Planescape 5 New D&D Books Coming in 2023 -- Including Planescape!

At today's Wizards Presents event, hosts Jimmy Wong, Ginny Di, and Sydnee Goodman announced the 2023 line-up of D&D books, which featured something old, something new, and an expansion of a fan favorite.

The first of the five books, Keys from the Golden Vault, will arrive in winter 2023. At Tuesday's press preview, Chris Perkins, Game Design Architect for D&D, described it as “Ocean’s Eleven meets D&D” and an anthology of short adventures revolving around heists, which can be dropped into existing campaigns.

In Spring 2023, giants get a sourcebook just like their traditional rivals, the dragons, did in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants will be a deep dive into hill, frost, fire, cloud, and storm giants, plus much more.

Summer 2023 will have two releases. The Book of Many Things is a collection of creatures, locations, and other player-facing goodies related to that most famous D&D magic item, the Deck of Many Things. Then “Phandelver Campaign” will expand the popular Lost Mine of Phandelver from the D&D Starter Set into a full campaign tinged with cosmic horror.

And then last, but certainly not least, in Fall 2023, WotC revives another classic D&D setting – Planescape. Just like Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, Planescape will be presented as a three-book set containing a setting guide, bestiary, and adventure campaign in a slipcase. Despite the Spelljammer comparison they did not confirm whether it would also contain a DM screen.

More information on these five titles will be released when we get closer to them in date.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I wonder- Wizards having declared Volo's a non-canon "Legacy Content" product - if giants will get a thorough reimagining in this new book.

I hope they will but I simultaneously doubt that they will because the recent UA with giant stuff seemed very much in line with the most ultra-basic ideas about giants. Right now they're one of the weakest D&D monsters lore/style-wise, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think any of the stuff in MotM really conceptually changed any of the giants redone from Volo's.

I've been burned by Chris Perkins marketing blurbs too many times before. Yet I remain hopeful we will see some actual heists in this book......

For me the proof will be in the authors. I've only ever seen one truly well-done D&D adventure that was a proper heist - Blood Money by Logan Bonner (Dungeon #200). If it's the same people who wrote Dragon Heist, like, no, that's awful. Dragon Heist isn't even really about heists. Whoever wrote it doesn't really know what a heist is, let alone how to implement one in D&D. If it's people not sullied by working on Dragon Heist I'll at least be reading reviews, and if it's Logan Bonner-lead (which I doubt, I believe he's on PF2), I'd pre-order it. But if Perkins himself is on it? Just not even worth thinking about barring amazing reviews from people who don't normally like WotC adventures.

 

[Parmandur]

It’s simple, none of that is true.

They haven’t announced 6e, and these books will be fully compatible with both the 2014 and 2024 PHBs.

Not only have they explicitly said that the new updates will be compatible with all published adventures and supplements, along with other statements to the same effect, they also are putting their money where their mouth is with a full slate of D&D products leading all the way up to the anniversary releases.

Crawford basically admitted thst everything they have published for a while is OneD&D material, since Tasha's.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Crawford basically admitted thst everything they have published for a while is OneD&D material, since Tasha's.

I’m guessing that’s in whatever video I haven’t watched yet, but makes sense.

And confirms, counter to my initial freak out, that I’ve been right about the level of changes we can expect. 4e-essentials, at most.

 

[Mezuka]

I might grab the Phandelver campaign for completeness with the 5e starters.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Hard disagree and I think this attitude was the result of narrow-mindedness (and yes I am specifically saying Jim Davis is that) and inability to conceptualize what a Planescape adventure looked like, even though there were pretty good examples. A subset of DMs definitely just want to have mindless planar jaunts, which didn't really require or involve Planescape at all, and were simply vexed/flummoxed by Planescape's material. Making Planescape more "normal" is just dreadful. Truly dreadful. And whenever I see this stuff described (and this was discussed a ton in the '90s), that's all it amounts to - less Factions, less politics, less NPCs, less Sigil, less talking, less roleplaying, more going to a dungeon (that just happens to be on another plane) and bonking monster heads and taking monster loot. It reminds me of the sort of people who played Dark Sun as a bog-standard dungeon crawl setting, and only used Dark Sun at all because it let them have particularly OP characters for their bog-standard dungeon crawls.

Planescape even had wonderfully game-able stuff that didn't even focus on being game-able, like Uncaged: Faces of Sigil, which just an incredibly useful book for actually running a campaign in Sigil. If you actually wanted to do that. But again, some people just wanted like "Dungeon Crawl: Planar Tourist edition". The same people tended to the ones who wrote rants about how the Factions sucked or were too "fancy" and had weird anger issues about the Lady of Pain (I mean that was a weirdly common thing "The Guy Who Is Totally Enraged By The Lady of Pain", back then).

I think it's rather unfair to call anyone who wanted something called Planescape to be about plane hopping adventure "narrow minded" and "mindless".

Whilst you certainly can make adventures for the setting, not everyone is into intellectual, philosophical and political adventures. Some people play D&D for mindless escapism. And the product was not advertised as "does not support mindless escapism". So people where justifiably disappointed. And I have little doubt that the new Planescape will support mindless escapism, and so people who want it to be ever so intellectual will be angry.

 

[Maxperson]

No, I couldn't watch the entirety of the 1+ hour livestream at work.
But I do know they are starting a 2-year-long public playtest today, which indicates that we will be seeing some substantial revisions to the game.

I'm not sure how long it will all take, but I do know that a sizable chunk of the two years will be spent finalizing the changes, sending the work to the printers to print a ton of books and then shipping in time for release. The playtesting isn't going to be two years long.

 

[Retreater]

Ok. To put into perspective, I'm being asked to run a D&D event for teenagers tonight at a public library. I have the adventure and I know they're playing 5e. All is cool. I can basically run what's going on.
If this were an event in 2024, after the release of D&D Whatever Edition, what do I do? Bring 2014 and 2024 Player's Handbooks? Look at character sheets to determine if the characters made from the 2014 PHB get appropriately improved backgrounds and that the humans now gain Inspiration every day ( - or is that only for 2024 Humans?) Do I allow the monsters from pre-2024 sources to do critical hit damage since they don't get the new recharge mechanics?
What about warlocks from 2014? Do they get full access to the arcane spell list like their 2024 counterparts?
Look, I have said in the past that 5e was growing stale and needed a new edition. I am not being resistant to change. We need a new edition and be willing to make big changes to make the best version of D&D. Otherwise, we are limiting what the game can be for perhaps the next 8-10 years.
I wish they'd just call it 6E and let real change happen.

 

[Li Shenron]

and these books will be fully compatible with both the 2014 and 2024 PHBs.

Not only have they explicitly said that the new updates will be compatible with all published adventures and supplements, along with other statements to the same effect, they also are putting their money where their mouth is with a full slate of D&D products leading all the way up to the anniversary releases.

That's the key. They now clarified very well what they meant with compatibility i.e. they believe the 2024 core rules should work with all previous adventures and supplements, but obviously not with 2014 core.

• 2014 PHB will not be compatible with 2024 PHB because core 2024 characters will be straight more powerfule than core 2014 characters, so it would be just unfair to let someone use the 2024 PHB unless everyone does
• some core rules changes are being considered that can also make the 2014 DMG and MM obsolete or incorrect to some degree (for instance, should anything in 2014 MM refer to a monster scoring a critical hit, that could become invalid), but how much this will happen is not yet known
• pre-2024 adventures will be easily compatible, the minimal additional crunch might be unaffected by new rules except for maybe very minor adjustments (e.g. spells by class will need to be treated as spell by source)
• pre-2024 supplements not necessarily so easily IMO, there will be areas which probably will require some adaptations, for example early supplements playable races

Yeah, Planescape really needed the level of attention that Theros, Ravenloft, Strixhaven, Ravnica, etc got, and just... didn't. For no reason, they gave us this incredibly divergent setting that begs for unique systems and just didn't give us those systems. Ghosts of Saltmarsh is a more robust standalone campaign setting than the 5e Spelljammer product.

Planescape is one of my favourite settings, so I'll keep an eye on the new 5e book for it, but the general 5e trend for campaign setting is basically to be very light in terms of "crunch".

My bet for 5e Planescape is that it will contain:

• general settings principles and presentation (including factions)
• detailed description of Sigil
• planar map, but very little of any other plane
• backgrounds (always the cheapest crunch to fill pages with)
• a very few number of subclasses, from 0 to maybe 3-4 max
• a moderate bunch of monsters, 50 at least
• an adventure that covers 10-12 levels for a full campaign, or at least the first half

I don't expect other planes than Sigil, they'll just "refer to the DMG" and hope for future products, but all other planes except Sigil have already scattered to lots of other fantasy setting and aren't more "Planescape" than they are "Greyhawk".

For new players, the book/pack will serve as an introduction, and then just figure out the rest yourself, like it's for every 5e published settings. Long gone is the time where you would adopt a fantasy setting and expect plenty of books for that. And 5e books are much slimmer than 3e books for instance. Compare the 3e FRCS content with the 5e SCAG... the difference is much bigger than the page count difference.

For old players... it'll just serve the purpose of updating a small number of rules, giggle about getting an official 5e rendition, but the value is minimal.

For someone who really wants to delve into the setting, it's still a better idea to buy second-hand Planescape books of the past, and convert the crunch you intend to use.

I want to hear that I can ignore the stuff I don't like and it's not going to "break the system" (because it seems that numerous feats and backgrounds are tied in with rules that have been extremely optional in practice) - like the underwhelming and awful Inspiration mechanic that I've forgotten about for 6 years.

One of my biggest gripes with the updates, which has been clear for a while already through other books, is the loss of freedom.

When 5e came out, the mantra was "allow as many playstyles and preferences as possible". They took great care to make multiclassing and feats optional. To have short-rest based abilities and long-rest based abilities. To have some rules stay somewhat generic (advantage, inspiration, passive checks) so that they were not too intrusive, and relatively flexible to the point that they could even be mostly ignored.

Now feats are mandatory. Inspiration is mandatory. Short rest abilities are being progressively phased out in favor of "proficiency bonus times per day" i.e. long rest abilities.

For me it's a net loss of freedom. But they'll always tell you "you can always change the rules if you don't like them", then insult you for being a house ruler.

 

[JohnnyZemo]

I'm not sure how long it will all take, but I do know that a sizable chunk of the two years will be spent finalizing the changes, sending the work to the printers to print a ton of books and then shipping in time for release. The playtesting isn't going to be two years long.

Yeah. My only complaint about the official statements yesterday was that they repeated the same thing Paizo did when they did the PF2E playtest, pretending that the release date for the new books could change depending on how the playtest goes. (The PF2E playtest was rocky, and the release date for the new books didn't change.)

I mean, Wizards pretty much has to release the new books in 2024 for the 50th anniversary of D&D. There's no way playtest feedback is going to derail that. Or am I too cynical?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think it's rather unfair to call anyone who wanted something called Planescape to be about plane hopping adventure "narrow minded" and "mindless".

Whilst you certainly can make adventures for the setting, not everyone is into intellectual, philosophical and political adventures. Some people play D&D for mindless escapism. And the product was not advertised as "does not support mindless escapism". So people where justifiably disappointed. And I have little doubt that the new Planescape will support mindless escapism, and so people who want it to be ever so intellectual will be angry.

I didn't call people mindless, please don't add that in there. I called the adventures mindless.

And Planescape had an extremely strong identity that was designed to appeal to people who wanted something different from generic dungeon-bashing (which had countless settings supporting it already). It wasn't a mistake or an accident, either - the recent book on TSR makes it clear it was targeted.

Snarking about "ever so intellectual" is pretty funny. It was no more "intellectual" than WoD. It was just slightly elevated above the norm. It's not asking for a lot. And they weren't "justifiably disappointed" any more than I'm "justifiably disappointed" that, say, Spelljammer isn't more serious and high-minded (I'm not, actually, but back in the day there were plenty of people mad it was "too silly" or "too cartoonish").

As for "It'll support mindless escapism", well maybe, but then that's pure hypocrisy, isn't it? Spelljammer retained its identity, right down even emphasizing the silliest elements. Why should Planescape lose identity? I'd suggest a better route would simply be to make it more obvious how to construct adventures for Planescape without turning them into dungeon crawls or the like. That said, I feel like DMs today are vastly more used to making adventures which aren't just dungeon crawls than they were in 1994, so it'll be less of an issue anyway.