Planescape Manual of the Planes for 5e on DMSGuild

New on the DMSGuild is the Manual of the Planes for 5th edition. The cover is stunning.

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It's over 300 pages and the credits page includes folks from The Draconomicon, The Dragonlance Companion, Tasha's Crucible of Everything Else, Planescape: Metropolis, The Honkonomicon and Planewalker.com

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I love the special thanks.

This project was made possible by Roll20. Thank you for unlocking new horizons for the latest generation of planewalkers, bashers, berks, and touts. We’d also like to thank the giants on whose shoulders we stand when writing this book: Justice Ramin Arman, Richard Baker, Wolfgang Baur, David “Zeb” Cook, Bruce R. Cordell, Jeff Grubb, David Noonan, F. Wesley Schneider, Rick Swan, and all others who helped create and cultivate Planescape and the planes.

I've just bought it and am reading it now.

Manual of the Planes (5e) - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

Manual of the Planes (5e) - From creators behind The Draconomicon, Tasha's Crucible of Everything Else, Planescape: Metropolis, The Honkonomic

www.dmsguild.com

Here is the table of contents.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

So far I've only read the 17 page free preview because I literally just dropped $47cad on the Scarred Lands PDF Bundle of Holding with Thrust hold or level up whatever its called ($270+cad value) and a $70 on Amazon for Midgard 5e Worldbook physical copy because I wanted at least 1 pretty much complete setting (was part of the Southlands kickstarter so between worldbook and city book I got that is 930 pages roughly if setting material and a city or two that gets in depth treatment.

So I'm low on cash and honestly the exchange rate isn't my friend.

And I want to see if they came out with Pod + PDF option later on.


BUT based on those 17 pages and the ToC, it's already clear that this is far closer to what Planescape Setting product. I will note it tries to not to step on P: AitM's toes, which means they made this amazing product in around 3 weeks at most, VS years for P: AitM.

I really like the flavour and mechanics of the feats in the MP5e that we get to see in the preview.

I'd do a reread of the Preview and ToCs for a deeper dive. I know that's not the whole book, but it's enough to get a taste of the quality and the ToC tells me exactly what the book includes, so between that I feel reasonable confidant in my a assessment of MP5e VS P: AitM.

I will say that MP5e doesn't have much in the way of art in the first 17 pages, but if they had the budget that WotC, that would not be an issue, so I cut it alot if slack on that issue.

Honestly toying with doing an Aborea focused book myself.

I'll also note long before P: AitM was announced there was a 300 page Acheron book on dmsguild, but under I believe from a general/FR umbrella, not Planescape, I don't have that one either, but I find the idea intriguing.

Just to be clear, they did not put this together in 3 weeks. Please don’t belittle the work out into this product

 

[Dragonhelm]

I'm glad to see that some of the folks who worked on Planewalker.com had a hand in this. They're one of the big setting sites that were designated as official fan sites back in 2001, much like the Dragonlance Nexus, Athas.org, etc.

Kudos to everyone involved. I'm definitely going to pick up a copy.

 

[Parmandur]

kudos to Eleanor Tremeer, our amazing Sensitivity Reader (and Consultant since much of this work is best done before putting words on the page

To be honest, this is one of the big selling points for me: having someone who went over this material from a bunch of Edituons and helped make sure it is answering to a higher standard than old TSR "I read about this culture in a library book once!"

 

[kenmarable]

Just to be clear, they did not put this together in 3 weeks. Please don’t belittle the work out into this product

To be fair, they did call it "amazing" before saying we wrote it in 3 weeks. So I don't think the intent was to belittle.

But, either way, to be clear, we did spend a wee bit longer than 3 weeks on it. (If you want a peak behind the curtain, I was brought on in late May, and others had already been working on it for a little bit at that point, but no major writing yet.)

 

[dave2008]

There was a lot of work put into this beyond even the writing itself - with researching planar material from every D&D edition, cat herding coordinating this wacky team, hours of debate on the nature and theme of each plane, even more hours of debate on balancing old lore with new lore, sensitivity reviews and guidance*, etc.. Some of all of that effort was the Project Lead talking with the DMs Guild rep pretty regularly, including checking on the title.

So putting that much effort into it, we didn't want to just a gamble that the title would be ok, but some due diligence was done. A few years from now, who knows. Maybe WotC will release their own Manual of the Planes and we will have to rename ours. But part of the Herculean effort in Project Leading this beast was being in contact with DMs Guild about it (since proper procedure is talking to DMG, and they are in contact with WotC rather than the hundreds of DMs Guild writers spamming WotC directly).

* Pandemonium was a big challenge and massive kudos to Eleanor Tremeer, our amazing Sensitivity Reader (and Consultant since much of this work is best done before putting words on the page)! Hey, publishers, hire her!!

I don't really need this book, but your post here as made me want to buy just to support your team. I wish you the best of luck!

Also, are you doing anything special to promote the book? Getting it in the hands of you-tubers could be a huge benefit.

 

[michaeljpastor]

This book may not have intended to be the replacement for the Planescape chachki that was just released, but just based on the table of contents alone, it sure seems like it should have been. I'm looking forward to getting it, especially after my disappointment with Planescape thus far.

 

[dave2008]

This book may not have intended to be the replacement for the Planescape chachki that was just released, but just based on the table of contents alone, it sure seems like it should have been. I'm looking forward to getting it, especially after my disappointment with Planescape thus far.

Interesting. One of the few reasons I am considering getting it is because how much I have enjoyed 5e Planescape thus far and that this is meant to complement that product.

Of course, I don't have any baggage that comes with attachment to the 2e version of the setting. I skipped 2e mostly and Plansecape almost completely. Several parts of it didn't appeal to me back in the day.

 

[michaeljpastor]

Interesting. One of the few reasons I am considering getting it is because how much I have enjoyed 5e Planescape thus far and that this is meant to complement that product.

Of course, I don't have any baggage that comes with attachment to the 2e version of the setting. I skipped 2e mostly and Plansecape almost completely. Several parts of it didn't appeal to me back in the day.

Most of it didn't appeal to me back in the day, actually. I wanted idealistic beautiful depictions in the art like we saw in Dieties and Demigods, and instead we got scratchy rickety caricaturish art. With the benefit of time, I've now come to absolutely adore it and all its subversive qualities.

 

[dave2008]

Most of it didn't appeal to me back in the day, actually. I wanted idealistic beautiful depictions in the art like we saw in Dieties and Demigods, and instead we got scratchy rickety caricaturish art. With the benefit of time, I've now come to absolutely adore it and all its subversive qualities.

Yep, the art, Cant, and restructuring of the D&D cosmology didn't sit well with me so I never got into it when it launched. I still don't care for Tony's old art or the Cant, but with 5e I have come to see Sigil and the Outlands in a new light and I always appreciate good art..

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Interesting. One of the few reasons I am considering getting it is because how much I have enjoyed 5e Planescape thus far and that this is meant to complement that product.

Of course, I don't have any baggage that comes with attachment to the 2e version of the setting. I skipped 2e mostly and Plansecape almost completely. Several parts of it didn't appeal to me back in the day.

Honestly, even as someone who does have a lot of attachment to the the 2e version of Planescape (as well as Planewalker's fan-made, post-Faction War version from the 3e-era, possibly to an even greater extent), I think the 5e Planescape is really good for what it set out to do, especially given its page space limitations.

Could it be better? Certainly. Are there things I wish they'd covered in more detail? Absolutely. But overall, as an introduction to Planescape for a modern audience, I think it does a fairly solid job and I'm quite satisfied with it.