D&D 5E Planescape, Bigby, Phandelver and the Deck of Many Things: Covers & Details Revealed!

The covers of the upcoming D&D books — including Planescape, Glory of the Giants, and the Deck of Many Things have been revealed.

• August 15th -- Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants ($59.95)
• August 15th -- The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons ($39.95)
• September 19th -- Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk ($59.95)
• October 16th -- Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse ($TBA)
• November 14th -- Book of Many Things ($TBA)

Coming August 15th with two variants. Lore about giants, 76 stat blocks, feats, and a giant subclass.

3 hardcovers in a boxed set-- 96 page guide to Sigil, 64-page bestiary, and 96-page adventure, along with a poster map and DM screen. Coming October 16th.

224-page adventure for levels 1-12, poster map, 16 new monsters. Coming September 19th.

66 illustrated cards, 192-page book with lore, character options, magic items, and monsters, 80-page card reference guide, all in a slipcase. Coming November 14th.​

These Are Dungeons & Dragons' New Products For 2023

New books for the fantasy role-playing game include Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, and a look at the legendary Deck of Many Things.

themessenger.com

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The 3e Forgotten Realms campaign book was good for information. Was that too much for you?

I have it here. It's a mine of completely useless information. I must have used about 5% of it. Compared to Tomb of Annihilation, which I have used around 30% of, without ever running the adventure. ToA was the better value for money by far.

 

[Parmandur]

While I liked Greyhawk a lot back in 1e, I found it to be too vague even then. For me the ideal setting book is along the lines of the 3e Forgotten Realms campaign book or the Eberron book. Lots of details included, while still leaving 90%+ of each country undetailed.

It's a good one, but I appreciate the efficiency and wide open nature of the OG Greyhawk. I mean, that is probably also why I'm pretty set with 20-40 pages of regional gazateer material embedded in the big Campaigns.

 

[Parmandur]

I have it here. It's a mine of completely useless information. I must have used about 5% of it. Compared to Tomb of Annihilation, which I have used around 30% of, without ever running the adventure. ToA was the better value for money by far.

Tomb of Annhilation is a high water mark in a lot of ways.

 

[Maxperson]

I have it here. It's a mine of completely useless information. I must have used about 5% of it. Compared to Tomb of Annihilation, which I have used around 30% of, without ever running the adventure. ToA was the better value for money by far.

See, I used it a lot. Lots of useful information. Adventure hooks without the adventures being written. Plots. Names or inns and local important figures, without naming the majority of them. And on and on.

 

[Parmandur]

See, I used it a lot. Lots of useful information. Adventure hooks without the adventures being written. Plots. Names or inns and local important figures, without naming the majority of them. And on and on.

Tomb of Annhilation has that, as well, and actually a lot more than the 2 pages Chult got in the FRCS: as @Paul Farquhar says, he has used 30% of the book without running the big story campaign, and that is plausible to me based on the contents.

 

[Parmandur]

Worth noting, too, that Tomb of Annhilation' area of coverage is about halfway between the size California and Texas, or Spain and France. It is mostly jungle, yes, but the hex crawl section works as a regional Setting book quite well.

 

[Mecheon]

I understand you don't like a fantasy chop-suey culture, mixing things from different sources, but some times this can be intentional, and justified. Players could use the fantasy version as darts against the real version. For example in jianghu story the antagonists could be opium traffikers wearing smokins and bowler hats, as an allegory of the British empire for the colonial age. Or the bad guys are the formians, as a parody of the red revolutionary army, or alien wasps from outer space (I doubt W.A.S.Ps. to be very happy with the idea). We try to be polittically correct, but they are no-Caucasian people who aren't ashamed for their supremacist or xenophobes predjudices against their next neighbours. Then to stop those possible pejorative stereotypes against other communities, then all those groups are within the same land.

Luis, mate. I'm criticising real actually published product Oriental Adventures. It wasn't justified at all. It was "Their only view into this world was what they could find on Japan and they just slapped it over everything". You've just gone off left field for whatever reason I cannot fathom when I was talking more on the internal consistency to it compared to other places in Faerun.

To put in simpler terms: If a book was sold to me as "Explore Fantasy France", then I'd expect it to be Fantasy France, not Fantasy Italy. No, I do not want a Centurion for this Fantasy France book you've sold me, that is significantly out of place and possibly even time, especially if I was expecting a bit more paladins.

Likewise though, I expect internal consistency in lands. If I buy an expansion to "The Land Of Excessive Magic and Fun Times" then I expect add-ons will go into those themes. Game of Thrones sure does draw from mythology and pop-culture, but I wouldn't slap Nephelokokkygia in there (despite that one time in a video game I used it to defeat the aboleths. as you do).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

See, I used it a lot. Lots of useful information.

Lot's of useless information. Before the plague the population of Scardale was 11,099. Who cares? Who counted? Did they have to kill someone every time a baby was born in order to keep that constant?

Adventure hooks without the adventures being written. Plots.

I thought you said you created your own adventures? I create my own plots, even when I use prewritten adventures.

Names or inns and local important figures, without naming the majority of them. And on and on.

Things that change frequently. I make up names as required. They will likely have changed in a few months anyway. I don't need the name of the inn. I need the floor-plan of the inn, with some interesting characters, with proper personalities that the PCs can interact with. That's useful detail.

 

[Maxperson]

Lot's of useless information.

You don't get to tell me that I didn't find it useful. I found that information to be incredibly useful. Useless to you =/= useless in general.

Before the plague the population of Scardale was 11,099. Who cares? Who counted? Did they have to kill someone every time a baby was born in order to keep that constant?

Scaredale cares. Scaredale counted. And that lore can easily come up if/when the PCs visit Scaredale.

I thought you said you created your own adventures? I create my own plots, even when I use prewritten adventures.

I do create my own adventures. That doesn't mean that I don't often draw upon inspiration from a blurb in one of the regions that is interesting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You don't get to tell me that I didn't find it useful. I found that information to be incredibly useful. Useless to you =/= useless in general.

What you find useful isn't what most people find useful. You can't complain because a company doesn't cater to a small number of obsessives.

Scaredale cares. Scaredale counted. And that lore can easily come up if/when the PCs visit Scaredale.

When will that happen? There are a couple of hundred population centres detailed in the book. So the chance of the PCs visiting one is less than 1%.

I do create my own adventures. That doesn't mean that I don't often draw upon inspiration from a blurb in one of the regions that is interesting.

But of course, you can't do that, because the book is written for 3rd edition and therefore is useless for 5e?