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.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

With regards to the whole "the existence of the First World diminishes all of the other settings" thing, FFXIV does something similar with its worldbuilding, and

Spoiler: with as few Shadowbringers/Endwalker spoilers as I can manage while still getting the point across

it's made pretty clear the very specific flaws inherent in that original, "perfect" world and its peoples were what made them acutely vulnerable to the big, apocalyptic threat that blindsided and all but destroyed them. They were wholly unequipped to combat or frankly even perceive it, and only barely managed to devise a means of holding it at bay at the cost of monumental sacrifices - and even then they could only shield their homeworld itself, leaving the threat in question free to ravage the rest of the universe for eons afterward and seemingly condemning all other life amongst the stars to oblivion.

The subsequent sundering of that original world (and its people) into the multitude of broken "shards" we see in game is actually framed as one of the key factors that enables their fragmented, "imperfect" descendants (i.e. the player and their allies) to ultimately find a way to combat, overcome, and end the threat permanently.

Just because the First World is being framed as the "original" version of the material plane does not mean it was perfect, nor does it mean the various settings that are now being framed as its echoes are somehow less significant. There's still very little lore regarding the First World to work from - we've barely got the top-level synopsis. If it doesn't work for you, then by all means, don't use it, but I for one find it interesting and am looking forward to seeing how they develop the concept.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

In a nutshell, I feel its existence reduces the significance of the various D&D settings by essentially saying all of them are fractured copies of some special, "perfect" world that no longer exists. It's a bad retcon to me.

But I've been over this extensively in previous threads, and don't really like ranting about it again.

It is not a retcon. It was new added lore that could or could not be true.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is not a retcon. It was new added lore that could or could not be true.

If it is true, it's a retcon. A bad one in my view. Further, I fully expect them to double down on the First World in their upcoming giant book. The lore in my view keeps getting worse every time they touch on it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If it is true, it's a retcon.

New information is not a retcon. A retcon is saying that previous information is false.

And even there, not all retcons are inherently problematic.

If we discovered a civilization that predated Mesopotamia, that would be a "retcon," as Mesopotamia would no longer be the first human civilization, but it wouldn't invalidate or discount any current information about the history of human civilization. It just expands the timeline and further opportunities for research.

The First World is just another plane that may or may not have existed and which according to legend has resonances with the world that exists. It could be 100% true in the opinion of the current crew at WotC and not affect your game, where either no one knows the legend or where it's been "proven" false. (I'm not sure how you'd prove that sort of negative, as having an immortal say it's untrue doesn't mean much, other than yet another story hook for later.)

 

[Micah Sweet]

New information is not a retcon. A retcon is saying that previous information is false.

And even there, not all retcons are inherently problematic.

If we discovered a civilization that predated Mesopotamia, that would be a "retcon," as Mesopotamia would no longer be the first human civilization, but it wouldn't invalidate or discount any current information about the history of human civilization. It just expands the timeline and further opportunities for research.

The First World is just another plane that may or may not have existed and which according to legend has resonances with the world that exists. It could be 100% true in the opinion of the current crew at WotC and not affect your game, where either no one knows the legend or where it's been "proven" false. (I'm not sure how you'd prove that sort of negative, as having an immortal say it's untrue doesn't mean much, other than yet another story hook for later.)

A retcon is a change or addition to the past. If the First World legend is true, it is a retcon. In this case it is a retcon that, if true, reduces the value of every existing setting in its own right by connected them to "pure", original version of which all existing settings are fractured copies.

And literally everything produced by a game company can be ignored by your own table. Follow that logic, and you shouldn't say anything negative about any content ever, because you can just ignore it. There's nothing wrong with criticizing something you don't like, as long as you don't push for it not to exist or personally attack the creators.

 

[Demetrios1453]

A retcon is a change or addition to the past. If the First World legend is true, it is a retcon. In this case it is a retcon that, if true, reduces the value of every existing setting in its own right by connected them to "pure", original version of which all existing settings are fractured copies.

And literally everything produced by a game company can be ignored by your own table. Follow that logic, and you shouldn't say anything negative about any content ever, because you can just ignore it. There's nothing wrong with criticizing something you don't like, as long as you don't push for it not to exist or personally attack the creators.

"If it is true..."

That's the point - it's a legend. It may be true; it may not be true. It's currently Schrodinger's legend - WotC hasn't collapsed its wave function yet, and may never do so. The real fun begins in a couple of months when, as I suspect, the giants book will have its own, completely incompatable version of the First World legend to really set the (both alive and dead) cat among the pigeons....

 

[Ruin Explorer]

New information is not a retcon. A retcon is saying that previous information is false.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. THINGS THAT DEFINITELY MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM.

With respect Whiz, I disagree.

It can absolutely be a retcon without saying previous information was outright false, if it massively recontextualizes previous information. In fact, that's one of the most common kinds of retcon - for example "Oh yeah you thought that guy died, but turns out he uploaded his brain, and we just didn't mention it before even though it seems like it was kind of important and also something he might mention". Does that make the previous film a liar? No. Does it recontextualize things in a pretty serious way? Yeah. Would I call that a retcon? 100% I would and so would pretty much everyone I know.

It's actually rare that a retcon says previous info was outright false, I'd say. The norm really is either recontextualization or "yes and/but..." which adds to the previous information.

If we discovered a civilization that predated Mesopotamia, that would be a "retcon"

Nah mate come on.

Real things like that are never "retcons".

Retcon means "retroactive continuity". It is a strictly a concept that applies to fiction, even if some people sometimes fictionalize elements of their own lives ("Oh yeah I dumped them, they didn't dump me!").

It's currently Schrodinger's legend - WotC hasn't collapsed its waveform yet, and may never do so.

Yeah that's the big question.

If WotC say The First World is true, then that's absolutely a retcon, and a huge one. And yes it's ignorable, but it's quite significant and wild. If they say it "might" be true, or was "one past" or something, then that's not really as big a deal.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A retcon is a change or addition to the past.

Dude, no. I was there when the term was first used and throughout its decades of use since.

"New stuff I didn't know that bothers me" isn't a retcon.

The Star Wars prequels aren't retcons. The midichlorians, as awful as they are, aren't retcons.

If the prequels had said "well, actually, all of this took place in the Matrix and Luke Skywalker actually works at a 7-Eleven when he's not jacked into VR," that would be a retcon, because it says what we knew before was wrong.

Words have meaning.

You can't say everything new you don't like is a "retcon." It can just be stupid crap you don't like.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It can absolutely be a retcon without saying previous information was outright false, if it massively recontextualizes previous information. In fact, that's one of the most common kinds of retcon - for example "Oh yeah you thought that guy died, but turns out he uploaded his brain, and we just didn't mention it before even though it seems like it was kind of important and also something he might mention". Does that make the previous film a liar? No. Does it recontextualize things in a pretty serious way? Yeah. Would I call that a retcon? 100% I would and so would pretty much everyone I know.

It's actually rare that a retcon says previous info was outright false, I'd say. The norm really is either recontextualization or "yes and/but..." which adds to the previous information.

I am OK with you and everyone you know (you have some odd discussions at work, I must say) being incorrect here.

"We didn't know this thing that happened either before we started paying attention or after we stopped paying attention," it's just stuff that happened off stage.

In Crisis on Infinite Earth, the trope originator/popularizer, the continuity of Earth was literally rewritten after 12 issues and a zillion tie-in comics altered the past, present and future (for a while, anyway) of the DC Universe. Retcons as far as the eye could see.

For instance, Jason Todd went from being a Dick Grayson clone, complete with circus origin, to being a street kid who, uh, stole the wheels off the Batmobile, which doesn't seem like a real improvement.

In contrast, in the Court of Owls (and I haven't read the storyline, so just big picture stuff here), the revelation that there has been a secret organization involved in Gotham political and economic life for centuries is just new information and is no more a retcon than learning the name of the Assistant District Attorneys who worked with Harvey Dent but whom we've never been introduced to.

If every bit of new information that provides additional context for the world is a retcon, than essentially everything is a retcon, and the term is basically meaningless.

If, in the new season of the show, we learn that Ted Lasso's ex-wife was dating someone else off-screen during the first season of the show, that's not a retcon. We had no reason to believe that wasn't true, and just not expressed. It's just new information.

To bring this back to D&D, the First World, love it or hate it, doesn't currently invalidate anything that's come before. According to the dragons -- who could be completely wrong -- there was a mythic world before the current material world.

We've learned things from prehistory before, most notably in Hordes of the Abyss, which told us all about the demons who existed before the Tan'aari. (No idea where the apostrophe there goes, sorry.) It doesn't mean the existing 'T'a'n'a'a'r'i' are in any way different, just that they're not the most senior folks around. Not a retcon, just new information.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

They are playing with the ambiguity, and maybe this should be best option. Some times the changes are necessary, but altering the continuity has got its risks among the fandom. They are awaiting to see our reactions.

My question is if Hasbro/WotC is going to make canon the uchronies or alternate timelines after of decades of other franchises creating a rich mythology about time-travel and parallel universes. This could fix all possible trouble about what is canon or not.