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

If so... meh?

 

[AmerginLiath]

What immediately strikes me is the question of how this affects which other settings we can expect to see developed down the line in terms of the elements at play here. There’s been the debate over which established settings are too similar to FR (and thus would be unlikely to be developed); releasing a hardcover of this sort of world blocks out further ge re elements that one needs to consider “already in play” in the published multiverse (folks have been making the Sigil comparison for twelve pages, for example).

 

[cbwjm]

My "MtG Lore" is pretty mediocre... but from what I do know about it, Ravnica sounds like a pretty good setting for a D&D game, probably the best of the bunch (that I know about!)

Its definitely a cool setting. If this is what's going to be released then I am all for it. Many of the MtG settings are perfect for DnD, probably why the planeshift articles were well received.

 

[thebakeriscomingforu]

Sometimes businesses seem to "double down" on their product releases. We've seen this to a degree with MTG and D&D products having thematic tones. This fall wizards is releasing a large City based adventure in two parts and a return to the MTG setting Ravnica. The setting announcements tomorrow may be two D&D products that would align with the Urban adventure(Sigil and Eberron come to mind) along with the "surprise" cross-over book of a D&D Ravnica source book. Whatever the announcements and the UA release is tomorrow I am interested.

 

[Jester David]

Grouping replies so I'm not spamming the thread with my negativity and snarkiness...

It's not theoretical. Anecdotal but...I know numerous MTG players and D&D players who have started with one and gone to the other. Surprisingly, we are quite capable of managing two or more hobbies.

Right. And they managed to do that without a dedicated product.

Also, your issue is with marketing in general. You always want NEW people buying your product. Because if for no other reason, OLD people die. If you always cater to the same group, you're catering to an ever-shrinking group of people. Products that don't draw in new players are produts that inevitably don't sell well and don't further your product line.

Yes, but you want to release products that appeal to both groups. Old players and new players. You can't just try and appeal solely to new players and trust your old audience will keep buying the books.
(That was one of the weaknesses with 4e. They focused entirely on getting new people and just assumed the existing fans would keep buying.)

* * *

And your reasoning for that is...?

They make and plan products two years in advance.

Right now, the spring 2019 product is probably written and in playtesting, and the other two are in planning with art being ordered. Especially for the key storyline that has to tie into the board games and video games, as work on that for those products has to start, well, right now.
And the 2020 products have been outlined and likely planned. They're on a board somewhere. But probably subject to change if necessary.

If they release this book and it craters, it's too late to really change their plans for Spring 2019. That book will have been done. If it's a similar book, that's going to hurt.
AND even if Ravnica does well, they don't want to cut into its sales right away. The books for the next year will be different so they don't compete with it.
Like how it took two years to have more class content between Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and Guide to Everything and eighteen months for them to follow up on Volo's Guide to Monsters, with the Tomb of Foes (and the only reason the latter wasn't a full two years was because they decided to move the spring adventure to the fall).

So, the earliest we'll see a new hardcover setting book will likely be November 2020.

But... that's even assuming they want to do another book that competes with Ravnica at all. Because you really don't need more than a couple settings, and between that and the Realms (and 3rd Party stuff), the fans are set. They know it takes a year to go through a full campaign, and you can have two or three campaigns easily in a setting like Ravnica. So they could easily push it to 2021 or 2022 before considering a new campaign setting book.

But, at that point, the edition has been out for eight years, and they're likely more focused on experimental stuff than updating classic setting.

* * *

Yeah, I could see the 30-page PDFs this year - as in, this summer. But that doesn't mean they won't publish actual books next year, or that "this is it for 5e published settings."

I do think we'll see at least a Spelljammer/Planescape book, and probably some kind of book for Dark Sun, maybe Eberron - a Curse of Strahd type book makes sense.

See above for why I think that's unlikely for a while.

I would also assume that the Ravnica book has at least a starter adventure or two, as it seems counter-productive to publish a new setting and not offer ways to run games in it.

Given the shipping weight, this is likely going to be a pretty slender volume. Likely 160-pages or less.
Maybe they'll leave the starter adventures for the Guild Adepts.

 

[Tallifer]

It's not like all the other settings don't have decades of RPG books and expansions out there on ebay just waiting for you to grab them all. It's not even that much effort to shift them to 5th edition. Or even pathfinder. Or any other game system.

Forsooth. While I am not very interested in Ravnica, I see absolutely no need whatsoever for new 5E books on Greyhawk, Eberron, Dark Sun or Planescape. All the fluff is already out there in hundreds of published and readily available pages, and the crunch is easy to adjust on the fly. I have been running 5E Eberron since 2016 with nary a hitch, indeed nary a moment's hesitation.

 

[jerryrice4949]

Don't judge a book by its cover. Ravnica isn't steampunk on the whole. The Izzet guild is, but then, so are Dragonlance's tinker gnomes.

You make a goodpoint. Though it seems strange to use that particular cover unless that level of technology is going to be a big part of the setting.

 

[Langy]

Gotta admit, I don't like it. Ravnica shouldn't be the first non-Forgotten Realms setting in D&D 5e, and I really hope it's not going to be the *only* non-Faerun setting we see get a full treatment. If it turns out the announcement tomorrow is that they're publishing a full Ravnica setting book and opening Planescape up to the DM's Guild or something but not publishing an actual book for it, I'm not going to be pleased at all.


Yes, cross-promotion/corporate synergy is a good idea and all, but it's not like the Magic the Gathering lore actually matters (or, for the most part, exists). It'd be a lot easier to create a MtG pack based on D&D than the other way around if they wanted to cross-promote, so I'm not certain what their goal is here - though I wouldn't be surprised if the order for cross-promotion came from corporate.

 

[robus]

I am really interested to see if/how they do a robust adaptation of MtG's five-color system to D&D. Because that could be a lot of work. But if they don't do it, like they didn't for the little PDFs they've been doing, would it really be the same setting as in MtG?

(And thinking pessimistically, Ravnica might not be the best setting to introduce the five colors to D&D, because a city-plane has very... idiosyncratic definitions of "plains", "islands", "swamps", "mountains", and "forests".)

Actually, that might make it the easiest to adapt. I think that the only thing that will transfer are the “worlds”, i.e. races and places. I think there will be two ways to play in those worlds, either as planeswalker or adventurer. But trying to connect the mechanics seems like a way to cause a fight rather than a shared enjoyment.

 

[Kite474]

You make a goodpoint. Though it seems strange to use that particular cover unless that level of technology is going to be a big part of the setting.

Its mostly because the Izzet League is the most popular guild and they tend to be pretty photogenic cause dam if Lightning and Dragons arent cool and to fair that tech is sort of important for about 1/10th of the setting with the other 9/10ths being the other guilds

 

[TheCosmicKid]

You make a goodpoint. Though it seems strange to use that particular cover unless that level of technology is going to be a big part of the setting.

I have been deeply unimpressed with WotC's choices of cover art throughout 5E. Why is the cover of the PHB a fire giant? But yeah, Ravnica's cover ought to be a sweeping cityscape glowing in the sunlight while Boros skyknights wheel overhead, or something like that.