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]

Are you saying that the audience of 5e has shifted to wanting bland and safe,

No, the audience doesn't think that it is bland and safe. They find it engaging and empowering their own stories. That's why D&D is growing faster than it ever has.

As a parent, I've had to tone down WotC material from recent years when running it.

Yep! Wild beyond the Witchlight is creepy and not safe at all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, the audience doesn't think that it is bland and safe. They find it engaging and empowering their own stories. That's why D&D is growing faster than it ever has.

Yep! Wild beyond the Witchlight is creepy and not safe at all.

Of course they don't. But the content has become more bland and safe IMO, so the fact that so many people seem to like it tells me that yes, bland and safe is what a lot of people seem to want now.

 

[Parmandur]

Not if your players want what you're offering, no. You're writing for your group. WotC is supposedly writing for all fans of D&D, and they don't all want lore-light, safe, bland games.

Writing for all fans doesn't mean being able to please all fans, all the time.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Writing for all fans doesn't mean being able to please all fans, all the time.

How about all of the fans, some of the time?

 

[Parmandur]

No, the audience doesn't think that it is bland and safe. They find it engaging and empowering their own stories. That's why D&D is growing faster than it ever has.

Yep! Wild beyond the Witchlight is creepy and not safe at all.

The kids did like Witchlight, but it could go very dark easily.

 

[JEB]

Am I a coward for not wanting to write a home version of the Silmarillion before beginning a new campaign?

One advantage to Wizards (or any other publisher) doing the heavy lifting on lore is that DMs who want that kind of deep background can get a "home version of the Silmarillion" without having to put in all that extra effort. They can use it wholesale, or pick and choose and remix (which I suspect is more common). DMs who don't want that kind of depth can just not use the official stuff at all.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Like I said, 30 years of being a fan of official D&D is hard to break, but they just stopped making stuff for me, rather abruptly, without even changing editions. I'm still in shock really.

Then who knows, the next book might be just what your looking for!

 

[Parmandur]

How about all of the fans, some of the time?

Possible in theory, difficult practice. For mechanical options, they aim to appeal to 80% of players each time, which across all the options probably comes close to achieving that. But certainly some people are just going to be in the bottom 20% every time.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Not if your players want what you're offering, no. You're writing for your group. WotC is supposedly writing for all fans of D&D, and they don't all want lore-light, safe, bland games.

How do we decide which audience to please, then? Should we have elections every two years?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

One advantage to Wizards (or any other publisher) doing the heavy lifting on lore is that DMs who want that kind of deep background can get a "home version of the Silmarillion" without having to put in all that extra effort. They can use it wholesale, or pick and choose and remix (which I suspect is more common). DMs who don't want that kind of depth can just not use the official stuff at all.

So, my choice is to pay for dozens of pages of lore I don't care about? The argument is we should just flip which group of players we make unhappy?