Dungeons & Dragons Updates Planescape With Adventures in the Multiverse : MoviesLiveNews

The *Dungeons & Dragons world is ever-evolving, with classic campaigns and settings like Phandalin being reimagined for current players. The original Planescape setting enchanted plenty of gamers — but Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse* takes it to another level. The set includes nearly 300 pages of new content, including more than three dozen creatures to create additional challenges for even the strongest heroes.

CBR joined members of D&D Studio at a press conference to preview Adventures in the Multiverse and learn what it adds to Planescape. Here’s what Dungeon Masters and their parties can look forward to when the collection arrives on October 2023 — with a joint physical and digital bundle now available for pre-order at Wizards of the Coast.

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The original Planescape debuted nearly three decades ago to help Dungeons & Dragons’ second edition tie its various worlds together. The success of the expansion even led to a Planescape video game that became a fan favorite. “Planescape is the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse,” explained co-lead designer Wes Schneider. “It isn’t just outer space. It’s the elemental planes, it’s the outlands, it’s the homes of gods. It’s where spirits go when they die. It’s all of that.”

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That means Adventures in the Multiverse (which includes three books, a double-sided poster map, and a new Dungeon Master’s screen) is theoretically capable of infinite storytelling. However, this campaign collection focuses on the outer planes and a location called Sigil, also known as the City of Doors. Schneider described Sigil as an “incredible metropolis, with gates literally all over the planes,” making it a big and beautiful setting for this expansion of D&D lore.

While the collection does have plenty of new content on offer, it was also important to the creative team to preserve what made Planescape worth returning to in the first place. They spent a considerable amount of time going over the original 1990s materials and considering how to combine them with how Dungeons & Dragons players adventure in 2023. “There are a lot of opportunities not only to treat the original material with reverence [but to] bring people things that they expect to see, like Lady of Pain or some of the factions,” said co-lead designer Justice Arman.

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The Lady of Pain is the ruler of Sigil and plays a prominent role in the new collection. After all, she maintains the power to either activate or turn off every portal in the city. She can also banish characters to terrifying demi-planes of her own making. But she is not the only adversary players can run afoul of, as the city has 12 factions with different powers and goals. This includes creepy bounty hunters known as the Mercy Killers and an emerging group called the Hands of Havoc, who want to tear everything down and start over. “These factions are in constant conversation and constant debate,” said Schneider. “You’re going to see several factions that you might be familiar with from earlier Planescape products, as well as a few new ones… So much of Planescape is about these ideas and about those beliefs shaping reality. Sigil and its factions are at the center of that.”

There are a whopping 16 Gate Towns in the Outlands that groups can venture to through Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse, and they all have their own distinct personalities. Some of them even have specific effects that can impact the game. The included adventure, “Turn of Fortune’s Wheel,” is centered around a casino run by an information broker, who has a proposition for the heroes. The story embraces the strangeness of Planescape for characters on levels 3–10, with a section that jumps ahead to level 17 with a truly multiversal plot twist. “Something about reality isn’t clicking with them,” teased Schneider, who revealed that heroes will discover a glitch in the afterlife: “After a few beats, they come back as a different incarnation of themselves.”

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“You have these opportunities throughout the course of the game to be shifting between three different versions of yourself that can be pretty much the same and just cosmetically different, or might have completely different character sheets and stat blocks,” Schneider explained. “Once all of your pieces come back together, that’s when you catapult up to your true potential at 17th level to finish the adventure in grand form.”

However, the designers emphasized that just because Adventures in the Multiverse presents countless possibilities doesn’t mean DMs need to use all of them. The campaign can be enjoyed by newcomers or those who don’t want to give up their perfect D&D character sheet. While the idea of evolution is on the table, it does not undermine the stakes of the adventure. Dying still has an impact on the story, even if characters are able to come back afterward. “Just because the dragon’s eaten you 50 times doesn’t mean that your guild’s gotten past the dragon yet,” Schneider said, adding that it’s up to DMs to mix in as many mechanics or as much “wildness” as they want.

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In addition to the adventure book and the guide to Sigil and the Outlands, the set also includes Mort’s Planar Parade, with over 60 pages about the characters that parties will find in this updated version of Planescape — like time dragons. Whether it’s unique inhabitants of Sigil that heroes are bumping into, games at the Fortune’s Wheel casino that throw a wrench into their plans, or coming to grips with different versions of themselves, Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse offers a variety of different elements to keep players guessing. In turn, it’s a campaign that will be challenging for new and experienced players and ensures that more classic Dungeons & Dragons material stays in the current game. If anything is possible in Planescape, everything can be accomplished — it might just take a few resurrections.

Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse releases Oct. 17, 2023. D&D Beyond will have access to digital content two weeks early, starting Monday, Oct. 3.

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