Watch These 4 Trailers for Ravnica

Watch all of them to really get a feel for the setting, then buy the enovels for the setting on Amazon.

I reading the first one and so far it entertaining.

 

[Kite474]

Huh. So that's what you get when your game is a cash cow. Semi-animated teaser trailers with typical "brooding fantasy music" and voice overs.

I'm not sure these really told me all that much, although I'm happy for people that enjoy it. Me? I'm like ... but if the entire planet is covered by cities (city?) then where does the food come from? Why is the air still breathable? What's up with all those scenes of people in a jungle/swamp? You have this much city so you have billions of people and there are only a handful of power centers? They're using the fantasy trope that things have been more or less static for 10 times longer than the longest civilization on earth as ever survived? Meh. Most campaigns have issues, this one kind of screams FANTASY TO THE EXTREEEEEME!

I have no idea whether I'd enjoy the setting or not. I hope it sells well enough that D&D is still considered successful but not well enough that other settings will still have room.

Still forests and biomes, in fact, Ravnica has Rooftop forests cultivated by the Selesyna (one of the guilds) there's also various splotches or reclaimed land by the Gruul (another guild, think united barbarian tribes)

There aren't a handful of power centers (in fact there's a lot) but where the Guilds are primarily based are some of the bigger centers.

Food comes from recycled materials by Golgori Rot farmers along with various agricultural centers.

Things have mostly been the same because of magic binding contracts along with what is essentially a cold war/needing the other guilds so to survive (each guild controls a district or sphere of public influence (Police, Public Works, Medicine, etc.)

 

[jimmytheccomic]

Yeah - that should really be the kick off adventure for this setting!

Yeah, I sent the trailer to my players to see if they'll bite on it.

 

[Oofta]

Still forests and biomes, in fact, Ravnica has Rooftop forests cultivated by the Selesyna (one of the guilds) there's also various splotches or reclaimed land by the Gruul (another guild, think united barbarian tribes)

There aren't a handful of power centers (in fact there's a lot) but where the Guilds are primarily based are some of the bigger centers.

Food comes from recycled materials by Golgori Rot farmers along with various agricultural centers.

Things have mostly been the same because of magic binding contracts along with what is essentially a cold war/needing the other guilds so to survive (each guild controls a district or sphere of public influence (Police, Public Works, Medicine, etc.)

I'll be the first to admit that I've probably play MTG for about an hour and a half, so I know virtually nothing about the game or it's settings.

It may be an awesome setting. It just feels like some books that I've put down because the author was continuously trying to impress the reader with how awesome their world was because everything was over-sized and overblown. Sci-Fi/Space Fantasy can get away with some stuff like Coruscant being a city/planet because with hydroponics and mechanized transportation you can get away with more.

Historically, cities could only get so big because of limitations of efficiencies of scale. For example, ancient Rome only maintained it's population because there were so many immigrants. Of course if your magic gives you the same advantages as technology like Eberron then it may not be as big an issue.

Which is my long winded way of saying, I don't mean to trash the game setting. It may be great. It may just not fit my view of a logically consistent relatively low technology world.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I don't know much about these worlds, but Eberron and Ravnica seem to bare similarities. Both appear urban environments with Guilds/Dragonmarked Houses and attempts to make magic appear organic. Can someone explain differences, similarities, compatibility, etc.

Not really.

I mean, yes, there are some similarities. But not nearly as many as it might appear to people watching the hype without knowing the worlds.

Eberron isn't an urban setting. It happens to have some major important cities, but then, so do Forgotten Realms and Oerth. Sharn, for instance, is a big part of Eberron's imagery--but no more so than Waterdeep is to the Realms.

In fact, while much of Eberron's mandate is "fantasy noir"--which does lend itself to urban settings--the other half of that is "fantasy pulp," which absolutely does not. Eberron's wilderness and ancient empires are purpose-build for Indiana Jones-style characters and plots. Plus there's the Mournland (a magic-warped destroyed nation), the constant tension between nations that have just come out of what is essentially a World War, the psionic and planar incursions of various races...

Saying Eberron is an urban setting is like saying Marvel Comics is "the Iron Man company." Yes, it's a major part, but only one of many, and not necessarily of greatest import.

Ravnica is almost entirely urban, and has a very different history and current political setup. The Guilds have some resemblance to the Dragonmarked Houses, but the Guilds don't just dominate industry, they also rule, whereas the Houses--though they do have political pull--aren't actually in charge. One or two guilds use magitech, but I don't believe it's nearly so widespread as that of Eberron.

All of this is just basic overview--and, to be fair, I could be off on some particulars, as I'm less knowledgeable of Ravnica--but I promise, the settings have more differences than similarities.

 

[maceochaid]

So for a non magic the gathering fan who knows nothing about Ravinca, what can longer term fans suggest DM's can expect in terms of crunch, I'm thinking specifically of DM's like me who tend to never play in an established setting but love cannibalizing anything they get their hands on. Classes? Races? Monsters? Items?

 

[Von Ether]

For my setup, that top trailer is blurry as heck.

 

[Von Ether]

Thanks for sharing. The artwork is lovely... the setting however comes across as a generic MMO setting to me. When I look for new D&D settings, I pay extra attention to the names of the world, cities, countries, organizations, etc. When those names are generic fantasy, I instantly pass on the setting. I hate to say it, but most of what I saw in these trailers seemed terribly unimaginative.

Good naming is very important in world building. It makes the difference between an immersive believable world, and one that seems like a generic commercial fantasy product. I ask myself the questions: Is this a world that could really exist? Are these cultures that could really exist, and would they name their organizations, cities and countries as the setting presents them? All too often with these settings you see races that only seem to exist as "things the players can play", rather than races that fit the world they are supposed to inhabit. It feels like they are just ticking off a few boxes, rather than actually building a world.

I'm a bit surprised that games (both tabletop and computer) seem to be so bad at writing worlds, when there are so many great fantasy authors out there that do so well at it.

A good fictional world doesn't necessarily make a good RPG world, hence the "things the players can play," feel. Many times, the world is changed as the fiction protagonist succeeds in upsetting the balance, quelling the conflict, and make things "happily every after," with a new peaceful -- and boring -- status quo. (there are exceptions, this is just the usual outcome.)

You can probably get better world-building from an author, but it will come with just one implied sort of story and that narrows your audience.

Thus commercial settings usually offer a broad array of options for campaign flavors an styles of play. To snag as many customers as the can, some settings, like FR, have pseduo-historical cultures so you can flavor your fantasy RPGs anyway you want. But without the same historical context, these places (now speaking generically and not about FR) can seen as a random mish-mash of neighbors -- especially if one neighbor is necomancer

Others create fake cultures from scratch, but then their names or concepts sound hollow because they are fake and don't jive with our expectations that were informed from what we know about history. And some settings do a mix of both - with pseduo England close to pseduo Mongolia as both countries race to defend themselves from the Dracolich alliance of monsters.

I'm not saying one methodology is better than the other, but when you are trying to sell to as many customers as possible, the constraints on world building are vastly different than trying to create a world for just once sort of genre an story.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Huh. So that's what you get when your game is a cash cow. Semi-animated teaser trailers with typical "brooding fantasy music" and voice overs.

I'm not sure these really told me all that much, although I'm happy for people that enjoy it. Me? I'm like ... but if the entire planet is covered by cities (city?) then where does the food come from? Why is the air still breathable? What's up with all those scenes of people in a jungle/swamp? You have this much city so you have billions of people and there are only a handful of power centers? They're using the fantasy trope that things have been more or less static for 10 times longer than the longest civilization on earth as ever survived? Meh. Most campaigns have issues, this one kind of screams FANTASY TO THE EXTREEEEEME!

I have no idea whether I'd enjoy the setting or not. I hope it sells well enough that D&D is still considered successful but not well enough that other settings will still have room.

Yup. You nailed it, Oofta. I was thinking the same thing.

I was also thinking... "Aaaahhhh....so NOW I see why they chose Ravnica. They can sell more books. It's not about making something really cool that appeals to MtG and D&D fans...its about making something that MtG fans will have no qualms about forking over money for...multiple times...Got it".

That may be the pessimist in me talking (if a company is "big", it's Chaotic Evil 99% of the time), but here's my divination. They put out a "basic" guide to Ravnica...we have that. They see how it sells. If it seems to sell, then they put out a "Guide to the [name] Guild of Ravnica". They do that for A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, and J. Guilds. They just sold 10 books in stead of one. I would bet that was the main drive for deciding on Ravnica over the overall "Domi-whatsits-name" (whatever the 'main world/setting' of MtG was/is called).

As for the trailers...yeah, still not gonna bite. Nothing jumped out at me as unique, new or really even interesting. That, and as Oofta said in more words, "It doesn't make any sense". Maybe the main book explains all the things that an competent DM would ask of a campaign setting (all that "boring stuff" like population density, economics, weather, seasons, etc).

To anyone that has bought it: Maybe do a review for all of us who have yet to really see the worth of it? Anyone?

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[gyor]

I don't know much about these worlds, but Eberron and Ravnica seem to bare similarities. Both appear urban environments with Guilds/Dragonmarked Houses and attempts to make magic appear organic. Can someone explain differences, similarities, compatibility, etc.

Ravnica has no true wildness left, Eberron has a lot, Ravnica has a single government, the 10 guilds, Eberron has a lot of different governments and governing structures, Eberron has a separate afterlifes, ghosts of the dead just appear on the plane, they even have their own distict of the city (which may have splintered off at a later date), Ravnica has more biomagitech then Eberron. Ravnica has a lot of Czech influences, like on language, Eberron doesn't. They have different types of religions I think. It's not unusual to see Angels and Demons in Ravnica.

Also Ravnica hasn't experienced a full true on war, violent riots yes, lots of other violence yes, but not War like Eberron knows war, in thousands of years thanks to the magic of the guild pact.

Ravnica feels more alternate magical modern instead of Pulpy Adventure.

There are no fuedal monarchies in Ravnica.

There are a lot of little things, like food production, water management, and so on. The Guilds replaced governments, in Ebberon the Dragonmark Houses have not replaced government, they are more like neutral powerful merchants, with a lot of conflict being between nations.

 

[EthanSental]

Just noticed that MtG site has 2 Ravnica based products coming out as well, one in October and January. Sorry if this has already been mentioned. Cross branding in effect for both.

Is there an active MtG board to see what those people are posting about the D&D setting book?