D&D 5E Did March of the Machine wreck D&D settings of Theros, Ravnica, and Strixhaven? Spoiler Alert.

[Ondath]

Sure, a bad one. Its Jacetice League all over again, only this time they are late to the 'Marvel Multiverse' plot line.

Eh, I agree with Spice8Rack's view that they actually beat Marvel to the punch on doing a big multiverse plot this time. It's just that... Well, it all happened too quickly, innit?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Sure, a bad one. Its Jacetice League all over again, only this time they are late to the 'Marvel Multiverse' plot line.

Except they could already do that, I think they have bigger planes and ambitions.

 

[Scribe]

Except they could already do that, I think they have bigger planes and ambitions.

You'll forgive me if I dont subscribe to MTG having a consistent and well thought out plan.

Planeswalkers could move around sure. The idea that 'all the planes are connected' and its just open to random people now, is about as quick a fast track to 'meh' as it gets.

MTG has an actual talent for creating new worlds, unique and distinct. Just another 'multiverse' approach is not what I would wish on any franchise.

 

[James Gasik]

Who remembers when the players were the Planeswalkers instead of overpriced pieces of cardboard? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

You'll forgive me if I dont subscribe to MTG having a consistent and well thought out plan.

Planeswalkers could move around sure. The idea that 'all the planes are connected' and its just open to random people now, is about as quick a fast track to 'meh' as it gets.

MTG has an actual talent for creating new worlds, unique and distinct. Just another 'multiverse' approach is not what I would wish on any franchise.

Never said its open to Random people, there will likely be something the deters mass migrations for example, like maybe the portals are unsafe and/or hard to use and/or have somekind of prerequistes to use. Something that will have say the living population of Amonkhet wondering off to Theros or its undead population from invading Ravnica again.

Might have some merchant trade.

One thought is this could be the start of making these setting work better as D&D crossover settings.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I thought metaplot stories and "blowing up the game world" died after the '90s?

Magic plotlines never advanced past the 90s. They have a history of ending with apocalypses. I think they equate "epic" to "end of the world," so it's often literally the only story they do.

Lame. The unique distinction of the settings was a huge part of keeping mtg fresh.

They have a real problem with destroying their own settings. The reason they stopped using Dominaria in the late 90s was because they already decided they had destroyed the plane too many times to bear credibility much longer.

Years later, It was one of the reasons they abandoned the mandatory three set "blocks." They kept doing the same storyline:

Set 1. New plane is introduced with unique elements that make it distinct from everything that came before.
Set 2. A conflict arises! The war for the plane's survival begins!
Set 3. The conflict is resolved, but the plane is left in ruins. The unique elements have largely or totally been permanently destroyed. It's left a generic fantasyland.

Not all of them do it, but... a lot of them do. Now that they don't do blocks so they do it less, but they still tend to revisit planes they've been to before and the storyline often involves the plane or the central theme of the plane being fundamentally altered.

It's so weird. It's one of the reasons I kind of prefer the metaplots. You don't really want to get invested in a plane because WotC is just going to come back and stomp on it.

The way this current storyline is breaking down, I'm guessing they're trying to do a metaplot reset. Teferi seems somewhat likely to be able to Back to the Future all of New Phyrexia into never happening. Then again, maybe it's another Infinite Crisis.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Magic plotlines never advanced past the 90s. They have a history of ending with apocalypses. I think they equate "epic" to "end of the world," so it's often literally the only story they do.



They have a real problem with destroying their own settings. The reason they stopped using Dominaria in the late 90s was because they already decided they had destroyed the plane too many times to bear credibility much longer.

Years later, It was one of the reasons they abandoned the mandatory three set "blocks." They kept doing the same storyline:

Set 1. New plane is introduced with unique elements that make it distinct from everything that came before.
Set 2. A conflict arises! The war for the plane's survival begins!
Set 3. The conflict is resolved, but the plane is left in ruins. The unique elements have largely or totally been permanently destroyed. It's left a generic fantasyland.

Not all of them do it, but... a lot of them do. Now that they don't do blocks so they do it less, but they still tend to revisit planes they've been to before and the storyline often involves the plane or the central theme of the plane being fundamentally altered.

It's so weird. It's one of the reasons I kind of prefer the metaplots. You don't really want to get invested in a plane because WotC is just going to come back and stomp on it.

The way this current storyline is breaking down, I'm guessing they're trying to do a metaplot reset. Teferi seems somewhat likely to be able to Back to the Future all of New Phyrexia into never happening. Then again, maybe it's another Infinite Crisis.

Yep, that happened to Alara, Tarkir, Dominaria, Ravnica, Zendikar, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor, Kamigawa, etc...

The settings that some how avoided that fate were Theros (until now), Innistrad (mostly though killing Avalcyn was dumb), Eldraine (until now), Kaladesh, Kaldheim (until now), etc...

But some sets in the last few years got single sets whose purphose was to rebuild the planes they broke. Zendikar got Zendikar Rising that had Nissa use the Lithoform engine to restore the lands destoyed by the Eldrazi, Dominaria & Kamigawa had sets that updated the timeline to the present, allow things to be fixed and new stuff added, Ravnica had the novellas. Tarkir, Alara, and Lorwyn where much more difficult to fix, although I suspect the March of the Machines and Aftermath are partly going to do that for those settings.

There is going to be no back to the future plotline. This story was like going to a doctor after your nose has been healed after having been broken, only for him to break it again, so he can set it right so it heal properly this time. They broke ALL the settings so they can completely rebuild them in Aftermath fixing all kinds of things, creating new plot hooks, and setting up changes so that it take things in a new direction goinh forward.

Kind of screwed the crossover D&D settings in the process however.

 

[Scribe]

One thought is this could be the start of making these setting work better as D&D crossover settings.

Which is the ultimate worst idea. You go from 2 unique systems, to 1, myriad worlds (D&D settings + MTG settings) to a mash up all the time.

I've said it for years. MTG needs to stay in its lane.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Which is the ultimate worst idea. You go from 2 unique systems, to 1, myriad worlds (D&D settings + MTG settings) to a mash up all the time.

I've said it for years. MTG needs to stay in its lane.

No one said it was going to be a mash up all the time, and I appear to be wrong about MOM being used to merge the D&D multiverse with the MtG multiverse.