'Have you seen a journal?' 'No.' 'Updated my journal.'

A note about getting mazed. If I remember correctly you find a journal made of skin in the camp inside the maze that tells you how to scape, and if you pass a check the nameless one recognizes it's his skin, meaning he have been mazed before.

The initial summary is greatly appreciated

“Your Analysis skills are most impressive, Resonant Arc.” “They are but specks upon Zerthimon's path.”

In knowing the teachings of Zerthimon, I have grown fond of this podcast

Your comments on co-creative fantasy are really good. It is in fact exactly what D&D is -- you have a story teller, a dungeon master, but all the best games the story is not just dished out by the DM to the players, the players and the DM bounce off each other to tell the story. The DM gives leads and hints and threads, and what the player thinks is going on is often what the DM will make as the answer, or at least use to inspire what the answer is. In this way, Planescape faithfully represents its tabletop lineage. Do you guys have a history with TTRPGs or D&D? If so, your thoughts on it as a story telling medium would make a great one shot episode one day.

some of what you talked about at the end reminded me of Ghost in the Shell, specifically Mamoru Oshii's 1995 adaptation. In that story Major Katsuragi is not an AI, but rather someone who used to be a "normal" human. She has become an entirely cybernetic being, other than her "ghost" or personality which is implanted on a manufactured shell. She has an existential crisis, but not due to lacking knowledge of who she is, but rather where "she" ends and "the world" begins. She jokes at one point that even though she's free to quit her government job, she would have to give up her shell and all classified information in her ghost, so there "wouldn't be much left after THAT"

The Lady of Pain is one of the oddest beings in D&D. In a game most famous for providing the rules she breaks all of them. She's one of the very few beings in the whole game who has *never* had official stats. She's not a god, she can keep all of the gods out of Sigil, if her shadow touches you you just die, and she only has two perceptible rules: No gods in Sigil and no worshipping her.

think the new format is working quite well - giving a recap of the events you're covering and then discussing parts of it in this way instead of getting bogged down in the kinda moment to moment minutiae is something that a book re-read that i am reading atm also did to great effect, imo.

Hope this actually gets to you, I have a constructive criticism for you. Whenever you have guests I firmly believe you should try to involve them more in the conversations. Usually the guest says something and then we don't hear from them for a long time and it's just you guys (which is great if you didn't have a guest), keep up the great work!

The ideologies being extreme is part of the lore, I believe. Since you are exploring the planes of morality/ideology, the players will experience the most extreme versions of every ideology available. Balance isn't a thing that exists in these planes, even the lawful good planes are extreme in the way they approach that philosophy. I also don't believe the factions are intended to be part of the choices the player makes when developing their identity. You are forced to join certain factions in parts of the story, and that revokes membership to previous factions you may have joined. Also you aren't allowed to join some of the factions, like the Harmonium. The factions are just part of the story, and there are some minor roleplaying elements with joining some of them, but it isn't a big focus of the game.

(1) With regards to the introductory sequence of the game, see Chris Avellone: “So we decided to have the game begin where most RPGs end: on the death screen. In other RPGs, you die, you see the death screen, you reload. In Torment, every death screen is an opportunity to advance the story.” It’s also not a coincidence that he began the story with the Dustmen, who flip the script on death and life. Thinking more philosophically, Mike and Casen rightly pointed out that the horizon of death and suffering is what prompts reflection over existence or "philosophy". Schopenhauer argued something similar when he defined the negative as that which has “actual” existence (as compared to the “positive”), which awakens us from indolence and prompts us to genuinely think. Susan Neiman has a really interesting book on this topic called “Evil in Modern Thought,” where she argues that the history of modern philosophy is a byproduct of theorisations on the part of human beings in response to the problem of evil, suffering, and death.

If I remember correctly there's a character that explains it but the Lady of Pain issues punishments depending on the offense/number of offenses The first maze is sort of like "Stop and don't do it again" type of thing and as you continue to break her rules you start getting those inescapable mazes and true death (in the game I think she just outrights kills you and is one of the few characters that gives you a game over)

Planescape isn't gross, only rough. it looks awesome

My interpretation of O, is that the sound O is a piece of his infinite nature that exists within humanity's finite perception. So he is the sound O, he's just also infinitely more.

Max Derrat is great.

if anyone is interested in learning more about TSR and the people who wrote the original Planescape setting books I recommend 2 resources. Shannon Appelcline's Designers and Dragons series and Ben Riggs' Slaying The Dragon. The latter is based on alot of historical records from the times as well as a wealth of interviews with the surviving TSR employees. TSR has an interesting history and it's nice to understand the context surrounding these publications.

Let's goooooo part two I just listened to part one again at work!

Wonderful episode. I love how dak'kons experience with TNO essentially mirrors the Gith's enslavement by the mindflayers. I assume you'll discuss Deionarra later. However, I'd like to highlight the emotionally profound experience of meeting someone who was supposedly your former lover, yet The Nameless One (TNO) doesn't remember her at all. It made me emotionally confused about which dialogue options to choose since neither we, the players, nor TNO himself have any connection to her. I have more thoughts on this and Deionarra as a whole, but I'll leave them for later. For now I'd just like to point out the significant impact that words of affection can have towards someone. (Also, shoutout to Jennifer Hale).

Pathrfinder kingmaker , wrath of the righteous , disco elysium , tyranny, pillars of eternity 1 and 2, divinty original sin 2, baldurs gate 1 to 3, etc are still great games that are like planescape torment. You've been engrossed into jrpgs too much - which is not a con but you're missing out on some of the best stuff in gaming - mature crpgs! do play them all.

I had my first existential crisis when I was about 7-8 years old was when I realized that living forever could be just as horrifying as dying because I would eventually run out of new video games to play. I would eventually be consumed by an infinite boredom for eternity after having done every interesting thing I could ever possibly do. Obviously, that realization was limited by an 8 year old's understanding of existence and spirituality. Now I think I get why enlightenment means letting go of attachment and desire as we understand it. That would be a basic requirement to move on to an eternal existence.

One of my favourite lines from community reminds me of what planescape seems to be saying “Guys, everyone's faith is weird.” I feel like you guys should watch “the lobster”. Not so heavy philosophically, but it’s a really funny social commentary.

(2) On the topic of “belief,” I find it interesting too that all these different factions have and represent systematic ways of belief in and of themselves as well. And it’s humanly impossible to not hold onto any beliefs: even the belief to not belief is itself a belief. The point, then, is for the game to abstractly interrogate one's beliefs, magnified and exaggerated as they may be in the Planescape universe, and to ask one to consider why and how and under what conditions does one believe that which one believes.

Mourns-for-Trees spoke to me as a 15 year old playing this back in the day.

the ship thing can be extended: as time goes by, every piece is replaced, not only you can question "is it the ship or a copy?" or "when was the moment it stopped being the real ship and became something new?", but... what if somebody kept the old parts and rebuilt the ship with the old parts. which one is the REAL ship?.

The discussion about names at the end reminded me of Adahn, small "sidequest" in the game that probably not many people will see, unless someone tells them about it. It also showcases the power belief has in the maleable reality that are the Planes. Throughout the game there are many opportunities to introduce yourself as "Adahn", a made up name the Nameless One comes up with, something he clearly knows is not actually his real name. But if you use it enough times (I think 10 times?), a new person comes into being throught the belief of people. A confused person, with no memory, except for knowing that he is a "friend" of the Nameless One, and you can meet him in the Smolding Corpse Bar to decide his fate.

So glad they did this game because it finally got me to play it. I think I’m almost done with it? SPOILERS: I’m just about to release the deva from the prison in Curst. This game has been so intriguing up to this point but I am ready to wrap up finally figure this out. I feel like I’m well into the backend and it’s still so cryptic.

Shout out to Mike for bringing up that Sam Harris quote! And another thanks for helping me rationalize my philosophical objections to the various factions in P:T, especially the Dustmen.

Ahhh, Eeviin the Teifling lol. That whole thing freaked me out.

So good.

Are you guys familiar with the song "Nobody" by Avenged Sevenfold? The excerpt Mike read about trying to describe an existential trip reminded me specifically of the music video for "Nobody". And I believe that, in part, is what they were trying to convey with the song - I know the band is on record as taking some psychedelics in looking for inspiration for this album. Just a thought that occurred to me as I heard that excerpt, thought you guys might like to check it out and see what you think! Keep doing what you're doing, love the podcast as always!

Ignis burns.

It was also my experience with the game. The factions felt so extreme that I assumed the game would force you to play them in order to engage with the content since I would never gravitate towards them naturally, which is what I thought would happen with the Sensates, but then I was able to progress without joining them anyway. Felt similar to Disco Elysium, in a way. The political background that feeds the main storyline of that game is wonderful and well thought-out, but they added in the dlc the ability to shape your main character around four real-world political ideologies (communist, neoliberal capitalist, fascist, socialdemocrat/centrist, if I recall correctly), and I struggled with that because most of the time the options they gave you felt so one-sided, and it was so absurd that a detective in the condition he is would even talk about that, that I just couldn't take it seriously.

1:41:13 The path of the Buddha is the path between extremes

Dark Pixel let’s goooo!!

Remember that you can do it if you put your back into it.

Your talk of belief makes me think of Alan Moore talking about Ideas Space. Everything exists as an Idea before its Reality. Who needs eternal life to be weary of it? Took me until my mid twenties before I was over it. Living forever would be the worst thing ever. Unless I can come back as a quasar or something. Funny, autocorrect had quasar come up as Quaker! Got nothing against them but no thanks 😮 I never had psychedelics but I did have a profound experience during meditation once. Was like brushing up against enlightenment, like that scene with O. Ruined meditation for me though because my brain kept expecting a reward each time. Lousy brain

A couple of points I wanted to make in response to the episode: While Limbo takes it to an extreme, with anything and anyone there existing only so long as someone believes in it, the entirety of the Outer Planes is responsive to belief in a much more literal way than anything in the real world - in Sigil, the Lady of Pain believes in the city, and enough of the population believes in her, that the basic structure is pretty solid, and the same applies to the individual realms of various deities, but out in the Outer Planes more generally, within the overarching structure (itself the realisation of widely shared belief), reality is a lot more subjective than back in the normal "real world" of the Material Plane. That sort of context encourages fanaticism partly through the feedback loops that develop - you believe the world works a certain way, so the world then does work that way, and you observe it working that way, which reinforces your belief - and also partly as a form of self-defense - doubt isn't just emotionally uncomfortable; it can be physically self-destructive: if someone can convince you and enough people around you that you don't exist, they might turn out to be right... Unlike in the real world, there's much less objective reality to mitigate philosophical extremes - in the Planescape setting, it's possible that you could tread on someone's toe and them not even notice because for them it literally didn't happen. So it makes sense in that more plastic reality that the factions would naturally take their philosophies to extremes. And there's another point touched on in the episode - that dedication to a philosophy gives life meaning - for many of the people of Sigil, their only alternative to embracing the meaninglessness of an uncaring cosmos is to find a philosophy and take meaning and purpose from that philosophy, however objectively flawed it may be, so the factions have no trouble recruiting because the one thing they do have is definite answers. --- A note on language: language isn't some magical thing handed beamed into our brains with a complete vocabulary, grammar, and understanding of every referent; it's a tool for sharing thoughts and experiences that's been developed through references to shared experiences. To take a topical example, a total solar eclipse is a rare, but widely shared experience, but a common experience in recent weeks has been people trying to articulate what it's like to experience totality, and the conversation breaking down - people who've witnessed it already know what you're talking about; people who haven't don't have the reference points to understand... Or the experience of seeing a rainbow. You can describe the optics behind it, and you can go on Google Images and bring up many photographs, but none of that captures the experience of standing, looking up at the sky, and seeing that arc of colour. We can achieve incredible things through the use of language, but it's not surprising that it breaks down when trying to articulate things that transcend the mundane - what's surprising is that it can do as much as it does manage.

one funny story I heard how the Lady of Pain has a sense of humor when mazing, like mazing a Minotaur (where they have as a racial trait that they know innately the way out of a maze) so she sends him to a maze...which is an infinitely long straight corridor.

16:49 That's not my understanding of nirvana at all. It's simply to extinguish the flame of desire

6:05 omg "visual novel", just like Umineko, which you guys absolutely should play and would love!!!

I should have known there was more to the dead nations but I am trying not to save scum ... too much. I said I would not stay there forever and everybody turned hostile immediately. A tough fight.

1:12:00 From what book is the Sam Harris quote? All new atheism vs organized religion aside I am in my heart of hearts Hitch/Harris but as you I can see the limits of every stand. For me their approach to thinking is the most responsible - as they represent all of humans with the intellect nature gave us.

I don't mean to be that person but it's pronounced SIG-il. But keep up the good work!

2:00:13 If i have a girl she will be named Nadia after the chrono trigger character If a boy, Joshua, after the ff16 character

If you want to know more about Discordianism, read the absolutely balls-to-the-walls insane novel _The Illuminatus! Trilogy_ by Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea. It's hands down the greatest piece of writing I've encountered in my life so far.

you guys should do Disco Elysium. But in the old style 20 episodes format. Not the abridged 4 episodes format.

@1:13:09 this right here is the perfect way to describe the experience of a higher altered state of mind. "It's as if the universe is saying oh you want to experience the universe and the meaning of everything, here how's this?". When I took my dose and began experiencing my altered state, the Katy Perry song Dark Horse played, and when she sings: So you wanna play with magic? Boy, you should know what you're fallin' for Baby, do you dare to do this? 'Cause I'm coming at you like a dark horse (hey) Are you ready for, ready for (hey) A perfect storm, perfect storm? (Hey, hey) 'Cause once you're mine, once you're mine (hey, hey, hey, hey) (There's no going back) It hit me like that was the experience speaking to me through the words of the music while I was having those experiences in real time. As if everything was connected and I was dialed in to it like an antenna to a frequency I could neither explain, describe, or put into words even now. There is no going back once you feel that. I think that's what some people think of when they think of divinity or holiness or a universal spirit, or God. I can't explain exactly the words because I'm not religious but I am definitely spiritual now when I never used to be before thanks to those experiences. I know some people who reach this higher state through meditation and through martial arts or exercise. There are many ways to reach this but again no words can ever paint a picture that describes it 1 to 1 in a way people will understand or accept. You literally have to experience it yourself.

5:22

Video shiny. Me click.

The new X-men 97 is so you gays, you need to make videos about. Pleaseeee

Intellectual brothel is a thing so why not compare philosophers as a subsequent stages of a final boss of metaphysics ;)

why'd you delete my comment