Ravnica Table of Contents & More

Thank you.

 

[Kramodlog]

I can play this game too.

Athas, just FR but with more sand!

Eberron, exactly like FR, but with more Dragonshards and Warforged!

Indeed. This is why ultimately at our home game we abandonned settings and started games in Sigil and visited different worlds during a campaign. It boiled down to this week we'll do D&D with sand and psionics or D&D gothic horror or D&D steam-ish punk. It is something the folks at Paizo understood when making Golarion (they benefited from 30 years insight and none of the restraints) with all sort of zones with different vibes on the same planet.

Buying campaign guides gives DMs a premade worlds, NPCs, items, history, etc, but they need to add something new to D&D to be worthwhile. Brightright was never interesting cause it didn't do much different and now it is forgotten. Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Mystara were forgotten cause the FR just ate them up by doing the same thing, but better. Right now Ravnica doesn't stand appart. It had a chance with the MtG angle, but that was dropped.

 

[Parmandur]

The first instance of VGTSS mentioned in W: DH it was as an alcohol pun. The second time it was mentioned it wasn't. If the joke had been the only mention I'd have written it off as a joke, but twice and the second mention more serious, I feel positive it's an Easter Egg, Volo's Guide to Spirits and Specters is coming, likely late Winter/Early Spring is my guess.

I don't think it will happen, but you know what, you get mad bragging rights if it does.

I don't think he is willing to count the NPCs as part of the Beastiary.

The NPC stat blocks seem more useful than the straight monsters, honestly. Having a new crazed cultist or mad wizard stat block is just as useful for the Realms as for Ravnica.

 

[gyor]

Let's flip this a second and see if the logic still applies. Say WotC used D&D to make some MtG cards. I would expect to see stuff like Bigby's hand spells, Magic Missile, Vorpal sword, the Eye of Vecna, Drizzt, Elminster, Raistlin, etc, cards. Not all of them and maybe not them specifically, but some similarly iconic elements tied to the D&D brand. If those wouldn't be turned into cards, what would be the point of doing a D&D MtG block?

The equivilant of Elminister, Drizzt, Volo, Farideh, Minsc, Szazz Tam, ect..., is Teysa, Jarad, Feather, Aurelia, Izoni, Emarra, Livonia, Agrus Kos, and so on, not Ajani Goldman's, Chandra Naalar, Dack Feyden, Kaya, Nahari, Karn, Sorin Markov, act...

So yeah I'd expect an Elminister card if they were doing a Forgotten Realms MtG deck, but not if they were doing Darksun deck or Dragonlance.

There is only a few characters in D&D outside plan escape for whom plane hopping is important. Mordikien, Nezram World walker, and a couple of others. I would not expect to see any of them except Elminister in an FR deck, maybe Nezram. That is it.

Still I think they specifically avoided stating Planeswalkers, not even Jace, because I don't think they know how they are going to handle MtG style Planeswalkers in D&D, because it asks too many questions they don't want to answer, it highlights the differences in the MtG and D&D cosmologies.

Example, Elminister could Planeshift a whole bunch of people between planes with simple spells without breaking a sweat. Nicol Bolas post mending could not do that no matter how hard he tried. No MtG planeswalkers could. Even the Planar Bridge can't take living matter across it.

How do Planeswalkers interact with Sigil?

I mean can you imagine Nicol Bolas discovering Sigil, with portals to everywhere his head would explode. Sigilian would look at Nicol Bolas as pretentious country bumpkin.

Oh and Ravnica isn't called a Plane in D&D at all, it gets referee to as a world, because Ravnica is just another part of the Material Plane now, another crystal sphere. In MtG it was seen as an actual Plane of its own.

Which makes most of the Planeswalkers, world walkers.

 

[gyor]

Let's flip this a second and see if the logic still applies. Say WotC used D&D to make some MtG cards. I would expect to see stuff like Bigby's hand spells, Magic Missile, Vorpal sword, the Eye of Vecna, Drizzt, Elminster, Raistlin, etc, cards. Not all of them and maybe not them specifically, but some similarly iconic elements tied to the D&D brand. If those wouldn't be turned into cards, what would be the point of doing a D&D MtG block?

The equivilant of Elminister, Drizzt, Volo, Farideh, Minsc, Szazz Tam, ect..., is Teysa, Jarad, Feather, Aurelia, Izoni, Emarra, Livonia, Agrus Kos, and so on, not Ajani Goldman's, Chandra Naalar, Dack Feyden, Kaya, Nahari, Karn, Sorin Markov, act...

So yeah I'd expect an Elminister card if they were doing a Forgotten Realms MtG deck, but not if they were doing Darksun deck or Dragonlance.

There is only a few characters in D&D outside plan escape for whom plane hopping is important. Mordikien, Nezram World walker, and a couple of others. I would not expect to see any of them except Elminister in an FR deck, maybe Nezram. That is it.

Still I think they specifically avoided stating Planeswalkers, not even Jace, because I don't think they know how they are going to handle MtG style Planeswalkers in D&D, because it asks too many questions they don't want to answer, it highlights the differences in the MtG and D&D cosmologies.

Example, Elminister could Planeshift a whole bunch of people between planes with simple spells without breaking a sweat. Nicol Bolas post mending could not do that no matter how hard he tried. No MtG planeswalkers could. Even the Planar Bridge can't take living matter across it.

How do Planeswalkers interact with Sigil?

I mean can you imagine Nicol Bolas discovering Sigil, with portals to everywhere his head would explode. Sigilian would look at Nicol Bolas as pretentious country bumpkin.

Oh and Ravnica isn't called a Plane in D&D at all, it gets referee to as a world, because Ravnica is just another part of the Material Plane now, another crystal sphere. In MtG it was seen as an actual Plane of its own.

Which makes most of the Planeswalkers, world walkers.

 

[Kramodlog]

And yet I can shuffle a Vraska, Golgari Queen in with Trolstani Discordant in an Abzan deck and the two play nice together.

Yeah, when playing MtG roleplay is thrown out the window. You can have Jace and Bolas in the same deck. It doesn't mean anything. That is a pretty silly argument, you tried to make.

Of course maybe you play D&D with no roleplay, no lore, no background... Just a competition between players.

So you think that the seven races in the AD&D PHB should be the only races ever in fantasy, got it.

Hello strawman my old friend, you've come to talk again.

WotC is allergic to new classes

And that is terrible. A great loss for players and DMs.

It sounds less like you want D&D supplement for a MTG setting and more like you want an MTG RPG that is cross-compatible with D&D.

Nope. I want what is advertized. MtG in D&D. Not a new generic setting like what is being produced.

None of which have origin on Ravnica.

Indeed. Ravnica is a bad setting for this. Dominaria would have made more sense for this product to be interesting and in brand.

Yeah, spells like Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, Fireball, and... uh, well look at that...

Those are the only MtG iconic spells? Wow.

Not the MtG YOU'RE looking for!

Indeed. WotC won't get my money and still stays irrelevant when it comes to RPG innovation. Its been what, a decade now that they haven't produced anything of note? Good thing for them the brand is strong. In fact it is surprising it stays so strong.

The Planechase series covered some of the biggest names in MtG (Dominaria, Innistrad, Zendikar) as well as some newer ones (Amonket, Kaladesh, Ixalan). Ravnica, the setting with soon to be NINE card-sets set in it, is getting a hardback rather than a PDF. Aside from Pharexia, where do you think they should have covered?

For a the first MtG D&D official product? Dominaria. Start with the basic and iconic stuff. Brand identity.

Back to the "separate RPG with all new rules that is compatible with D&D" magical Christmasland thinking...

Another strawman. Anyway, a power point system to represent mana is pretty easy to make and compatible with the core books for pros like the ones that work at WotC and the subcontracters they hire.

 

[gyor]

Yeah, when playing MtG roleplay is thrown out the window. You can have Jace and Bolas in the same deck. It doesn't mean anything. That is a pretty silly argument, you tried to make.

Of course maybe you play D&D with no roleplay, no lore, no background... Just a competition between players.

Hello strawman my old friend, you've come to talk again.

And that is terrible. A great loss for players and DMs.

Nope. I want what is advertized. MtG in D&D. Not a new generic setting like what is being produced.

Indeed. Ravnica is a bad setting for this. Dominaria would have made more sense for this product to be interesting and in brand.

Those are the only MtG iconic spells? Wow.

Indeed. WotC won't get my money and still stays irrelevant when it comes to RPG innovation. Its been what, a decade now that they haven't produced anything of note? Good thing for them the brand is strong. In fact it is surprising it stays so strong.

For a the first MtG D&D official product? Dominaria. Start with the basic and iconic stuff. Brand identity.

Another strawman. Anyway, a power point system to represent mana is pretty easy to make and compatible with the core books for pros like the ones that work at WotC and the subcontracters they hire.

Ironically Dominaria is the single MtG setting most like the Forgotten Realms by a country mile. Both are archeology worlds. Dominaria is MtG's "kitchen sink setting" with deep lore and a long history, like FR. I can't believe you complain that Ravnica is just like FR and then say you would have preferred Dominaria be the first MtG, when Dominaria occupies the exact same thematic space with FR!

 

[Kramodlog]

The equivilant of Elminister, Drizzt, Volo, Farideh, Minsc, Szazz Tam, ect..., is Teysa, Jarad, Feather, Aurelia, Izoni, Emarra, Livonia, Agrus Kos, and so on, not Ajani Goldman's, Chandra Naalar, Dack Feyden, Kaya, Nahari, Karn, Sorin Markov, act...

So yeah I'd expect an Elminister card if they were doing a Forgotten Realms MtG deck, but not if they were doing Darksun deck or Dragonlance.

And then there are the Vorpal swords and Magic Missiles that are part of all settings and would indeed by in a D&D MtG cross-over no matter the setting.

But your missing the point by focusing on the tree rather than the forest. With this product they aren't on brand and produced something that misses the point when incorporating the MtG setting in the D&D one.

Still I think they specifically avoided stating Planeswalkers, not even Jace, because I don't think they know how they are going to handle MtG style Planeswalkers in D&D, because it asks too many questions they don't want to answer, it highlights the differences in the MtG and D&D cosmologies.

Example, Elminister could Planeshift a whole bunch of people between planes with simple spells without breaking a sweat. Nicol Bolas post mending could not do that no matter how hard he tried. No MtG planeswalkers could. Even the Planar Bridge can't take living matter across it.

And yet you'll get lots of planar interaction.

How do Planeswalkers interact with Sigil?

I mean can you imagine Nicol Bolas discovering Sigil, with portals to everywhere his head would explode. Sigilian would look at Nicol Bolas as pretentious country bumpkin.

Oh and Ravnica isn't called a Plane in D&D at all, it gets referee to as a world, because Ravnica is just another part of the Material Plane now, another crystal sphere. In MtG it was seen as an actual Plane of its own.

Which makes most of the Planeswalkers, world walkers.[/QUOTE]
Designers get paid to solve these issues and people pay 50$ for those solutions. Now it seems people will still pay 50$, but won't get much in return for it. Well guilds. 50$ worth of guilds...

I don't know. I'm making a bigger case out of this because I'm disappointed. We started playing MtG in the 90s when it was young and fresh. We already has been playing D&D for a couple of years. We spend hours talking about how a card or a D&D elements would be stated in the other game. 20 years later they finally do a cross-over and this is the best they can do? I'm not whelmed and I do not see why it should be incorporated into a D&D game as the guild angle will only draw comparaisons to Sigil.

 

[Satyrn]

Given the nature of the setting, covering the Guilds is pretty much everything. There is no government outside the Megacor...Guilds, nor any religion.

Oh . . . Now I'm curious to see how easily I could convert these guilds for my own use as Hyperion, Torgue and all the rest.

 

[Kramodlog]

Ironically Dominaria is the single MtG setting most like the Forgotten Realms by a country mile. Both are archeology worlds. Dominaria is MtG's "kitchen sink setting" with deep lore and a long history, like FR. I can't believe you complain that Ravnica is just like FR and then say you would have preferred Dominaria be the first MtG, when Dominaria occupies the exact same thematic space with FR!

Remember, I aready agreed with you the D&D settings were similar and it was just a tweek of flavor.

Both are like the FR, but at least with one of them you can add "on brand" MtG stuff and not just guilds. As I said before, settings are just the flavor of the week. Sand and psionics D&D, gothic horror D&D, steampunk-ish D&D, and we could have had MtG D&D. Instead we get guilds D&D. But we already had that with Sigil.

 

[Rossbert]

One of the weird things in the setting was that while many of the guildmasters had achieve-supremacy-of-the-world plans, the less insane ones didn't really bother because, for example the recycling and farming group can't really replace the magical and mechanical infrastructure group or vice versa so the guilds almost had a mutual destruction set up even without the magically binding wold-wide contract.

Edit: Sorry Satyrn, my quote button didn't work, but that was related to your post.