I want to like the recently released Planescape books, but I find the return to always _________ alignment assumptions baked into the different planes to be an awkward fit with the direction that D&D 5e was going with Mordenkainen Presents Somethingorother and their decision to "un-evil" several previously evil humanoids. It's a strange direction that they decided to go in, but I'm also not an expert on the original Planescape, so I'm asking here: 

What do you think of the alignment-ties to planes in the new Planescape books?

How would you fit that into your campaign as a DM if you did not concentrate on galactic Good vs. eternal Evil battles in the first place?

I never really liked the alignment system to start with, and it fits poorly with the D&D cosmology. Why is Carceri aligned CE? It's a prison plane, so why not LE? Well the answer is that the hells are LE, and we can't have two LE planes, now can we (ignoring Acheron and Gehenna, which are partly CE(?) I suppose). It just feels like the planes, which are loosely based on real-world mythology, were shoe-horned into alignments to fit with the 2e Planescape pathos.

As a DM I'd abandon the planar alignments altogether, and I doubt anybody would notice a difference.

I own the set, and have quite enjoyed it. But it seems to me that the Planescape setting is tied to certain themes centered around morality. Despair, for instance, is the "theme" of hades, and the original Planescape designers must have thought that despair should be Nuetral Evil (don't ask why. I don't know why)

• Arcadia is centered around the idea of Perfection
• Mechanus is centered around the idea of balance
• Gehenna is centered around the idea of Greed
• The Abyss is centered around the idea of Destruction
• Limbo is centered around the idea of Change
• Pandemonium is centered around the idea of well... Pandemonium
• Acheron is centered around the idea of Conquest
• The 9 Hells are centered around the idea of Sin
• Bytopia is centered around the idea of Creation
• Elysium is centered around the idea of Paradise
• MT. Celestia is centered around the idea of Justice
• Carceri is centered around the idea of Punishment
• The Beastlands are centered around the idea of Nature's bounty
• Ysgard is centred around the idea of Heroism
• Hades is centered around the idea of Despair
• Arborea is centered around the idea of Celebration

At least, that is my relatively untrained observations.

~SpiderTrapper

Carceri is CE and NE because there’s no relation to order or due process to it; it simply holds whatever ends up in its grasp and never lets go, with no internal structure.

Also, regarding LE planes, Gehenna is LE as well; fitting for the plane of the yugoloths, fiendish mercenaries who will enter into contracts but can be bought out or simply choose to default on them.

As for why despair is NE, keep in mind this isn’t just a passive image of despair, the plane itself actively foments despair in any it touches. That’s fairly Evil imo.

The retention of the alignment system, and alignment-based outer planes, is not incompatible with abandoning fixed alignments for sentient creatures. In fact, I think it emphasises the moral autonomy of humanoids: Evil exists, but Orcs don’t have to be evil. 

I rather like the presentation of the Gate Towns: heavily influenced by their linked planes, but with just enough contradictory characteristics to resist being absorbed wholly into those planes. 

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Carceri is CE and NE because there’s no relation to order or due process to it; it simply holds whatever ends up in its grasp and never lets go, with no internal structure.

 
Yeah I mean... I guess. It still just feels shoe-horned.

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Carceri is CE and NE because there’s no relation to order or due process to it; it simply holds whatever ends up in its grasp and never lets go, with no internal structure.

 
Yeah I mean... I guess. It still just feels shoe-horned.

 Keep in mind that calling it the prison plane is supposed to be a description of how hard it is to escape once you're in there, not because it's an actual penitentiary.  If people living in the Planescape setting knew what a Roach Motel was, they'd call it the Roach Motel Plane.

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Carceri is CE and NE because there’s no relation to order or due process to it; it simply holds whatever ends up in its grasp and never lets go, with no internal structure.

 
Yeah I mean... I guess. It still just feels shoe-horned.

 Keep in mind that calling it the prison plane is supposed to be a description of how hard it is to escape once you're in there, not because it's an actual penitentiary.  If people living in the Planescape setting knew what a Roach Motel was, they'd call it the Roach Motel Plane.

 
I'm more compelled by the 4e lore, in which Carceri was deliberately created by the gods. But you're right, and I shouldn't assume people subscribe to that lore.

I never saw the 4E lore and nothing in 5E seems to reference it, so I think they're trying to go back to the 2E lore for the planes.

Also, 4E's alignment system was wonky.

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

Quote from The_Ace_of_Rogues >>

Carceri is CE and NE because there’s no relation to order or due process to it; it simply holds whatever ends up in its grasp and never lets go, with no internal structure.

 
Yeah I mean... I guess. It still just feels shoe-horned.

 Keep in mind that calling it the prison plane is supposed to be a description of how hard it is to escape once you're in there, not because it's an actual penitentiary.  If people living in the Planescape setting knew what a Roach Motel was, they'd call it the Roach Motel Plane.

 
I'm more compelled by the 4e lore, in which Carceri was deliberately created by the gods. But you're right, and I shouldn't assume people subscribe to that lore.

I mean, given the fact that it's called the "Tartarean Depths" the lore is arguably still valid, but it's not a nice and pretty prison where everything is organized; it's an old school gaol for powerful beings to pitch stuff they either can't or don't want to kill and also don't want to ever see again.

The Great Wheel predates Planescape by many years, and it's always been shoehorned together. It's also historically been very minimally described -- the fact that there are only six distinct groups of actually detailed inhabitants (angels, demons, devils, modrons, slaad, and yugoloths) shows just how much thought was put into the original structure of the great wheel.

The evil planes are basically "someone found a thesaurus and found different names for Hell"

• Acheron (LLE) is originally the name of a river that is the entry to the Underworld (though sometimes replaced by the Styx). Charon is the boatman here.
• Hell (LE) is a Germanic term for the an underworld specifically associated with punishment for evil.
• Gehenna (ELE) is another name for Hell; it comes from Hebrew mythology.
• Hades (NE) is is the Greek underworld; it wasn't specifically a place of punishment, though it contained areas of punishment. The Styx is one of the rivers of Hades.
• Carceri (ECE) is Italian for prison. Tartarus, it's alternate name, is a Greek equivalent of Hell.
• The Abyss (CE) is a Greek root referring to a bottomless pit, and also used as a term for Hell.
• Pandemonium (CCE) is the capital of Hell according to Paradise Lost.

Yeah, Planescape was an additional layer of politics and entities put on top of the pre-existing D&D planar cosmology.  The 5e interpretation sort of dilutes that setting to put in a "multiversal" sensibility in line with the Marvel movies sense of multiverse than what Planescape had been.  What's new and good in it isn't as thought out or explained out as well as the original Planescape texts (I mean, there just aren't as many pages) and I largely look at other works when planning relationships or interactions among the planes and/or multiverses.  Hoping the Infinite Staircase book does a better job with the planes, or at least doesn't ruin my favorite part of Tales of the Infinite Staircase.  

It wasn't as bad as what they did with Dragonlance, but it's also a lacking treatment of an established setting.

Reprints of the original Planescape are more rich in lore than stats so have some utility, and some of the mechanical stuff they propose could inspire a home brewer.  3rd party The Codex of Infinite Planes takes a lot of Planescape's planar lore (outside of the factions) adapts them to 5e, and is a much more useful reference in that regard.  Heck, even Monte Cook's Planebreaker book gives more inspired ways at of looking at other planes of existence, and creating new ones outside the traditional D&D cosmology.  

If you take away the alignment factor of planescape along with the whole moral philosophical concept, you're left with Forgoten Realms. The alignment system may be broken, but it's the essence of the campaign. It's like removing the horror of Ravenloft, or the pulp style of Eberron.

Planescape is an interesting setting in that while alignment is important, things don't easily fall along alignment lines the way they do in the Forgotten Realms or other settings.  It's a more political setting that most other D&D settings and really the only one with characters routinely acting based on realpolitik over idealism.