First Impressions – Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica

A segment of the Dungeons & Dragons' fan base have been clamoring for setting releases and while Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica won't appease those who want a 5^th Edition update of an older setting like Greyhawk, Planescape or Spelljammer, it is a fresh setting that Wizards of the Coast clearly hopes will bring the Magic the Gathering crowd to D&D.

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So what's my first impression of Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica? Fresh and familiar at the same time. Now don't take that as an insult MtG players. This is a first impression article. A more nuanced review will follow after I have read the entire book. This is based on an overall skim of the book and reading of selected passages.

For any veteran D&D player, Ravnica is new but has enough overlap with classic D&D that it won't be a shock to the system. For example, races include humans, elves, goblins, minotaurs and centaurs along with new-to-D&D races Vedalken and Simic Hybrid. Charts break down which classes work best with the 10 guilds, though you can be guildless.

Ravnica is a fantasy world with the magical technology flavor of Eberron. That's not to say it's derivitive of Eberron. Both settings offer modern conveniences through magic but get there and express them in different ways.

The introduction and first three chapters focus, understandably, on Ravnica as a setting and how to create a character and it gives you a lot of meat with which to work. Chapter 4 is about creating adventures, with some broad adventure ideas at the start of the chapter and then each guild section has more adventure hooks, specific to that group. I like the “Cross Purposes” charts and “Complications” for ways to make a villain affect the players without doing a blanket “you have to stop X” approach. It feels more organic. Having done similar things in my own home games for D&D and other RPGs, it can work really well.

Guild intrigue is, of course, a part of the adventure seeds. With 10 guilds and Ravnica's backstory, including the broken Guildpact and how things function now that it's been restored, intrigue really should be a key story driver in Ravnica adventures.

One odd note for those who might buy Ravnica on D&D Beyond is that you really want to tap the “View Welcome” button on the upper right instead of diving directly into chapter 1 and the rest of the leftside sidebar links. “View Welcome” actually takes you to the book's Introduction, which has a LOT of useful, downright essential, material for anyone new to Ravnica and even MtG players wanted to learn how the popular setting has been adapted to D&D. It covers everything from the history of Ravnica, both in-game and as part of MtG, to its currency and calendar.

Obviously readers of the physical book will naturally go to this essential chapter and all of the D&D Beyond editions of the hardcover books have the “View Welcome” button that separates the introduction from the chapters, but it's an odd layout issue. I handed my tablet to a friend who has played both MtG and D&D for years but never used D&D Beyond, and he was confused by the lack of introduction until I pointed out the “View Welcome” button.

I like the precinct by precinct breakdown in Chapter 3. The people and rumors tables in each section are a nice way of adding flavor, misdirects and possible adventure hooks as your players wander the city of Ravnica.

The art is very good and provides the context for this new (to D&D) world. It as much as anything helps to set a different tone than Forgotten Realms' adventures.

Really, I'm going to pay Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica the highest compliment I can in a first impressions article – that I can't wait to dive in and read the entire book.

This article was contributed by Beth Rimmels (brimmels) as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. If you enjoy the daily news and articles from EN World, please consider contributing to our Patreon!!

 

[GreyLord]

It's not laziness, it's fear of splitting the fan base. A very justified fear, given that it sunk D&D in the 1980s.

They don't want to create a situation where a consumer says "my game is Ravnica, so I can't buy Dungeon of the Mad Mage because it is FR". So they connect them (whist making it clear {as does the Eberron book} that the DM is free to use alternative cosmologies if the wish to).

I will say that the Eberron book does describe the alternative cosmology in reasonable detail, whist stating that the DM is free to use the Great Wheel or World Tree cosmology instead. The Ravnica book doesn't go into it, probably because they would have to do the whole of MtG rather than just one setting, which would be far to much content for a single book. It is perhaps reasonable for them to assume that a MtG fan would know that stuff anyway, whilst anyone else wouldn't care and would be happy to stick with the great wheel.

It's a common myth that people try to use (bad marketing and bad business/sales practices created problems for TSR, NOT multiple campaign settings in and of themselves).

However, that myth relates to the mid 90s...which is what I think you meant (rather than the 80s as what you said).

In the early 80s they had Greyhawk and the Basic Set which then became B/X. Later on they had Dragonlance which sold millions of copies at the time and finally Forgotten Realms. It was only later in the 80s (After TSR's first financial crisis we could say) that Campaign settings started to increase drastically (and boomed to much greater amounts in the 90s).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's a common myth that people try to use (bad marketing and bad business/sales practices created problems for TSR, NOT multiple campaign settings in and of themselves).

However, that myth relates to the mid 90s...which is what I think you meant (rather than the 80s as what you said).

In the early 80s they had Greyhawk and the Basic Set which then became B/X. Later on they had Dragonlance which sold millions of copies at the time and finally Forgotten Realms. It was only later in the 80s (After TSR's first financial crisis we could say) that Campaign settings started to increase drastically (and boomed to much greater amounts in the 90s).

Calling something a myth doesn't make it not true.

Campaign setting bloat started in the 80s, leading to a collapse in the 90s if you think timeline precision makes any difference.

Whatever, calling developers/publishers "lazy" whenever they make a decision you don't like is itself lazy. They may have made the wrong decision, but it's never because of laziness - they wouldn't keep their jobs very long if it was.


[NB, for perspective, I have seen the Ravnica book and am unimpressed and haven't bought it, so I'm not defending the book itself.]

 

[Psyzhran2357]

I believe it was the 4th to last episode (can't remember the date). Someone asked about how Ravnica worked with the rest of the DnD multiverse and he mentioned they were treating them as separate. I believe one example he gave for why was it meant they didn't have to explain how demons worked in Ravnica and how they work in the rest of the DnD multiverse.

Fourth to last episode would be October 9. Crawford in July said that they were treating the D&D settings as one big universe. There was a whole thread about it: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Eberron-and-Ravnica-fit-in-D-amp-D-cosmology)

Are they going back on that?

 

[Parmandur]

Fourth to last episode would be October 9. Crawford in July said that they were treating the D&D settings as one big universe. There was a whole thread about it: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Eberron-and-Ravnica-fit-in-D-amp-D-cosmology)

Are they going back on that?

More likely they are being agnostic on it. It's connected, it's not connected, whatever floats your boat.

 

[GreyLord]

Calling something a myth doesn't make it not true.

Campaign setting bloat started in the 80s, leading to a collapse in the 90s if you think timeline precision makes any difference.

Whatever, calling developers/publishers "lazy" whenever they make a decision you don't like is itself lazy. They may have made the wrong decision, but it's never because of laziness - they wouldn't keep their jobs very long if it was.


[NB, for perspective, I have seen the Ravnica book and am unimpressed and haven't bought it, so I'm not defending the book itself.]

I don't think I called anyone lazy. That's an odd thing to say.

In regards to the campaign settings, that in and of itself does NOT bleed money. Paizo for example has tried to say they only have one campaign setting, Golarion. However, if you really look at it, each nation inside Golarion is itself a min-campaign setting in and of itself replicating almost EVERY campaign setting TSR had at it's height (and then some).

The key isn't how many different settings you have, but HOW you market and do your business. TSR would spend a gob of money on a project, and then automatically sell the product for a loss. That's stupid business decisions.

TSR would hedge their bets on current sales of one item and feel it would hold over for another item without any research or reason to expect it would sale similarly...and when it didn't...that's BAD business decisions.

TSR had a ton of bad business decisions and marketing choices that led to it's downfall. It's amazing how many simply disregard a pretty blatantly obvious thing on the face of it and go along with the bandwagon instead by trying to say that too many campaign settings split the fanbase.

Campaign settings CANNOT split a fanbase in and of themselves if you make good business decisions. If you do research and you see that something is going to cost more money than it is going to make...you stop producing it. You simply stop making it. You focus on what sells and expand your market in that area. You do NOT continue to pour money into money losing propositions.

They continued to do that and lost money. Furthermore they expected certain books to sell just as well as other bestsellers with no backing in research or anything else to indicate that this would happen. When returns occurred and rents came due...this came crashing to a sudden and realistic ending of BAD decision making in regards to business and financial squandering.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think I called anyone lazy. That's an odd thing to say.

In regards to the campaign settings, that in and of itself does NOT bleed money. Paizo for example has tried to say they only have one campaign setting, Golarion. However, if you really look at it, each nation inside Golarion is itself a min-campaign setting in and of itself replicating almost EVERY campaign setting TSR had at it's height (and then some).

The key isn't how many different settings you have, but HOW you market and do your business. TSR would spend a gob of money on a project, and then automatically sell the product for a loss. That's stupid business decisions.

TSR would hedge their bets on current sales of one item and feel it would hold over for another item without any research or reason to expect it would sale similarly...and when it didn't...that's BAD business decisions.

TSR had a ton of bad business decisions and marketing choices that led to it's downfall. It's amazing how many simply disregard a pretty blatantly obvious thing on the face of it and go along with the bandwagon instead by trying to say that too many campaign settings split the fanbase.

Campaign settings CANNOT split a fanbase in and of themselves if you make good business decisions. If you do research and you see that something is going to cost more money than it is going to make...you stop producing it. You simply stop making it. You focus on what sells and expand your market in that area. You do NOT continue to pour money into money losing propositions.

They continued to do that and lost money. Furthermore they expected certain books to sell just as well as other bestsellers with no backing in research or anything else to indicate that this would happen. When returns occurred and rents came due...this came crashing to a sudden and realistic ending of BAD decision making in regards to business and financial squandering.

Their bad business decision making had some fun creative results, but wasn't sustainable. WotC right now has a veeeeery cautious, slow approach, which can be creatively frustrating: but just might prove sustainable, and the race isn't to the swift, but to those who endure.

 

[seekr341]

I am still waiting for Greyhawk to come back, along with Kara-Tur from the Oriental Adventures, and even Al-Qadim, the Arabian Adventures. But seems they have no plans to bring them back. I also get the feeling that they hate Greyhawk for some reason. If you really want something different, I have a book d20 System called Nyambe, African Adventures. Even though it's a d20 System, they can easily be transferred to D&D system.

 

[Azzy]

I am still waiting for Greyhawk to come back, along with Kara-Tur from the Oriental Adventures, and even Al-Qadim, the Arabian Adventures. But seems they have no plans to bring them back. I also get the feeling that they hate Greyhawk for some reason.

Actually, Mearls likes Greyhawk. Whether or not they plan on bringing back these old settings (that is publishing new books centered around said settings), I have no idea. Apparently, there current strategy is to use settings as genre guides, so that really leaves it open to how would they approach sais settings with that strategy in mind.

Personally, as much of a fan of Greyhawk that I am, I don't really see much point to publishing a Greyhawk setting guide (except to open the setting up on DMsGuild or to intice new players)—the core rules supply everything you need to play the setting mechanically (aside from some iconic monsters). So, really, all you really need is the setting information and you can get that from the older products (which you can get through DMsguild).

Kara-Tur and Al Qadim both require some mechanical support, and I'd definitely like to see that. They're also part of the Forgotten Realms, so they may get special treatment via adventure module or whatnot.

 

[gyor]

Actually, Mearls likes Greyhawk. Whether or not they plan on bringing back these old settings (that is publishing new books centered around said settings), I have no idea. Apparently, there current strategy is to use settings as genre guides, so that really leaves it open to how would they approach sais settings with that strategy in mind.

Personally, as much of a fan of Greyhawk that I am, I don't really see much point to publishing a Greyhawk setting guide (except to open the setting up on DMsGuild or to intice new players)—the core rules supply everything you need to play the setting mechanically (aside from some iconic monsters). So, really, all you really need is the setting information and you can get that from the older products (which you can get through DMsguild).

Kara-Tur and Al Qadim both require some mechanical support, and I'd definitely like to see that. They're also part of the Forgotten Realms, so they may get special treatment via adventure module or whatnot.

One reason to publish a Greyhawk setting is that it is so interconnected to FR that it makes sense for Greyhawk to undergo a time jump too. That actually makes sense for Dragonlance and Planescape and Spelljammer as well actually.

 

[Azzy]

One reason to publish a Greyhawk setting is that it is so interconnected to FR that it makes sense for Greyhawk to undergo a time jump too. That actually makes sense for Dragonlance and Planescape and Spelljammer as well actually.

If they did that, most Greyhawk fans would be pissed. The other settings don't need to keep to the Forgotten Realms ludicrous time advancements.