Planescape: Torment discussion (major spoilers not hidden at all!)

Cafe Society
1

I just finished Planescape for the first time, going through as a neutral good fighter → mage (probably the most cliche’d of paths, I know). A beautiful, deep game despite many random bugs that occured (one guy I saw for the first time acted like he had just assigned me a quest and I had completed it… another quest about trouble in the warehouse did not seem to have any trouble there… also some quests reappeared after completion if you initiate the same dialogue path).

Ahem. Anyway, one of the best things about the game was the amount of choices you had in interacting with people, in choosing which quests and actions to pursue, and in how to pursue said quests. I loved the conversation with Ravel, which could go many different ways depending on what choices you made (I was guilty of reloading the meeting to see what else would happen, and was surprised to see that if you said you loved both Annah and Fall-From-Grace, she would immediately turn hostile like a jealous lover, but if you only loved one of them, she would not! It’s like an irrational spurned lover reaction that seems to make perfect sense).

That leads me to one of my questions: how much do your choices in the game affect plot events? What happens to those who follow a more evil path? I know that in the end, there are a couple of ways to deal with the Transcendant One, and one way (merging, I believe) will lead you to ressurect your companions and send them off with good intentions. Does this work out differently if you are evil? If you’ve been mean to your companions the whole time and have not cared about them at all during the course of the game? Why would you bother resurrecting them? I suppose this works out to: do the choices you make during the game affect the ending significantly, if it all? I could understand that it would be a pain to program stuff like this, but it would increase my already high opinion of the game if it did. Might just want to go back and follow an evil path, if there were major differences.

Also, I was wondering why the Nameless One still ends up going to one of the 9 hells (Baator?), if you tried to redeem him during your quest. I mean, I always took the “good” path in all of my choices, going so far as to not reveal Pharod’s method of “collecting” even after he died-- because I promised him I wouldn’t. I did lie a couple of times, but that was mostly for a good cause, which is probably why I was neutral good instead of lawful good. In any case, I know that the Nameless One’s past incarnations had wreaked havoc on the planes, but some of them did some major good as well, especially this last one. Why wouldn’t he be sent to one of the neutral planes at least (the Outlands?)? One of the lecturers in the Sensate’s hall said that if you have evil in your heart, you will be going down there. But my Nameless One incarnation did not have evil in his heart, even though his body has committed evil acts in the past. So he should be going up, not down, right?

One other question: the Nameless One hinted that he would be returning for the others once he was done with his stint in the Lower Planes (which could be millions of years, for all we know). How does he plan on returning? Isn’t it true that if you die in the Blood War, you’re stuck there forever? I doubt even the nameless one can keep from getting killed at least once among all the powerful ta’narri and baaetzu and such. Or is his “sentence” down there one that reflects the will of a higher power, even greater than that of the masters of the lower planes? Will he automatically rise after his penance is paid, or will he have to free himself? Who is deciding what his penance is?

I am absolutely enthralled by the Nameless One and the universe he inhabits, and I need to know more about it and what’s going to happen to him!

:slight_smile:

2

Ahhh…

Anyway, you know that bit where you have to either slaughter or absorb the Good, Paranoid, and Practical incarnations? Well, if you absorb them, you become them, in a very literal sense. Since you are stronger, you retain your ego, but you still have them inside you. Also, aside from the fact that you were a raving loony and stone-cold criminal several times over, aside from the fact that the first incarnation did something so horrible that seeking out Ravel seemed a practical alternative to death, aside from the fact that your very existence was an affront to the Planes themselves, you killed someone every time you incarnated.

And if you merged with the Transcendent One, then you have every sin and evil act that every one of you committed, plus the biggies mentioned above, to atone for.

Also, the right dialoge options reveal that that guy in the Sensate’s Hall isn’t exactly the most reliable source of info on the outer planes. [Snicker]

Fact to consider: Ravel said that if the Blood War were to be over, the Planes would not be the Planes any more. It was also stated (by you, I think) that you were being damned by the Planes themselves. It therefore follows that if you manage to end the Blood War…

Okay, pick yourselves out of the aisles now. Considering that a discarded scrap of your flesh is a major artifact and that you can raise the dead at will, you’re packing some serious power. But (assuming that you can’t just kill every demon you come across, as more are coming in as petitioners all the time) fighting each other is fundamental to tanar’ri and bazztu. After all, what can change the nature of a demon?

In a less speculative sense, evil people get Vhailor on their tail, not Ignus.

3

It’s been a long time since I played Torment. I was kind of hoping my character would go to Elysium for all his good deads.

My theory at the time, when I first saw myself in Baator, was that all the nice things my character had done in the course of the game could not possibly outweigh the millions of atrocities he had commited in his lifetimes – and I was assuming his many lifetimes counted.

Another possibility – I had just read Dante’s Divine Comedy before playing that game, and in Purgatory, the souls of the dead are eager to remove the taint of sin through punishment – they willingly throw themselves into it. Maybe he was dropping by Baator, temporarily, to purge his sins?

4

This very game was discussed very recently.

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It wasn’t neccessarily the 9 Hells - There are many places in the Lower planes that look like that. The 9 Hells is just another word for Baator, but it could have been other places. Anyway, you still had to pay for your own original crimes.

And these facts may be what save him, eternally speaking. He didn’t become a petitioner - heck, he actually be rightly called a Power hismelf, albeit not a God. He CAN leave, someday.

[quote]
One other question: the Nameless One hinted that he would be returning for the others once he was done with his stint in the Lower Planes (which could be millions of years, for all we know). How does he plan on returning?

No, the Tanari’ri and Baatezu like to hire people for the Blood War, who then get killed. Before they get killed, the demons and devils often manage to damn them - its easy to fall to corruption in Hell. And given that the Nameless One is likely a level 20+ Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Bard, Ranger, Druid, Wizard (And with 3rd edition, Monk, Sorceror, and Barbarian, its entirely likely he could slaughter whole armies of fiends by himself.

Who knows? Cutter, you’re askin’ dis berk why da planes are. Even Powers like Thoth and the Lady 'O Pain herself never answered anyone about that, and dey as like as not dinnae know 'emselfs.

6

As I understand it, the Nameless One also had a number of “good” incarnations as well, which would tend to balance out the evil ones, no? I think the very last incarnation (mine) may have balanced out the first incarnation’s evil, and if all the other incarnations in between balanced out, then shouldn’t the end result be a neutral-ish sentence? Also someone replied that each reincarnation killed someone as it happened; is that true? I just thought that each incarnation spawned a shadow, not that it actually killed someone. How would Nameless’ immortality be “an affront to the Planes themselves”? There are other creatures who seek and get immortality, no? I can understand it if something else dies each time Nameless dies, though…

Ah, I thought there were two lecturers who knew what they were talking about, and one who didn’t. I’m not sure, but I thought it was one of the competent ones who clued me in on the “afterlife”.

I don’t remember much about this… Was Nameless trying to end the Blood War?

So I take it you believe that Nameless can survive however long he needs to down there, until his sentence is over?

And I think Annah has a cute tail, what’s your point? :smiley:

So if Nameless doesn’t corrupt himself for a couple of millenia, he can die down there as much as he wants and manage to rise at some point?

Ah, isn’t that just a thread for a guy asking for help in the game? I wanted to make a thread discussing the game, for those who’ve finished it.

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As I understand it, the Nameless One also had a number of “good” incarnations as well, which would tend to balance out the evil ones, no? I think the very last incarnation (mine) may have balanced out the first incarnation’s evil, and if all the other incarnations in between balanced out, then shouldn’t the end result be a neutral-ish sentence? Also someone replied that each reincarnation killed someone as it happened; is that true? I just thought that each incarnation spawned a shadow, not that it actually killed someone. How would Nameless’ immortality be “an affront to the Planes themselves”? There are other creatures who seek and get immortality, no? I can understand it if something else dies each time Nameless dies, though…

Ah, I thought there were two lecturers who knew what they were talking about, and one who didn’t. I’m not sure, but I thought it was one of the competent ones who clued me in on the “afterlife”.

I don’t remember much about this… Was Nameless trying to end the Blood War?

So I take it you believe that Nameless can survive however long he needs to down there, until his sentence is over?

And I think Annah has a cute tail, what’s your point? :smiley:

So if Nameless doesn’t corrupt himself for a couple of millenia, he can die down there as much as he wants and manage to rise at some point?

Ah, isn’t that just a thread for a guy asking for help in the game? I wanted to make a thread discussing the game, for those who’ve finished it.

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Somehow the way the Nameless one became immortal was very bad for the structure of the planes, probably due to Ravel’s Evil influence. It was definatly very unnatural, since the Nameless one is apparently the only person in the history of the planes who became immortal by having his Mortality spilt from his body. And thus, every time his body died, someone else on the planes would just drop dead and become a shadow. Something is very not right there and I take it extremely rare. He seriously pissed somebody off or corrupted the mechaims of the plans, either through his original sin or ravel’s immortality ritual.

Perhaps some kind of universal Balance or something? (Did anyone ever play the old Legend game Death Gate?) Also, we don’t know exactly what the nameless one eventually did to be comdemned to hell, but it was apparently pretty damn bad, considering someone describes it “The planes have been dying of it ever since”. Couple that with the creation of shadows and it implies the dead was very, very evil or wrong. Perhaps the way he was made immortal and put into torment was partly because of what he did? THat is was perhaps part of his punishment beyond hell?

Though somehow I got the idea that the things the Nameless one did before he regained his mortality on his last incarnation didn’t even touch his original sin, rather making up for perhaps some of the evil he had done since becoming immortal(The Remember, the pratical incarnation was a cold-blooded bastard. Using people selfishly(Dak’kon, Morte, Dianorria), killing people for no reason at all, etc). I think that if he was very lucky, his good deeds during the scope of the game made up for all the evil he had done since becoming immortal, but there’s no way to know.

I don’t know if the Nameless one can leave hell, but Grace implies he can leave eventually(or was she implying the opposite?). I need to replay that again.

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Thing is, to a point those other lives you’ve led didn’t count. You’re sentence was for your first life, and you never paid. That dept has been waiting around no-one-knows how many years and it finally caught up to you. Your reward for all your lives is that you get to leave eventually, when you’ve paid out.

Nothing in the Planes, not even the mightiest Powers has as much immortality as your do, with the POSSIBLE exception of an Uber-God, such as Ao from Forgotten Realms (no, I will not explain, but as far as I know those may or may not exist from the Planescape perspective. In FR, the Planes do not exist like they do in Planescape. You were basically unkillable, and not even the Powers can claim that honestly. Every time the Nameles One died, it killed someone else, who became a shadow creature. The game implies, but does not state, that these couldn’t really be “killed” either.

I got the impression that in theory, he could leave anytime. But he needs inside himself to pay the debt his life incurred. This whole mess started in the Blood War, and this is where his story ended, at least for now.

In a sense, hes already corrupted beyond anything the fiends could imagine. And at the same time, he’s more good than the Upper Planes would admit. I think that after all these years, he is far, far beyond the pathetic banalities of the tanar’ri and Baatezu.

Plus, from what I saw, he was likely to go off an kill every fiend that bothered him. And he could do it, too. He has all his powers, super-regeneration, a bucketload of Hit Points, and all the might that EVERY OTHER incarnation ever had. And these guys have probably picked up every skill, trade, and piece of lore on the Planes at one point or another. I’d be surprised if there was something he didn’t know how to do.

You know, they’ve said that Planescape made more money than most people thought, and there was the probability they’d look into making another Planescape game sometime…

I’m pretty sure this describes his immortality, not his original crime.

Grace says that she’ll be waiting for him when he comes back from the Lower Planes.

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One question that really baked my noodle: Deionarra said that you would encounter three shades, one evil, one good, and one neutral. Which was which?

Take Practical. One one hand, he was trying to do the exact same thing you are. Almost succeeded. Yeah, he broke a few eggs in the course of his omelette. What’s your bodycount, berk? If you allow intentions, he should be either neutral or good.
Similarly, if you’re only looking at intentions, Good would be neutral, as his goal was to help himself, and Paranoid would be evil, for lashing out at everyone. Or optionally, Paranoid is insane, and neutral, and Good and Practical can be either good or evil (Rememebr, Good started this whole mess).

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If they ever made another Planescape game, and I pray nightly before a wax effigy of Feargus Urquhart that they do, I hope it won’t feature the Nameless One. I think his story is over now: he has his name restored, he’s learned about his past, and he’s now doing time in the Blood War for the next few millenia.

On the other hand, I would love it if they followed the same formula in making the player character an actual character, with his (or her) own past and personality, albeit customised by the player. I think it added huge amounts to the game that the Nameless One was a solid, central character right from the start, not just ‘the hero guy stuff happens to’ like in the Fallout or Baldur’s Gate series.

Did that make sense? I’m not sure I’m getting my point across

That’s a bit I’ve never gotten. Is Fall-from-Grace just willing to do this for the Nameless One as a friend, or did I miss a whole bunch of romantic subtext along the way?

12

I liked that too. I much prefer it when computer roleplaying games start like Torment did. The world in it seemed a whole lot more real than in Baldur’s Gate just because the main character was a set person.

Baldur’s gate and it’s sequel had the problem of having to set up a storyline that could accomodate any possible race/sex/alignment and the narrative suffered for it.

Fallout was a sort of halfway in that the story only had the sex and alignment variables to accomodate.

Actually, come to think of it Torment was more of an Adventure game/RPG in the vien of the Quest For Glory series. That’s why I liked it so much.

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On the other hand, due to the fact of the multiple incarnations, you could create your own character while still having the backstory be consistent. Difficult to do that with a normal character.

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No, you’ve got it all wrong. It didn’t refer to the Nameless One at all. remeber the Order she gave: three of Evil of Good, and OF Neutrality.

That’s Ravel (evil, albeit not totally so), Trias (good, albeit with problems), and well, The Transcendant One (neutral, in the sense that it was only ionterested in its own private and self-contained ends; selfish but not cruel)

Each was “twisted and given life by the laws do the planes”

And None was “more dangerous than yourself in your full glory”.

Depends. Grace and Annah, err… really liked you. You fascinated them and they, err… kinda fell in love with you. But you may or may not have found that out in the game. However, remember, she’s immortal, so she won’t age or die of old age, and she’s tough enough that she isn’t going to break her neck falling down the stairs. She and Morte will be waiting for you, at the least. Who knows about Dak’kon, Nordom, Vhailor, or Annah. they are likely to be dead.

Of course, given the planes, this may not stop them from waiting.

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Yeah, it’s a problem. Without reusing the multiple incarnations and/or amnesia trick, you’d need a somewhat bizzare situation to have a character who both has an in-game background and image, and make him fairly customizable too. However, the Planes are just teeming with bizzare situations, no? I think the Black Isle team could come up with something.

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Annah makes it rather obvious towards the end(but there are hints earlier on), Grace less so but there is some subtext.

Get her into combat, though…

Well, Vhailor survived for centuries, maybe milliena after his body died, just through the sheer force of will and his dedication to Justice. He’s more likely then Dak’kon, Nordom or Annah to be there at the end. But he wouldn’t care by then, since you got your punishment.

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Well, in her ordinary life she doesn’t, and by the end there she was pretty tough, and was well able to take on a pretty nasty creature mano-a-succubi. I don’t think she usually has to worry about combat.

Yeah, that’s why I stuck him with all the rest.

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I see… I guess not even the good deeds can balance out the warped kill-random-creatures-every-time-I-die immortality of Nameless.

Hmm, I’m not sure Nameless is as unkillable as you make him out to be. I mean, he can be killed finally (or just as finally as any other mortal) with really powerful spells (Lady of Pain, if you mess with her a second time), or with creatures that digest him (said so in the manual). Also, I recall reading that gods in the multiverse (which I believe include both Forgotten realms and Planescape together) could not be killed except for by lack of worshippers. Their avatars (worldly incarnations) could be killed, but not the gods themselves, or so I thought.

So it is a self-imposed penance? I find that a bit hard to believe, since the original incarnation seemed to think he was stuck to his fate and that there wasn’t anything he could do about it. That is, I believe, what compelled him to try his hand at long period of redemption via immortality. If he could leave at any time, then why would all that be necessary? If I were Nameless and feeling guilty, I would not subject myself to years in hell; I would use my immortality to continue redeeming myself by being a nosy do-gooder everywhere in the Planes. I think his exile is enforced, but it is the mechanism that confuses me. I know we’re just a couple of berks in a Hive, but I wonder whether it is the Planes themselves that are punishing Nameless, or whether it is some Overgod of sorts.

True enough; Nameless is powerful. But remember, some of the demons in the lower planes have been living for longer than Nameless has! I doubt Nameless would really be all-powerful down there; sure he could hold his own against an abishai or two, but I doubt he can really impose his will on a group of greater Tanari or anything.

Man I hope so. This was quite possibly the best computer game I’ve played, with the possible exception of Fallout and Half-Life (considering the TFC and Counterstrike mods). And all that in spite of the numerous bugs!

I second the notion that Planescape v.2 should be an all new story, though of course plenty of references to the original could be woven in (a dagger named Morte’s Ingrown Tooth which spews curses that causes all mothers with infants to recoil in horror unless a saving throw is made at -2)

I was trying to get with Grace the whole game but it never happened :frowning:

I would be intrigued as to what would happen if the life-draining succubus were to get it on with a regenerating immortal…

19

It gets better. Look, think of raw AD&D for a minute. Who gains more experience, and thus power: the human adventurer who goes on quests and risks his life for 20, or the high-elf who never leaves home for 1000 years? Now take an immortal lifespan chock-full of high-risk adventuring, and add that the Nameless is mortality incarnate (if he can make dead people live, it stands to reason he can make live people die.) The Nameless one had some Power-level powers at the end of Torment, and his entire purpose is to fight in the Blood War and possibly end it through attrition millenia hence. And finally, I really doubt that anything can kill him anymore.

20

Not to subtract from your (Good) points, but when the Nameless one arrived in Hell, did he remember anything? From what I’ve read, Most(all?) Petioners don’t remember their lives before they arrived wherever. Was that a blank look on the face of the nameless one when he arrived at the end, or just that of someone resigned to their fate?