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.

 

[plisnithus8]

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

Not 6e, OneD&D -- so these purgatory books are undead.

 

[Retreater]

This has to be in the top 5 of Weird Takes I Read on EN World.

So they originally weren't going to call 5e "5e" and then decided they had to in order to communicate with what fans were calling it in reality.
"D&D One" isn't going to stick. People don't talk that way.
It's going to end up being 6e (or possibly 5.5e.)

 

[Reynard]

So they originally weren't going to call 5e "5e" and then decided they had to in order to communicate with what fans were calling it in reality.
"D&D One" isn't going to stick. People don't talk that way.
It's going to end up being 6e (or possibly 5.5e.)

"Next" was the same as "One" - a project or code name. they even said One was a code name during the announcmeent.

The "weird take" is that you don't think 5E is officially called 5E.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Basically, how in the world can WotC know that everything published since 2014 will be compatible with the 2024 edition when they haven't even playtested the 2024 edition?


Well, if you're coming to my game in 2025, do you want to know if you're using the 2014 Player's Handbook, the 2024 Player's Handbook, or should I make you a list of options in between?
The distinction matters because the rules matter. Already we're seeing significant boosts in Backgrounds and handing out Feats like candy. Do you want a character made with a crappy 2014 background and no Level 1 feat if Mistwell gets a shiny, new 2024 character? No, you don't.
It's. Not. The. Same. Game.

3.0 and 3.5 were completely compatible "editions" of the game. You might need to adjust the odd number here or there, but the material was easily swapped between one or the other. That's why we refer to it as 3.X

3.X and 4e were not compatible. You could not take your 3.5 book of classes and monsters and run them in a 4e game. Nothing worked the same.

4e and 5e are not compatible. You can't take your 4e stuff and play it in 5e without converting it. The basics of the design are entirely different.

I haven't even looked at the One D&D playtest packet yet. but I will tell you how they can make the promise of backwards compatibility before playtesting is over. Because they know they aren't going to make a fundamental shift to the math of the game. Sure, maybe your 2024 Elven Ranger is going to look very different from a 2014 Elven Ranger, but the underlying engine isn't going to change, just the pieces added on. Which we've already done with Tasha's. Do you need to know if I'm using Tasha's? Yes. Does Tasha's represent an entirely new edition of the game because of it? No.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is not 6th edition, it is 5e+. They specifically said all of these books will work with the '24 edition. Did you listen to the announcement?

They're not calling it a new edition, but that's all corporate speak. The changes they are making fall within the spectrum of previous edition changes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Honestly it sounds like more of a change than I expected, but it is more like a 1e - 2e change versus the 2e-3e / 3e-4e / 4e-5e change. The big point (whatever you call the edition) is that they are saying you will be able to run any adventure from 2014 forward with the 2024 core books without making any changes. You can use the 2014 MM monsters with the 2024 PHB characters.

I really like how they are proposing to expand backgrounds.

PS I have no reference for your Xbox analogy, but this is not pure marketing talk. The are actually calling D&D One, so they are marketing a bit of a change.

As you say, 1e-2e was an edition change, and was also almost completely backwards compatible.

 

[Xenolith234]

They know that not everyone is going to be upgrading to 6e.

Don't worry, if you're on D&D Beyond, they'll just automatically deactivate your old content and make you repurchase it!

 

[Micah Sweet]

The TL;DW is that the latest books have all been designed to work with the 2024 version for a couple years now. Anything they put out now will still be usable fully with the changes. The Mosnters of the Multiverse reprints were confirmed by Crawford to match with the new Monster Manual changes.

Like how the 1e book Greyhawk Adventures was designed to work with the then-upcoming 2e.

 

[Parmandur]

Like how the 1e book Greyhawk Adventures was designed to work with the then-upcoming 2e.

Yup, or Forgotten Realm Adventures, etc. The test document has a one paragraph sidebar that explains how to use the new Backgrounds with 2014 Races, and...it's easy and straightforward. These are not changes thst will break compatibility.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why MUST there be a distinction? If they are compatible, then it doesn't matter.

Because the changes they ARE making, as non-fundamental as they are, will cause the new books to look very different from the old ones. It's not like no one is going to notice!