Labels are rarely as useful as they pretend to be, but mentioning Planescape: Torment to any RPG or video game expert as “one of the best RPGs of all time” is more likely to be met with a “you know what you’re talking about” smile than a “get out of here” scoff. In 1999, developer Black Isles Studios took the vast Dungeons & Dragons setting known as Planescape and used it to build a revolutionary genre-defining masterpiece that is still studied and discussed today. Despite that, Planescape: Torment never got a sequel, and it remains, to this day, the only D&D video game to take place in that setting.
Other D&D games made brief forays into Sigil — the city at the center of the setting, where most of the story of Planescape: Torment takes place — or into the many planes that exist in the D&D multiverse structure, but none made this bizarre, highly imaginative setting its focus. And it’s not just video games. Dungeons & Dragons has also been surprisingly shy of returning to Planescape in its TTRPG products, despite the success of 1994’s Planescape Campaign Setting, the boxed set that started it all. Except for a brief return to Sigil in the 4th Edition Dungeon Master’s Guide 2, D&D fans had to wait until 2023 to get a three-volume box set titled Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse.
Interestingly, there were originally three Planescape video games planned at Black Isle, but the other two were canceled during development. From the start, Planescape: Torment was destined to be an only child.
There are probably multiple explanations for this little mystery, but one that can be excluded is that the setting didn’t hit with fans. Designed by David “Zeb” Cook, the Planescape Campaign Setting changed the way people look at D&D. The concept of a cosmology built on different planes of existence is currently so ingrained in the game’s lore that most players take it for granted, but it wasn’t so before 1994. Mentions of other planes had been scattered throughout a bunch of products, notably Deities and Demigods and the Manual of the Planes, but Cook arranged it all around some ideas that are cohesive, sophisticated, and inspiring.
Namely, the concept that Sigil is ruled by factions rooted in philosophies, overseen by the silent and inscrutable Lady of Pain, was a subversion of many fantasy RPG tropes of the time, which operated on a rigid dichotomous setting. Cook’s famous “Rule of Threes” — a cosmic principle that posits things tend to happen in threes — uproots the basic tenet of “good vs. evil” and “heroes vs. monsters” that supported the imaginary of classic D&D. It expands players’ experiences by encouraging them to approach problems laterally, including moral choices. And it’s the root on which Planescape: Torment‘s award-winning storytelling is built.
