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.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

It is how I feel. Objective truth doesn't enter into it.

Sure, but you asked why people are upset with you. And when you claim something became “lesser” in a rather definitive statement it feels like you are trying to state a fact that things they like are lesser. That would be my read on it.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Canon in D&D means just as much to me as in the other franchises I referenced above. About halfway through 5e they finally changed and ignored enough stuff such that I can no longer imagine it as the same continuity. I'm obviously still sore about it.

But which version of “canon”

 

[Demetrios1453]

I want the paraelemental planes back

I mean, the four para-elemental planes are for all intents and purposes in the 5e DMG, just as border areas where the classic elemental planes overlap. Which really is just a matter of nitpicking on definitions at that point anyway - one planar geographer's "region" is another's "plane". Honestly, all that is missing are the quasi-elemental planes, and they're easy enough to add back in if one wants...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, but you asked why people are upset with you. And when you claim something became “lesser” in a rather definitive statement it feels like you are trying to state a fact that things they like are lesser. That would be my read on it.

No one else has objected on those grounds.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But which version of “canon”

1e's, mostly. They expanded the universe through 2e and 3e, and even 4e didn't change the past. Up until a few years ago I could see the worlds of D&D as more or less the same as they've always been. Then VRGtR was released, and things have gone off the rails from there, IMO.

 

[Remathilis]

1e's, mostly. They expanded the universe through 2e and 3e, and even 4e didn't change the past. Up until a few years ago I could see the worlds of D&D as more or less the same as they've always been. Then VRGtR was released, and things have gone off the rails from there, IMO.

I'm going to stop you right there.

2e introduced baatezu, tanarri, the blood war, changed the nature of bards and rangers, buffed giants and dragons, and made traveling between worlds as easy as hopping on a space galleon. 3e changed the planar structure of multiple worlds (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) added a class with the blood of dragons in it, changed the origin of kobolds and other humanoids, added the Far Realm and reconnected most aberrations origins to it. 4e literally created a universal origin (The Dawn War) which changed the very origins of several words, removed the Great Wheel, reconned monster origins from angels to demons to giants, and changed the very structure of magic in the world.

Eberron was radically changed in 4e when dragonmarks were no longer tied to specific races. Dark Sun tossed large swaths of 2e lore away in the 4e reboot. Dozens of Forgotten Realms NPCs were made sorcerers retroactively, and Greyhawk lore was modified and simplified to make it the default 3e setting for as long as that lasted. The notion that canon breaks began with Van Richten is ludicrous. Heck, TSR was retconning settings during the 2e run, which is why druid started out an option in Dragonlance in one book and was a heathen priest with no magic in the box set.

I get you have an axe to grind with 5e, but D&D canon has been a gloppy mess of contradictions, retcons, and "well, actually..." for as long as I can remember. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Man, I hated when they added the demi-plane of Dread back in 2e. D&D was never the same for me after that retcon.

Or when Jim Ward shoehorned Concordant Opposition into the cosmology to place the Celtic gods there.

 

[Stormonu]

...And then Concordant Opposition got retconned into the Outlands. Though personally, I can wrap my head around the Outlands far better.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Canon in D&D means just as much to me as in the other franchises I referenced above. About halfway through 5e they finally changed and ignored enough stuff such that I can no longer imagine it as the same continuity. I'm obviously still sore about it.

I accept your position but what baffles me is that you have the books with the lore you prefer, why does the divergence of "official canon" matter? Is is a feeling of belonging in a broader community?
I can accept if your answer is purely emotional and you have no deeper explanation. Even if you have a deeper reasoning I just want you to know, (in case we ever butt head in the future regarding lore) that I find your position nearly incomprehensible to me.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

1e's, mostly. They expanded the universe through 2e and 3e, and even 4e didn't change the past. Up until a few years ago I could see the worlds of D&D as more or less the same as they've always been. Then VRGtR was released, and things have gone off the rails from there, IMO.

I'm going to stop you right there.

2e introduced baatezu, tanarri, the blood war, changed the nature of bards and rangers, buffed giants and dragons, and made traveling between worlds as easy as hopping on a space galleon. 3e changed the planar structure of multiple worlds (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) added a class with the blood of dragons in it, changed the origin of kobolds and other humanoids, added the Far Realm and reconnected most aberrations origins to it. 4e literally created a universal origin (The Dawn War) which changed the very origins of several words, removed the Great Wheel, reconned monster origins from angels to demons to giants, and changed the very structure of magic in the world.

Eberron was radically changed in 4e when dragonmarks were no longer tied to specific races. Dark Sun tossed large swaths of 2e lore away in the 4e reboot. Dozens of Forgotten Realms NPCs were made sorcerers retroactively, and Greyhawk lore was modified and simplified to make it the default 3e setting for as long as that lasted. The notion that canon breaks began with Van Richten is ludicrous. Heck, TSR was retconning settings during the 2e run, which is why druid started out an option in Dragonlance in one book and was a heathen priest with no magic in the box set.

I get you have an axe to grind with 5e, but D&D canon has been a gloppy mess of contradictions, retcons, and "well, actually..." for as long as I can remember. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

I was going to reply to you @Micah Sweet, but @Remathilis did it better!