Ryan Dancey: This is why there was no M:tG setting for D&D

Hi! I was the brand manager for Dungeons & Dragons and the VP of Tabletop RPGs at Wizards of the Coast from 1998 to 2000. I can answer this question.

There were plans to do a Magic RPG and several iterations of such a game were developed at various times. After Wizards of the Coast bought TSR, there were discussions about making a Magic campaign setting for D&D.

After the release of 3rd edition, we had planned to do a Monstrous Compendium for Magic monsters which would have been a tentative cross-over product to see what the interest level was for such a book.

In the end, the company made the decision to keep the brands totally separate. Here's the logic.

D&D and Magic have fundamentally incompatible brand strategies. This is was once expressed as "asses, monsters & friends".

D&D is the game where you and your friends kick the asses of monsters.

Magic is the game where you kick your friends' asses with monsters.

(Pokemon, btw, was the game where the monsters, who were your friends, kicked each-other's asses.)

There was no good reason to believe that a D&D/Magic crossover book would sell demonstrably more than a comparable non crossover book. And such a book should be priced higher than a generic D&D book - in the way that Forgotten Realms books cost more than generic D&D books (that's the price premium for the brand). There's a fear in sales that the higher the price, the less volume you sell.

The brand team for Magic didn't want to dilute the very honed brand positioning for Magic as a competitive brand, and the brand team for D&D didn't want to try and make some kind of competitive game extension for D&D.

In the end, I think the company was well served by this decision. It eliminated a lot of distraction and inter-team squabbling at a time when neither team had the resources to fight those battles.

Today you might argue there's a different reason. The #1 hobby CCG doesn't want to be entangled with the problems within the D&D brand.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...-Many-Arrows-Can-An-Archer-Fire#ixzz2jgoO0Whj

 

[Weather Report]

Ah, of course. I forgot for a moment that the universe is insane. (Edit: and please note - I'm not disagreeing with you, just lamenting the state of the world!)

What I mean by that is this: the name "Magic: The Gathering" has value... to WotC. To the customer, it has no value by itself - it serves only to indicate what is inside the covers. It's advertising. And in a sane universe, you don't buy the advertising, you buy the product being advertised - you don't buy Coke for the while lettering on the can, but because that white lettering tells you what is inside the can.

Some people like looking at the white stripe on their cold can of Coke.

...must, resist, New Coke jokes...

 

[RyanD]

I think its funny that people respond to a discussion of branding strategy and positioning by stating the premise that the problem was that we were incapable of making a great product.

Talk about .... Missing the point....

 

[Manabarbs]

I understand the basic desire to not cross the streams, and I think it's a reasonable strategy (for whatever I would know), but I do think a Ravnica campaign setting book would have been pretty cool, or any number of other settings. (Dominaria, despite being Magic's home for a long time, feels less essential to me.)

A Magic set using the D&D IP seems like a horrible idea to me (largely because D&D settings are poorly-assembled generic messes and Magic settings need to be really strong on environmental storytelling), but TTRPG adventures in a Magic setting sound like a blast. I've been running a 13th Age game in Ravnica and ran a Pathfinder game in the same setting before that, and it's awesome for it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To be clear: IMHO, if well done, I think a M:tG RPG- especially one that was designed to be compatible with one of WotC's extant RPG systems (D&D being #1)- could have been or could still be a big seller. By bridging the 2 IPs, you could have gotten some crossover sales. And as someone else pointed out, a M:tG Monster Manual could have been huge with both completist/collectors and veteran DMs.

Anecdotes aren't data, but in my group of 10+ gamers, I could predict at least 5 sales. Besides myself, most of the other guys in the group play both D&D and M:tG, and most run a campaign now and then. A new beastie is always a nice arrow to have in the quiver...

 

[Sunseeker]

From a business perspective, I totally agree. But as a player and lover of both, I would love to see many of the great MTG settings and monsters expressed through D&D. I would love to own a Domanaria and Phyrexia handbook at the very least. I do think that it is a fairly simple exercise to separate the gameplay style from the lore. An MTG for D&Ders isn't going to be a card game designed for collectors and power-gamers. It's going to be a way for people to play through the long line of MTG lore with D&D mechanics.

 

[Marandahir]

Hilarious in hindsight.

 

[MockingBird]

necromancy skill +10

 

[CapnZapp]

He got my like

 

[CapnZapp]

...and this part really bears reposting (even though what was then the proper forum is today not the right one)

Today you might argue there's a different reason. The #1 hobby CCG doesn't want to be entangled with the problems within the D&D brand.

 

[MoonSong]

I just want to quote myself for truth and comment on the irony.

Take this with a grain of salt, but a simple self contained -a la Ghostwalk- Ravnica campaign book or Mirrodin campaign book would have sold a lot I'm pretty sure. On my country Magic is pretty popular and I'm sure that having a 3.x Kamigawa campaign setting would have made lots of people give D&D a chance (Vampire and CoC are/or were king here, to the date D&D is very frowned upon by the same people who loved Kamigawa and love Magic overall). Something simple featuring maps, lore, key monsters and NPC stating, some prestige classes and giving the Kami domains for example, heck maybe even go and propose the cromatic colors as an alternative alignment system. No need to get gimicky or extra fancy and involve the actual cards. I mean you don't need the cards to read the novels, why would you need them to play the RPG?

Is that Theros and Ravnica next to "Reserved for Tasha's" in my shelf?

(Yes, yes I know I'm yet to buy a DMG, but whenever I gather the money, something more interesting gets published)

(I'm still holding out for Mirrodin/New Pyrexia and Kamigawa)