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.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think Dark Sun could easily work by leaning in hard to the environmental apocalypse of the setting. Centering that would be a great way for it to feel more modern, even if it's always been a major element of the setting. (And hey, WotC could probably benefit from the Streisand Effect over people being upset about D&D being too "woke" as a result.)

 

[Incenjucar]

It really is vital to have fans of the work be involved. You can't write what you don't understand, and it's hard to fully grasp Planescape without being a little obsessed with it.

 

[Zaukrie]

I think Dark Sun could easily work by leaning in hard to the environmental apocalypse of the setting. Centering that would be a great way for it to feel more modern, even if it's always been a major element of the setting. (And hey, WotC could probably benefit from the Streisand Effect over people being upset about D&D being too "woke" as a result.)

100%

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

This is like somebody writting a novel decades or centuries ago, and when this is readen by members of new generations and among these there are artists who start to paint the characters and scenes of the story, we can realises they don't share the same vision. And this is not wrong.

In the game the players have got their own vision about how is Planescape, or how should be. Maybe somebody creates a new underground layer within Sigil, or there is a portal toward an alternate timeline.

Don't worry too much about the canon because later the lore has to be changed in your tabletop, at least to avoid players to know too much because they have read the fandom wikis.

And new we are in the generation who watchs "Ricky & Morty", a very bizarre cartoon for adults. Next to this Sigil is Walt Disney, or maybe more Jim Henson's "Labyrinth".

Planescape Factions / Characters - TV Tropes

Dungeons & Dragons Main Characters Index Character Classes | Creatures | Deities | Playable Races Campaign Settings: Dragonlance | Eberron (Dragonmarked Houses | Religions | Nations) | Forgotten Realms (Gods | Factions | The Legend of Drizzt …

tvtropes.org

 

[teitan]

I think Dark Sun could easily work by leaning in hard to the environmental apocalypse of the setting. Centering that would be a great way for it to feel more modern, even if it's always been a major element of the setting. (And hey, WotC could probably benefit from the Streisand Effect over people being upset about D&D being too "woke" as a result.)

I think it can work as is. I really don’t think people are as sensitive to its themes as many believe especially since other games portray those themes and there are crickets around them.

 

[teitan]

For Planescape I suspect Tony DiTerlizzi will be back though probably only for 1 or 2 new commissioned art pieces instead of all the artwork. He might have stated sometime ago he was doing something for WotC. Dana Knuston who's work was also quite important in the look of Planescape though, probably won't be back.

Sigil I suspect will be both changed "too much" and "not enough" for just about everyone who cares. It's inevitable that's going to happen. Sure they based Sigil off of London in the 1800's but could also pull some inspiration from Modern Day London or other metropoli.

The new work for WOTC was for explicitly Magic, it wasn’t new Planescape or D&D work but he may very well have a piece or three in it anyway.

 

[humble minion]

I wonder what that means for Dragonlance then as Spelljammer is currently outselling it on Amazon.

Bear in mind that due to supply chain problems, SotDQ wasn't even available through Amazon for a long time in some places (Australia for instance). I got a copy of the deluxe edition through a (possible fortunate) online game shop, but even those are getting a bit thin on the ground now. Supply is starting to trickle in, but loads of outlets are still out of stock. Supply is definitely affecting sales right now.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think Dark Sun could easily work by leaning in hard to the environmental apocalypse of the setting. Centering that would be a great way for it to feel more modern, even if it's always been a major element of the setting. (And hey, WotC could probably benefit from the Streisand Effect over people being upset about D&D being too "woke" as a result.)

Yeah that would be the classic move and absolutely idiots will call WotC "woke", and then the idiots will immediately be trampled by hordes upon hordes of posters rushing to say "THATS WHAT IT WAS ABOUT IN 1991 YOU DUNCE!", because everyone loves to correct someone on the internet.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think it can work as is. I really don’t think people are as sensitive to its themes as many believe especially since other games portray those themes and there are crickets around them.

Have you considered that many of those other games have different audiences? And the games with more similar audiences have made similar changes. You'll notice Paizo got rid of slavery in Golarion for PF2, for example. Comparing some edgy OSR game with a few thousand regular players to D&D with tens of millions may not be very helpful.

Also 5E's audience skews hard Gen Z, and hard to the "socially conscious". This is easy to see from WotC's age figures and from discussions of D&D among younger people (I read some particularly eye-widening discussion of "how Paladins behave" among some 20-somethings lately - suffice to say EGG would turning in his grave, pro-paladin-committed-genocide as he was - at one point the conclusion was reached that Devotion and Ancients Paladins would "probably be vegan" even because of their oaths, lol). It's also easy to see in the popular D&D podcasts, and so on.

As such I think you'll find slavery is a little more of a hot-button issue with D&D's audience (and Pathfinder's audience) than it is with that of say, Dungeon Crawl Classics or whatever these "other games" you're thinking of are. Indeed, which games are you thinking of?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah that would be the classic move and absolutely idiots will call WotC "woke", and then the idiots will immediately be trampled by hordes upon hordes of posters rushing to say "THATS WHAT IT WAS ABOUT IN 1991 YOU DUNCE!", because everyone loves to correct someone on the internet.

The easiest way to get an answer in MMORPG is to ask a question and then have a friend give the wrong answer. You won't be able to keep up with the "helpful" corrections after that.