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.

 

[Incenjucar]

Thing is though, Torment is the most popuar Planescape out there ever. They're going to lean into that simply because its what folks know. Other stories to tell, yeah, but as far as "Hey here's a character you can meet", folks are gonna care moe to run into Fall-from-Grace or Nordom than anyone from a Planescape book

It's fine if the characters are there, I just don't think it needs to be an actual sequel to that story. That story is pretty well wrapped up. It also doesn't need to have the same feel - absolutely should have SECTIONS of that feel, but it should be able to have its own identity.

It would be good to be able to make your own main character, for example, instead of being a mummy man with amnesia.
They could also really lean into choice a bit more. Maybe let you be the deciding factor on which way a gate town shifts between two planes it's trapped between, and dip further into the character relationship bit that was already a great part of the Torment game, and so many modern RPGs like Persona.

 

[JEB]

Thing is though, Torment is the most popuar Planescape out there ever. They're going to lean into that simply because its what folks know. Other stories to tell, yeah, but as far as "Hey here's a character you can meet", folks are gonna care moe to run into Fall-from-Grace or Nordom than anyone from a Planescape book

Considering they produced a Nameless One mini, I'd say an appearance by at least him is pretty likely.

 

[Ondath]

I'm afraid this is what I need....

I really want Planescape to lean into the style it had already, and bring in the crazy via the populations of the planes all coming there, and having the subversion of expectation and having Sigil really be a place of Angels and Demons, and everything in between all coming together.

I'm sure I'll be disappointed, but I would love it if they kept that style going.

Then, I want the Gate Towns, Gods, Alignment, and how it all ties together, in theory.

I understand that point of view, and the Diterlizzi style dark fairy tale cum industrial dirt was iconic indeed. But the fact of the matter is, they won't hire Diterlizzi for the book. They're much more keen on keeping a single, unified art style (which seems to be more digital and realistic, there was a whole thread about whether this is good or bad a few months ago) and keeping just the dirty London aesthetic in that will prove to be very boring IMO. We might as well lean on the cosmopolitan aspect and let new artists add their flair to the mix.

 

[Ondath]

I would bet after Baldur's Gate 3 and expansions/DLCs the next title would be a sequel of the Planescape videogame.

You've made this claim a few times and I just don't see it mate. Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 were bona fide classics that made Bioware what it is today. So making Baldur's Gate 3 made a lot of sense from a brand recognition perspective.

The same can't be said for Planescape: Torment. It's a cult classic that fought against its own game engine to tell a good story, didn't sell that well and ultimately is only known by die-hard fans. I just don't see WotC or Larian being sufficiently interested in this brand to make a new AAA game which are costly and take a long time to make (by its release, BG3 will have just finished its third year of Early Access, and this is presumably with earlier development also taking several years).

 

[MockingBird]

There's already a spiritual successor to PS:T. If Lorian makes a true sequel well...I just don't think it'll be good. I'm a firm believer that Obsidian should have made BG 3 (PoE hit the mark far better for that type of game) but that's just my opinion.
I feel like if they don't get Diterlizzi to do the new PS art WotC is making a mistake. To me that art style is what made PS so, I dunno, special. I really hope they hire Diterlizzi to do the art work or at least lean into that style.

 

[OB1]

As I use a completely reimagined homebrew version of Sigil in my campaigns (comprised of 9, 15 mile long, 5 mile wide districts include Fantasy District, the District of Tomorrow, Renaissance District, Carnival District, etc), I'm actually hoping that Planescape focuses more on the Outlands and the Outer Planes than Sigil.

That said, if it is heavily focused on Sigil, I can use it to flesh out my 'Philosopher's District' which I created to contain most of the old lore and factions but which my players haven't really explored yet (as that district is in a perpetual state of open warfare). And I still use the 3e Manual of the Planes as a guide for Outer Plane travel, but I wouldn't mind having a Boo's like compilation of monsters to help out with that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As I use a completely reimagined homebrew version of Sigil in my campaigns (comprised of 9, 15 mile long, 5 mile wide districts include Fantasy District, the District of Tomorrow, Renaissance District, Carnival District, etc),

Which version of Pirates of the Caribbean does Sigil include?

 

[OB1]

Which version of Pirates of the Caribbean does Sigil include?

Aqua District - The primary city is underwater and home to aquatic races, but on the surface, thousands of ships tie together in floating communities.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would love to see your notes for your setting, either here or on DMs Guild. I love a good planar metropolis.

 

[Burnside]

It's very hard for me to take seriously the idea that Sigil, which has been almost completely untouched by any official WotC sources for more than 20 years, has been "done to death." There is an entire generation of players that has largely never heard of it.

For casual consumers, D&D itself - meat and potatoes, Lost Mine of Phandelver D&D - is still a weird novelty. You really must be peering out from inside of a Gen X veteran player bubble to believe that Sigil is "played out."

If this product contains a lot of lore about Sigil, some folks will be unhappy because WotC will have to override and retcon previous lore.

If this product contains an amount of Sigil lore analogous to what the Rock of Bral got in Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, some folks will be unhappy that the amount of lore provided will be called flimsy and skeletal.

My concern is that Spelljammer: Adventures in Space seems to have flopped financially in a way that is very unusual for a 5E product.

I don't see a strong reason to think this Planescape product will do much better, given that:

1. Like Spelljammer, Planescape was never financially successful in any edition or in any medium (no, not even Planescape: Torment)

2. It's getting the "three slim hardcovers in a box" treatment, which asks the customer to literally pay more for less content

3. Like it or not (and I don't, particularly) the majority of players and DMs still seem to want an essentially Tolkien-esque setting and experience in their D&D. Deviate from it at your own risk (Ravenloft does fine, though).