D&D 5E If you're buying Strixhaven, will it to be to run a campaign there, or as a crunch sourcebook?

[Minigiant]

Yeah, in previous editions, we got smaller, more frequent, more tightly focused content. I agree that under the 5E paradigm, it's preferable to no leave no gnome behind.

Given how fast this was turned around, I suspect it was designed for both simultaneously.

I don't know that we can assume that. I expect the two departments coordinated heavily on this one

Strixhaven might have been designed with D&D in mind but it was designed for MTG primarily.

There's 5 colleges. One for each "enemy color pair"
It's all full casters in protagonist and antagonist roles. The main enemies are wizard and warlock terrorists.
Noncasters are historic figures, have no modern role, and have little representation.
The dragons are background characters
The dungeons has little spotlight

I'm not saying it can't be used in a campaign or you can't run a Strixhaven campaign. But it's a major departure from standard D&D or even more exotic versions of it. I have to see more before the usefulness is shown to be worth the price.

 

[bedir than]

Noncasters are historic figures, have no modern role, and have little respresentation.

The cards I use in my deck include monks and warriors without magic who are just randos, not legendaries.

 

[Minigiant]

The cards I use in my deck include monks and warriors without magic who are just randos, not legendaries.

One monk. There is one monk.
And the 2 warriors are spirits.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Strixhaven might have been designed with D&D in mind but it was designed for MTG primarily.

There's 5 colleges. One for each "enemy color pair"
It's all full casters in protagonist and antagonist roles. The main enemies are wizard and warlock terrorists.
Noncasters are historic figures, have no modern role, and have little representation.
The dragons are background characters
The dungeons has little spotlight

None of what you list precludes it being developed for both settings simulaneously. If you look at MTG wikis, you'll see there's actually quite a bit of stuff to do in the larger plane, much of it comparable to what's going on in garden variety D&D, including ruins left by a precursor race and a violent, long-lasting war.

And honestly, if you want to talk settings where non-casters are clearly second class characters, look at the Forgotten Realms. Even someone like me, who's only casually acquainted with the Forgotten Realms, can rattle off multiple casters, while thinking of more than one or non-casters requires real effort. (Other than Driz'zt, whose magical snowflakeness supercedes such primitive boundaries.)

That the card game only focuses on one slice of the setting is like saying Azeroth doesn't have a bunch of stuff because Hearthstone doesn't focus on the same stuff World of Warcraft does.

 

[Azzy]

Some of my friends (especially one in particular) are HP fans, so I'm getting the book on the off-chance I run a game for them (conflicting schedules and all).

 

[Azzy]

The Magicians. Haven't seen it, just ads, but it's a whole thing.

It's meh. Some good ideas mixed with being very juvenile in some cases.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I tend not to say this, because I don't want to sound entitled, but I can't see myself doing either. I think my players are a bit too old for a Strixhaven campaign to appeal to them, and the crunch doesn't look very useful for other settings. The thing that struck me about the Strixhaven subclasses was just how irrelevant they where stripped of the setting.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I tend not to say this, because I don't want to sound entitled, but I can't see myself doing either. I think my players are a bit too old for a Strixhaven campaign to appeal to them, and the crunch doesn't look very useful for other settings. The thing that struck me about the Strixhaven subclasses was just how irrelevant they where stripped of the setting.

My son is a math/science prodigy who wanted to play a wizard but who found the damage per round too low. (Math guy, go figure. Instead, he went with a swashbuckler rogue murder machine.) I figure he'll want to play a Quandrix character some time, Strixhaven or no Strixhaven.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's meh. Some good ideas mixed with being very juvenile in some cases.

I really like the books, but the first one especially wants to be literary fantasy, much like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell was, or Neil Gaiman's Susan short story. If that sounds appealing and you liked aspects of the cheesy SyFy show, I would check it out.

 

[Vael]

Way too early to tell. December is a long way off, and I don't run too many games.

I will say though, the thought of using some Cosmic Horror material from Ravenloft in Strixhaven sounds kinda fun, and the idea does tickle my brain.