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.

 

[humble minion]

Hmmm.

Golden Vault: That'll probably be a no. Not a GM so I don't but adventures, and I'm generally not a fan of adventure compilations anyway.

Glory of the Giants: Probably no, but we'll see. I'm on the last stages of playing through Storm Kin's Thunder right now so I'm a bit giant-ed out, plus I've never been a huge fan of D&D's take on giants in the first place. Besides, Fizban's didn't really do it for me - it seemed to be an attempt to release a lore book applicable across every campaign setting (to avoid 2e/3e-type setting fanbase splintering and product overspecialisation i guess), but it only really seemed to homogenise and weaken all of them.

Book of Many Things: I honestly don't know what to think about about this one. We've seen the previews in UA, but how do you fill an entire book with this stuff? They specifically talk about it being themed around the Deck rather than being another Of Everything book, how do you come up with enough themed material without completely grasping at straws. Genuinely baffled regarding what this book looks like. I'd need to know more before deciding.

Phandelver campaign: as above, I don't buy adventures, and the prospect of yet another adventure set on the bloody Sword Coast makes me yawn uncontrollably when the whole of Faerun is out there untouched. I mean, it's certainly not a bad idea, but surely the time to release this was years ago when it was clear that Lost Mine was a bit of a modern classic and that first-timers using the starter set would want to extend their Phandelver campaigns? It seems weird to be releasing it a full year after Lost Mine went out of print and was replaced.

Planescape: Well, I'm excited to see it, but the proof will be in the pudding. I'm just reading through Spelljammer now and while it's gorgeous, you really don't get much actual meat for your money. I think i kinda hate the 3-books slipcase format, or at least i do when the books are so thin and scanty and you're paying for slipcases and dubiously useful DM screens rather than playing material. I genuinely object to buying an RPG product where there's more thickness of cardboard than paper. Given the lead time, I suspect the format of Planescape is locked in now and it's too late to change, so this will probably be a bare-bones planar adventure sourcebook rather than a Planescape setting, in the same way that Spelljammer is a minimalistic spelljamming sourcebook rather than an actual campaign setting in the manner of Rising from the Last War or VRGtR or anything from previous editions.

So it's not looking like a particularly exciting year on the WotC front for me. Still, I've already probably got half a dozen 3pp kickstarter products I'm expecting to arrive that year, so it's not like i'll be short of material...

 

[Malmuria]

I 100% agree. Since they are happy to kill some canon, it'd be great to roll back away from the Faction War and post-FW garbage and really lean into "here's how to do a citycrawl in a really bizarre city full of portals, and here's a bunch of really, really solid factions, locations, and political plot hooks."

I'd love that. That said, it's already been done extremely well by a few indie publishers for games like Troika! and the like, so even that may be a hard sell for someone like me, but would be awesome for newer players or D&D purists.

The funny thing is that they already made that book

A perpetual haze of dreary rain hangs over the spires of Ravnica. Bundled against the weather, the cosmopolitan citizens in all their fantastic diversity go about their daily business in bustling markets and shadowy back alleys. Through it all, ten guilds—crime syndicates, scientific institutions, church hierarchies, military forces, judicial courts, buzzing swarms, and rampaging gangs—vie for power, wealth, and influence.

 

[TerraDave]

I don't understand WotC's announcing the 6E playtest and then promoting what amounts to "dead edition" books.

There is no 6e Retreater and never will be. Finish your Kool-aid.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

I will buy them all, even Planescape (although that was my least favorite D&D setting of all time and the only thing from the pre-4e game that I ever sold instead of keeping).

 

[Michael Linke]

Planescape has (and always had) to do a lot of things

• Player options
• Sigil and the Outlands, including factions
• Manual of the Planes (each plane has a variable number of lairs, each of which is potentially infinite in scope)
• Bestiary
• general rules of navigating the planes and making adventures

The original PS box set had 224 pages of material, and was mostly just about the Sigil and the Outlands and the general vibe of planescape (each outer and inner plane got 1 page). The "Planes of..." box sets expanded on the outer planes, but to be honest rereading them now they take the infinity of the planes and turn them into a handful of locations that are either mundane ("here's what equipment you can buy in this town on hades") or incomprehensibly hostile to PCs with no good adventure hooks. The most successful PS material, IMO, was the sigil-oriented stuff (Uncaged, Guide to the Cage, Factol's Manifesto). And I think PS: Torment worked in part because it mostly stuck to Sigil and it's weirdness.

So, unless this slipcase is going to be monte cook-esque in length and density, the best thing they can do is focus on Sigil.

Spelljammer has had to do a lot of things too. But Hasbro just chose to not put those in the book. I wouldn't trust them to include all of those highly necessary things in a new planescape either.

 

[Michael Linke]

Hmmm.

Golden Vault: That'll probably be a no. Not a GM so I don't but adventures, and I'm generally not a fan of adventure compilations anyway.

Glory of the Giants: Probably no, but we'll see. I'm on the last stages of playing through Storm Kin's Thunder right now so I'm a bit giant-ed out, plus I've never been a huge fan of D&D's take on giants in the first place. Besides, Fizban's didn't really do it for me - it seemed to be an attempt to release a lore book applicable across every campaign setting (to avoid 2e/3e-type setting fanbase splintering and product overspecialisation i guess), but it only really seemed to homogenise and weaken all of them.

Book of Many Things: I honestly don't know what to think about about this one. We've seen the previews in UA, but how do you fill an entire book with this stuff? They specifically talk about it being themed around the Deck rather than being another Of Everything book, how do you come up with enough themed material without completely grasping at straws. Genuinely baffled regarding what this book looks like. I'd need to know more before deciding.

Phandelver campaign: as above, I don't buy adventures, and the prospect of yet another adventure set on the bloody Sword Coast makes me yawn uncontrollably when the whole of Faerun is out there untouched. I mean, it's certainly not a bad idea, but surely the time to release this was years ago when it was clear that Lost Mine was a bit of a modern classic and that first-timers using the starter set would want to extend their Phandelver campaigns? It seems weird to be releasing it a full year after Lost Mine went out of print and was replaced.

Planescape: Well, I'm excited to see it, but the proof will be in the pudding. I'm just reading through Spelljammer now and while it's gorgeous, you really don't get much actual meat for your money. I think i kinda hate the 3-books slipcase format, or at least i do when the books are so thin and scanty and you're paying for slipcases and dubiously useful DM screens rather than playing material. I genuinely object to buying an RPG product where there's more thickness of cardboard than paper. Given the lead time, I suspect the format of Planescape is locked in now and it's too late to change, so this will probably be a bare-bones planar adventure sourcebook rather than a Planescape setting, in the same way that Spelljammer is a minimalistic spelljamming sourcebook rather than an actual campaign setting in the manner of Rising from the Last War or VRGtR or anything from previous editions.

So it's not looking like a particularly exciting year on the WotC front for me. Still, I've already probably got half a dozen 3pp kickstarter products I'm expecting to arrive that year, so it's not like i'll be short of material...

Some of the adventure anthologies are mini-campaign settings, and include new mechanics and stuff. I buy most of them for that reason.

 

[Michael Linke]

How many hours of enjoyment do you expect per dollar in order to get your "money's worth"? I tend to value mine at about $5/hour -- the same I pay for a movie in the theater. So I would expect the $65 Spelljamemr set (which i didn't buy, to be clear) should provide at least 13 hours of entertainment for me (and, presumably, my book). In truth with D&D stuff it requires more than that because i usually have to buy whatever it is for Fantasy grounds as well.

The 5e Spelljammer book isn't bad, it's just incomplete. We'll surely get many hours enjoyment from it as it is, but there's a lot of stuff that really needed to be included but just wasn't. I bought it because money is no object. But for someone less fortunate than me who has to consider purchases, I would advise they place 5e spelljammer VERY far down on the list of "must have" books. As I said elsewhere, if you're not a die hard spelljammer fan, but want to do some kind of ship based exploration campaign, Saltmarsh and/or Theros are a better value.

 

[Malmuria]

Spelljammer has had to do a lot of things too. But Hasbro just chose to not put those in the book. I wouldn't trust them to include all of those highly necessary things in a new planescape either.

But I don't think other editions were able to do all those things either. The 3e Manual of the Planes has about 70 pages on the outer planes, which is great, but still a sketch. Even 2e, with its whole PS line and multiple box sets, while evocative, fall short on offering gameable material and end up reducing what should be weird expanses into standard dnd environments (did you know there are some goblins on Acheron that make great composite bows? etc). I don't know that planes, being composed of multiple infinities, can be really gazeetered in that way. Therefore...focus on Sigil.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Spelljammer has had to do a lot of things too. But Hasbro just chose to not put those in the book. I wouldn't trust them to include all of those highly necessary things in a new planescape either.

They put most of them in there. It's really only missing a section on example Wildspace systems and how to create your own, and maybe some Astral locations of interest. Others wanted more fine-tuned ship combat rules (which I'm indifferent on). Those seem to be the vast majority of complaints. All in all, another 16 pages or so would probably have been enough to fill those gaps.

I'm sure they're aware of this by now, so the only thing to be done is make sure that they remain aware of it as they finalize the PS release page count. And, moreover, the slipcase format was stated to be experimental, so they could very well go back to the single book setting, like they did with Eberron and Ravenloft.

 

[Demetrios1453]

But I don't think other editions were able to do all those things either. The 3e Manual of the Planes has about 70 pages on the outer planes, which is great, but still a sketch. Even 2e, with its whole PS line and multiple box sets, while evocative, fall short on offering gameable material and end up reducing what should be weird expanses into standard dnd environments (did you know there are some goblins on Acheron that make great composite bows? etc). I don't know that planes, being composed of multiple infinities, can be really gazeetered in that way. Therefore...focus on Sigil.

I'll second this. Anyone who thinks that a single Planescape release is going to somehow have more than even a fraction of what was in the four boxed sets and 4 - 5 single book releases (and those were just the setting info books, nevermind the adventures or bestiaries) of the 2e line is already setting themselves up for disappointment...