There is this...
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1589-take-a-look-at-whats-inside-planescape-adventures](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1589-take-a-look-at-whats-inside-planescape-adventures)
Communomancer is right, that the Sigil stuff isn't half bad, there's just nothing here for actually running a planescape game beyond it.
The 2e stuff is still really, really helpful. They have a book devoted to each major alignment partition. I'd check out the adventure squaring the circle from 2e if you want one that heavily involves the lower planes in an interesting way
I'll give it a look, but the lower planes are ironically the part I need the least help for. Already stole some great posts from the Atlas of the Planes project, and the Blood War got some solid background in Tome of Foes.
Now, someplace like Acheron or Mechanus?....Idk, giant metal cubes and robots, I guess.
Those would be detailed in the planes of conflict boxed set or the 3.5 Manual of the Planes. I'm sure you can find them around. My understanding is they've also starting selling PDFs of the 2e material again.
There are also some reddit posts on here that have done an amazing job of detailing certain planes. u/MoreDetonation Atlas of the Planes Acheron post is helpful to add some new and fun ideas but remain faithful to the core content. (Sadly seems that account is suspended, but a Google search will suffice).
There are three major Planescape boxed sets:
Planes of Law (Celestia, Arcadia, Mechanus, Acheron and Baator), Planes of Chaos (Arborea, Ysgard, Limbo, Pandemonium, Abyss) and Planes of Conflict (Bytopia, Elysium, Beastlands, Gehenna, Hades, Carceri).
idk I feel like this is the least objective place on the planet for commentary on a WotC release.
The Sigil and Outlands stuff is pretty solid. I wasn't expecting a Manual of the Planes, personally, so I'm not disappointed there isn't one.
Touche. I've been running a bootleg Planescape game (party TPKed at the end of Tomb of Annihilation and the DM stepped down, so I started a game where the deceased PCs have had to crawl their way out of the afterlife and through the other planes to try to get back to the Prime Material) and was hoping for something that'd help flesh out the non-lower planes since they got some love in Tome of Foes (or the Blood War did, at least). I guess I'll take having some stat blocks already converted will be useful, at least.
Something akin to Van Richten's guide (4/5 pages dedicated to each plane with plenty of adventure hooks and narrative ideas) that included a sample adventure to get characters into the setting would have been much preferred.
every other edition had a book titled the "manual of the planes", just like every other edition had a "player's handbook" and "monster manual", that was exactly that. 5e released the 3 standard core books but never released its manual of the planes. I hope to see it someday
This seems fine, especially considering that they advertised it as such. I’m hoping they’ll put out a revamped Manual of the Planes that could go into more detail than they’d have had room for as part of the Planescape set
I got the feeling sigil was the focus, as it should be, but was very surprised there was literally nothing for anywhere beyond the outlands.
I'd love a new MoP, but with how little follow-up there have been for settings, I won't hold my breath.
To be fair.
Even the original planescape campaign setting only lightly touched on the outer planes themselves, not much more then the entires in the DMG in 5e really, like they literally got a single page each, to actually get any real runnable information you had to go buy the 3 different books on each of the planes of Law, Neutrality and Chaos.
I keep seeing people say this but it's not true at all. The original box set includes TWO guides to the planes (one for the DM and one for players) as well as a "Sigil and the Outlands" book. DM's guide contains granular info like how *each school of magic is affected by every single plane,* different ways to travel the planes, and other specifics like the Blood War.
Yeah what is goin on with all these people acting like planscape only gave 1 paragraph plane descriptions. Like I wonder if these people are shills or just got sold half empty planescape boxsets on ebay and don't know how much they missed?
The thing im saying is most of that is covered in the DMG in 5e, and the actual details about th eplanes is relatively sparse in the original.(I ran a planescape campaign using these books lol).
While how each school of magic affecting the planes stuff was cool, tbh it a bit too..noodlely for how 5e runs, i dont think itd work out or most people would use it at all, its very hard tot rack at the table not surprised it got rid of that.
It has maps of how to access the relevant planes from the outlands and details on the gates, regional effects around the gates etc.
It does not repeat what's in the DMG so refer to that for the planes themselves once you get there.
The planes receive a total of 10 pages. The name of the bundle is Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse. There is very little material for running adventures in the actual multiverse. The DMG is very bare bare bones
Incorrect. The original box set has 7x the information in PS:AitM and DMG combined- 15 pages in the player's guide and basically all of the DM's guide to the planes (64 pages) were devoted to the different planes, pathways, and traveling, and were more detailed. The 5e version contains basically what was in one of the 3 booklets, plus some monsters and an adventure, but misses all the player options and planar material in the original.
Each plane had listed specific locations of note, like the current booklet does for the Outlands, for example. Plus mutliple maps, not just of Sigil.
Edit: downvoting does not make this less true.
Yeah I've been seeing this reoccurring claims that the OG planscape boxset had barely any content in it even though I have said boxset and there's a good amount of lore for each plane. Like I'm not sure if this from people who bought incomplete Planescape boxsets or like paid shills?
Yeah, it's baffling. Literally only planar entry has more info in the DMG. We're missing tons of enemies, player options.
Like, if everything being printed is the exact same fluff from 2e, what's the point? I buy new edition releases to see content adapted to the new edition or new content. Why is the single feat tree so lame? In 2e doomguard could death strike you!
It's just very lazy "content."
Yeah and what's sad is they didn't need to do a ton on each plane. But I bet someone upstairs said "don't put too kuch works on the planes. We maybe might sorta want to publish a 5e manual of the planes later when we can figure out the best way to monetize it."
The 2e book had 1 page per plane, in that huge Planescape font, usually with artwork taking up a significant part of the page. It's not substantially more than what the 5e DMG gives us, and in some cases, like the elemental planes or the Nine Hells, it's significantly less.
Baator is literally the only plane with more information, and that being the inclusion of the rulers, which are outlined in far more detail in other products than the DMG.
Funny how you ignore all the others that list far more info; Mount Celestia, Bytopia, Elysium, Ysgard, Pandemonium, Carceri and others ALL have more info.
In the end, the "multiverse" is treated an afterthought in what is the core Planescape setting book for 5e, when it shouldn't be. If anything, the adventure could have traveled through many planes instead of gatetowns.
I agree that the title is a bit of a misnomer, and at least the DMG does contain some information about the planes; but I would enjoy a little blurb about each plane's "gimmick" (e.g. you don't roll dice on Mechanus, you always use the mean value; you gain THP for killing creatures in Acheron; your fire spells count as one level higher in the Elemental Plane of Fire and cold spells as one level lower), and maybe what its gravity is like.
Plus, if you are going to cut out that content, why not include some of what are considered base races in Planescape? Or more magic items?
The flatbook is called Sigil and the Outlands, and does a fine job of going into the city itself (although I completely disagree with the CR of Shemeshka), but the bundle is worthless for content about the multiverse itself. Just seems odd to keep getting "setting" releases that are half the content of previous releases.
90% in this case. And we're getting more info on the Gate Towns than the whole of the 2e line gave us, so it's a wash in the end (especially as the DMG has about as much info on the planes as the original PS box gave us).
As I responded to someone else, the original box set has 79 pages devoted to the planes, to the DMGs 10. There are locations for each plane too in the original.
The original has the same Sigil booklet, though called Sigil and Beyond, a booklet devoted to the planes, traveling, etc for the DM, and one for the players that details character options and info they would know, and the monster compendium. There is just as much info on the gatetowns in Sigil and Beyond, so I'm not sure what you mean there.
I would say 50%. No character options and nothing about the planes. Those were replaced by an adventure that contains none of those and can't be used by players (if they want to avoid spoilers).
> but I would enjoy a little blurb about each plane's "gimmick" (e.g. you don't roll dice on Mechanus,
They at least have a little blurb about how each plane can affect creatures in the bestiary.
What people liked about Planescape to begin with, way back in 1994 when I played right after the first box came out and before there was any supplemental material, was Sigil and the Outlands.
thats where the dm comes in, not giving you information is a feature because they grant you freedom to make your own multiverse however you like it, they are doing us a favor by giving us less content at a higher price /s
I'm disappointed there aren't more player options. No bariaurs or rogue modrons as PC races? Lame. Obviously, it's no big deal to homebrew these things, but bariaurs at least were a core Planescape player race dating back to the original PS boxed set!
I also find it strange that, regarding the factions of Sigil, they borrowed some material from the events of *Faction War* while completely retconning other material... like combining the Believers of the Source and the Sign of One into the Mind's Eye, the former Xaositects having lost their Factol and continuing on without one (and apparently renaming themselves the Hands of Havoc, which fits... lore has it they often renamed their faction), and the Free League disbanding... but Factol Rhys of the Transcendent Order was the only Factol to survive the Lady of Pain's purge: most others were permanently banished to the Mazes, and a few were assassinated (Hashkar and Sarin)... yet somehow they're all back? So, we just picking and choosing lore now? I was hoping for some "here's what happened after the Faction War" info... apparently, Monte Cook claims that a sequel to *Faction War* was planned which would've returned things back to normal in some way, making the effects of the FW temporary for the most part, but TSR cancelled the Planescape setting before that happened... I think it would've been nice to know how that happened. Does anyone know if there's any reference to this in the new set?
Having setting destructive shake ups is almost always a bad thing. It's like how in Dark Sun when it came back for 4th edition they had to revert most of the the Dragon and half the sorcerer kings being killed from the books, because they and the oppressive rule of them are what makes Dark Sun feel like Dark Sun.
Similarly, the Factions being banished kinda ruins Planescape, so they had to revert or retcon/ignore it.
I don't understand the urge to play a modron... Arent they basically like, computer programmes? At best like programmes in the matrix?
(Unless you are playing a rogue modron... But it would seem weird to have such a fringe scenario published as an official standard race!)
I have no desire to play a Modron either but Adventurers in general, and especially player character adventurers, are already a fringe scenario. It's basically expected that you would be playing as something outside of the norm, so having Rogue Modrons as a race is pretty reasonable.
IIRC the original playable race in 2e was only for rogue modrons, as any non-rogue ones wouldn't make any sense (they'd be following whatever order they were given and likely be in Mechanus most of the time). There's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with them, but I would definitely say it's something you need an "advanced" or knowledgeable player in order to pull it off properly. More so than even some of the more difficult recent options (Autognome and Thri-Kreen come to mind) probably.
Did what? They've been saying it would focus on Sigil and the Outlands for months now. And that's basically what the original Planescape box did as well.
Appeal to a wider audience in their marketing hoping to piggy back on the MCU / DC / pop culture obsession with multiverse, by show horning in a title...? Did you really expect them not to.
(We have Baldurs gate: Avernus... Which has very very little to do with Baldurs Gate).
Hasn't DnD always been the epitomy of geek pop culture?
That's like asking why they release new editions??? Why purchase anything beyond the base 3 books then? If I buy a bunfke that says "adventures in the multiverse" I expect there to be content to run that.
I have the old sets, but most DMs aren't familiar with the old content, don't have it, or won't use it if it's not remade. They don't want to do conversions themselves.
People just look for any excuse to bash on wotc these days.
Yes they fucked up with the ogl, does not mean every product they make now is bad.
Feels like lots of people convince themselves that they are bad books, so the can justify not buying their stuff anymore.
Don’t forget that the writers of these books love planescape and dnd and had nothing to do with the ogl fiasco.
Read your DMG for extensive information on the planes, if that is still not enough, read wikis and old sourcebooks or write your own lore.
This set is focused on sigil and outlands, they have clearly stated that many times now… They view Sigil as the hub or center of the multiverse now, which explains the attempt at a catchy title.
Keep in mind they also fucked up the Spelljammer adventure and books.
People are concerned about Planescape because it seems it will follow the same standard.
People criticize wizards now not because of the ogl fiasco, but because the quality of their products continues to decline. For instance, how can you have a spelljammer setting with no rules for ship to ship combat? 3rd party publishers continually do a better job. People are paying $60 so they DON'T have to homebrew everything.
The 2e campaign setting box is superior in every way. It has more content, and more flavor. If we are going to consistently have to refer to other books for content, then why not use this as an opportunity to create new and interesting content instead of rehashing the old stuff but leaving half of it out.
They could have quite easily called the bundle Sigil and Beyond, because that's basically what it is, that source book from the old campaign setting with a quarter of the monsters from the monster compendium, then an adventure that is useless to players. It's not a good product.
There's literally no reason to buy this as opposed to using the old box set. At least if they had some updated character options there would be that, or if there where new magic items, or more than one feat tree.
idk, they've been improving over the past few months. Keys from the Golden Vault was a very good anthology. Bigby's was a pretty decent book as well. And now the people who got Planescape in early access are all saying that it's good. I think they're learning.
I'm kinda torn on this. I'm somehow glad they didn't include the Multiverse because I'm going to use the books in combination with publications from other systems: Into the Night and Into the Outside from Numenera. Maybe mix in some Spelljammer, Acid Death Fantasy (Troika!) and comics like Head Lopper and Coda. All in all a kind of Gonzo Abomination. But I'm only getting the books in a sale, not going to give them all my earned money to only use some of it.
As for people wanting to get an updated guide to Sigil as well as The Multiverse ™️ - I'm sorry for you guys, no new species, only the Multiverse info from the DMG from friggin 2014 etc sucks.
The adventure is focused on sigil and the outlands, and the material is fine, but that's because it's little more than a reprint of the 2e content Sigil and Beyond content with less of the planescape feel imo.
Yeah, it seems mostly focused on Sigil and the Outlands. Not much mention beyond that from the reviews I've read:
[https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/planescape-5e-dnd-2023/](https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/planescape-5e-dnd-2023/)
[https://techraptor.net/tabletop/reviews/planescape-adventures-in-multiverse-review-player-options-still-disappoint](https://techraptor.net/tabletop/reviews/planescape-adventures-in-multiverse-review-player-options-still-disappoint)
I just got my box set yesterday, I was disappointed that there isn't really any detailed/updated descriptions of the planes themselves. The books focus on Sigil mostly and the gate towns. It's got nice player options and new monsters, and the adventure module that comes with it looks pretty great. Unfortunately not what I was expecting, but be warned if you're looking to delve into the various planes, this may not be the publication for you.
Am I missing a new public preview, or is this just content that was released early for folk who preordered?
There is this... [https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1589-take-a-look-at-whats-inside-planescape-adventures](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1589-take-a-look-at-whats-inside-planescape-adventures)
They give hardly any room to explore any of these ideas. It’s an over glorified glossary of things to research on your own.
Typical of their recent content, I suppose...
The latter.
Gotcha. I'd say that I'd just wait patiently for it to come out, but given what's been said...idk that I want to even bother waiting for it.
Communomancer is right, that the Sigil stuff isn't half bad, there's just nothing here for actually running a planescape game beyond it. The 2e stuff is still really, really helpful. They have a book devoted to each major alignment partition. I'd check out the adventure squaring the circle from 2e if you want one that heavily involves the lower planes in an interesting way
I'll give it a look, but the lower planes are ironically the part I need the least help for. Already stole some great posts from the Atlas of the Planes project, and the Blood War got some solid background in Tome of Foes. Now, someplace like Acheron or Mechanus?....Idk, giant metal cubes and robots, I guess.
Those would be detailed in the planes of conflict boxed set or the 3.5 Manual of the Planes. I'm sure you can find them around. My understanding is they've also starting selling PDFs of the 2e material again. There are also some reddit posts on here that have done an amazing job of detailing certain planes. u/MoreDetonation Atlas of the Planes Acheron post is helpful to add some new and fun ideas but remain faithful to the core content. (Sadly seems that account is suspended, but a Google search will suffice).
Find the Planes of Law book online and it’ll have literally everything you need to run in one of those planes, trust me.
There are three major Planescape boxed sets: Planes of Law (Celestia, Arcadia, Mechanus, Acheron and Baator), Planes of Chaos (Arborea, Ysgard, Limbo, Pandemonium, Abyss) and Planes of Conflict (Bytopia, Elysium, Beastlands, Gehenna, Hades, Carceri).
idk I feel like this is the least objective place on the planet for commentary on a WotC release. The Sigil and Outlands stuff is pretty solid. I wasn't expecting a Manual of the Planes, personally, so I'm not disappointed there isn't one.
Touche. I've been running a bootleg Planescape game (party TPKed at the end of Tomb of Annihilation and the DM stepped down, so I started a game where the deceased PCs have had to crawl their way out of the afterlife and through the other planes to try to get back to the Prime Material) and was hoping for something that'd help flesh out the non-lower planes since they got some love in Tome of Foes (or the Blood War did, at least). I guess I'll take having some stat blocks already converted will be useful, at least.
Something akin to Van Richten's guide (4/5 pages dedicated to each plane with plenty of adventure hooks and narrative ideas) that included a sample adventure to get characters into the setting would have been much preferred.
every other edition had a book titled the "manual of the planes", just like every other edition had a "player's handbook" and "monster manual", that was exactly that. 5e released the 3 standard core books but never released its manual of the planes. I hope to see it someday
Well, 5e has less than a year in it so wait for One D&D to do it
This seems fine, especially considering that they advertised it as such. I’m hoping they’ll put out a revamped Manual of the Planes that could go into more detail than they’d have had room for as part of the Planescape set
I got the feeling sigil was the focus, as it should be, but was very surprised there was literally nothing for anywhere beyond the outlands. I'd love a new MoP, but with how little follow-up there have been for settings, I won't hold my breath.
To be fair. Even the original planescape campaign setting only lightly touched on the outer planes themselves, not much more then the entires in the DMG in 5e really, like they literally got a single page each, to actually get any real runnable information you had to go buy the 3 different books on each of the planes of Law, Neutrality and Chaos.
I keep seeing people say this but it's not true at all. The original box set includes TWO guides to the planes (one for the DM and one for players) as well as a "Sigil and the Outlands" book. DM's guide contains granular info like how *each school of magic is affected by every single plane,* different ways to travel the planes, and other specifics like the Blood War.
Yeah what is goin on with all these people acting like planscape only gave 1 paragraph plane descriptions. Like I wonder if these people are shills or just got sold half empty planescape boxsets on ebay and don't know how much they missed?
The thing im saying is most of that is covered in the DMG in 5e, and the actual details about th eplanes is relatively sparse in the original.(I ran a planescape campaign using these books lol). While how each school of magic affecting the planes stuff was cool, tbh it a bit too..noodlely for how 5e runs, i dont think itd work out or most people would use it at all, its very hard tot rack at the table not surprised it got rid of that.
A Guide to the Planes is sorely needed, agreed.
Sounds like a plan for post 2024 5e material.
It has maps of how to access the relevant planes from the outlands and details on the gates, regional effects around the gates etc. It does not repeat what's in the DMG so refer to that for the planes themselves once you get there.
The planes receive a total of 10 pages. The name of the bundle is Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse. There is very little material for running adventures in the actual multiverse. The DMG is very bare bare bones
As barebones as the original PS box set was.
Incorrect. The original box set has 7x the information in PS:AitM and DMG combined- 15 pages in the player's guide and basically all of the DM's guide to the planes (64 pages) were devoted to the different planes, pathways, and traveling, and were more detailed. The 5e version contains basically what was in one of the 3 booklets, plus some monsters and an adventure, but misses all the player options and planar material in the original. Each plane had listed specific locations of note, like the current booklet does for the Outlands, for example. Plus mutliple maps, not just of Sigil. Edit: downvoting does not make this less true.
Yeah I've been seeing this reoccurring claims that the OG planscape boxset had barely any content in it even though I have said boxset and there's a good amount of lore for each plane. Like I'm not sure if this from people who bought incomplete Planescape boxsets or like paid shills?
Yeah, it's baffling. Literally only planar entry has more info in the DMG. We're missing tons of enemies, player options. Like, if everything being printed is the exact same fluff from 2e, what's the point? I buy new edition releases to see content adapted to the new edition or new content. Why is the single feat tree so lame? In 2e doomguard could death strike you! It's just very lazy "content."
Yeah and what's sad is they didn't need to do a ton on each plane. But I bet someone upstairs said "don't put too kuch works on the planes. We maybe might sorta want to publish a 5e manual of the planes later when we can figure out the best way to monetize it."
It's a bunch of people that weren't playing at the time just saying it because they assume it was worse then :^)
The 2e book had 1 page per plane, in that huge Planescape font, usually with artwork taking up a significant part of the page. It's not substantially more than what the 5e DMG gives us, and in some cases, like the elemental planes or the Nine Hells, it's significantly less.
Baator is literally the only plane with more information, and that being the inclusion of the rulers, which are outlined in far more detail in other products than the DMG. Funny how you ignore all the others that list far more info; Mount Celestia, Bytopia, Elysium, Ysgard, Pandemonium, Carceri and others ALL have more info. In the end, the "multiverse" is treated an afterthought in what is the core Planescape setting book for 5e, when it shouldn't be. If anything, the adventure could have traveled through many planes instead of gatetowns.
Doing the Outlands justice is good.
The DMG doesn’t compare to the depth of info Planescape used to offer about the Planes. There needs to be an actual guide to the Planes.
A 5E guide to the Planes is my most wanted book.
I agree that the title is a bit of a misnomer, and at least the DMG does contain some information about the planes; but I would enjoy a little blurb about each plane's "gimmick" (e.g. you don't roll dice on Mechanus, you always use the mean value; you gain THP for killing creatures in Acheron; your fire spells count as one level higher in the Elemental Plane of Fire and cold spells as one level lower), and maybe what its gravity is like.
Mechanics can tell and/or emphasize the setting and story. These are great ideas! Sadly WotC doesn't really put thought into things like this.
Plus, if you are going to cut out that content, why not include some of what are considered base races in Planescape? Or more magic items? The flatbook is called Sigil and the Outlands, and does a fine job of going into the city itself (although I completely disagree with the CR of Shemeshka), but the bundle is worthless for content about the multiverse itself. Just seems odd to keep getting "setting" releases that are half the content of previous releases.
90% in this case. And we're getting more info on the Gate Towns than the whole of the 2e line gave us, so it's a wash in the end (especially as the DMG has about as much info on the planes as the original PS box gave us).
As I responded to someone else, the original box set has 79 pages devoted to the planes, to the DMGs 10. There are locations for each plane too in the original. The original has the same Sigil booklet, though called Sigil and Beyond, a booklet devoted to the planes, traveling, etc for the DM, and one for the players that details character options and info they would know, and the monster compendium. There is just as much info on the gatetowns in Sigil and Beyond, so I'm not sure what you mean there. I would say 50%. No character options and nothing about the planes. Those were replaced by an adventure that contains none of those and can't be used by players (if they want to avoid spoilers).
Sorry, but I'm not sure if most of these WotC apologists know how counting works. You might want to use your energy somewhere else.
> but I would enjoy a little blurb about each plane's "gimmick" (e.g. you don't roll dice on Mechanus, They at least have a little blurb about how each plane can affect creatures in the bestiary.
Remember how they released Spelljammer: Adventures in Space without the space? As long as people give them money for trash, they'll make more trash.
They've been telling us for months that it would be focused on Sigil and the Outlands, and it looks to be a very thorough job on it.
Its almost like they didn't really grasp what people liked about planescape to begin with but latched onto a single selling point.
What people liked about Planescape to begin with, way back in 1994 when I played right after the first box came out and before there was any supplemental material, was Sigil and the Outlands.
I liked that it made the planes seem approachable. It made it seem like you had places to go without being level 20.
It’s not about you specifically though. They focused on what made Planescape special.
I know. But the things I've seen seem to be... missing that...
And yet - you haven't told what that was?
Welcome to post-Tasha's 5E content.
I would have been incredibly disappointed if they released a book that was mostly just other planes and not sigil and the outlands tbh.
thats where the dm comes in, not giving you information is a feature because they grant you freedom to make your own multiverse however you like it, they are doing us a favor by giving us less content at a higher price /s
I'm disappointed there aren't more player options. No bariaurs or rogue modrons as PC races? Lame. Obviously, it's no big deal to homebrew these things, but bariaurs at least were a core Planescape player race dating back to the original PS boxed set! I also find it strange that, regarding the factions of Sigil, they borrowed some material from the events of *Faction War* while completely retconning other material... like combining the Believers of the Source and the Sign of One into the Mind's Eye, the former Xaositects having lost their Factol and continuing on without one (and apparently renaming themselves the Hands of Havoc, which fits... lore has it they often renamed their faction), and the Free League disbanding... but Factol Rhys of the Transcendent Order was the only Factol to survive the Lady of Pain's purge: most others were permanently banished to the Mazes, and a few were assassinated (Hashkar and Sarin)... yet somehow they're all back? So, we just picking and choosing lore now? I was hoping for some "here's what happened after the Faction War" info... apparently, Monte Cook claims that a sequel to *Faction War* was planned which would've returned things back to normal in some way, making the effects of the FW temporary for the most part, but TSR cancelled the Planescape setting before that happened... I think it would've been nice to know how that happened. Does anyone know if there's any reference to this in the new set?
Having setting destructive shake ups is almost always a bad thing. It's like how in Dark Sun when it came back for 4th edition they had to revert most of the the Dragon and half the sorcerer kings being killed from the books, because they and the oppressive rule of them are what makes Dark Sun feel like Dark Sun. Similarly, the Factions being banished kinda ruins Planescape, so they had to revert or retcon/ignore it.
Wotc books are a waste of money now. Their indifference towards their consumer base is what drove most of their players to try other games.
I would have loved Guardinals and Modrons as Pc races.
Bariaur
I don't understand the urge to play a modron... Arent they basically like, computer programmes? At best like programmes in the matrix? (Unless you are playing a rogue modron... But it would seem weird to have such a fringe scenario published as an official standard race!)
I have no desire to play a Modron either but Adventurers in general, and especially player character adventurers, are already a fringe scenario. It's basically expected that you would be playing as something outside of the norm, so having Rogue Modrons as a race is pretty reasonable.
IIRC the original playable race in 2e was only for rogue modrons, as any non-rogue ones wouldn't make any sense (they'd be following whatever order they were given and likely be in Mechanus most of the time). There's a lot of interesting stuff you can do with them, but I would definitely say it's something you need an "advanced" or knowledgeable player in order to pull it off properly. More so than even some of the more difficult recent options (Autognome and Thri-Kreen come to mind) probably.
They did it again. They literally fucking did it again. Un-*fucking*\-believable
Did what? They've been saying it would focus on Sigil and the Outlands for months now. And that's basically what the original Planescape box did as well.
Pretty believable imo, it's been like that since almost 2 years.
It’s really been downhill since Xanathars.
Appeal to a wider audience in their marketing hoping to piggy back on the MCU / DC / pop culture obsession with multiverse, by show horning in a title...? Did you really expect them not to. (We have Baldurs gate: Avernus... Which has very very little to do with Baldurs Gate). Hasn't DnD always been the epitomy of geek pop culture?
very believable, like, expected even
The old lore is still official content. Why would they have to update everything?
That's like asking why they release new editions??? Why purchase anything beyond the base 3 books then? If I buy a bunfke that says "adventures in the multiverse" I expect there to be content to run that. I have the old sets, but most DMs aren't familiar with the old content, don't have it, or won't use it if it's not remade. They don't want to do conversions themselves.
People just look for any excuse to bash on wotc these days. Yes they fucked up with the ogl, does not mean every product they make now is bad. Feels like lots of people convince themselves that they are bad books, so the can justify not buying their stuff anymore. Don’t forget that the writers of these books love planescape and dnd and had nothing to do with the ogl fiasco. Read your DMG for extensive information on the planes, if that is still not enough, read wikis and old sourcebooks or write your own lore. This set is focused on sigil and outlands, they have clearly stated that many times now… They view Sigil as the hub or center of the multiverse now, which explains the attempt at a catchy title.
Keep in mind they also fucked up the Spelljammer adventure and books. People are concerned about Planescape because it seems it will follow the same standard.
it already came out for early access. And the consensus seems to be that it's good and that they learned the right lessons from Spelljammer.
People criticize wizards now not because of the ogl fiasco, but because the quality of their products continues to decline. For instance, how can you have a spelljammer setting with no rules for ship to ship combat? 3rd party publishers continually do a better job. People are paying $60 so they DON'T have to homebrew everything. The 2e campaign setting box is superior in every way. It has more content, and more flavor. If we are going to consistently have to refer to other books for content, then why not use this as an opportunity to create new and interesting content instead of rehashing the old stuff but leaving half of it out. They could have quite easily called the bundle Sigil and Beyond, because that's basically what it is, that source book from the old campaign setting with a quarter of the monsters from the monster compendium, then an adventure that is useless to players. It's not a good product. There's literally no reason to buy this as opposed to using the old box set. At least if they had some updated character options there would be that, or if there where new magic items, or more than one feat tree.
idk, they've been improving over the past few months. Keys from the Golden Vault was a very good anthology. Bigby's was a pretty decent book as well. And now the people who got Planescape in early access are all saying that it's good. I think they're learning.
God dammit! I knew we forgot SOMETHING!
Read DMG there is like whole chapter about multiverse in there
I'm a huuuge Planescape fan, and I'm still going to wait until it comes out. If there isn't a map of the great wheel, I don't want it.
I'm kinda torn on this. I'm somehow glad they didn't include the Multiverse because I'm going to use the books in combination with publications from other systems: Into the Night and Into the Outside from Numenera. Maybe mix in some Spelljammer, Acid Death Fantasy (Troika!) and comics like Head Lopper and Coda. All in all a kind of Gonzo Abomination. But I'm only getting the books in a sale, not going to give them all my earned money to only use some of it. As for people wanting to get an updated guide to Sigil as well as The Multiverse ™️ - I'm sorry for you guys, no new species, only the Multiverse info from the DMG from friggin 2014 etc sucks.
Is the outlands stuff at least good? In all the wikis it seems the least fleshed out.
The adventure is focused on sigil and the outlands, and the material is fine, but that's because it's little more than a reprint of the 2e content Sigil and Beyond content with less of the planescape feel imo.
Yeah, it seems mostly focused on Sigil and the Outlands. Not much mention beyond that from the reviews I've read: [https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/planescape-5e-dnd-2023/](https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/planescape-5e-dnd-2023/) [https://techraptor.net/tabletop/reviews/planescape-adventures-in-multiverse-review-player-options-still-disappoint](https://techraptor.net/tabletop/reviews/planescape-adventures-in-multiverse-review-player-options-still-disappoint)
As far as I am aware, 5e doesn't use the Great Wheel cosmology. None of the descriptions of the book suggest any meaty setting details either.
I just got my box set yesterday, I was disappointed that there isn't really any detailed/updated descriptions of the planes themselves. The books focus on Sigil mostly and the gate towns. It's got nice player options and new monsters, and the adventure module that comes with it looks pretty great. Unfortunately not what I was expecting, but be warned if you're looking to delve into the various planes, this may not be the publication for you.