D&D 5E Which Magic the Gathering setting would you want added officially to D&D?

darjr · Sep 29, 2019

Huh? Gary Con is in March

Parmandur · Sep 29, 2019

darjr said:
Huh? Gary Con is in March

Yes, but I'm not sure Gary Con has to do with anything here?

W
If the DMsGuild thing isn't just an accident, I expect we'll know what it is extremely soon. Any product with Magic material is still a ways off

darjr · Sep 29, 2019

It’s run by Luke Gygax. I have been petitioning WotC to let them have Greyhawk as a region like Gameholecons and Winterfantasies. Though I admit the level of hubris here is .... high.

Remathilis · Sep 29, 2019

gyor said:
Innistad could just be a domain of Ravenloft that started as a MtG world.

I actually toyed a bit with that using the Planeshift: Innistrad as source material. While similar in the fact they are both gothic horror/dark fantasy, the operate under some very different assumptions.

The biggest problem with making it a domain of dread is that domains are tailored to be a prison for its Darklord, and it reflects its Darklord's curse. That means every domain is ultimately shaped by its Darklord and they are the most important part of that domain. Barovia is nothing without Strahd, Lamorida is a reflection of Mordenheim and Adam, and Kartakass is nothing without Lukas. Who is Innistrad a prison for? Edgar Markov? Griselbrand? Llliana Vess? Sorin Markov? Its hard to say. Each plays their role, but there is no "big bad" personality all things seem to revolve around. In short, its a domain without a Darklord.

Further, Ravenloft is a prison. Things that go there rarely leave. Innistrad is remote, but no prison. Planeswalkers come and go freely, and even powerful beings like Eldrazi can enter and leave as they want. There isn't much prohibition on magic much either, but that is something that can be handwaved as needed.

Finally, Innistrad lacks several of the classic trappings of Ravenloft (due to its different origin) such as the Mists, Vistani, etc. That can be mildly handwaved due to its remoteness from other domains or whatever, but it would create a domain with a very real difference of feel compared to others.

(as a side: while Innistrad is not detailed in size, it appears to be far larger than most domains and even clusters; it would be a positively huge domain in a place where domain size is a reflection of Darklord power; make of that what you will).

Now that said, there is a LOT of things Innistrad brings to the table that Ravenloft could use. Its a huge open area that isn't a pastiche of some public-domain Universal Monster or Penny Dreadful story. It has vampires, werewolves, mad scientists, ghost and the like, but doesn't present them as knockoff Dracula, Wolfman, Frankestein, etc. It also feels less hopeless than most domains tend to; Innistrad isn't there to serve a Darklord's torment and there is a feeling that fighting back against the darkness has a point.

I don't think it serves the classic Ravenloft (that of 2e or 3e) assumptions well, but if you were creating a setting that blends Innistrad and Ravenloft together, it could work. But it would hard to just say "Innistrad is a Domain of Dead" without some significant changes to either Innistrad or Ravenloft's core assumptions.

That said, if they could find a good mix of the two, it'd probably be one hell of a great setting.

Parmandur · Sep 29, 2019

darjr said:
It’s run by Luke Gygax. I have been petitioning WotC to let them have Greyhawk as a region like Gameholecons and Winterfantasies. Though I admit the level of hubris here is .... high.

It seems that if there is anything to the DMsGuild change, then we'll probably know about it within weeks, if not days.

Parmandur · Sep 29, 2019

Remathilis said:
I actually toyed a bit with that using the Planeshift: Innistrad as source material. While similar in the fact they are both gothic horror/dark fantasy, the operate under some very different assumptions.

The biggest problem with making it a domain of dread is that domains are tailored to be a prison for its Darklord, and it reflects its Darklord's curse. That means every domain is ultimately shaped by its Darklord and they are the most important part of that domain. Barovia is nothing without Strahd, Lamorida is a reflection of Mordenheim and Adam, and Kartakass is nothing without Lukas. Who is Innistrad a prison for? Edgar Markov? Griselbrand? Llliana Vess? Sorin Markov? Its hard to say. Each plays their role, but there is no "big bad" personality all things seem to revolve around. In short, its a domain without a Darklord.

Further, Ravenloft is a prison. Things that go there rarely leave. Innistrad is remote, but no prison. Planeswalkers come and go freely, and even powerful beings like Eldrazi can enter and leave as they want. There isn't much prohibition on magic much either, but that is something that can be handwaved as needed.

Finally, Innistrad lacks several of the classic trappings of Ravenloft (due to its different origin) such as the Mists, Vistani, etc. That can be mildly handwaved due to its remoteness from other domains or whatever, but it would create a domain with a very real difference of feel compared to others.

(as a side: while Innistrad is not detailed in size, it appears to be far larger than most domains and even clusters; it would be a positively huge domain in a place where domain size is a reflection of Darklord power; make of that what you will).

Now that said, there is a LOT of things Innistrad brings to the table that Ravenloft could use. Its a huge open area that isn't a pastiche of some public-domain Universal Monster or Penny Dreadful story. It has vampires, werewolves, mad scientists, ghost and the like, but doesn't present them as knockoff Dracula, Wolfman, Frankestein, etc. It also feels less hopeless than most domains tend to; Innistrad isn't there to serve a Darklord's torment and there is a feeling that fighting back against the darkness has a point.

I don't think it serves the classic Ravenloft (that of 2e or 3e) assumptions well, but if you were creating a setting that blends Innistrad and Ravenloft together, it could work. But it would hard to just say "Innistrad is a Domain of Dead" without some significant changes to either Innistrad or Ravenloft's core assumptions.

That said, if they could find a good mix of the two, it'd probably be one hell of a great setting.

Innistrad seems distinct from Ravenloft as a Dark Fantasy setting in my book, as much as Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. There is similarity in thematic material, but the details are extremely different.

Of note, while Innistrad block and Curse of Strahd coming out at the same time was in fact coincidental, James Wyatt did run Curse of Strahd as an setting Innistrad game. But that seems more a reflection of how removed from the latter setting Curse of Strahd, being very set on Hickmans material.

gyor · Sep 30, 2019

Remathilis said:
I actually toyed a bit with that using the Planeshift: Innistrad as source material. While similar in the fact they are both gothic horror/dark fantasy, the operate under some very different assumptions.

The biggest problem with making it a domain of dread is that domains are tailored to be a prison for its Darklord, and it reflects its Darklord's curse. That means every domain is ultimately shaped by its Darklord and they are the most important part of that domain. Barovia is nothing without Strahd, Lamorida is a reflection of Mordenheim and Adam, and Kartakass is nothing without Lukas. Who is Innistrad a prison for? Edgar Markov? Griselbrand? Llliana Vess? Sorin Markov? Its hard to say. Each plays their role, but there is no "big bad" personality all things seem to revolve around. In short, its a domain without a Darklord.

Further, Ravenloft is a prison. Things that go there rarely leave. Innistrad is remote, but no prison. Planeswalkers come and go freely, and even powerful beings like Eldrazi can enter and leave as they want. There isn't much prohibition on magic much either, but that is something that can be handwaved as needed.

Finally, Innistrad lacks several of the classic trappings of Ravenloft (due to its different origin) such as the Mists, Vistani, etc. That can be mildly handwaved due to its remoteness from other domains or whatever, but it would create a domain with a very real difference of feel compared to others.

(as a side: while Innistrad is not detailed in size, it appears to be far larger than most domains and even clusters; it would be a positively huge domain in a place where domain size is a reflection of Darklord power; make of that what you will).

Now that said, there is a LOT of things Innistrad brings to the table that Ravenloft could use. Its a huge open area that isn't a pastiche of some public-domain Universal Monster or Penny Dreadful story. It has vampires, werewolves, mad scientists, ghost and the like, but doesn't present them as knockoff Dracula, Wolfman, Frankestein, etc. It also feels less hopeless than most domains tend to; Innistrad isn't there to serve a Darklord's torment and there is a feeling that fighting back against the darkness has a point.

I don't think it serves the classic Ravenloft (that of 2e or 3e) assumptions well, but if you were creating a setting that blends Innistrad and Ravenloft together, it could work. But it would hard to just say "Innistrad is a Domain of Dead" without some significant changes to either Innistrad or Ravenloft's core assumptions.

That said, if they could find a good mix of the two, it'd probably be one hell of a great setting.

The Darklord would be Ayavcln the Angel, yeah she started kind of good at first, but she ended up twisted by the end.

There are some beings that can move between Domains already and the Vistani are one example.

And we don't know what the boundaries are for Innistad, so there could be mist there at the edges.

Urriak Uruk · Sep 30, 2019

Remathilis said:
The biggest problem with making it a domain of dread is that domains are tailored to be a prison for its Darklord, and it reflects its Darklord's curse. That means every domain is ultimately shaped by its Darklord and they are the most important part of that domain. Barovia is nothing without Strahd, Lamorida is a reflection of Mordenheim and Adam, and Kartakass is nothing without Lukas. Who is Innistrad a prison for? Edgar Markov? Griselbrand? Llliana Vess? Sorin Markov? Its hard to say. Each plays their role, but there is no "big bad" personality all things seem to revolve around. In short, its a domain without a Darklord.

Further, Ravenloft is a prison. Things that go there rarely leave. Innistrad is remote, but no prison. Planeswalkers come and go freely, and even powerful beings like Eldrazi can enter and leave as they want. There isn't much prohibition on magic much either, but that is something that can be handwaved as needed.

The Darklord could be the Eldrazi Emrakul. She's already imprisoned in the moon of Innistrad. Be pretty cool if she continued corrupting the area from there as a "shadow ruler."

Also I think the main way to combine Innistrad is to say it has become a Domain of Dread, as it is drawn into Ravenloft by the Dark Powers. This is afterall what happened to Barovia.