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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

On that note, isn't their new VP a guy from Microsoft which has successfully found a way to charge you every year for the latest version of Office?

He's specifically over digital products only, FYI.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Hard to say its not a new edition when you relegate the 2014 books to old content only accessible if you already own it, but I'm sure they'll find some way to spin it.

They take older versions of the previous core rulebooks out of print when an errata of them happens. And they update the text on D&D Beyond to get rid of the old version. That doesn't make it so errata is a new edition.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They take older versions of the previous core rulebooks out of print when an errata of them happens. And they update the text on D&D Beyond to get rid of the old version. That doesn't make it so errata is a new edition.

Is this "errata" (I really hate that misused term)? Few too many changes to count as such to me. The same with MMotM, frankly.

 

[darjr]

That's not entirely correct: Shawn Merwin and Teos Abadia are regular contract writers for WotC.

Wouldn't be unique: you can practically hear Teos turn white when he slips in "who onows, maybe something like that is in the works.." and Merwin moves on Very Quickly...plenty of room for plausible deniability.

It seems a likely subject for the Planescape Slipcase, at any rate.

I doubt they slipped up. As far as I know it's public info that both of them have been NDA with WotC and involved with making D&D behind the scenes since at least early testing of 4e.

Teos is a huge tease. And Shawn isn't. I think that explains it.

But I also think it's probably a no brainer that Modrons have a very high chance to be the thing in planescape.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Is this "errata" (I really hate that misused term)? Few too many changes to count as such to me. The same with MMotM, frankly.

They've changed quite a bit with errata in 5e. Class features, spells, and other pretty major mechanical parts of 5e have changed substantially.

And are you referring to the race changes in Monsters of the Multiverse as a new edition? Because the monsters barely changed at all. And races in 5e have changed quite substantially in the past through errata, too (Tritons getting Darkvision through Theros, Goliaths getting Cold Resistance through Rime of the Frostmaiden, etc).

I'm not saying that OneD&D is an errata. It will probably be treated like Volo's and Mordenkainen's were after Monsters of the Multiverse. The older stuff is "Legacy 5e".

 

[Demetrios1453]

Wasn't the original point of modrons that you could use your dice as minis?

Only for tridrones and quadrones. So for all of two out of fifteen types.

 

[Nikosandros]

Hard to say its not a new edition when you relegate the 2014 books to old content only accessible if you already own it, but I'm sure they'll find some way to spin it.

I think it is quite possible that the revised books might be available electronically in a different way, perhaps - as already mentioned - by subscription and not by purchase.

 

[Weiley31]

Depends on the modron's rank - some of the base-level ones are indeed geometric shapes similar to dice (monodrones, tridrones, and quadrones especially), but it becomes far less true once you get into the hierarch-tier modrons.

Well, playing as the lower tier Modrons seem like the pc options. Higher tiers are NPCs.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Well, playing as the lower tier Modrons seem like the pc options. Higher tiers are NPCs.

Generally speaking, any PC modron is going to be a "rogue modron", which is presumably what the "Glitchling" from the recent UA was "secretly" playtesting (and/or possibly replacing - traditionally, rogue modrons transform into a quadrone upon "going rogue" regardless of their original rank, but the glitchling allows for a more freeform body type).

Playing a non-rogue modron would be like playing a Borg drone from Star Trek that is still fully tied into the Borg Collective - there's not much individual will there.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think it is quite possible that the revised books might be available electronically in a different way, perhaps - as already mentioned - by subscription and not by purchase.

That's possible, but I suspect it would cause something of an uproar if it was the only digital way.

I think what is more likely is we'll see something like the follow:

1) You can technically buy the 1D&D PHB/DMG/MM for $49.99 each (that's after the digital "reduction" lol). If you do, you own them just like the current PHB/DMG/etc.

2) Or you can spend a bit more and order the physical edition for $69.99 each (or a slipcase set for "only" $199.99) + shipping, via Beyond/WotC, which will also give you digital copies on Beyond (WotC have specifically mentioned the Beyond acquisition enabling them to do stuff like this).

3) If you subscribe to the "Master"-level subscription (currently $5.99/month and aimed at DMs) you get access to the 1D&D PHB/DMG/MM for the duration of your subscription as well as the other benefits.

This would be a strong push to move people on to the subscription, and as everyone who does subs knows, once you get people on, they often just fail to cancel even when they're not using something (btw I think tech may solve this eventually but it'll be opposed/undermined by big money if anyone tries - still I'd pay for something that started remind me to cancel stuff if it noticed I hadn't logged in to or used it for X weeks, sorry I digress).

You may even get some other books or at least the mechanical content of them as they come out, perhaps for a slightly higher sub - $8.99/month, say). This is how the DDI worked.

If you have the existing 5E stuff, you'll still be able to use it as a "legacy" option, but the Beyond team won't bother to support it beyond that, and won't fix even existing issues with that stuff, and when it turns out that it breaks in 2030 and X "legacy" class just doesn't work right anymore, it'll be absolutely bottom priority for Beyond to fix, and if you complain about it publicly, 70% of responses will be from 1D&D boosters telling you in terms ranging from the gentle to the brutal that you're a loser who needs to get with the times.