Planescape Manual of the Planes for 5e on DMSGuild

New on the DMSGuild is the Manual of the Planes for 5th edition. The cover is stunning.

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It's over 300 pages and the credits page includes folks from The Draconomicon, The Dragonlance Companion, Tasha's Crucible of Everything Else, Planescape: Metropolis, The Honkonomicon and Planewalker.com

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I love the special thanks.

This project was made possible by Roll20. Thank you for unlocking new horizons for the latest generation of planewalkers, bashers, berks, and touts. We’d also like to thank the giants on whose shoulders we stand when writing this book: Justice Ramin Arman, Richard Baker, Wolfgang Baur, David “Zeb” Cook, Bruce R. Cordell, Jeff Grubb, David Noonan, F. Wesley Schneider, Rick Swan, and all others who helped create and cultivate Planescape and the planes.

I've just bought it and am reading it now.

Manual of the Planes (5e) - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

Manual of the Planes (5e) - From creators behind The Draconomicon, Tasha's Crucible of Everything Else, Planescape: Metropolis, The Honkonomic

www.dmsguild.com

Here is the table of contents.

 

[Maxperson]

Eventide (Diurge, Fairling, Gloaming, Lumi)

Hah! One of the players in my group has been playing a druid named Lumi for several months. No um, relation.

 

[darjr]

In a thread about an expansion to the 5e book where other fabulous expansions to the very book are brought up someone complains thst there are no expansions.

Right, but that's what 5e settings get compared to. In 5e they typically do not release any further supplements to a setting, so we have to compare what they release to the entire 2e version. WotC's choice not to expand settings means that 5e settings that were also 2e settings will always fall flat. Flatter than a pancake!

That only really matters to those who readily have 2e Planescape at their fingers. Otherwise the 5e setting is all they have. People here like to point to 3pp as an answer to WotC's lack of setting supplementation, but that also falls flatter than a pancake since the vast majority of D&D players(per WotC) don't go online to look stuff up on forums or 3rd party sites.

People will also now point to WotC saying that they are going to be revisiting settings already released, but that really doesn't mean much. Why? Because of 5e's anemic release rate. It has taken them 10 years to give us a handful of settings, which at the same rate of release means 10 more years to get a single supplement for each setting AND each setting needs significantly more than one supplement.

10 years to get just the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms. 10 more years to get say the Heartlands. 10 more years to get the East. 10 more to get the South. 10 more to get...

Now they could release additional setting books, but that just means that we then lose a book like Tasha's or an adventure that would have come out. The only way that they can keep releasing adventures as often as they do, and the rare crunch book and also a decent number of setting supplements is for them to up their release rate, but WotC doesn't seem willing to do that.

This very thread is highlighting a great expansion right now. And it has references to others.

 

[Maxperson]

In a thread about an expansion to the 5e book where other fabulous expansions to the very book are brought up someone complains thst there are no expansions.

This very thread is highlighting a great expansion right now. And it has references to others.

Yes, but my point in that post is that the vast majority of players are casual and don't go look at forums and 3rd party sites. WotC is their only outlet for such things. This is per what WotC has told us in the past.

 

[afroakuma]

Yes, but my point in that post is that the vast majority of players are casual and don't go look at forums and 3rd party sites. WotC is their only outlet for such things. This is per what WotC has told us in the past.

Ah, I wonder if this is due to what I said about fleshing out some areas that Planescape didn't really give enough love to. Just to clarify on what I meant, I was not suggesting that one needs to have the old Planescape books to get use out of what we've added. Rather, what I meant was "sometimes Planescape would briefly mention a god or location or planar layer without giving it much character; when we have presented the same information, we've fleshed out what is on offer, so that you can use this as your single source of reference and come away feeling like there's a solid concept underpinning what you want to do."

I hope that helps somewhat and I'm not misreading where you're coming from.

 

[Zaukrie]

Ah, I wonder if this is due to what I said about fleshing out some areas that Planescape didn't really give enough love to. Just to clarify on what I meant, I was not suggesting that one needs to have the old Planescape books to get use out of what we've added. Rather, what I meant was "sometimes Planescape would briefly mention a god or location or planar layer without giving it much character; when we have presented the same information, we've fleshed out what is on offer, so that you can use this as your single source of reference and come away feeling like there's a solid concept underpinning what you want to do."

I hope that helps somewhat and I'm not misreading where you're coming from.

So much of 2e did this, and fleshing it out is great.

 

[darjr]

Yes, but my point in that post is that the vast majority of players are casual and don't go look at forums and 3rd party sites. WotC is their only outlet for such things. This is per what WotC has told us in the past.

Folks wouldn’t buy those “official” supplements in enough numbers either. Then those hurt the business and the game. With “official” bloat, dividing a customer base, analysis paralysis, and spreading the workload of too few people across to many projects ending up diluting both thier efforts and the value of those books to the company.

This way is working better I think.

We have a great product from great folks that otherwise would have to give away the results of their hard work.

A widening group of professionals working and getting paid in the hobby.

And on top of all that by being on DMsGuild it can fit right into the cannon, officially.

 

[Maxperson]

Ah, I wonder if this is due to what I said about fleshing out some areas that Planescape didn't really give enough love to. Just to clarify on what I meant, I was not suggesting that one needs to have the old Planescape books to get use out of what we've added. Rather, what I meant was "sometimes Planescape would briefly mention a god or location or planar layer without giving it much character; when we have presented the same information, we've fleshed out what is on offer, so that you can use this as your single source of reference and come away feeling like there's a solid concept underpinning what you want to do."

I hope that helps somewhat and I'm not misreading where you're coming from.

I think fleshing out is great. What I'm mostly talking about is that WotC needs to expand the settings and do it fairly quickly. Not take 10 years to put out 1 book per setting. Then we will know what needs to be fleshed out. Even looking at 2e Planescape and all of its supplements, there's TONS of space that third party designers could use to flesh out portions of the setting.

We need both WotC to provide a good amount of setting supplementation AND third party help. That way everyone can be taken care of. The vast majority of players who do not go online to see third party stuff can use the WotC supplementation, and the rest of us can use it all.

 

[Maxperson]

Folks wouldn’t buy those “official” supplements in enough numbers either. Then those hurt the business and the game. With “official” bloat, dividing a customer base, analysis paralysis, and spreading the workload of too few people across to many projects ending up diluting both thier efforts and the value of those books to the company.

There is no real bloat, though. I'm talking setting supplements here, not Tasha type books(that's in another thread. ) and those don't bloat anything. They just give details on portions of the setting where none exists.

 

[Zaukrie]

There is no real bloat, though. I'm talking setting supplements here, not Tasha type books(that's in another thread. ) and those don't bloat anything. They just give details on portions of the setting where none exists.

Supplements still need to sell massive numbers for a big company, and I have my doubts they would.

 

[Maxperson]

Supplements still need to sell massive numbers for a big company, and I have my doubts they would.

They should sell well enough. They're getting ready to release some according to what they said. They wouldn't do that if they didn't sell enough to make it worthwhile.