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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, but race-as-class was an innovation of the Basic branch; it wasn't in OD&D either.

Can you explain how it worked in that?

 

[glass]

Can you explain how it worked in that?

AIUI (and bear in mind that OD&D came out two years before I was born), elves had a weird thing where they could be decide to be a Magic-user or a Fighting Man on an adventure-by-adventure basis, which was obviously the inspiration as the Basic branch's Elf class but was not the same thing as it. Dwarves and Halflings picked the class normally, although in the core rules they only had one option: Fighting Man. Once Supplement 1: Greyhawk came out everyone could be Thieves (and AIUI Elf Thieves gave up their weird class switching thing).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Can you explain how it worked in that?

Going off memory, Basic D&D had these classes:

Fighter
Magic User
Thief
Cleric
Elf
Dwarf
Halfling

"Dwarf" was a fighter variant, "Halfling" was a thief variant, and "elf" was equivalent to a fighter/magic user multiclass.

 

[glass]

Going off memory, Basic D&D had these classes:

I am pretty sure both @Ruin Explorer and I know what Basic had. The question was about what OD&D had. I maintain it did not have race-as-class (although it had some features that may have inspired that direction), and I was querying whether it had level limits

 

[Ruin Explorer]

AIUI (and bear in mind that OD&D came out two years before I was born), elves had a weird thing where they could be decide to be a Magic-user or a Fighting Man on an adventure-by-adventure basis, which was obviously the inspiration as the Basic branch's Elf class but was not the same thing as it. Dwarves and Halflings picked the class normally, although in the core rules they only had one option: Fighting Man. Once Supplement 1: Greyhawk came out everyone could be Thieves (and AIUI Elf Thieves gave up their weird class switching thing).

I looked into it and this is basically right. One key difference demi-humans have actually-powerful abilities unlike in all later versions of D&D.

Dwarves are Fighters and can advance to 6th, but take 50% damage from large or clumsy monsters (!!!), and have saving throws as if they were 4 levels higher, as well as stone sense (no check, they just auto-notice a bunch of stuff, including traps).

It's hard to parse the Elf text but it seems to be saying they're essentially dual-classed, not multi-classed, they pick 1 class per adventure (not session), I guess adventures were more defined back then, and they get to use abilities from both classes for the levels they've earned. They have an absolute ton of special abilities, including moving silently and being "nearly invisible" (no check associated!), doing extra damage with magic weapons, being able to split moving and firing arrows (apparently not normally allowed), wearing armour and casting spells (as long as the armour is magic), noticing secret doors (which unlike a lot of this, does involve a check) and so on. They can get up to 4th as a Warrior and 8th as a Mage.

Hobbits on the other hand, kind of suck lol. They just get the saving throw bonus same as Dwarfs, and can "throw missiles with deadly accuracy", which just seems to mean they have a very long range when throwing rocks. They're limited to 4th as a Fighter.

Two things are interesting here I think:

1) We already see the inverse proportionality between power and and max level allowed. Elves get pretty wild abilities and can have a total of 12 levels. Dwarfs are less powerful and can only get to 6th, and Hobbits are not great and can only get to 4th.

Again this is evidence that the stated motivation is not being achieved by the actual rules design, and no rationale is given as to why Hobbits have to get it in the face. I presume we are to read between the lines and understand that Gary is angry-laughing at you if you want to play a Hobbit.

2) The actually-powerful abilities of Elves and Dwarves are of note. It's much easier here to see why people might have been concerned about trying to limit these characters, even if they went about it in a clueless way (to be fair, there was no-one to clue them in and it's clear D&D's designers were never big on goal-oriented design).

Not directly related but Magic-Users are interesting because in OD&D they're explicitly described as "starts weak, gets strong, has to be protected". The entire idea seems to be they're deadweight initially but eventually they'll become awesome. I'm not sure who thought that was a good design but, like, it wasn't man.

What I'd be really interested to read now is early commentary on what people were supposed/expected to do when they hit max level. My guess would be that PC death rates were so high it basically wasn't an issue for Elves, but seems like Dwarfs and Hobbits would get there pretty quickly.

 

[Remathilis]

Again this is evidence that the stated motivation is not being achieved by the actual rules design, and no rationale is given as to why Hobbits have to get it in the face. I presume we are to read between the lines and understand that Gary is angry-laughing at you if you want to play a Hobbit.

My guess is that it is based on a pretty shallow reading of Lord of the Rings. Elves are the most powerful race in the lore, followed by dwarves and lastly were hobbits. Like much of early D&D, the balance was less a factor than was emulating the perceived fiction.

I think it was far more telling that Gary originally felt 4th level was a "powerful" level. Legolas and Gimli were 4th level. Galadriel and Elrond were 8th level. You might argue Sam, Meri, Pippin and Frodo were fourth level, or got there by the end of the trilogy. That leaves Boromir and Aragon as fighters of 4th or greater level, and Gandalf as a magic user of high level. Certainly puts things into perspective.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My guess is that it is based on a pretty shallow reading of Lord of the Rings. Elves are the most powerful race in the lore, followed by dwarves and lastly were hobbits. Like much of early D&D, the balance was less a factor than was emulating the perceived fiction.

I think it was far more telling that Gary originally felt 4th level was a "powerful" level. Legolas and Gimli were 4th level. Galadriel and Elrond were 8th level. You might argue Sam, Meri, Pippin and Frodo were fourth level, or got there by the end of the trilogy. That leaves Boromir and Aragon as fighters of 4th or greater level, and Gandalf as a magic user of high level. Certainly puts things into perspective.

I really don't see a problem with trying to emulate the fiction here. The trick is finding the right way to go about it. If a heritage is more powerful, find a different way to limit it, don't just default to everything being equal because it makes table play easier. You shouldn't be forced to make that sacrifice.

For example, what's the actual problem with having magic-users start weak and get strong? What is the objective issue with that? Is there one?

 

[Remathilis]

I really don't see a problem with trying to emulate the fiction here. The trick is finding the right way to go about it. If a heritage is more powerful, find a different way to limit it, don't just default to everything being equal because it makes table play easier. You shouldn't be forced to make that sacrifice.

For example, what's the actual problem with having magic-users start weak and get strong? What is the objective issue with that? Is there one?

Well, the issue depends on what's more important: fiction emulation or game balance. Some people didn't mind that elves were overpowered compared to humans, or linear-fighters/quadratic-wizards were a thing. But a lot of people don't want to play an inferior choice. They don't want to wait until 5th level for their wizards to be useful. They don't want their thieves to be obsolete after 11th level. They want to be useful across all levels of play.

Put it this way: imagine if playing Monopoly, the token you picked determined your starting wealth and properties. Some tokens begin with extra money and properties on the board, others start with nothing. It better emulates the wide variety of people's starting advantages in the real world, but it makes for a wildly unfun game of Monopoly for everyone who didn't pick the Elon Musk token...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, the issue depends on what's more important: fiction emulation or game balance. Some people didn't mind that elves were overpowered compared to humans, or linear-fighters/quadratic-wizards were a thing. But a lot of people don't want to play an inferior choice. They don't want to wait until 5th level for their wizards to be useful. They don't want their thieves to be obsolete after 11th level. They want to be useful across all levels of play.

Put it this way: imagine if playing Monopoly, the token you picked determined your starting wealth and properties. Some tokens begin with extra money and properties on the board, others start with nothing. It better emulates the wide variety of people's starting advantages in the real world, but it makes for a wildly unfun game of Monopoly for everyone who didn't pick the Elon Musk token...

First of all, Monopoly is wildly unfun no matter what you do.

Second of all, you do not speak for everybody, so I reject your claims about what people want. We can't speak to that. What we can say with reasonable certainty is that most gamers in general have little or no experience with any RPG beyond WotC's 5e. That means that the style you claim isn't what people want has never been experienced by them. Where then is the basis for your claim?

Thirdly, what matters more between game balance and function emulation is very subjective, as you implied. For me, nine times out of ten fiction wins. Portraying the world I want to portray matters more to me than fairness, on the rare occasions they come into conflict. And if it does happen, I won't be blindsiding my players either.

 

[Remathilis]

First of all, Monopoly is wildly unfun no matter what you do.

Second of all, you do not speak for everybody, so I reject your claims about what people want. We can't speak to that. What we can say with reasonable certainty is that most gamers in general have little or no experience with any RPG beyond WotC's 5e. That means that the style you claim isn't what people want has never been experienced by them. Where then is the basis for your claim?

Thirdly, what matters more between game balance and function emulation is very subjective, as you implied. For me, nine times out of ten fiction wins. Portraying the world I want to portray matters more to me than fairness, on the rare occasions they come into conflict. And if it does happen, I won't be blindsiding my players either.

Are you basically saying that I've fever-dreamed 20+ years of D&D discussion on this board, as well as on various other forums? Look at my join date: I was here through 3e, 4e, and now 5e. I've seen what many people have wanted. Not all, but some. YOU might not care if a demi-god adventures with a commoner, but I can assure you more people than I do. I played D&D in the days when human's only racial trait kicked in at 19th level. I was there when fighters and thieves watched mages eclipse them in importance. I PLAYED the thief who watched as wizard's did his job with better speed and efficiency than he did and still had spell slots to incinerate an entire room of orcs before the fighter could draw his sword. Conversely, I was also there when the magic user used his one sleep spell, and then threw darts for the remaining encounters until a kobold put a knife in his back. Do not cite Deep Magic to me, I was there when it was written.

You have a nasty habit of demanding respect for your preferences while demeaning the preferences of others. You demand equality every time someone puts forth an opinion that runs counter to you. This isn't CNN, I don't have to give equal time to both sides. I know what I like, and on the grand cosmic scale, the game is moving away from your preferences and towards mine and I'm elated that is happening. I don't care if D&D ever supports that style again. It can go die in the same ditch as racial- and gender-based ability modifier, alignment restrictions, and race/class restrictions. Sorry the game you love is dying. You remind us in every post. But I'm not sorry that the game I love is improving.