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]

It's not a flaw to expect a role-playing game to include role-playing.

The degree to which any given person creates a fully realized character for their PC is entirely personal. It's about preferences, and raNges from "might as well be a literal pawn" to "this is my REAL SELF!"

There are NO mechanics that can decide this. People inhabited their characters in 1974 and people treat them like pawns in 2022, regardless of rules, editions or play experience. And individual people do it differently with different characters or at different tables.

You don't get to make a judges about whether a person is a real roleplayer based on your judgment of the degree to which they treat their collection of numbers as an imaginary friend.

 

[Faolyn]

The degree to which any given person creates a fully realized character for their PC is entirely personal. It's about preferences, and raNges from "might as well be a literal pawn" to "this is my REAL SELF!"

There are NO mechanics that can decide this. People inhabited their characters in 1974 and people treat them like pawns in 2022, regardless of rules, editions or play experience. And individual people do it differently with different characters or at different tables.

You don't get to make a judges about whether a person is a real roleplayer based on your judgment of the degree to which they treat their collection of numbers as an imaginary friend.

You may want to read the root of this sub-thread. The TL;DR version is: at that time, Gygax saw PCs as pawns and felt that people shouldn't care if they have to make a new one. Micah apparently doesn't "get" that people become attached to their characters that much and seems to agree. Other people, including myself, think that it was stupid to force level limits on non-humans in AD&D, because--as I said, in the linked post--why should I have to give up a character just because I'm playing an elf and hit an arbitrary level limit in my class? (Plus, it would have been better if Gygax had given humans bonuses to make them more attractive than non-humans.)

This is what I was talking about: that role-playing games are role-playing games, and that tossing away a character for dumb reasons like level limits is not something most people want to do. If a game expects you to do that, that game is flawed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You may want to read the root of this sub-thread. The TL;DR version is: at that time, Gygax saw PCs as pawns and felt that people shouldn't care if they have to make a new one. Micah apparently doesn't "get" that people become attached to their characters that much and seems to agree. Other people, including myself, think that it was stupid to force level limits on non-humans in AD&D, because--as I said, in the linked post--why should I have to give up a character just because I'm playing an elf and hit an arbitrary level limit in my class? (Plus, it would have been better if Gygax had given humans bonuses to make them more attractive than non-humans.)

This is what I was talking about: that role-playing games are role-playing games, and that tossing away a character for dumb reasons like level limits is not something most people want to do. If a game expects you to do that, that game is flawed.

See, I would probably see hitting a level limit as an indication that my PC's wandering days were at an end and it was time to return to my people, probably with some kind of elevated social position. Then that character becomes an NOC who would likely interact with the PCs in the future whenever they visit their home.

Sounds like a cool retirement to me. I might do that anyway, limit or no limit.

 

[overgeeked]

You don't need to be emotionally attached to a character to role-play it.

It's also a role-playing game. A game with dice and death, by the way. Being so attached you cannot accept that it's also a game seems like an obvious flaw in the playstyle.

 

[Remathilis]

It was an aspect of Gary's D&D. Calling it a flaw is just personal opinion.

I don't sit around with my friends telling epic tales of how I discovered who killed Mr Body in the conservatory with the lead pipe. I don't commission fan art of the Monopoly thimble. I don't have a problem with treating PCs like Kleenex, but I still think it was an oversight for Gary and the early designers to assume that a player character would have the same player investment as a wargame unit. Luckily, it's been addressed in subsequent supplements and editions.

 

[Velderan]

You may want to read the root of this sub-thread. The TL;DR version is: at that time, Gygax saw PCs as pawns and felt that people shouldn't care if they have to make a new one. Micah apparently doesn't "get" that people become attached to their characters that much and seems to agree. Other people, including myself, think that it was stupid to force level limits on non-humans in AD&D, because--as I said, in the linked post--why should I have to give up a character just because I'm playing an elf and hit an arbitrary level limit in my class? (Plus, it would have been better if Gygax had given humans bonuses to make them more attractive than non-humans.)

This is what I was talking about: that role-playing games are role-playing games, and that tossing away a character for dumb reasons like level limits is not something most people want to do. If a game expects you to do that, that game is flawed.

I'm convinced in 2e racial level limit restrictions were an optional rule, but it's more likely I'm remembering wrong and it was just a rule my group decided "this is dumb" and ignored.

 

[Faolyn]

See, I would probably see hitting a level limit as an indication that my PC's wandering days were at an end and it was time to return to my people, probably with some kind of elevated social position. Then that character becomes an NOC who would likely interact with the PCs in the future whenever they visit their home.

Sounds like a cool retirement to me. I might do that anyway, limit or no limit.

Choosing to retire from adventuring is cool.

Being forced to stop because of some arbitrary limit that whose only reason is "Gygax wanted humans to be in charge" is not cool.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm convinced in 2e racial level limit restrictions were an optional rule, but it's more likely I'm remembering wrong and it was just a rule my group decided "this is dumb" and ignored.

Sorry, they were a real rule in 2e.

The other races have fewer choices of character classes and usually are limited in the level they can attain. These restrictions reflect the natural tendencies of the races (dwarves like war and fighting and dislike magic, etc.). The limits are high enough so a demihuman can achieve power and importance in at least one class. A halfling, for example, can become the best thief in the land, but he cannot become a great fighter.

The limits also exist for play balance. The ability of humans to assume any role and reach any level is their only advantage. The demihuman races have other powers that make them entertaining to play -- particularly the ability to be multi-classed (see Glossary). These powers balance the enjoyment of play against the ability to rise in level. Ask your DM for the level limits imposed on nonhuman characters.

You don't need to be emotionally attached to a character to role-play it.

It's also a role-playing game. A game with dice and death, by the way. Being so attached you cannot accept that it's also a game seems like an obvious flaw in the playstyle.

Being attached to a character =/= unable to accept it's a game.

And we weren't talking about death; we were talking about limits on class level for nonhumans.

 

[Reynard]

Choosing to retire from adventuring is cool.

Being forced to stop because of some arbitrary limit that whose only reason is "Gygax wanted humans to be in charge" is not cool.

You aren't forced to retire. But maybe the game changes. Maybe the story isn't about exploring ruins or mapping vast wilderness anymore. Maybe the game is about carving out a kingdom, building a legacy, raising an army. these are all things inherent in D&D that have been lost and ignored in the modern era.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You aren't forced to retire. But maybe the game changes. Maybe the story isn't about exploring ruins or mapping vast wilderness anymore. Maybe the game is about carving out a kingdom, building a legacy, raising an army.

So, retiring. Retiring from adventuring.

these are all things inherent in D&D that have been lost and ignored in the modern era.

Then maybe they're not "inherent in D&D" if most people don't play with them.