New D&D Monsters and More in Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica

Do you want dozens of new D&D monsters from Wizards of the Coast? Does exploring a planet spanning city via membership in one of ten competing guilds sound challenging? If you play or DM Dungeons & Dragons, then Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica will have something for you. Gleaned from WotC interviews and news, this is what we know so far about Ravnica.

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Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica, releasing in November, is thoroughly a D&D book for D&D players. Magic the Gathering uses colors in the metagame but flavor text on cards do not mention colors. The colors would be meaningless in a D&D world. Guilds are defined based on philosophy not color. The setting focuses on adventurers, not MtG play. An example is new full page art depicting an adventuring party in the rain with four different guild members on a bridge behind them. An image that is grounded in D&D game play.

Ravnica’s ten guilds serve as both government and voluntary organizations. They clash with opposing philosophies and goals. The traditional magical power keeping the peace is the guildpact. The guildpact currently flows from one man and he is often on other planes, leaving Ravnica open to guild intrigue and tension filled conflict.

The guild is the lens through which the PCs see the world. A player may select a guild in place of a background. Guilds are more about exploration and interaction than combat. Guilds provide skills, special abilities, and NPC contacts. The DM looks at all of the PCs’ guilds and builds a campaign around opposing guilds. Advice covers good guilds to serve as adversaries, plots to oppose the PCs, typical NPCs and monsters to use, and what locations would fit the campaign. The players‘ guild choice combined with the advice for DMs provides a solid direction for a campaign.

James Wyatt gives brief guild descriptions. The Boros Legion are paladins, armored mages wielding fire, and military forces. The Golgari Swarm are sewer dwelling elves living in darkness, using insects, and wielding necromancy. The Selesnya Conclave is a cult speaking in one voice and trying to convert others. House Dimir consists of spies and assassins. The Orzhov Syndicate are a combination of organized crime, bank, and church. The Izzet League is home to inventors and conduct grand experiments. The Gruul Clans combine fiery emotion with a connection to the natural world expressed through barbarian clans. The Azorius Senate governs Ravnica and enforces the law. The Cult of Rakdos is a demonic cult circus. The Simic Combine masters life science and is heavily into body modification and hybrid creatures.

D&D players will benefit from a plethora of new content and rules. The number of new monsters nearly equals those in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. Rules playtested in Unearthed Arcana debuting officially include new races (centaurs, minotaurs, loxodons, Simic hybrids, vedalken, and viashino), the order domain for clerics, and the circle of spores druid subclass. City design in Guildmasters’ provides local description and street level information rather than block by block descriptions. Maps are isometric and have a painted look.

Monsters from Ravnica could easily cross over to other D&D worlds. The circus in Waterdeep from Dragon Heist could be filled with monsters from Ravnica. And the Cult of Rakdos could actually be that circus. The chase rules in Dragon Heist could be used in Ravnica.

Sources for information from WotC on the upcoming book include the official website, a Wizards of the Coast podcast called Dragon Talk with James Wyatt and Greg Tito, and D&D Beyond on YouTube with James Wyatt, Mike Mearls, and Ari Levitch. James Wyatt started merging Magic the Gathering with D&D in his Plane Shift articles. Guilds of Ravnica for MtG releases on October 5 while the D&D Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica releases on November 20.

This article was contributed by Charles Dunwoody as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program.We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!

 

[Parmandur]

Thank you for the explanation, I learned something about the conceiving of the D&D/Magic cross-over. That said, it is impossible that the D&D team was not aware of the ideas of James Wyatt and probably they spent a lot of time on the Ravnica project instead of thinking about the realization of the D&D fan desiderata. I see the commercial potential in this Ravnica operation. And for me it *just* a commercial operation. Nothing to do with D&D. As I said, I would have preferred a completely new setting instead of this commercial operation or Ravnica *after* the release of the old settings updated for the 5E. In the results of the survey that you reported above there is not reference to any "new setting" or "setting from another game" and so on. Coming out with Ravnica before any other setting looks really bad to me.

Man, if you don't like settings to be commercial operations, I have some bad news for you about TSR and their motivations for making the old settings.

 

[Muso]

Man, if you don't like settings to be commercial operations, I have some bad news for you about TSR and their motivations for making the old settings.

I don't know if this is true for you, but I was already a D&D player back to the T$R times. I remember them and their commercial operations. And also the terrific number of manuals of the 3.x and 4E. But in those settings there was also something very brilliant (Dark Sun and Planescape for example).

 

[Muso]

That survey didn't give new settings as an option or settings from MtG as a choice. This survey when it came to settings at, least was strictly to test the waters for interest in traditional major settings. It did Gage interest in other things as well like races.

And it occurred before James Wyatt had his idea.

Besides for synergy it had to be NOW, because October 5th is the day that the first of the new Ravnica products gets released, and they will continue releasing well into 2019. I think we will get more Settings in 2019, all of them more traditional D&D Settings. I think 2019 we will see 2-4 new setting books, starting with Planescape and Darksun, and Jeff Grubb who made Spelljammer has shown interest in writing an update to it and I think the duo behind Dragonlance will want to update that.

In fact I see 2019 being the busiest year for D&D 5e.

OK, so why don't make another survey to ask to the D&D fan-base its opinion about innovative settings or settings from another game and so on. They never did it and in my opinion this was a mistake.

Regarding the old settings in 2019: OK, and also for this year let's wait for the next year. D&D 5E is out from several years, from almost three years the fan-base is asking for the old settings, but before them there was the first major rule expansion (Xanathar) and now there is Ravnica and Eberron at a play-test stage (!?!?). It is frustrating to wait for another year.

 

[DM Howard]

Honestly curious. You can buy a Forgotten Realms setting hardcover for 3E used for under $30 https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365. Wouldn't that be better than POD just because you'd get a poster map of the setting?

I still have my copy from 3E, actually, but I am a lazy person (admittedly) and I would love to see that level of effort go into bringing FR fully into 5th Edition. Really, POD is just the most realistic option it seems, but I would greatly prefer buying my FR products from my local game store. It's kind of funny how WOTC seems to be shifting to this POD strategy, at least with Eberron, even though they always talk about wanting to support brick and mortar stores.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know if this is true for you, but I was already a D&D player back to the T$R times. I remember them and their commercial operations. And also the terrific number of manuals of the 3.x and 4E. But in those settings there was also something very brilliant (Dark Sun and Planescape for example).

Nah, I started with 3rd. No particular reason to see one creative commercial operation differently, from what I can see.

 

[dave2008]

Regarding the old settings in 2019: OK, and also for this year let's wait for the next year. D&D 5E is out from several years, from almost three years the fan-base is asking for the old settings, but before them there was the first major rule expansion (Xanathar) and now there is Ravnica and Eberron at a play-test stage (!?!?). It is frustrating to wait for another year.

Frustrating for you, but for the majority (according to about every survey and poll I have seen) of us who homebrew our settings the wait is not a big issue. In fact, we already have access to all the old setting material we could need, so Rav is at least as good as anything else for the majority of groups. You have to remember that a large majority of players (over 70%) either play homebrew settings or FR. They have these groups covered. Waiting several years to get to the fringes seems OK to me (but I am biased as I don't play them so there is that).

 

[Parmandur]

Frustrating for you, but for the majority (according to about every survey and poll I have seen) of us who homebrew our settings the wait is not a big issue. In fact, we already have access to all the old setting material we could need, so Rav is at least as good as anything else for the majority of groups. You have to remember that a large majority of players (over 70%) either play homebrew settings or FR. They have these groups covered. Waiting several years to get to the fringes seems OK to me (but I am biased as I don't play them so there is that).

More like 90%, which is the issue: there is some interest, but WotC has to work to make the book interesting to the whole spectrum of players. A tall order.

In the Dragon Talk episode after the announcement, James Wyatt and Jeremy Crawford were at pains to show how the Ravnica book could be useful to home Brewers and people playing on the Forgotten Realms or Eberron. Monsters, story generation tables, Subclasses and races...not just setting specific, or easy enough to retool.

 

[Muso]

Frustrating for you, but for the majority (according to about every survey and poll I have seen) of us who homebrew our settings the wait is not a big issue. In fact, we already have access to all the old setting material we could need, so Rav is at least as good as anything else for the majority of groups. You have to remember that a large majority of players (over 70%) either play homebrew settings or FR. They have these groups covered. Waiting several years to get to the fringes seems OK to me (but I am biased as I don't play them so there is that).

I am glad you have the time for develop you own setting and homebrew material. Unfortunately I don't have so much time, so I need the official settings. I can use FR o Eberron (after the play-test that will last for some time), but I prefer other settings and those settings were promised a long time ago. And probably also you in the future will lack the time for develop your own material. As you said, you are probably biased

 

[Muso]

Nah, I started with 3rd. No particular reason to see one creative commercial operation differently, from what I can see.

OK, you're talking about TSR but it's now clear to me that you don't know what you're talking about. At that time there was some commercial operations (some manuals containing options to expand the game, for example) and some pubblications that were really experimental for the period (Dark Sun for example). I would like to see an update of the good material.

 

[Parmandur]

OK, you're talking about TSR but it's now clear to me that you don't know what you're talking about. At that time there was some commercial operations (some manuals containing options to expand the game, for example) and some pubblications that were really experimental for the period (Dark Sun for example). I would like to see an update of the good material.

Experiments designed for and aimed squarely at making money: there is no difference. TSR made so many settings because they wanted money, plain and simple. Waiting twenty years to cross the Streams can hardly be called a quick money grab, in comparison.