Planescape: Torment

The Nameless One: Our scar-bodied protagonist. The poor berk awoke on a slab in Sigil's Mortuary with no memories of his name or of who he is. All he knows is that he can be beaten, stabbed, burned, or whatever and he gets better. He cannot die. He knows not why this is, but he's going to find out…and Elysium, Mount Celestia, the Abyss, the Nine Hells of Baator, or any other planes or Powers help whatever poor sod stands in his way.

Planescape: Torment is a Western RPG, considered by a lot of folks to be one of the best story-driven RPGs ever made. The game was developed by the recently restored Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment in 1999. These two companies are responsible for many well-respected WRPG's, including the first two Fallout games and the Icewind Dale series. The game itself was run by the Infinity Engine, an RPG game engine created by Bioware, the brains behind Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect.

Leading the design behind PS: T was none other than Chris Avellone. Avellone is a renowned video game designer and one of the brains behind many WRPGs developed by Black Isle and by its spiritual successor Obsidian Entertainment and has worked on titles such as Fallout 2, the Icewind Dale series, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Fallout: New Vegas. He is also currently working on two spiritual successors to this very game: Torment Tides of Numenera and Project Eternity. The man's writing is considered top notch by many WRPG aficionados. The man makes a habit of taking settings and subverting trends within the setting he finds irritating. Many folks consider the writing in Torment to be his finest.

However, due to a combination of people not wanting to do a little reading and poor advertising, PS: Torment didn't sell very well. Hell, I'll admit up front I didn't even begin playing the game or even hear of it until a while ago. Nonethess, its unique and compelling story earned favor with enough people to warrant it as a cult classic and after playing through the game, I'm inclined to agree with their claims of it being one of the best RPGs in existence. Many RPG trends and clichés were turned over and outright spit on in this game. Rats can be extremely dangerous creatures when they gather together. There are almost no swords in the game. Your powers increase through the aid of tattoos, jewelry, and even eyes. The characters are not dashing heroes, but rather flawed broken and tormented people and monsters. Most of all, this is not a story about saving the world or questing to find a lost powerful artifact to save the kingdom and get in the princess' panties. It is about a man who has forgotten himself and seeks to find out the truth about who or what he is, why he can come back to life after being "killed", why he has such powerful regenerative abilities that allow him to heal from even the most grievous of wounds…and why he forgets himself after each "death." He is interested in none other than this; whoever he helps, whatever city he saves, whatever universe he saves or damns, it is only a secondary effect of his main goal: the truth.

If you want to play it, it's available for legal paid download at GOG.com.

Torment takes place in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition campaign setting Planescape, in the Outer Planes. Planescape was sort of a black sheep within the Dungeons and Dragons lore. It introduced a complex series of multiple universes known as Planes. These worlds or universes can be travelled to by very complex means and intricate portals. The Planes consisted of the Prime Material planes, the Transitive Planes, the Inner Planes, and the Outer Planes. In order to fully explain all of this in detail, I have pooled together enough cash to buy the classic Planescape campaign setting handbooks, as well as possess other Planar Handbook supplements available for D&D.

Most of the game takes place within the Planescape staple city Sigil, also known as the City of Doors. Sigil is described as a Gothic, strange metropolis inhabited by all manner of folk from across the planes, a ring shaped city floating atop a spire in the center of the Outlands - and by extension, the center of the planes. Within Sigil there are innumerable doors to other places and even other planes. Overseeing this city is the enigmatic Lady of Pain, a temperamental deity-like being who doesn't take kindly to the following things: a) Worshipping her, b) worshipping another God within the confines of Sigil, and c) slaughtering her servants, the strange humanoid beings known as Dabus. Running most of the city of Sigil are also various political parties known as Factions – essentially they're described as "philosophers with clubs". I will go more into these factions and other aspects of the Planescape mythos as the Let's Play goes on.

One last thing to mention about the Planescape setting: belief. In this setting, belief can give you the power to make anything happen. Belief is power. If you believe something strongly enough, it will happen. If you believe in a deity, that deity will continue to live and grow in power. Belief can cause cities to shift. It can even cause people to will themselves or other out of existence.

This meant that players of the Planescape campaign setting couldn't allows fight their way out of problems. This system, plus the philosophies put forth by the factions encouraged the players to think of unique and creative ways to solve problems other than "ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK". This made the setting rather unpopular with munchkin players, but people who were looking for a nice change of pace in D&D welcomed the setting. And admired Tony DiTerlizzi's artwork:



Mmmm…artwork.

- Reading. Lots and lots of reading. In order to keep things reasonable, I'll cut down dialogue with NPCs I'll deem as unnecessary and replace it with a summary, but given the text-heavy nature of the game, be prepared for a lot of reading.

- Screenshots. Occasionally I'll post a video of what's going on, usually for a cinematic or something else where I think you should see the voices, but for the most part this LP is going to be screenshot based.

- Although this LP is going to be mostly commentary and informative, I'll insert as much humor as a possibly can. Some of this humor can be snarky or sarcastic and bear in mind, some of it may or may not reflect actual opinions of mine. Try to relax and enjoy yourself.

- Irregular update schedules. I'm not going to be one of those LPer's who promises regular updates. There are lots of things that can go on in my life that can interrupt my updating, be it work, school, family, or even me not being interested in working on an update at the moment. All I can say is that I'll update when I update.