Ravnica: Is This The New D&D Setting? [UPDATED & CONFIRMED!]

If so... meh?

 

[Jester David]

Your first mistake was assuming all the noise was about this and only this product. You are looking to be let down rather than see what shakes out. I recall a lot people were upset with Dragon Heist was announced; there was a lot of "that's it?" until Dungeon of the Mad Mage came out as well.

Oh, lord, that was such a let down.
The very end and they announce the next book with a prerecorded video and barely go into any details. Like an afterthought.

And the stream didn't touch on things like the new board games and the like. Such a wasted opportunity. The Stream of Annihilation was handled so much better.

They pulled the artificer off the DM's Guild a few months back, which to me says they have enough feedback and are opting for in-house fine-tuning.

I'm expecting another revision first. That was the first draft of it as a class, and a lot of work still needed to be done. After all, they did two prior versions of the psion/mystic and threw out almost everything when they started the third draft.

I think we need a new revision playtest the next iteration for a few months first. If not the better part of a year.

Ravnica didn't need a playtest because... its all new to D&D! Seriously, there has never been Loxodons, Vedalken, or Viashino before, so we have no basis of comparison.

The content still needs to be balanced.

HOWEVER, Eberron has four races that are both mechanically complex AND have changed over the two editions they appeared in. Remember the first UA article? Its universally reviled for its poor takes on changlings, shifters and warforged (along with its half-assed artificer subclass and dragonmarks). I can easily see them releasing a new take on that old UA article that, with three years of experience under their belt, tries new takes on warforged (attempting to balance the mechanical life-form rules and finding some fix for the armored body mechanic), shifter (which was feat-intensive in 3.5 and stripped-bare in 4e) and changling (which was fine, but needed some oomph). In addition, another pass at dragonmarks would be greatly appreciated.

Universally?
I remember the dragonmarks being disliked and the class not being recieved well. But races feedback was mixed, with several being well recieved.

I expect we'll see more than that. I'd put it up to a friendly wager, but seeing how you were adamant the "4th D&D book in 2018" was either the art book OR the coloring book, it might be in your best interest to decline to wager on this.

I was mostly trying not to get my hopes up for a 4th hardcover, because if it didn't materialise I'd be disappointed. I failed at that and, man, did that bite me in the ass. It did materialise but was the opposite of what I wanted.
(What's the reverse of having your cake and eating it too?)
So, yeah, thanks very much for that.

But it seemed unlikely they'd do a fourth hardcover, with two others being done by the WotC team.
It was a failure of imagination on my part not to expect a 96-page hardcover likely in part done by the MtG team (if only from their setting bible) and potentially using recycled art from cards.

However, the rumour is still two settings this summer. And Eberron can be only one.
I wouldn't be surprised with a new artificer playtest, but I'm not holding my breath for a hardcover in 2019. Instead, I'm expecting a 15-30 page PDFs and a setting or two opened up on the Guild.

 

[Remathilis]

(What's the reverse of having your cake and eating it too?)

It's the same, but the cake is filled with wasps.

 

[mjsoctober]

My impression of Dragon Heist is that it's at least 50% Waterdeep sourcebook and no more than 50% adventure. Now, if you're not interested in FR, it's probably not the book for you, but saying it's "$10 per level" is implying that it's all adventure and has no value for money at all.

The "we" doesn't refer to everyone in D&D, but I'm not alone, so since there's more than one of us who don't want MTG in D&D, then we constitute a "we" if not the "we".

And as long as Ravnica doesn't come at the expense of something D&D related (instead of MtG), then sure, I can live with just not buying it. If, however, it turns out D&D mgmt decided to give us Ravnica instead of a D&D campaign setting, then "we" are at least partially justified in being upset.

 

[Turbo_Knuckles]

It's amazing how many people have no posts except to dump on this topic. Like seriously, do you people get paid?

This is what you do on boards right? Read/reply/repeat. I'm not planning a boycott or clutching some snotty handkerchief. I don't think D&D is being ruined. I'm glad this opens the hobby to potential players, and I'll probably end up buying the book. But I got an opinion on the topic at hand and it's the first time I've felt compelled to post here. Maybe I should only post cute character ideas for a Monk Tortle build, or ask how to optimize my Tabaxi Lore Bard?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

*shrug* Not interested, but then again I wasn't expecting to be. I haven't bought a single non-core book from WotC (I picked up the spells book and the monsters book from Necromancer Games iirc). The biggest problem I see for the whole Ravnica Planet-Sized City thing is that after an hour or two of DM'ing it me and my players will be thinking...Uh, ok, so why aren't we playing a sci-fi game instead. If I want a huge city with advanced "tech/magic" and so much "diversity" that you might as well not bother to learn or care about anything other than "Whats your name? What do we do? How much are you going to pay?" because of diverse-information-overload...then the setting will fail. At leas for me and my group. The old line from Syndrome still holds true: When everyone is super...no one will be!

A setting needs to have the majority of it be plain, boring, and "common" so that the things that are different stand out. If everything and everyone is "special" with regards to race, guild, political view, religious view, special abilities, hair colour, etc...then people will just ignore all of it and pick a single thing to define that person. "...yeah yeah yeah....bla bla bla...you will be 'pink-haired inn chick', and you will be 'wierd mecha-gnome dude'...how much you gonna pay us?". All that "diversity" will be ignored. At best. At worst, it becomes a running joke or even a point of contention. (I swear, if this Jill person isn't a regular, brown haired blue eyed human female in a plain old dress...I'm gonna scream!).

You... may be jumping to some unwarranted conclusions about what Ravnica looks like. (Your troubling implications about "diversity" we shall leave for another conversation.) I recommend you read the resources that others have linked on the setting, keeping an open mind rather than looking for things to hate, and, if you're paticularly interested in "normal" people, paying special attention to subplot revolving around the guildless and their concerns. But the long and the short of it is that, socially, technologically, and thematically, Ravnica is more like a really big Waterdeep than it is Coruscant. Why on Earth should "city" imply science fiction?

 

[MechaPilot]

It's not multiple adventures the way that TftYP is, it is more like the random elements in Ravenloft: the main adventure can take place in one of four seasons, which switches the antagonist and a number of minor encounters. So, less multiple adventures, as multiple events that can be recombined or reused as needed.

That's a bit less useful to me than a book with separate adventures would be. However, thank you for letting me know about that. I appreciate the additional info.

 

[Jester David]

The original point was that there was no reason to be disappointed today, that you are overreacting to something to which you don’t have the answer.

Oh, absolutely.

Ultimately you get to choose how you respond to it.

Not really.
It's those pesky human emotions. You can't choose how you feel about things.

I'm know not losing anything. Logically, I know that I'm buying the same number of D&D books in the fall as I thought I was yesterday. This new announcement doesn't change anything.

And yet there was always that faint hope there'd be something cool in the fall. Eberron or Planescape or something else. I'm reconciling the infinite coolness of a theoretical and potential product with the reality of a book I don't even know I'm interested enough in to snag a pirated PDF.

I think I described it elsewhere as if the Dungeon & Dragons team—instead of resurrecting any of the dozen existing settings—decided to release a D&D campaign setting based on an old '80s Hasbro toy line. Like Inhumanoids or Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light.
Sure, some people would be surprised and excited, but it feels like a missed opportunity. There's so very, very many D&D worlds out there that are unique and instead it feels like they're pandering to a different audience.

Sure, not everything has to be for me. I am not the target audience for all things D&D.
And, yes, it makes sense as a product and I can understand and support WotC's reasoning. Possibly even defend it.
But that doesn't mean I can't also be disappointed and bummed out.

Ravnica isn’t what I wanted (my preference is Dragonlance but I highly doubt that it will be happen) but I do hold out some hope that the announcement tomorrow will bring some things of interest to me. I just don’t see the reason to get worked up when you don’t even know what they will announce tomorrow.

Naw.
Hope is a sucker's game. Keeping my expectations looooooow.

-edit-

Something I saw online, likely regarding She-ra.

View attachment 99609

 

[Turbo_Knuckles]

...Another good thing to look through would be the actual card sets themselves. While not giving the entire story they really show off the flavor and mood of Ravnica

Old Set (this was when Ravnica was first released):
http://www.mythicspoiler.com/rav/index.html
http://www.mythicspoiler.com/gpt/index.html
http://www.mythicspoiler.com/dis/index.html

Return (this was around 2013 when the setting was revisited):
http://www.mythicspoiler.com/rtr/index.html
http://www.mythicspoiler.com/gtc/guilds.html
http://www.mythicspoiler.com/dgm/index.html

Thanks for this. It puts it further into context and piques my interest more than simply reading a Wiki.

 

[DMZ2112]

This is what you do on boards right? Read/reply/repeat.

I don't spend much time around here anymore, Turbo, but FWIW, welcome to the boards. Regrets, for the initial response to your post.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm mostly interested in the player options for this one. I like characters with a urban theme, so having new backgrounds or class options related to this would be interesting. The setting itself could be fun, but I find some other settings already published as Planeshift:X more interesting, such as Ixalan, Innistrad and Zendikar.