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.

 

[bedir than]

That's not entirely correct: Shawn Merwin and Teos Abadia are regular contract writers for WotC.

They certainly aren't violating their freelance agreement for a podcast with 100s of listeners.

 

[Parmandur]

They certainly aren't violating their freelance agreement for a podcast with 100s of listeners.

Wouldn't be unique: you can practically hear Teos turn white when he slips in "who onows, maybe something like that is in the works.." and Merwin moves on Very Quickly...plenty of room for plausible deniability.

It seems a likely subject for the Planescape Slipcase, at any rate.

 

[humble minion]

I'd be surprised if the Planescape release doesn't heavily feature modrons, to be honest. Spelljammer leaned hard into all the meme-y goofiness of the setting, the giff and the hamsters and so on, because they want to punch the nostalgia buttons. Modrons are basically the planescape equivalent of that. And they have the advantage that dealing philosophically with Pure Law in a game supplement doesn't involve anything like the potential landmines as dealing with Pure Good.

 

[Quickleaf]

Wouldn't be unique: you can practically hear Teos turn white when he slips in "who onows, maybe something like that is in the works.." and Merwin moves on Very Quickly...plenty of room for plausible deniability.

It seems a likely subject for the Planescape Slipcase, at any rate.

Hey Parmandur, what is your read on the community's pulse around the Spelljammer slipcase?

I didn't get it myself, but I did watch a flip-through waiting for the doctor's office, and the reviews I've read/heard have all been mixed - a fair number of comments about the low page count for setting info, lack of planet-building, linear adventure, etc. The reviews were enough to influence me to instead spend my gaming money kickstarting ENWorld's Dungeon Delve & skerples' OSR Monster Overhaul.

I'm wondering which way the wind is blowing for improving what they tried with the slipcase model to something less... anemic... for Planescape.

 

[Parmandur]

Hey Parmandur, what is your read on the community's pulse around the Spelljammer slipcase?

I didn't get it myself, but I did watch a flip-through waiting for the doctor's office, and the reviews I've read/heard have all been mixed - a fair number of comments about the low page count for setting info, lack of planet-building, linear adventure, etc. The reviews were enough to influence me to instead spend my gaming money kickstarting ENWorld's Dungeon Delve & skerples' OSR Monster Overhaul.

I'm wondering which way the wind is blowing for improving what they tried with the slipcase model to something less... anemic... for Planescape.

Seems pretty miced: some people liked it, some people didn't...most seem to feel it was too short. I like it, but it feels like it was held back by the page count: take the same material, spread it out into 320 pages of material instead of 192 and I thinknit would have been in the sweet spot (by having Moreno generating systems, say, or even just systems from the history of the game).

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Modrons will return because they are one of the iconic D&D creatures, and they are perfect to sell LEGO modrons figures.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Wasn't the original point of modrons that you could use your dice as minis?

 

[OB1]

@Quickleaf My group has been playing the included adventure in Spelljammer since it came out and having a blast. Now I've been aware of the setting for 35+ years, but never had any of the old books (just always liked the concept) and the players had either never heard of it or never played either.

I'd say that the set is a very good introduction to the setting. The adventure is laser focused on the primary plot, giving enough info and room to be expanded on wherever I want (or wherever the players decide to go). Same with the guide. It's more about inspiration that prescription, if that makes sense.

I get the feeling that my players are going to want to continue in the setting at the end of the adventure, and I feel like I have plenty to hang a campaign on if they do. I'll probably start digging into either DMGuild or older books to help flesh it out, but I've also got a lot of my own ideas to bring to the frame from my own sci-fi and fantasy background.

I will say that Boo's Menagerie is probably worth the price of admission alone. Some of the best and most challenging monsters WoTC has put out yet. And I've been pleasantly surprised at how tough a lot of the single encounter adventuring days that the adventure puts together has been. Wildspace is freaking dangerous.

 

[Weiley31]

Modrons will return because they are one of the iconic D&D creatures, and they are perfect to sell LEGO modrons figures.

Glitchling UA is pretty much a refluffed Modron.

 

[Weiley31]

Wasn't the original point of modrons that you could use your dice as minis?

That is straight up Awesome if that is the case.