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.

 

[Reynard]

You buy products from the Third Parties that make stuff for DMs that WotC specifically decided not to do-- because they were more niche and that was the whole point of having 5E under the OGL, so WotC wouldn't have to produce a lot of low-selling niche product and could let smaller Third Party companies do it for them instead. And perhaps if certain product lines do well enough, then maybe WotC would come to the conclusion that what they thought was a niche product had a fanbase that was actually larger then they thought and thus decide to maybe make a version too.

I think if that were true we would have seen evidence given the massive success of, say, MCDM's Flee Mortals and K&W.

I mean, those books and good stuff from 3PP exist so I can get the things I need. It just irks me to no end that WotC really doesn't seem to care much about GMs, especially in light of the fact that if there are no GMs, there is no D&D.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

How do you vote with your wallet for a book that doesn't exist?

Don't buy the other ones.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think if that were true we would have seen evidence given the massive success of, say, MCDM's Flee Mortals and K&W.

I mean, those books and good stuff from 3PP exist so I can get the things I need. It just irks me to no end that WotC really doesn't seem to care much about GMs, especially in light of the fact that if there are no GMs, there is no D&D.

It seems there are enough DMs. Most people seem to be happy with what they get. Only because it is not the roght thing for you does not mean it is not the right thing.
Maybe putting player material in otherwise DM book is exactly what makes people consider DMing for the forst time.
Hey, I like the underdark themes in the book. So I buy the adventure with background stuff and so on. And since I already have the book, I read the adventure itself. Maybe if I like it that much, maybe I try DMing in this setting.

I don't say this is how it works, bit this might be a possibility.
I think it would have worked for me if 2e was not so complicated to run for me back then.

 

[mamba]

I think if that were true we would have seen evidence given the massive success of, say, MCDM's Flee Mortals and K&W.

I mean, those books and good stuff from 3PP exist so I can get the things I need. It just irks me to no end that WotC really doesn't seem to care much about GMs, especially in light of the fact that if there are no GMs, there is no D&D.

Ultimately 2M is still small potatoes for WotC and not worth going after. Flee Mortals had 27k backers, let's say in the end 50k people own that book, compare that to several millions for the Monster Manual, its direct equivalent.

 

[Reynard]

Don't buy the other ones.

That doesn't tell WotC anything about what I want, though.

 

[Reynard]

Ultimately 2M is still small potatoes for WotC and not worth going after. Flee Mortals had 27k backers, let's say in the end 50k people own that book, compare that to several millions for the Monster Manual, its direct equivalent.

So, you're saying the D&D logo and official status have no impact on sales? That's an interesting take.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

That doesn't tell WotC anything about what I want, though.

They don't care about what individual customers want. They care about what a whole lot of customers want. If a whole lot of customers don't buy a product then they will change the kind of products they are producing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Interesting. I was 15 when Ravenloft I6 first came out and was already very familiar with the movies being parodied. They used to have a late-night horror double bill on BBC2 in the early 1980s.

I was 12 when the 2E RL box came out (and more like 14 when considering running it first) but I didn't see much gothic horror until I was 16 or so when Channel 4 started showing it super late night. Up until then it was basically The Pit and the Pendulum and not much else. Maybe a couple of other Vincent Price deals. So it was weird to read RL 2E's intro where it basically summarily dismissed all the horror I'd ever seen lol (which was like Friday the 13th, Nightmare, Wolfen, The Hunger, Q the Winged Serpent etc). Stuff like Cat People (1942) and I Walked With A Zombie (1943) I'd seen and really liked but didn't seem to fit either what RL wanted or the dismissed category. I never saw the classic Universal horror stuff until much much later, long after parodies of it like Young Frankenstein.

 

[Retreater]

Sure, but they are also claiming 10 million active gamers, which means 2 million active GMs. If the customer has increased so dramatically over the last few years, that old excuse looks less and less viable.

Not if those active GMs are like me and run multiple groups. I currently have 16 individual players across three groups. 22 if you count the players from the organized play event I ran last night. This is the number of players in one week.

 

[Retreater]

I was 12 when the 2E RL box came out (and more like 14 when considering running it first) but I didn't see much gothic horror until I was 16 or so when Channel 4 started showing it super late night. Up until then it was basically The Pit and the Pendulum and not much else. Maybe a couple of other Vincent Price deals. So it was weird to read RL 2E's intro where it basically summarily dismissed all the horror I'd ever seen lol (which was like Friday the 13th, Nightmare, Wolfen, The Hunger, Q the Winged Serpent etc). Stuff like Cat People (1942) and I Walked With A Zombie (1943) I'd seen and really liked but didn't seem to fit either what RL wanted or the dismissed category. I never saw the classic Universal horror stuff until much much later, long after parodies of it like Young Frankenstein.

Our 2E Ravenloft was more literature-focused (probably because we ran a good deal of the official adventures that were based on books). Over the years in Ravenloft I created adventures based on "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (Captain Nemo inspired a very memorable Dark Lord) and Gustav Meyrink's Expressionistic novel "The Golem" (which my players remember as the best adventure I've ever run.)