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.

 

[humble minion]

I finally bought Theros just the other day (and got the limited edition gameshop-exclusive cover a couple of YEARS after release, which may tell you something about how it sold...) and I'm really enjoying it so far. Definitely one of the best 5th ed WotC setting books, probably only behind Eberron.

Wildemount didn't do it for me. It's got a comprehensive gazetteer, and I love the Echo Knight, but both it and Tal'Dorei just read a little bit like you're following around after the CR PCs have already done everything. Content excellent, inspiration lacking, IMO. The opposite of Spelljammer, basically.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I finally bought Theros just the other day (and got the limited edition gameshop-exclusive cover a couple of YEARS after release, which may tell you something about how it sold...) and I'm really enjoying it so far. Definitely one of the best 5th ed WotC setting books, probably only behind Eberron.

Wildemount didn't do it for me. It's got a comprehensive gazetteer, and I love the Echo Knight, but both it and Tal'Dorei just read a little bit like you're following around after the CR PCs have already done everything. Content excellent, inspiration lacking, IMO. The opposite of Spelljammer, basically.

That's funny, because the new Spelljammer product seems neither inspiring nor full of content. The setting itself, absolutely.

 

[humble minion]

Spelljammer: Adventures in Space has also not met sales expectations, and distributors have been left with a lot of unsold inventory from the set. The poor sales of Spelljammer, exacerbated a bit by the Hadozee fiasco, contributed to Ray Winninger's ouster from WotC.

I was no fan of how the Spelljammer release turned out, but this surprises me a lot. I wonder what 'sales expectations' were? The Amazon ratings for SJ are ok, and it was doing reasonably on the bestseller/sales ranking list for a while - were predictions similar to previous setting books and its sales dropped off after reactions started coming in, or maybe WotC simply set their expectations too high, particularly for a product in a new and untested format that's significantly more expensive than their previous similar products?

 

[darjr]

You've made this claim a few times and I just don't see it mate. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 were bona fide classics that made Bioware what it is today. So making Baldur's Gate 3 made a lot of sense from a brand recognition perspective.

The same can't be said for Planescape: Torment. It's a cult classic that fought against its own game engine to tell a good story, didn't sell that well and ultimately is only known by die-hard fans. I just don't see WotC or Larian being sufficiently interested in this brand to make a new AAA game which are costly and take a long time to make (by its release, BG3 will have just finished its third year of Early Access, and this is presumably with earlier development also taking several years).

From what I understand it didn't sell well at first. However I think since then it's done really well. I think it's "sequel in spirit" did OK on kickstarter too.

 

[darjr]

Huh. I see that the Eberron book had fewer writers and of course included Keith. I wonder if there's a passion gap going on. Hard to write well for a product you aren't in love with. Do we know if any of the Spelljammer writers are actually Spelljammer fans instead of just positive acknowledgers?

That book was a collection of articles that he's written over a few years wasn't it? With some additions and updates?

 

[dave2008]

That's funny, because the new Spelljammer product seems neither inspiring nor full of content. The setting itself, absolutely.

Inspiration is very personal though. I find lots of blank space inspirational, that is why I don't like lore heavy settings. Others, however, find the depth of lore an inspiration. Using spelljammer as an example. I found the whole doomspace very inspirational. It is the first setting I have wanted to adventuring in (besides my own) in a long time. The whole setting is really just an idea, a concept, but that is all I need / want to inspire me. I like to create, so if it is to fleshed out it hinders my creativity.

 

[dave2008]

It's rather scanty,...

I guess we have to agree to disagree here. Everyone has a different reference point I guess.

but mostly I'd just rather have had an actual ancient Greece setting than one that has to squeeze Magic conventions into it.

I am only vaguely familiar with MtG and I wasn't familiar with Theros at all prior to this book. It didn't feel like anything was squeezed into it, I don't really even have the perspective to know what you mean.

I don't think I would want an "ancient Greece" setting, but I might be interested in a mythological Greece setting. To me, Theros seems very much like a D&D version of mythological Greece, which I think would be my personal preference. If I wanted it more "Greek" I would just swap out the gods (with some updates).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Inspiration is very personal though. I find lots of blank space inspirational, that is why I don't like lore heavy settings. Others, however, find the depth of lore an inspiration. Using spelljammer as an example. I found the whole doomspace very inspirational. It is the first setting I have wanted to adventuring in (besides my own) in a long time. The whole setting is really just an idea, a concept, but that is all I need / want to inspire me. I like to create, so if it is to fleshed out it hinders my creativity.

That very cool, and I'm legitimately glad that works for you. For me, inspiration from a concept just isn't worth $70.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I guess we have to agree to disagree here. Everyone has a different reference point I guess.

I am only vaguely familiar with MtG and I wasn't familiar with Theros at all prior to this book. It didn't feel like anything was squeezed into it, I don't really even have the perspective to know what you mean.

I don't think I would want an "ancient Greece" setting, but I might be interested in a mythological Greece setting. To me, Theros seems very much like a D&D version of mythological Greece, which I think would be my personal preference. If I wanted it more "Greek" I would just swap out the gods (with some updates).

History is inspiring to me. That's why I loved all the old books that gamed it up.

 

[dave2008]

That very cool, and I'm legitimately glad that works for you. For me, inspiration from a concept just isn't worth $70.

I don't put a price on inspiration. I mean I have probably hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in D&D and other RPG setting books which failed to inspire me, so $70 seems like a small price to me.

However, I am in a privileged financial position so that probably plays into it. Still, I would think I would always rather pay $70 for something than I would $1000 for lots of nothing.