Remember that satirical recruitment slogan for the army? "Journey to unique foreign lands, meet interesting and exciting new people, and kill them." Well, that's how many Advanced Dungeons & Dragons players feel about a trip to the planes-that it's an exotic monster safari (or a death sentence, depending on the whim of the Dungeon Master). DMs send player characters to the stomping grounds of fiery tanar'ri, logical modrons, almighty deities, and other creatures beyond imagination just to let the PCs do some stomping-or get stomped in turn. That can be fun, but the vast AD&D multiverse should be more than just a big dungeon. And the Planescape campaign setting puts all the wonder within reach. Planescape makes it possible, desirable, and even easy to run fascinating adventures and long-term campaigns in the Outer Planes, the Inner Planes, the Ethereal, and the Astral. See, the planes aren't about racking up weird kills and finding odd treasures. They're places of endless majesty and mystery, colorful realms where the familiar laws of physics and reason go out the window. The immediate goal-simple survival-depends more on ingenuity than strength, because there's always something tougher around the bend. The greater goal-learning the secrets of the multiverse and your character's place in it-depends on the power of philosophy and belief, because on the planes, faith can literally move mountains. That doesn't mean a paladin can just think a holy sword into his hands. It does mean that if he holds strongly to his beliefs, he can try to impose them on his surroundings and shape the destiny of the multiverse. Naturally, he can't do it alone; he needs to throw in with others who believe the same things. Groups of like-minded thinkers called factions struggle constantly to convince everyone else that their path is the right one, that their beliefs are the truest and the best (see The Factol's Manifesto for full details). For example, members of the Xaositects want to share the random beauty of chaos wherever they go. Those who belong to the Harmonium feel that only law and order-specifically, their law, their order-can keep the peace. All of the factions think they're doing the right thing, but they sometimes resort to harsh methods to spread their doctrines; that's why we call them "philosophers with clubs." Of course, there's a lot more to do in a Planescape campaign than just sit around and think. Faction affiliation is a bit like alignment; it offers a set of guidelines to follow, but life still must be lived. And the adventure of the multiverse is inexhaustible-after all, the planes are infinite. From the clockwork gears of Mechanus to the swirling soup of Limbo to the bottomless terror of the Abyss, the planes can and do hold everything. Heroes might need to convince a godlike titan of Carceri to set free a dwarf spirit sent there by mistake (a scenario from the Well of Worlds anthology), or prevent a rising tide of savagery on the Beastlands from drowning the multiverse in blood (Something Wild), or stop a violent madman from carrying out a ritual designed to turn himself into an honest-to-goodness deity (Harbinger House).

Step through the nearest portal. Open the door to adventure-and open your mind to the rich potential of the AD&D multiverse.