Customer Reviews

Faction War (AD&D/Planescape Adventure)

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STORYLINE (in my own words): Once upon a time, there was a man named Duke Darkwood, the leader of a philosophical/political faction called the Fated. He was a hard-working, but stubborn man who was either busy trying to clean up his faction's evil, theif-like reputation, annoying his nemisis Erin Montegomery as well as the leaders of the other factions, or planning to destroy the Lady of Pain and claim Sigil, the City of Doors, as his own. One day, he finds some interesting information that could make his goal of conquering Sigil come true: There is a magical gem and a special spell which have the power to kill the Lady of Pain once and for all. After years of searching, his quest comes to a successful end. Now he has started to disrupt the peace in Sigil by piting the factions against each other while he attempts to carry out his plan.

COMMENTS: Faction War is different from most fantasy stories/game modules because when the heroes (the players) appear, they are stuck on the side-lines, trying to survive in Sigil during the war. In the course of the story, the heroes find out about the gem and the spell thanks to a fiendish but friendly shopkeeper named A'kin. I'll let you read the rest of the story.

There is also a bunch of extra information concerning the Planescape setting. Another reason to buy this book.

SIMILLAR MOVIES: Record of Lodoss War (The English dubbed version is the best! Available here on Amazon.Com)

RELATED (AND NEEDED) BOOKS: Uncaged: Faces of Sigil (This book gives more details on the characters found in Faction War), Planescape Campaign (extra information on Duke Darkwood), and Factol's Manifesto (main info on Duke Darkwood). These books are also available on Amazon.Com

This adventure was one of the last Planescape products to be published since Planescape was discontinued with the announcement of 3rd edition AD&D.

The author, Monte Cook, is a veteran gamer and has demonstrated his ability in the past to design Planescape material such as "Dead Gods" and "The Great Modron March".

This adventure rips the heart (i.e. the factions) out of Sigil and leaves nothing behind to fill the void.

"Faction War" totally invalidates one of the best Planescape products produced, "The Factols Manifesto". Sigil is left in shambles and over a dozen of its best NPCs removed without hesitation.

The adventure itself is rather tame. Most of it is just a scavenger hunt through Sigil. The few locales your characters travel to aren't any more creative than the ones described in "In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil". The 128 pages could have been better spent on another Planescape Monstrous Compendium or a detailed tour of the Abyss or Baator.

It is a very poor note to end Sigil on because there will be no further Planescape products in the near future to correct this mistake or redefine the city.

"Faction War" is an excellent story. Its twists and turns, and especially the bits about the progression of the war between the Harmonium and the Doomguard, and later between the Xaositects and the Harmonium (after the Doomguards' virtual destruction) makes for compelling reading. I won't give the dark of the adventure away, but the ending (and the fate of Duke Darkwood) were wonderfully satisfying. HOWEVER... I do not recommend the use of this product in an existing Planescape campaign. Not unless the DM plans on following through with all the changes that affect Sigil by the end of the war.Again, the ending is not set in stone; the authors leave it completely open for an innovative DM to have the war happen and leave the Factions in place and have Sigil go back to where it was as much as it possibly can considering how much was destroyed. You know, it occurs to me that "Faction War" could very possibly be an ending to the 2nd ed. Planescape universe in the same way that the war of the gods was an ending to the 1st ed. Forgotten Realms universe. Mere speculation on my part. Summing up: Faction war's a good read, but it's a disastrous addition to an existing Planescape campaign. Use with extreme caution.

It is a tradition that all major AD&D campaign sttings sooner or later will met with "the end of the civilization as we know it".Dark Sun,Forgotten Realms and many others.For Toril the all-new makeup was a revolution with many good aspects. New designers made many effort for creating (with various effect) a deep,colourful vision of this prime.Athas is dead.Greyhawk was dead and it should rest in peace. TSR simply don't have enough money to support so many product lines.Thats what I'm able to uderstand,but why our beloved PLANESCAPE is getting worse and worse since the mentor ("Zeb") is gone from credits of most of the PS releases. Monte Cook creating multiverse affecting adventure should think about this two,or better,three times. About three years ago I've created very similar adventure.The main topic was "Kriegstanz".It involved many more sides of the conflict than in "Faction War".It's not that simple to gather all of the chant from Manifesto or In the Cage and launch something that devastating. "Faction War" is too short,too simple. Why the next PS products will include that stupid scheme.I don't know. Why do they released War before many other interesting subjects like "City of Sigil"? This is beginning of the end.PLANESCAPE lives only through Mimir.Net community. If anyone is interested in my vision of this chapter of Sigil history,please contact me.

As with the case of George Lucas and 'Star Wars', Monte Cook chooses to end his creation by childishly smashing all of his toys so that nobody else can play with them. In one fell swoop, everything that made the Planescape setting intriguing is removed; the Sigil that exists after this dire product is bled dry of all its most fascinating elements.

There are two main problems with 'Faction War'. Firstly, all the best elements of Sigil, those which make the setting unique, are destroyed and nothing of any interest is set up in their stead.

Secondly, the whole thing suffers from a typical faliure of 2nd Edition products - the involvement of the PCs is ultimately meaningless. They are rail-roaded into a pre-determined conclusion in which nothing they say or do makes any difference. At best they are along for the ride, there to push the 'Plot Button' - but if they try to do anything that runs contrary to the end of the plot, the Lady of Pain over-rules them anyway. Ultimately, they have no choices to make and most players will feel nothing but bafflement at the end of the pre-determined plot.

Handled properly, 'Faction War' might have been a chance for the PCs to actually become involved in the enfolding story (trying to become the new factols, or fight against their long-term enemies in a final battle, etc) and actually make a difference. As it is, the end of Planescape suffers from 'Forgotten Realms Syndrome' where the involvement of the players is wholly unneccesary. Considering how Planescape was supposed to be about 'belief changing the nature of the world', this is a disappointing and unsatisfying ending to the product line. Planescape will always be remembered as one of the most imaginative D&D settings ever envisaged, but 'Faction War' never comes close to doing it justice.

I have very mixed opinions about Faction War. Much as I lauded White Wolf for bringing the long-touted end to the World of Darkness, I'll praise Monte Cook and the remaining Planescape developers who put in their work here: they had the chutzpah to bring about the cataclysm that's been boiling up for centuries.

The execution, however, left something to be desired.

I'd given the Planescape line several years and a few hundred dollars when Faction War was released. I bought it from a book warehouse the same week, and pored over it for details. The good points included:
- New locations with detailed maps
- New planar magical items
- New NPCs
- New "current events" to add flavor to the game
- Subdivisions of the city's wards into districts and neighborhoods, each with its own character and attitude

Given that most of this was in the first few pages, I had high expectations for the rest of what I was about to read. Perhaps that's why I was left so soured by the experience.

The clumsy use of thematic elements really takes away from what could otherwise be a wonderful module. In trying to tie up any loose ends, Faction War does not lack for content, but definitely has the feel of several square pegs stuffed together in a round hole. Of the touched-on rumors from earlier books, all are true (one prominent city leader is actually a spirit of the dead, another succumbs to madness as briefly hinted at in his bio, and so on). The predictability of all of it is disappointing, glazed over as it was with wide brush-strokes.

Duke Rowan Darkwood, a prominent political figure who features regularly in Planescape source material, spontaneously gives up his interest in the greater good and pursues power for his own benefit, seeking a shortcut to take over the City of Doors and destroy the power bases of the other factions therein. It's believable, at least (the Duke is usually represented as a narcissistic megalomaniac), but again, predictable to the point of being dull.

The Lady of Pain is the godlike ruler of the city, who meets threats to her realm by spiriting them off to "the Mazes": an endless labyrinthine prison outside of time, personalized to the captive, where they can think out their wrongdoings for eternity. Weeks before the war begins -- before anyone has taken any violent initiative, in fact -- she randomly decides to pick out faction leaders everywhere (*except* Darkwood, the only one who poses a threat) and imprison them, despite the fact that they have done her and her city no wrong. Why? We never find out. Darkwood does end up Mazed, but only after he's done all his damage and the fighting has started.

The Blood War, another major element of the Planescape setting, is also stuffed into the mix for little apparent reason. One day, fiends invade the city and lay waste to each other, destroying everything between them as they do. While plot does seem to tie it in with the overarching story, the knots are very loose.

There are also plenty of consequences following the action that make little or no sense. Take, for example, the fate of the Doomguard, a faction of militant nihilists who belive that everything is falling apart (and often take steps to ensure destruction on a large scale). Early on in the action, a major battle at their city headquarters leaves the place a wreck and costs hundreds of lives... and the Doomguard, who still number many thousands more, *withdraw*. Rather than further their precious entropy, most of them run off to hide in their citadels on far-removed planes.

Another example: in the aftermath, two factions (the Sign of One, who believe that all things are created by thought, and the Believers of the Source, who hold that all beings are innately divine) give up their very different beliefs and merge into a new faction altogether, with no explanation. Why the sudden spontaneous loss of faith for so many tens of thousands, most of whom weren't even involved in the faction war in any way? Again, a subject that's never touched on; it's only said that both factions cease to be... a statement that echoes the plot-driven and very forced feeling of the entire book.

Faction War has redeemable elements, but is otherwise a poor substitute for anything a creative writer can come up with in its stead.

At the center of the multiverse hovers the strange city of Sigil. It is the source of pain -- the fundamental experience of sentient beings. For 600 years (about the time, in our world, since the Renaissance changed the focus of human inquiry from religion to human epxerience itself), Sigil has been governed by factions -- representing different ways in which people make sense of the essential fact of suffering. The Signers become self-absorbed, the Harmonium try to force virtue on others, the Guvnurs look to science for a better world, the Sensates embrace experience for its own sake, the Dust Folk seek the peace of death, and so forth. Organized religions ("the gods" / "the powers") have far less of a claim on the human heart, and hence have long been unable to enter Sigil.

In today's world, as in the Sigil of "Faction Wars", people now come to blows over ideology rather than religious sectarianism. As our world has changed, so does Sigil. When first one faction, then another, tries to force itself on the whole of Sigil, all find themselves banned.

"Faction War" appears very playable. An old Prime Plane curse is "May you live in an interesting period of history." But being surrounded by a cataclysm, and being able to impact on it, should make for thrilling gaming. At the climax, the players themselves can choose (?) the future of Sigil. Here we can realize the promise made at Planescape's inception -- that character's beliefs and attitudes will really shape their world.

"Planescape" derives from "adult" comics and their disturbing visions. Even those of us who believe (as I do) the universe is ultimately a far happier and gentler place than "the planes" can see our own minds and experience mirrored in "Faction War".

Sigil will surely continue to be a breeding-ground for philosophies. Michael Moorcock's central city, "Tanelorn", was a place of tolerance and peace, devoted as much to Concord as old Sigil is to Opposition. While AD&D scenarios will always focus on conflict, perhaps our own world will become wiser.

As has been said multiple times by reviewers to this point, Faction War changes the face of the Planescape campaign world. Nevertheless, it's worth repeating: little in the Planes will be the same after this book. Luckily, the adventure itself is great. The character development and non-linear play allows for some fun role-playing. The group I DM for really enjoyed it; however, I made the serious mistake of making this our first adventure in the Planes. Most of us had played Planescape: Torment and pretty much all of us had read the campaign set, but still, the sweeping changes were a bit much for a first adventure. If you've got a campaign that's run in the Planes for a good while, this adventure is truly unique. The plot is amazingly complicated and well-written. It succeeds because it is different from other adventures: there is no single bad guy. Sigil isn't about black and white, berk, its about gray. In this book, not all sides are obvious; I had more inner-party squabbles than ever before, giving us some role-playing opportunities we'd not had before. My only qualm with the book is its ending. Not the sweeping changes it implements or even the actual ending of the plot-just how the PCs have a chance to never learn what happened. My players didn't even know the adventure was done until I gave them a few visions. Perhaps it's just the way my campaign went, but the end just didn't quite work for us. I would still recommend this book to any hardcore Planescape DM. After all, with third edition coming, who knows how many more, if any, adventures will be forthcoming in the future?

It's certainly not for someone who likes Sigil the way it is, but if you are looking for a fascinating change in the Planescape Multiverse, Faction War is an excellent adventure. The PCs are given the chance to solve many of the mysteries posed in the previous Sigil products (Factol's Manifesto, In the Cage, etc). Many of the entirely new findings add to the flavor of Sigil as well, and the ending leaves the PCs open to solve post-war conflicts. Addressing the comments made by those that disliked this book... I found that most of the negative remarks did not speak to this issue of book's quality, but rather personal opinions on whether Sigil should have a war. If you don't want to see a Faction War, don't buy this book! But, if you want to see an exciting change and a nonstatic multiverse, this is a must.

I found it quite disappointing reading many of the reviews on this sight in that they TOTALLY ignored the content of this adventure, choosing instead to whine about its changed to their precious campaign setting. While Sigil was cool beforehand, the ending opens more doors than it closes. This advenure has a solid plotline, one of the most intriguing character developments in Duke Rowan Darkwood, and the coolest twists and turns that no one can anticipate. Yes, it does change Sigil forever, but the rest of the cosmos are not much affected. My only recommendation is that a dm run it for much higher levels than recommended, allowing PCs to experience Sigil as is first. Then after all the other adventures are played to hit this one. The adventure is much more focused on roleplay than hack-and-slash, and the encounters are easily customizable for higher levels. All in all, a good adventure for those deep enough to appreciate it.