D&D 5E The Multiverse

[Maxperson]

Even the planes with Gods don't have those deities trying to take over other realities in the Multiverse. They are focused on their Crystal Sphere. It's unclear if they can't pass over (their power locked to the planes of that universe's reality) or if they simple lack the knowledge of/how to do so.

It's not unclear at all. We know from D&D lore that the gods can go wherever they have followers, but their power is relative to the number of followers on a given plane. So Thor might be a lesser god on one plane, a greater god on a second, and barely a demigod on a third. With just one follower, I remember the spell level being granted being something like 2nd or so max.

Look at the Forgotten Realms pantheon. It has gods from Egypt(Ra, Osiris, etc), Norse(Tyr), Finnish(Mielikki), Celtic(Oghma) and more.

I've had players of clerics who plane traveled to another setting and starting trying to gather worshipers for their god in order to firmly establish their god in the new setting.

 

[Maxperson]

I think there was a cosmological shift in the Aughts due to metaplot Shenanigans, and that's not possible anymore...that the Magic plot characters know about, at any rate.

I don't know. I haven't played Magic much in the last 10 or so years. But if it can shift once, it can shift again to allow these settings to connect to others.

 

[Mercurius]

I don't know the Magic cosmology well enough to comment, but I think we can also account for the Great Wheel and the World Tree, as well as variant cosmologies. In my mind they are all compatible--but we have to get out of the "Myth of the Given" and Newtonian physics, and dip more into the quantum paradigm.

So here's my take: The actual ontological nature of the multiverse is unknown. Maybe there is an order of cosmic beings that oversees it and know the true structure of it all, but for the inhabitants of the planes--even the gods--it is, well, a matter of how you look at it.

The different cosmologies are paradigms that have both a conceptual structure to them, but also a praxis. The conceptual and perceptual structure actually form an experiential reality. In other words, the multiverse works closer to the laws of quantum mechanics than Newtonian physics.

It is kind of like Earthly ideologies: none are absolute truth (unless you're a fundamentalist of a specific ideology), but all have relative truth. They are perspectives that lead to an injunction, which in turn creates an experiential reality.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know. I haven't played Magic much in the last 10 or so years. But if it can shift once, it can shift again to allow these settings to connect to others.

Are you suggesting that this is all made up, and WotC can change the rules to fit their business needs at any time???

 

[Maxperson]

Are you suggesting that this is all made up, and WotC can change the rules to fit their business needs at any time???

Could be!!

 

[Iry]

And lo the planes grew close to each other, such that common magicians could cross over if they knew the right paths.

The sages call this time "The Marketing."

 

[ccs]

So, the topic of how the MtG multiverse and the DnD multiverse interact keeps coming up in threads, and I just wanted to have a discussion on the topic without derailing other threads.

Some have said that the two aren't compatible. I personally feel they are completely compatible.

What do y'all think?

I don't see any difference in having D&D settings based on MTG sets as I do any of the settings TSR gave us, any that WoTC gave us, any that 3rd parties have produced, or the countless personal settings used by individual groups past/present/future.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If you allow me to say it, sometimes I worry WotC could change the metaplot about the metaverse because if Hasbro knows they can make money with "intercompany crossovers" as a Hyrule-D&D or a Final Fantasy-D&D they its going to ask a good explanation. Or Hasbro talks with scripters by EnternaimentOne about an adaptation of Dragonlance and the possible retcons. These have got some ideas, but someones are too risky, and then WotC has to think seriously about the option of uchronies or parallel worlds with a different timeline.

 

[Tonguez]

Dominaria provides you with a ready made mechanic via the Shard of the Twelve Worlds.

Obviously the Planes of DnD are all within their own shard which is locked off from the rest of the Multiverse out somewhere beyond the Blind Eternities

 

[AliasBot]

I'll admit, I'm far less well-versed in the finer details of D&D's cosmology than I am in those of MtG's, but from what I do know, there seem to be plenty of ways to make the two fit together. The question is more how much to integrate them, and, to some extent, how to avoid subsuming one into the other. ("This thing you like is actually a smaller, self-contained part of this other thing you don't necessarily care about/for" seems like it has the potential to ruffle feathers.)

I think there was a cosmological shift in the Aughts due to metaplot Shenanigans, and that's not possible anymore...that the Magic plot characters know about, at any rate.

Yeah, the Time Spiral block ('06-'07 irl, ~60 years ago in-universe) ended with the Mending, which, on top of resolving the crisis introduced in the block's plot (tl;dr, Dominaria was being devastated by a bunch of tears in reality), had two major, multiverse-wide effects:

1) Non-planeswalker means of traveling between worlds (planar portals/passages, other interplanar tech/magic) ceased to function.
2) Planeswalkers were massively depowered (went from nigh-immortal thoughtforms to flesh-and-blood mortals, could no longer transport non-'walkers between planes, in D&D terms their general spellcasting abilities went from having no level cap to capping out at ~level 15).

(Out-of-universe, the point of the Mending was to position planeswalkers as the main characters/faces of the game, as they're the most prominent element of Magic's lore that's relatively unique to the franchise, rather than just being standard fantasy fare. It established what they could do as something that only they could do, and brought them down to a power level where they could A, be believably challenged in-story without always needing a world-shaking threat, and B, be accurately portrayed on cards. While it's not impossible that they could change things again if needed, the importance of planeswalkers to MtG's brand would make diluting their uniqueness again a tough sell.)