Really appreciate that you took the time to explain your perspective on this one. To be honest, it looked like a stinker from a mile out. Such a shame that WotC appear to have little enthusiasm to deliver truly exciting products. D&D seems to have become little more than a cash cow for them now. The thing that strikes me, though, is that a total page count of less than 300 pages absolutely shouldn't warrant the lavish slipcase treatment.

It's amazing how frequently the Great Modron March happens nowadays. Originally, it was rare (once every 289 years), now I'm guessing it's every March!

Very good and balanced review. I think this set gives you a groundwork for DMs to build on their own. The campaign is all over the place, and it requires a lot of tinkering by DM to even run it. I'm running it, and from the very first scene, I'm changing it substantially, beginning by throwing an item where hints of the lost modron. Also I gave the players the option of escaping through three different portals to other planes. That campaign is just a starting point to homebrew your own campaign, basically.

To answer your first question, I have to talk a little about the setting's history. The first Manual of the Planes came out in the late 80s for AD&D 1e and this is, as far as I know, the first fleshed out discussion of at least the planar cosmology of the 16 so-called Outer Planes arranged in circular pattern, or Great Wheel. It also included the structure of most of the inner planes. Controversially TSR removed angels and fiends from AD&D 2e, but players and DMs still wanted to engage with that kind of content and, naturally, where do these creatures live, but in the outer planes! With such a high demand, TSR published the Planescape setting in the mid-90s as an update to the 1e Manual of the Planes and an expansion to the system of inner and outer planes. It gave a little more detail to the inner planes, but it really streamlined the outer planes by removing some of the clunkier gameplay mechanics that 1e included for characters visiting each plane and brought to the forefront the structure of the plane, the people who call it their home, and the underlying idea that embodies that idea: alignment. Each plane is associated, to some degree, with law, order, goodness, or evil. Mechanus is a lawful neutral plane; it embodies order without considering good or evil--non-LN characters who spend their time there will be affected by this underlying fabric of Mechanus. There are planes that match the 8 alignments and then another 8 planes that are between them leading to what looks like a 16 pointed compass. Good is at the top, lawful on the left, evil on the bottom, and chaos on the right. In this setting, the forces of good, evil, law, and chaos give rise to certain creatures and certain places, that is, the planes. If Elysium, the NG plane, became too chaotic, parts of it would cease to exist or at the very least break off and migrate to the Beastlands. A devil cannot be anything other than lawful evil; if it were of an alignment that isn't lawful evil, it woudn't be a devil anymore. Without that conception of alignment, Planescape loses a lot of what makes it so rich. Planescape also added races that are considered common now: tieflings and the githzerai. Most importantly though, it added spokes to the great wheel and a center: Outlands and Sigil. These aren't exactly outer planes, but we can treat them that way. The Outlands are a large circle divided into 16 equal sections (pizza slice or sector), each corresponding to one of the Outer Planes, and on the edge of Sigil each sector has a gatetown that people can get to the associated outer plane. So if you're in Pandemonium and you want to get to Outlands or if you're in the Outlands and want to get to Pandemonium, you can go through Bedlam. In the middle of the Outlands is an infinitely high spire with a ringed city, Sigil, floating around it. Sigil is ruled by the enigmatic Lady of Pain. She's a complete mystery and to see is her is to die. Although from SIgil you can go anywhere (City of Doors), she alone controls entry or exist. This city is quite vast filled with many odd curiosities and wonders, but since Sigil is at the center of the Great Wheel, it must remain True Neutral. If a part of Sigil becomes too good or too lawful, it will break away or disappear entirely. Ideas, thoughts, and actions can shape SIgil's geography and again, everything has to sum to true neutral. The factions are based on one of the creator's late night college alcohol-fueled discussions of philosophy and meaning--so to exist in a place where almost anything is possible, how can one find meaning in their existence: through a faction's philosophy. Anarchism, anti-theists, existentialism, authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, so-called Social Darwinism, and empiricism all find a place in Sigil and each faction has an underlying philosophy based on one of those principles.

@19:00 shout out to Keith Amaan's book! I am not familiar with old Planescape, but I did read the first chapter of the Radiant Citadel... Sounds almost the same. Planesbreaker (Monte Cook) at least had some original ideas from their hub city to different worlds.

Congrats to the winner! :-) And thanks for the honest review, Jeff.

I look at the art for the 5e Planescape stuff and die a little inside. Then I read it and die a lot inside. The enshittification continues. Thanks for the review, and congrats to the winner!

Sad to hear this. 2nd edition planescape was so much fun to play and there was quite a bit of information and books made for this setting. I own most of what was produced back then and remember Factions having a larger impact on the characters and encounters then what you present in the new edition. To me Planescape was the ultimate sandbox to play in as anything could happen anywhere in any existence and a DM with a good imagination had no limits. I was really hoping that feeling would come back with the new edition but it looks like they just quickly threw out this content to make a buck with no real thought to what this setting brought to the game overall. Thanks for the review Jeff.

I'll buy this in a few years for stupid cheap money....what a shame compared to what planescapes used to be..... How do you jump to level 17 and never plane-hop? Thank you for the honest review.

The recent Dragonlance release included a fishing mini game as well. Coincidence, or directive from above to cater to a perceived customer niche (one presumably not as interested in combat)?

Ahh, this is heartbreaking. I loved the Planescape: Torment game and setting, and was hoping this might be a fun one. Have you seen the "Path of the Planebreaker" and "Planar Options" books from Monte Cook Games? They do a 5e version in addition to their Cypher System and those books have some really trippy stuff in them. They're great!

Thank you for the detailed review, Jeff!

Thanks for the honest thoughts.

Over the years you've brought up Witchlight a lot and it has me wondering, as maybe a sort of retrospective and a way for people to learn from the mistakes you've felt they've made over the years, what is it that they get right in Witchlight? If I've understood you right it's that it has an open-ended style where a DM can use it as inspiration to a lot more than what's in there, tables for generating situations, and the adventure itself acts as a sort of introduction, with the Feywild being a big setting to play around in. Is that about right? Whereas a lot of these later adventures take tours through places that maybe feel too walled off to use as springboards for new things?

It looks like they gave a very superficial treatment to the classic setting that, from my understanding, needs an in-depth treatment. I've never played in a Planescape campaign, only read one Planescape/Forgotten Realms crossover novel, so I don't have an in-depth perspective. However, it seems like old Planescape really delved into the role of the old alignments as cosmic forces. With the abolition of alignment, it seems like the factions should have come to the forefront as the vehicle for the philosophical concepts that are supposed to be the heart of the setting. Especially since WotC created a whole set of rules for measuring PCs' status with factions in the core rules. However, it looks like they just name-checked the factions for nostalgia's sake instead of actually using them. And I think you may have hit the nail on the head about WotC's philosophy about settings. It's basically, put out one product and invite people to put things on DM's Guild so WotC can make lots of money that way.

Just some final thoughts that you and others might find helpful. I literally rolled my eyes when you described the adventure. That's just blasphemous and an obscene gesture directed at the source material. I've wondered why easter eggs find their way into products like this because the people who recognize them are going to be the people who remember Planescape for what it was and what it should be, so they'll either not buy the product or they'll just be angry when they see OG characters and setpieces shoehorned in. The Great Modron March was 2e module that I won't spoil, but the premise is that every 289 years thousands of modrons leave the comfort of Mechanus and make a full journey through the outer planes in a clockwise direction using the gate-towns in Outland to teleport from one plane to the adjacent plane. No one knows why it happens, just that Primus, the One who is the head Modron, wills it. The modrons don't really interact with other creatures (fey, celestial, humanoid, fiend, etc.); they just march. Whether it's to get recon on other planes or whether it has some other purpose, no one knows. Sigil is not the only way to get to the outer planes. I know you know this, but it's worth pointing out that spells and portals can connect the material plane to the outer planes. Now when you're in the outer planes, it's usually easier to move from one plane to its adjacent plane using the gate-towns in Outland. So instead of going from Celestia (LG) to Bytopia (L/N G) directly, it's easier to go from Celestia to its corresponding gate-town on the edge of the Outlands and from there go to Bytopia's gate-town, and from there go to Bytopia; that's also not necessary though. The reason it's easier is that those portals are always open. Last thing, I promise! I like that WotC kept the Lady of Pain intact. She's enigmatic by design and it's perfectly fine for there to be questions left in a setting--or even to leave questions up to the DM. Excellent review. It's regrettable that WotC doesn't want to share review copies with people who will give honest feedback; you deserve better, Jeff.

Wizard really need to stop putting adventures in their world books. Imagine what spelljammer and planes cape would have e looked like if they'd have taken those pages and made bigger rulebooks with more world info in them. The time it takes to write and adventure and work out the narrative, just for most people to never use them is such a waste. But everything has to have an adventure. Its sort of maddening.

One of the stranger things I've heard from D&D influencers is WotC's decision not to make Forgotten Realms or any other established setting as the default D&D setting, but instead, after 5e Revised, it'll be "the multiverse." Now I welcome WotC's decision to remove strict alignment from certain creatures to represent the diversity of official and homebrew settings. In Eberron, for example, a gold dragon might not be lawful good. The clerics of a particular faith may not match the suggested alignment of that faith. Planescape's primary concern isn't the "multiverse" (whatever that even means); frankly neither is Spelljammer's. There are ways in both settings to travel from one material plane to an alternate material plane which can be from a different setting (Toril to Krynn; Forgotten Realms to Dragonlance)--for Planescape you just search the deep ethereal until you find it and for Spelljammer you take a Spelljamming ship out through the phlogiston and find it. The thing is, some of those worlds are intentionally designed by their setting creators as being very hard to find. Eberron and Athas (Eberron and Dark Sun) aren't supposed to be easy to find.

It looks like a happy fox on the cover of that book. Huh. Not an evil scheming Arcanaloth. Odd choice. Planebreaker for 5e might be a better product (Monte Cook Games). They have a player facing book and a bestiary of some size. Likely a better value too.

The quality has gone down. The page count has gone down. The price has gone up. That's not a good business model. Im waiting until this goes on sale, knowing it would be disappointing - Like Spelljammer. These aren't relaunches of new Campaigns - they are one-off nostalgia bait. Remember when you used to buy... MORE than one product for a campaign setting. I have been so disappointed with the direction this game has gone since Tasha's. I loved it before that. That was the turning point for me - with the exception of some amazing content (Wild Beyond, Icewind Dale - eg. the Chris Perkins written stuff).

Awesome, Jeff, I appreciate it. It looked Meh. I'm looking Savage worlds rpg information now.😊🇺🇲 Have a good weekend

WOTC/Hasbro AKA ever diminishing returns. Go support worthier publishers, these guys have jumped the shark a long long time ago

Y' kin always tell a prime from a blood by the way they say her grace's city's name. "Sijil" is what clueless berks from Neverwhatever or deepwater says. Folks from out o' town says SiGil. Folks from town itself calls it the Cage.

Mmmm, new review, thumbs up to please the algorithm 😊

I think Planescape tries to capture the Portal Fantasy sub-gender of fantasy. The first trilogy of Corum, from the Eternal Champion stories, has a lot of planar travelling and allingment conflict in it.

A bare bones gazeteer, regurgitated beastiary, and an adventure so on rails that the only parts with potential for variety get yadda, yadda handwaved? Why apologize for being honest about what is effectively about as exciting as "Hey ChatGPT can you 5th edition Planescape for me?" Great now lets slap on a $85 price tag for less pages than the $50 books. . . .

Man. I never thought much of TSR. But Wizards really seems to put out low effort products. In the 90s I called TSR the Disney of RPG companies. It's so much more true now. These setting books are their live action remakes.

That artwork isn't as evocative as the original. And half the adventure is taken from Planescape Torment. Smh

After last year's extremely disappointing and underwhelming Spelljammer I knew better than to even acknowledge this book. I have a lot of respect for the designers at WotC, but I think they're stretched too thin and are rushing too many undercooked books to market.

And yet another bad WotC product.

Ahhhhh Planescape. No wonder they're brining back this setting: it's a wet dream for legit wokeness. A plane where anything can be anything and anywhere and say "you know what: f3$! the lore, it's Planescape, it can happen." Sorry but 5E D&D's Faerun or 5E D&D in general is not western medieval fantasy anymore. Because in western medieval fantasy inspiration, you don't find women and people of color just everywhere doing just everything. This is why the first three The Witcher video games are so so so loved and popular: because they know what western medieval fantasy is: a coherent world.