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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I feel this way about the Great Wheel.

Fair enough. We all get to have different preferences.

 

[MichaelSomething]

And people wonder why WOTC doesn't make original settings...

 

[Mecheon]

That fact that the shadow plane was a demiplane and is now a transative plan is a huge difference. If you can simply brush that under the rug, I really don't understand why you can't do that with the first world. But I think you have already explained the real issue - you don't like it. And that is OK! I don't like a lot of D&D lore, I can start listing things if you want, but most of it comes from TSR and 3e era WotC.

I will just say, I think planes shouldn't be static. Why should the entire chaotic side of the multiverse the same as presented originally? Its chaotic, it should change, The Wheel shouldn't be lawful and set in stone, things should change, closeness to planes waxing and waning as time itself continues on

 

[MonsterEnvy]

No, they said they don't care, but announcing officially that decades of previous lore no longer means anything.

Them saying previous editions lore is not canon to the current edition, does not mean they don’t care about lore.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Them saying previous editions lore is not canon to the current edition, does not mean they don’t care about lore.

They said only the core books matter for lore, then announced they are re-writing the core books. How much can lore really matter to them?

 

[dave2008]

They said only the core books matter for lore, then announced they are re-writing the core books. How much can lore really matter to them?

That is not what they said. They said that only the core books are canon for 5e.* That is not the same thing as not caring about lore. It is clear the creators care about lore. If you watch anything from the team it comes through clearly. Also, they are releasing updated versions of the core books, that doesn't mean they will be changing any lore in those books (they are pretty lore light to begin with). And even if the do change the lore in the core books, that still doesn't mean they don't care, just the opposite. If you change something it means you likely care, otherwise why would you change it.

*Specifically the said only the core books are core for their partners. So people they work with, license with, etc. only need to worry about what is in the core books in terms of lore.

 

[bedir than]

That is not what they said. They said that only the core books are canon for 5e.* That is not the same thing as not caring about lore. It is clear the creators care about lore. If you watch anything from the team it comes through clearly. Also, they are releasing updated versions of the core books, that doesn't mean they will be changing any lore in those books (they are pretty lore light to begin with). And even if the do change the lore in the core books, that still doesn't mean they don't care, just the opposite. If you change something it means you likely care, otherwise why would you change it.

*Specifically the said only the core books are core for their partners. So people they work with, license with, etc. only need to worry about what is in the core books in terms of lore.

Additionally they said the most important canon is what's at your table, not what Crawford, or Greenwood, or Hammond say it is.

Your table, your game - that's D&D to them

 

[Micah Sweet]

Additionally they said the most important canon is what's at your table, not what Crawford, or Greenwood, or Hammond say it is.

Your table, your game - that's D&D to them

Sure, but the less lore they provide, the more they are demanding that their players make up in order to have a fun, rich game. It just seems like laziness and fear to me.

 

[Parmandur]

Sure, but the less lore they provide, the more they are demanding that their players make up in order to have a fun, rich game. It just seems like laziness and fear to me.

What evidence do yoy.have that laziness or fear are the motivation, rather than money and customer demands...?

 

[jerryrice4949]

Sure, but the less lore they provide, the more they are demanding that their players make up in order to have a fun, rich game. It just seems like laziness and fear to me.

The lack of lore is frustrating for sure. I have heard them say it is because too much lore makes the game less accessible. I can see that for new DMs it might make things tougher. But I wish they would also develop some projects with more lore even if it was just one book a year. I like to use bits of lore and integrate into my home brew. I do miss the older style of books. Current books just feel incomplete. Fizbans for example could have been an amazing book but it just felt so half done. The books are too basic and bland for my taste which is while I play 5E and spend a lot of money, that money mostly goes to 3PP.