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!!

 

[Taralan]

I agree with earlier comments that the Guide is very barebones in regards to the description of the world, so much so that I think it would be difficult to set an entire campaign in Ravnica unless the DM is prepared to homebrew 90% of the setting.

However, I think it would work better if Ravnica is used as a homebase for a group of planeswalking PCs pursuing the conflicts between the guilds not just in a Ravnica but also in Innistrad, Kaladesh etc. The content of the Guide would be just enough to give the homebase sufficient details and the focus on the guild would give impetus to the campaign.

I may try this for my next campaign. It would be nice however to have a system to use color mana for spells to give the campaign a MtG flavor.

 

[Rossbert]

Also valid. I just hit the section that said guildless characters can also be prominent antagonists and you can use any of the adventure building guidelines in the DMG for them.

So it seems the overall idea is to just put in the bits you don't already have in another book?

 

[GrissTheGnome]

Not that I need much of an excuse to get it, considering I got all the other books. But it sounds like the Guild Masters Guide to Ravnica is the mother of all Plane Shifts, or maybe like the "Players Guide to Ravnica." And getting the Art book might be a required purchase to get all the fluff.

 

[Jester David]

The $20,000 question... has Ravnica been opened up on DMs Guild?

Maybe when the actual release date comes. Or possibly when the initial adept content is ready, so they can be the first...

 

[Dausuul]

The thing where your guild background adds spells to your spell list is a big freakin' deal. That is a radical change from backgrounds as they existed before.

I like that they're amping up the importance and thematic impact of backgrounds, and as a caster player I'd be excited to play with these, but I do feel like noncasters get shortchanged here. I think I would house rule that if you have at least one level in a class that does not grant cantrips*, you gain the ability to cast the cantrips on your background spell list. (To be clear: This is my solution as a DM wanting to quickly and simply balance these backgrounds. If I had a team of professional designers at my beck and call, I'd prefer to come up with a feature for each background that supports noncasters without turning them into casters. But that's a lot more work.)

Also, there are some potential warlock shenanigans here. Golgari warlocks can cast animate dead on a short-rest cycle, without having to dump 5 levels into another class. The resulting undead are pretty weak, since you don't get the necromancer's Undead Thralls ability... but dang, can you ever make a lot of them.

[size=-2]*I consider a class to grant cantrips only if it has a class spell list with cantrips on it. Cantrips granted by subclass features don't count. So classes affected by this change would include barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, and rogue.[/size]

 

[Rossbert]

Indeed but it also tacitly has the expectation that the background will also somewhat dictate you class, race and tactics. So they are making background a HUGE deal.

 

[kenmarable]

Part of it is that it's straight lacking in chunks, like how the history section glosses over 10,000 years of history like nothing happened, to cases of just not telling us anything about important NPCs (Like, there is nothing about Isperia besides that she's a sphinx and that she's apparently female, as far as I can tell.) The intro teases of locations like the Mausoleum District, Smelting District, and Lake district, all of which sound like they'd be really cool to explore, but none of them show up at a later point, from what I can tell.

I haven’t started getting into it yet (focusing on Dungeon of the Mad Mage since I might use that sooner), but depending on how they reference those things, I actually prefer setting books that way. Personally, rather than fewer locations in full detail, I prefer many more hints at places that inspire ideas. But that’s entirely a matter of taste (and might not be what they are doing here anyway).

 

[flametitan]

I haven’t started getting into it yet (focusing on Dungeon of the Mad Mage since I might use that sooner), but depending on how they reference those things, I actually prefer setting books that way. Personally, rather than fewer locations in full detail, I prefer many more hints at places that inspire ideas. But that’s entirely a matter of taste (and might not be what they are doing here anyway).

What they've done is go, "Well known locations outside the City include XYZ," and those are the only time they come up. You don't even really get a hint of what they are, just names that sound like they might be interesting. Mahovna, the Haven of Moss sounds really cool, but all there is to go by is that it's a name that exists.

 

[Satyrn]

Hiya!

I mean, you can't really call a book "Guide to Earth" and then only concentrate on the USA.

If it was written by an American it would.

And all it would say about Canada is "Mostly Harmless."

 

[Morrus]

As I said, it is mostly due to their low level of transparence. And, also if my products don't sell so much on the guild, with the 50% share wotc already gained much more from me than selling a single one shot book.

In don’t think you as a publisher is the target audience of the book. It’s you as a gamer.