Planescape Boxed Set Review: Dungeons & Dragons Softens Its Most Memorable Campaign Setting

The Planescape Boxed Set is both the best Dungeons & Dragons product published in 2023 and also a product that struggles to adapt the memorable Planescape campaign setting for the modern era. While the new boxed set, which is out now digitally and will have a physical release in about two weeks, contains a fun adventure and plenty of new monsters to use against (or perhaps in allegiance with) your players, it limits itself unnecessarily by focusing almost exclusively on Sigil and the surrounding Outlands instead of the full planar cosmology of Dungeons & Dragons and also by largely ignoring the rigid alignment structure that the original Planescape was governed by. The result is a product that is enjoyable for the casual reader and more polished than other more recent offerings, but will also leave many longtime Planescape fans disappointed. 

Originally published in 1994, the original Planescape line was dedicated to fleshing out the planes of Dungeons & Dragons, many of which were representative of one of the nine alignments found in the game. The line also used a group of 15 factions to further explore the concept of ideals taken to extremes, which were used to further play with the deeper philosophies of morality and alignment and also provide a constant tension within campaigns set amongst the Outer Planes. With visually distinctive art and stories and characters that were both quirky, terrifying, and extremely unconventional at the time, Planescape became something of a cult favorite, with fans fondly remembering the line long after it was discontinued in the late 1990s. 

One of the key problems with publishing a Planescape product for 5th Edition is that Dungeons & Dragons has largely moved away from alignment as anything more than a roleplaying prompt. There are no longer spells that only affect characters of a certain alignment, nor are certain classes limited to characters whose core philosophies are rigidly affixed to a specific alignment. Although the D&D design team has rightfully noted that alignment really isn't critical to much of what Dungeons & Dragons is about these days, it certain was foundational to Planescape as a whole. And without alignment, the factions and many planes of Planescape (and really the flavor of Planescape, which was often presented with a sort of Richard Adams-esque tongue-in-cheek flavor to it) just feel hollow. They still exist, of course, but they lack the essential rigidity that helped to spur its creativity. There's no incentive for joining a Planescape faction, nor do they really factor into the books at all, which is a real shame given their prominent roles in the original product line.

To their credit, the D&D Design Team seemingly recognized the inherent flaws of trying to rebuild Planescape for 5E and instead shifted the box set's focus to Sigil and the Outlands, with an adventure and a full gazetteer (the latter of which is actually titled Sigil and the Outlands) dedicated to the centerpiece of the Planescape setting. While the player options are almost heinously sparse (it feels like a missed opportunity not to have character backgrounds and feats dedicated to Planescape Factions), Sigil and the Outlands represents the most "campaign setting" product we've gotten since the release of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. One of the biggest flaws of D&D's return to classic campaign settings has been its lack of actual campaign setting material, so Sigil and the Outlands really is a breathe of fresh air in that it actually gives players lots of information about a world that a campaign can take place in. 

I also enjoyed Morte's Planar Parade, a collection of monsters from across the Planes, many of which are high level. Outside of my minor quibbles about making an ancient time dragon (once a CR 90 creature) into a mere CR 26 creature equal to the power levels of other ancient dragons, I thought that Morte's Planar Parade was a much more colorful and diverse collection of statblocks than the disappointing bestiary found in Bigby's Presents: Glory of the Giants. Even the Turn of Fortune's Wheel adventure is surprisingly well-done, especially when compared to its equivalent in the Spelljammer boxed set. The adventure has a delightfully unhinged twist to it that encourages the players to face death head-on over and over. This mechanic (exclusive to the adventure) is probably the most Planescape-esque part of the book and it's paired well with the Sigil and the Outlands gazetteer for what appears to be a much fuller adventure experience. 

My other main criticism of the new Planescape boxed set is its seeming emphasis on the D&D multiverse without really addressing what that means. Sigil is indeed a City of Doors, with portals that connect to any other of Dungeons & Dragons' many worlds. However, I always felt that Planescape focused more on the cosmology of D&D rather than the multiverse (while petty, the Planes and the Multiverse are VERY different things) and the decision to emphasize the multiverse feels more like chasing after the latest corporate franchise buzzword than actually trying to evolve Sigil. In fact, other than the occasional wink that players can reach any world from Sigil, there's no real attempt to engage with what that means for players. Sigil isn't suddenly home to characters from abandoned D&D campaign settings, nor is there any real attempt to examine what affixing Sigil as the center of the multiverse means (although, to be fair, that's likely because Sigil's ruler the Lady of Pain would likely imprison anyone who attempted to rock the boat too much in an infinite maze.)

Ultimately, the Planescape boxed set is a solid Dungeons & Dragons product when removed entirely from the context from the Planescape products released in the 1990s. There's a good adventure, a good bestiary, and a good campaign setting book (although the latter whiffs on meaningful character options.) However, if you have found any joy from the original Planescape, you will likely find its revival lacking in character and in purpose. If not for Wizards' failure to support any of these older campaign settings as anything more than a nostalgic one-off, I might excuse the lack of Planes in Planescape as wanting to save more material for the next book (ironically, that is something that the original Planescape boxed set did), but as this stands right now, it doesn't have the same spark of innovation and creativity as the original. 

Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse is available now here on Amazon. A review copy was provided to ComicBook.com by Wizards of the Coast.