The greatest trick that Planescape Torment pulled is disguising its verbosity – an eye-watering script of 800,000 words – by relying on, and then swiftly subverting conventions. As an immortal known as The Nameless One, you wake up on a mortuary slab with no memory of how you came to be there. Typically this would be an opportunity for exposition, a perfect moment to explain to the player, via a cast of characters, about their circumstances, while allowing them to project their own identities onto a blank slate. But then a talking, floating skull points out that your body is heavily scarred, including one tattoo on your back with instructions on discovering your past lives. And it turns out the tale behind Planescape Torment is a more personal one. It’s about unravelling The Nameless One’s lifetimes of history, resonant with memories, rather than an altruistic, heroic odyssey to right a cosmic wrong.
And this is merely one example. These tricks are artful sleights of hand, with developer Black Isle Studios reforming somewhat established structures in RPGs with Planescape Torment. Take character creation, for instance; you begin by assigning points to your stats, but you won’t get to choose your character class. That’s because by default you’re a fighter, and only by meeting certain characters or completing specific quests can you embody the thief or mage class. According to the game’s design document, this is a deliberate decision by its developers, who wanted the player’s actions to define their character, rather than allowing them to choose a class from a dropdown list.
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At the same time, Wisdom and Charisma were among the more important attributes, given how ludicrously janky combat encounters are. Rather than bashing skulls together, negotiating and even manipulating your enemies (and friends) may reward you with more experience points instead. The trappings of what makes a power fantasy has been demolished; banishing lesser beings with a mere flick of your finger isn’t likely to happen. So while you may chance upon a combat buff or a crudely doodled tattoo (Planescape Torment’s equivalent of stats-boosting equipment), the game undermines the importance of hoarding such supplies. Instead, it’s the possibility of unlocking more dialogue options and narrative branches that seems more appealing. Why eviscerate a zombie when you can talk to it instead? Planescape Torment was the anti-Diablo of the 90s.