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

Charles Dunwoody · Sep 22, 2018

BBShockwave said:
Guilds that represent different philosophies, a giant city full of intrigue with portals to other worlds? Sounds to me like Magic the Gathering basically ripped off Sigil of Planescape to make this setting back then. Funny that now that they are owned by WotC, things come full circle.

According to Mark Rosewater, Ravnica started with the mechanics of taking all the mana color pairs and doing something different than a previous set. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/founding-city-2018-08-27

Going into the block, I knew only one thing about the set: it was going to have a multicolor theme. We had done Invasion block in 2000 to huge fanfare, and its success had convinced us to do another multicolor block as soon as we felt it was possible. After much discussion, we decided the appropriate amount of time was five years. Part of me was happy because I knew multicolor themes were very popular, but I also knew we would be designing in the shadow of Invasion, a very popular block. My goal was to capture as much as we could of what made multicolor fun while feeling as little like Invasion block as possible. I started the design of Ravnica with the mantra "Gold, but not Invasion." Mark Rosewater

The guilds came after the mana pair idea not the other way around.

gyor · Sep 22, 2018

BBShockwave said:
Guilds that represent different philosophies, a giant city full of intrigue with portals to other worlds? Sounds to me like Magic the Gathering basically ripped off Sigil of Planescape to make this setting back then. Funny that now that they are owned by WotC, things come full circle.

Ravnica doesn't have any portals to other worlds, at least not yet, and in fact for 10,000 years planar travel to and from the plane was blocked by the first guild pact.

Ravnica in many ways is far, far different from Sigil. Sigil can't have urban sprawl, it's usable space is too small,, but Ravnica has tons of it. Ravnica even has it's own kind of Underdark, Old Ravnica. A Plane of Shadows type place were the dead go, called Agyrem, the Ghost Quarter.

Charles Dunwoody · Sep 22, 2018

gyor said:
Ravnica doesn't have any portals to other worlds, at least not yet, and in fact for 10,000 years planar travel to and from the plane was blocked by the first guild pact.

Ravnica in many ways is far, far different from Sigil. Sigil can't have urban sprawl, it's usable space is too small,, but Ravnica has tons of it. Ravnica even has it's own kind of Underdark, Old Ravnica. A Plane of Shadows type place were the dead go, called Agyrem, the Ghost Quarter.

I'm still learning the history of Ravnica. Did Jace planewalk there after the first Guildpact was broken?

gyor · Sep 22, 2018

Charles Dunwoody said:
I'm still learning the history of Ravnica. Did Jace planewalk there after the first Guildpact was broken?

I don't think Jace appeared on Ravnica until after the Guild Pact was broken. He was born on another plane, Vyrn I think. He thinks of himself as a Ravnica native because he really doesn't remember much before it and he arrived on Ravnica as a child.

Aedan Sruibh-uaine · Oct 18, 2018

Just going to say, as a long time D&D player and MtG (though not really active for years), I have never been nearly as excited about a D&D setting as I have been for this MtG crossover stuff. When I run D&D, I almost always run a homebrew setting of some sort. This MtG crossover makes me want to run D&D in the setting. The Planeshift articles I kind of got to late, but upon actually looking at them was absolutely thrilled to see this stuff. Now I come to hear they are making a full fledged book like these? Awesome, I want more. I want to see books for other planes or more Planeshift articles, I want to see this succeed and them to print more of this and feel like they can invest in this. I want to play a Lorwyn flamekin planeswalker druid. I want to have adventures take me varied time-flow lands of the Tolarian Academy on Dominaria. I want to delve into forgotten ruins buried in the forests of Krosa in remains of Ontaria. I want to chase villains across worlds, into places that exist in endless skies, or worlds with the surface on the inside of a sphere where the sky is in the center rather than the ground. I want see the horror of Phyrexian infestation taking root and trying to stop it.

Other old settings hold either little interest to me, have plenty of old material to work with, or anything new would be just plundered mechanics for use in whatever setting I find myself using (Eberron, I'm excited to see some updated mechanics for, because the setting grew on me after years playing DDO, but a lot of the world information is covered by previous edition books just fine). This is the first setting book since my attempt to run a Dragonlance game many years ago in 3.5e that I would actually be interested in getting for actually using the setting material rather than just plundering mechanics and reflavoring if necessary. Which for that matter, I can absolutely do this with MtG crossover material for homebrew games as well.

Bring me Ravnica, then bring me more.

Aedan Sruibh-uaine · Oct 18, 2018

Also as another note, I have one person in my game group that runs MtG D&D game already that I am super jealous of, another person who pretty much knows nothing of MtG at all and is excited by this book, and at least one that has also played a bunch of MtG that would probably be interested in such a game.

And for the record, while I think Ravnica is cool, it is far from my most interested MtG plane. Putting aside classics like Dominaria, I would love to see stuff for Lorwyn, Mirrodin, and Mercadia. There's a Planeshift article for Ixalan which I really don't know all that much about (since I wasn't playing MtG then) but from what I have seen and read from that Planeshift article I would love to see more dealing with that world. Crazy brilliantly colored dinosaurs, some mesoamerican themes, island-high-sea adventures, hidden underwater realms beneath the roots of trees, ancient ruins? Sign me up.

gyor · Oct 18, 2018

Dualazi said:
Still not feeling this really. Given how past playtested rules have gone, I'm not expecting any exciting overhauls on things we've already seen, which doesn't inspire confidence. The monsters sound cool, since Magic has no shortage of interesting variants, but they'll need to be really really good to warrant the purchase. On that note I'm a little more optimistic though, Mordenkainen's was basically the same way, a bunch of awesome monsters weighed down by filler. Sadly the 'street level' view also seems like it will be terrible, since as both player and DM I want a more comprehensive overview of the factions' beliefs and methods, which seems to run contrary to this form of presentation.

I'd be suprised if there isn't a major overview of the Guilds methods and beliefs/philosphies, ironically that is vital to a street level view of Ravnica. Why would your character join a guild? It's beliefs, methods, job opportunities, cultures, and rewards. What challenges and opportunities might a character face from within their Guild and from other Guilds? You need an understandering of Guild politics and magic. What do you see each of the Guilds doing street level? Stuff dictated by it's agreed to roles in society, but various factions within the Guild pushing their adgendas.

What they are talking about excluding by saying street level, it stuff like MtG metasetting specific stuff that normal characters would have no idea about. Example Colours of Mana, the Aether, Planewalkers (sort of aside from Jace, but they don't know he is a Planeswalker, they just know him as the living Guildpact), other MtG planes like Innistrad or Alara, stuff that really is irrelevant to D&D play.

Example in MtG terms Demons are made from purified black mana (in some cases with another man a type added for flavour). But GGR isn't going to say that. Instead it's going to express the idea in philophical terms, demons are made of the very essence of selfishness and darkness. It won't say Angels are made out of pure White Mana with potentially other mana influences, it'll say Angels are made out of essence of order and community and in some cases good and light. If it talks about cosmology it will use D&D terms or Ravnica specific ones, not common MtG terms.

Bupp · Oct 18, 2018

I'm really looking forward to this book!

Long time player of both games. This is like getting chocolate in my peanut butter.

I've tinkered around with some crossover stuff on my blog...
https://jonbupp.wordpress.com/?s=plane+shifted

Also have just started a MeWe group on the subject...
https://mewe.com/join/ddmtg