Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Mages of Strixhaven

An Unearthed Arcana playtest document for the upcoming Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos hardcover has been released by WotC!

"Become a student of magic in this installment of Unearthed Arcana! This playtest document presents five subclasses for Dungeons & Dragons. Each of these subclasses allows you to play a mage associated with one of the five colleges of Strixhaven, a university of magic. These subclasses are special, with each one being available to more than one class."

News Archive | Dungeons and Dragons

Read the full archives of Dungeons & Dragons news, Sage Advice, Unearthed Arcana, and D&D Studio Blogs.

dnd.wizards.com

It's 9 pages, and contains five subclasses, one for each the Strixhaven colleges:

• Lorehold College, dedicated to the pursuit of history by conversing with ancient spirits and understanding the whims of time itself
• Prismari College, dedicated to the visual and performing arts and bolstered with the power of the elements
• Quandrix College, dedicated to the study and manipulation of nature’s core mathematic principles
• Silverquill College, dedicated to the magic of words, whether encouraging speeches that uplift allies or piercing wit that derides foes
• Witherbloom College, dedicated to the alchemy of life and death and harnessing the devastating energies of both

 

[Charlaquin]

Winning is defined by what the players achieve.

Achievement is defined by what you achieve. Victory is defined by if you achieved your goals. It is possible, in RPGs and in life, for unachieved goals to become permanently unobtainable.

In this case they achieved killing the dragon. Maybe they could have won and saved the village. That would have been a victory with a lower cost. And that is where D&D allows for player skill. Skilful play leads to winning at a lower cost.

If the goal was to save the village, failure to save the village is a loss. Killing the dragon afterwards may be a new goal, which can likewise be won or lost.

The laws of narrative are just as much present in RPGs as they are in movies. The DM and players may not be conscious of them, but if the narrative is unsatisfactory then the players won't enjoy the game.

Sure.

A tragedy is just a comedy told from the point of view of the villain. In Macbeth the good guys win in the end.

You’ve shifted from “the protagonists must win” to “the good guys must win.”

Also, who exactly wins in Oedipus Rex? Or Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

 

[Charlaquin]

Winning is defined by what the players achieve.

Achievement is defined by what you achieve. Victory is defined by if you achieved your goals. It is possible, in RPGs and in life, for unachieved goals to become permanently unobtainable.

In this case they achieved killing the dragon. Maybe they could have won and saved the village. That would have been a victory with a lower cost. And that is where D&D allows for player skill. Skilful play leads to winning at a lower cost.

If the goal was to save the village, failure to save the village is a loss. Killing the dragon afterwards may be a new goal (and therefore a new adventure), which can likewise be won or lost.

The laws of narrative are just as much present in RPGs as they are in movies. The DM and players may not be conscious of them, but if the narrative is unsatisfactory then the players won't enjoy the game.

Sure.

A tragedy is just a comedy told from the point of view of the villain. In Macbeth the good guys win in the end.

You’ve shifted from “the protagonists must win” to “the good guys must win.”

Also, who exactly wins in Oedipus Rex? Or Texas Chainsaw Massacre

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You’ve shifted from “the protagonists must win” to “the good guys must win.”

When it comes to D&D there is no distinction. Everyone is good in their own minds.

 

[Flamestrike]

How many fantasy stories end in the protagonists losing?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Game of Thrones is the prime example of "how do you bring a narrative to a satisfactory conclusion without the protagonists winning?" The answer is, you can't. Either the heroes win or the conclusion is unsatisfactory, or in the case of GoT, both.

Interesting example considering that to me it seems to be a case of forcing a 'good guys win' ending on a story that didn't need one. GoT could have easily had a satisfactory and thematically appropriate downer ending. Like for example the warring factions put aside their fight over the throne to confront the White Walkers, but ultimately one faction betrays other in order to claim the throne. In the end a person is sitting on the Iron Throne in royal splendour, having defeated the other claimants, as the city burns around them and the zombies roam the streets. King of ashes and ruins.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

View attachment 138064

Elric eventually becomes a good guy, and wins.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. I find this is usually at the heart of most objections to the DM being able to make calls like this. I’m sorry that’s been your experience, but that’s not how I run the game. I’ve said a couple times now that I’ve never had a patron take away a warlock’s powers in actual play, and that I imagine if I ever did it would be something that unfolded over the course of a campaign, with buy-in from the player. At a certain point you either believe me or you don’t.

There’s been a misunderstanding. I’ll clarify.

I’m not saying that I have had DMs take the PCs power away. I have managed to curate my gaming circle pretty well to not include jerks, over the years, and only a jerk would do that knowing their player is uncomfortable with it.

What I’m saying here is, I’ve seen plenty of attempts to tell the story where someone is being manipulated in the way you describe, and it requires the DM to find ways to twist PC victories to make them not really victories after all, which will nearly always feel forced if done more than a couple times.

What I’m saying more broadly is that the patron being able to take powers away doesn’t even really benefit that story. The only upside seems to be that it helps some DMs not feel like the patron is...idk, weak, or something? I still don’t really get that part.

I also view the player’s opinion on their character concept (barring things the DM doesn’t want to DM for, or things that aren’t appropriate for the game, etc) to be more important than my opinion on it as DM. In this case, it seems like we have different ideas about the point of playing a warlock, and that’s fine. You also said you don’t want to compromise on the whole “using evil power always leads to evil ends” thing, which...okay, I guess if I were playing at your table I’d just not play a fiendish warlock. Do you allow the other kind of warlock? That is, when Someone makes a Fey warlock or whatever and wants their patron to be more a mentor or simply a patron that isn’t going to interfere with them or turn the situation into a monkey’s paw, do you allow that, or is the point for you that being a warlock inherently involves eventually being asked to do things you don’t want to do?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A good chunk of D&D games end in the PCs losing.

Yeah okay, this is really the disconnect, then.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

When it comes to warlocks, as a rule of thumb I go with "the player also role-plays the patron". Ergo the only person who could take away a character's powers is their player.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Okay so I'm going to be honest, I did not read 32 pages of discussion which is apparently now about Elric (?!?!?).

But this UA is pretty wild stuff.

This is end-of-edition levels of wild. Indeed it's "stuff we're considering for the future" levels of wild. It reminds me a little of the old Book of Nine Swords and so on, though it's not quite as extreme as all that.

It's pretty cool, and yeah, it does seem in some ways like this might have always made a better approach to subclasses (even if some wouldn't exist because of it). It's interesting too, to see how informed by actual play of D&D these designs seemed to be, to me, where some subclasses over the years have seemed very "theoretical", like, they didn't feel like they were a good fit for D&D, especially actually at the table - whereas these absolutely do.