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

If so... meh?

 

[Rils]

I could honestly care less about Ravnica as a setting, it didn't grab me in MtG either. But what I am excited about is the potential of Guild-as-backgrounds mechanics, and if/how they differ from generic backgrounds. If the Ravnica Guilds create some interesting mechanical options, from there it would be very simple to use them an official template for Planescape Factions, which is really what I want!

 

[Ratskinner]

Are you saying Wizard's didn't have confidence in their Magic the Gathering brand for the two decades they've owned D&D and never did crossovers? They are trying to generate more revenue. It's been the growth of D&D that's keeping Wizard's numbers not appearing as bad. We will never know if they will internally categorize a Magic the Gathering campaign setting under D&D or Magic the Gathering.

Obviously this is total speculation on my part, but I recall soon after WotC bought D&D way back in the before time, that D&Ders were outraged and declaring the apocalypse because for sure WotC was going to drop all the old settings and start releasing Magic planes as settings....I also seem to recall WotC publicly stating that they had no intention of crossing the streams at that time. Whether that desire to keep them separate was part of a "calm down, people" strategy or an effort to protect the MtG brand (which was and I believe still is doing way way better that D&D has ever done) from contamination by this flagging property (don't forget another company had gone belly up trying to work D&D) is an unknown for me.

Either way, I think that initial reaction played a part in their conspicuously avoiding it at first, then it just became something that wasn't done, then it became something they could play with in UA articles, and now its something that people are asking "Why did they wait 20 years to do this?"

IMO, AFAICT

 

[MNblockhead]

POD would be terrible for the current book, it is not complete (it doesn't include the artificer yet) and the material is still play-test material which will be updated once feedback has been received. It's essentially like buying an early access game off steam. Once the PDF is updated and complete, then POD will likely be available.

Maybe, but some people just like to have things in print and POD allows companies to cater to this long tail and make a bit a of money off of it. If they are worried about lesser quality printed materials out in the wild hurting their brand, they could make it obvious on the cover that it is a POD book.

Heck, Pathfinder is printing a 400+ playtest version of their 2nd edition players handbook. So there are obviously folks who find selling and buying playtest material in print format to not be a terrible idea.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Heck, Pathfinder is printing a 400+ playtest version of their 2nd edition players handbook. So there are obviously folks who find selling and buying playtest material in print format to not be a terrible idea.

Well, there are obviously folks who find selling playtest material to not be a terrible idea. Technically nobody has bought it yet.

 

[Steffen Haeuser]

A planet only consisting of city sounds weird to me. Where do they get
the food for the people? Also it removes all options to do a noncity
adventure.

 

[AtomicPope]

A planet only consisting of city sounds weird to me. Where do they get
the food for the people? Also it removes all options to do a noncity
adventure.

Coruscant from Star Wars comes to mind. So unless the setting is Spelljammer where you could leave the planet, you're right it's very limited.

 

[AtomicPope]

The name "Ravnica" sounds like she would be the sister of "Lavernica", Britta's D&D character from Community.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The background of the RPG are like LEGO or other building toys, you can as you want and it hasn't to be like in the cover of the box. If I want I can create a mash-up of Ravenloft, for example, mixing things with Kult:lost divinity, World of Darkness, Innistrad and Castlevania.

I imagine a d20 Planewalker as a psionic but with different pools of power points, one for each color of mana. Each morning the power points can be distributed in the different color, a day the half of pp in black mana but two days later 2/3 in white mana, and some magic powers would need something like a single-use magic-item who the planewalker "reload" each new day.

There is a open door for the MtG's multiverse to be added to the D&D worlds, and maybe for videogames but no only about trading-card duels.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

A planet only consisting of city sounds weird to me. Where do they get
the food for the people? Also it removes all options to do a noncity
adventure.

One of the fun things about fantasy and science fiction is finding interesting answers to that kind of problem. I'm hoping the writers don't disappoint.

As for the lack of wildness adventuring, well the point of having different campaign settings is to offer a different experience, and if that experience isn't for you, then to choose a different setting. After all, you can only use one setting at a time.

WEG Star Wars D6 explicitly suggests that the way to create a Star Wars planet is to choose one environment that exists on Earth and expand it to planet size.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Maybe, but some people just like to have things in print and POD allows companies to cater to this long tail and make a bit a of money off of it. If they are worried about lesser quality printed materials out in the wild hurting their brand, they could make it obvious on the cover that it is a POD book.

Heck, Pathfinder is printing a 400+ playtest version of their 2nd edition players handbook. So there are obviously folks who find selling and buying playtest material in print format to not be a terrible idea.

Paizo did the same thing with the playtest material for the 1st edition of Pathfinder, so nothing new there.

As for POD for the Eberron book, Mearls did post on Twitter that POD will not be an available option til the final version of the PDF is released after all the playtesting/revisions. His words:

"Lot of people asking about this for Eberron - not until the content is 100% sealed. Mechanics will run through UA and be updated in the PDF. Once those are done - and artificer added - we'll turn on POD."