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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, retiring. Retiring from adventuring.

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

Those are all things the game used to be about, could and should IMO still be about. That kind of stuff would be a great fit for the DMG, if WotC is forced to play to majority rules.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Those are all things the game used to be about, could and should IMO still be about. That kind of stuff would be a great fit for the DMG, if WotC is forced to play to majority rules.

If most people don't play that way, the game should not be about that. The pagecount of the core books should be devoted to helping the majority of players. A later supplement or 3rd party product (like Strongholds and Followers/Kingdoms and Warfare) can be dedicated to nation/faction building.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But you're still forced out of playing the game the way the rest of the party can because of your race. Because Gygax didn't like non-human adventurers. That's dumb. That's bad game design.

Except it was replaced. D&D isn't just about going into dungeons, killing things, and taking their stuff. The scope of the game has evolved way past that.

It's not dumb. It's just a (probably) unpopular opinion, certainly at this point. But because its been reduced, we don't actually know if new players would be interested in it, because all they've been exposed to is WotC's current style.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, you mean, retire.

Unless all the human PCs decide to stop with you and not gain any XP?

Maybe those things have been lost in the modern era because very few people actually wanted to engage in them back then.

Edit: Ninja'd by Levistius.

Maybe you provide XP rewards for something other than questing.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

It's not dumb.

No. It's dumb. The rule was designed poorly. It didn't fulfill the goal that it was intended to do. That's bad game design. The rule forced different races to be unable to play the game effectively at later levels because Gygax didn't like them. That is dumb. It hurt campaigns because he didn't like that style of play. That's building "badwrongfun" into the rules of the game.

But because its been reduced, we don't actually know if new players would be interested in it, because all they've been exposed to is WotC's current style.

Or, WotC have improved the game in some ways and gotten rid of some rules that were bad and didn't accomplish the thing they were trying to accomplish.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If most people don't play that way, the game should not be about that. The pagecount of the core books should be devoted to helping the majority of players. A later supplement or 3rd party product (like Strongholds and Followers/Kingdoms and Warfare) can be dedicated to nation/faction building.

All that says to me is that you want to reduce the scope of the game from the perspective of most of its players (who mostly or entirely stick to WotC), because of popularity. I still think we can show more to people entering our hobby at the most likely point by offering different ways to play. Using the DMG seems to be the way to me in that regard.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No. It's dumb. The rule was designed poorly. It didn't fulfill the goal that it was intended to do. That's bad game design. The rule forced different races to be unable to play the game effectively at later levels because Gygax didn't like them. That is dumb. It hurt campaigns because he didn't like that style of play. That's building "badwrongfun" into the rules of the game.

Or, WotC have improved the game in some ways and gotten rid of some rules that were bad and didn't accomplish the thing they were trying to accomplish.

Please stop insisting your opinion is fact. Truth isn't based on how many or how few others share your belief. Just say that's what you think.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

All that says to me is that you want to reduce the scope of the game from the perspective of most of its players (who mostly or entirely stick to WotC), because of popularity.

It means that we shouldn't cater to the minority when there's still work to be done for supporting the majority playstyle. The core books should focus on supporting how most people play. If they don't, they're failing at their job.

I still think we can show more to people entering our hobby at the most likely point by offering different ways to play. Using the DMG seems to be the way to me in that regard.

People will discover how they like to play through experience and trial and error. I remember reading through the optional rules in the DMG thinking "why in the world would I ever use that?" for a lot of the rules. If most of the optional rules are never used and they take up a significant pagecount, that pagecount can be better utilized teaching DMs how to run the game instead of giving them a bunch of rules that will probably be useless to them.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Please stop insisting your opinion is fact.

Wait "rules should do what they're intended to do" is controversial?

Truth isn't based on how many or how few others share your belief. Just say that's what you think.

And you're trying to say that the only reason why people don't like playing the way you do is because of WotC. You're not outright saying that, but that's what you're hinting at. Maybe your playstyle is just unpopular. Maybe the game has changed for the better for the overall community in some aspects.

"Truth" isn't based on popular opinion. What's beneficial to include in the core rulebooks is, though. The most common playstyle is the one that should be catered to in the core rulebooks, because it helps the largest group of people. If the core books don't focus on supporting the majority of people and how they play the game, they're failing at their purpose.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It means that we shouldn't cater to the minority when there's still work to be done for supporting the majority playstyle. The core books should focus on supporting how most people play. If they don't, they're failing at their job.

People will discover how they like to play through experience and trial and error. I remember reading through the optional rules in the DMG thinking "why in the world would I ever use that?" for a lot of the rules. If most of the optional rules are never used and they take up a significant pagecount, that pagecount can be better utilized teaching DMs how to run the game instead of giving them a bunch of rules that will probably be useless to them.

The DMG has never really been about learning how to run the game. That job is better delegated to starter sets, and other forms of media.