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ZENDIKAR -- Where Magic: The Gathering and D&D Collide!

I've never played Magic: the Gathering, so while I"m reporting on this, bear in mind I personally can't fully contextualise it. However, it appears that a M:tG world called Zendikar is now available as a D&D 5th Edition setting via a free 38-page PDF available from WotC's website. It contains three sections -- The World of Zendikar, Races of Zendikar, and A Zendikar Bestiary. There's an added note that the material is not fully playtested or legal in D&D Organised Play events. "Plane Shift: Zendikar was made using the fifth edition of the D&D rules. D&D is a flexible rules system designed to model any kind of fantasy world. The D&D magic system doesn't involve five colors of mana or a ramping-up to your most powerful spells, but the goal isn't to mirror the experience of playing Magic in your role-playing game. The point is to experience the worlds of Magic in a new way, through the lens of the D&D rules. All you really need is races for the characters, monsters for them to face, and some ideas to build a campaign."

I've never played Magic: the Gathering, so while I"m reporting on this, bear in mind I personally can't fully contextualise it. However, it appears that a M:tG world called Zendikar is now available as a D&D 5th Edition setting via a free 38-page PDF available from WotC's website. It contains three sections -- The World of Zendikar, Races of Zendikar, and A Zendikar Bestiary. There's an added note that the material is not fully playtested or legal in D&D Organised Play events. "Plane Shift: Zendikar was made using the fifth edition of the D&D rules. D&D is a flexible rules system designed to model any kind of fantasy world. The D&D magic system doesn't involve five colors of mana or a ramping-up to your most powerful spells, but the goal isn't to mirror the experience of playing Magic in your role-playing game. The point is to experience the worlds of Magic in a new way, through the lens of the D&D rules. All you really need is races for the characters, monsters for them to face, and some ideas to build a campaign."

Races include Humans, Kor, Merfolk, Vampires, Goblins, and Elves. Monsters include angels, archons, griffins, felidars, sphinxes, drakes, krakens, surrakar, demons, dragons, giants, ogres, minotaurs, hydras, hellions, trolls, and more. Click on the image below to download the 38-page PDF.


Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 16.50.32.png

Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering are two different games, but that doesn't mean their Multiverses can't meet.

From the beginning, Magic's plane of Zendikar was conceived as an "adventure world" where parties of explorers delve into ancient ruins in search of wonders and treasures, fighting the monsters they encounter on the way. Many of the plane's creative roots lie in D&D, so it should be no surprise that The Art of Magic: The Gathering—Zendikar feels a lot like a D&D campaign setting book. It's littered with adventure hooks and story seeds, and lacks only the specific rules references you'd need to adapt Zendikar's races, monsters, and adventures to a tabletop D&D campaign. And it's all surrounded by amazing fantasy art that holds boundless inspiration in itself.

You can think of Plane Shift: Zendikar as a sort of supplement to The Art of Magic: The Gathering—Zendikar, designed to help you take the world details and story seeds contained in that book and turn them into an exciting D&D campaign. The easiest way to approach a D&D campaign set on Zendikar is to use the rules that D&D provides mostly as written: a druid on Zendikar might call on green mana and cast spells like giant growth, but she's still just a druid in the D&D rules (perhaps casting giant insect).

Plane Shift: Zendikar was made using the fifth edition of the D&D rules. D&D is a flexible rules system designed to model any kind of fantasy world. The D&D magic system doesn't involve five colors of mana or a ramping-up to your most powerful spells, but the goal isn't to mirror the experience of playing Magic in your role-playing game. The point is to experience the worlds of Magic in a new way, through the lens of the D&D rules. All you really need is races for the characters, monsters for them to face, and some ideas to build a campaign.

Finally, The Art of Magic: The Gathering—Zendikar will help you create a D&D campaign in Zendikar, but you don't actually need the book to make use of the material in Plane Shift: Zendikar—you can also refer to the abundance of lore about Zendikar found on MagicTheGathering.com and the Zendikar plane profile.
 

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Achan hiArusa

Explorer
I thought I saw James Wyatt's hand in this when I saw the Merfolk race and then I read the author. He's a pretty cool guy (even beyond the fact that he sent me the text for the Diabolism–Hex spell for Alternity and linked my Masque of the Red Death conversion for 3e). Now if he would only put up his other game worlds back on his website. They all were bursting with ideas.
 

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Knightfall

World of Kulan DM
One thing that's nice about opening up the DMGS to a more light-weight setting with little history and little material would give people more room to get creative with what could be in the setting.
I was thinking that myself. What about Council of Wyrms or Jakandor? There is so little for them that all WotC would have to do is create a small Unearthed Arcana for each setting to give the basics behind each setting and then letting the fandom create DMs Guild content for the settings. If something really good comes from it, WotC can opt to buy it and make it official and they didn't have to devote tons of resources to it.

Hmm, Ghostwalk (from 3E) and/or Nentir Vale (from 4E) too. Also, Tale of the Comet (from 2E) could be a good way to build some science fantasy material for D&D 5E.

And with smaller settings, there could be DMs-G products that builds a version of Manifest or Jakandor in the Realms or create a Ravenloft domain based on the concept.

And with the larger settings, WotC doesn't have open up an entire world. They could allow for the creation of DMs-G content for only one region of Mystara. Both Hollow World and Savage Coast come to mind. Or if they don't want to allow for all of Dragonlance right away, they could just make Taladas available to start.

Lots of possibilities. :)
 



jgsugden

Legend
I didn't notice any resistances. I will double check, but I only saw a con bonus, darkvision, and a natural ac of 11+ dex if not wearing armor. Then each tribe gets a different skill or tool ...
It is in the Grit ability with the insignificant AC bonus.
 
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sulimo0310

Explorer
I see now, resistance to fire and psychic damage... That is interesting actually. Might be worth the lack of another bonus. A raging Goblin Bear totem Barbarian would be resistant to all damage types...

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk
 

I know nothing about M:tG (too old when it became a thing) - but after looking at (after this announcement) it does seem completely mad that WotC isn't leveraging those assets as campaign settings for Dnd? Why come up with a bunch of parallel settings? (Yes there are some classics that people want - but if WotC is wanting to leverage their assets this seems a perfect way to reinforce there product offerings: 1 setting - 2 ways to play!) And thus people who like one might be tempted to try the other.

Not saying anything new - but after browsing the M:tG settings, what the heck WotC? This seems like a no-brainer?!


I think it is probably because, until recently, D&D was considered small-time compared to M:tG by WotC. They didn't trust the D&D team with their most popular IP. They are notoriously jealous of their style and brand. I think this is a result of 5e's success turning some heads among the brass at WotC and probably even Hasbro.
 

DeanP

Explorer
I never played Magic: The Gathering, though I know there's a whole new generation of gamers that have and continue to do so. Having said that, there's a ton of really good concepts in this setting. If nothing else, it adds to the "multiverse" if you're interested in planar travel, or there's elements that could be ported over to an existing setting. It contributes to 5e, and that's the important thing.
 

Beedo

First Post
I think it is probably because, until recently, D&D was considered small-time compared to M:tG by WotC. They didn't trust the D&D team with their most popular IP. They are notoriously jealous of their style and brand. I think this is a result of 5e's success turning some heads among the brass at WotC and probably even Hasbro.

I don't think this is a case of the MTG creative group finally trusting those D&D guys - it looks more like an MTG-initiated initiative to drive more book and art sales from their side. They have a ton of sunk cost in Magic art and world building, and this is another opportunity to harvest value from Magic's IP, safely. It looks like having ex-D&Ders like James Wyatt move to the MTG product line may have helped.

Let's see where it goes - I wouldn't be surprised to see an Innistrad art book later this year (when the second Innistrad set comes out) followed by another one of these simple D&D guides to Innistrad - but it's the MTG creative team driving it, not D&D,
 

ZzarkLinux

First Post
Agreed that there was probably a lack-of-trust between Mark Rosewater (MtG) and Rob Heinsoo n Mike Mearls (D&D). But I believe it is more a Separation-Of-Powers than lack of trust.

You can parallel it to Paizo's actions with PFO. Paizo isolated its cost of "Pathfinder Online" to a spinoff group (Goblinworks), so when Pathfinder Online failed then it failed completely independent of Paizo main. Similarly, WotC isolated its cost of "D&D 4e Digital Push" to the Rob Heinsoo group (4e), so when the 4e Digital Push failed then it failed completely independent of MtG main. MtG storywriters remained pure and clean.

Interesting thought: MtG sometimes gives "exclusive preview cards" to some magazines. So people want to buy the card, and magazine sales skyrocket (temporarily). Maybe we will see a Jace the Mind Sculptor in the next D&D Adventure book released. That book would sell faster than 3e in the golden age :)

EDIT: Joking aside, I just realized that Jace probably is competeing with Drizzt. Seriously. They are both introverted, special snowflake, rebellious, Mary Sue characters that were popular with young kids. I think Jace probably eats into Drizzt sales, or at least Jace prevents Drizzt's revival: Kids can only have so many hero rolemodels in their life.
 
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