How do you get in/out? Are there fixed entry points? Does it co-exist with a transitional plane? Is it folded such that it's nearly impossible to find?

    Who resides there? Are there specific races? What are their characteristics? What are they like in general, toward strangers, towards others on the plan?

    Appearance: Regardless of features and conditions...what does it look like to someone who steps into it?




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    Replies
    1. Thank you for these other suggestions. I have a working list called "spell keys" of various planes. Some of them are pretty outrageous!

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