You may have been the primary reason why I said that people hated the M:tG sourcebooks.
I’d doesn’t help that Ravnica in particular sucked eggs.
Er..... can I ask you guys why you hate MtG so much? And why Ravnica is so bad? I admit that the first pass at Ravnica was more fun than the second, with the whole maze running thing. But there are a lot of really fantastic toolbox cards that came about as a result of Ravnica. And the setting paints a really good, if largely static, view of what life would be like there.
I don’t hate M:tG, I just gave up on it. I started playing M:tG with Unlimited/Revised edition (1993ish) and kept collecting until Kamigawa, around 10 years later. But the story kept getting weaker and weaker and it got boring and too expensive.
Ravnica was probably fine as an M:tG setting, but it sucks eggs as a D&D setting. They shoehorned it together and it just didn’t work. The story suffered for it. Add to that how those backgrounds mess up game balance.
I personally don't like M:tG settings because of a few reasons:
They're cash grabs.
They're trying to combine 2 different cosmologies into one thing, which I absolutely despise. If Ravnica never had the Outer Planes or a crystal sphere in their lore before, why do they suddenly have them now? (I can answer that, because they want to make more easy cash-grabbing M:tG books in the easiest way possible.) Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms don't have planeswalkers, so don't try to fake that they do.
Many of the worlds don't function as D&D worlds, like Ravnica or New Phyrexia, IMHO.
M:tG storylines move much quicker than D&D ones, so it's harder to keep up, and there's a bunch of convoluted lore. (Same problem as Forgotten Realms. We don't need another Forgotten Realms.
That's pretty much it for me. Anyone else want to comment?
Its not that difficult to understand why they merge these worlds and try to find ways to connect them. Its all about the players handbook. Basically, every world they put out today must include all options from the players handbook. They won't release a game world that doesn't have Dragonborn or Wild Sorcerers. Every world they make, even if they are rehashing old ones is converted into a generic fantasy world where everything in the players handbook exists.
This is why there is no point in them creating new fantasy settings because the default requirement is that it will have to be generic enough to allow for all character options in the players handbook including the existence of the Feywild and the underdark.. all of these things MUST be in the new setting.. you can rename them, but they must exist.
Which is exactly why Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Wild Magic should not be in the PHB.
You may have been the primary reason why I said that people hated the M:tG sourcebooks.
I’d doesn’t help that Ravnica in particular sucked eggs.
Er..... can I ask you guys why you hate MtG so much? And why Ravnica is so bad? I admit that the first pass at Ravnica was more fun than the second, with the whole maze running thing. But there are a lot of really fantastic toolbox cards that came about as a result of Ravnica. And the setting paints a really good, if largely static, view of what life would be like there.
I don’t hate M:tG, I just gave up on it. I started playing M:tG with Unlimited/Revised edition (1993ish) and kept collecting until Kamigawa, around 10 years later. But the story kept getting weaker and weaker and it got boring and too expensive.
Ravnica was probably fine as an M:tG setting, but it sucks eggs as a D&D setting. They shoehorned it together and it just didn’t work. The story suffered for it. Add to that how those backgrounds mess up game balance.
Ravnica is actually one of the most well liked M:tG settings. I personally never understood that view, and strongly disliked it. Theros was not one of my favorite settings either. Innistrad, Zendikar, or New Phyrexia would all be planes that I would like to see adapted to a D&D setting.
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I very sincerely doubt they'd be able to pull off an Innistrad book while leaving Ravenloft out in the cold without getting flak (and Curse of Strahd doesn't count).
Mind you, I will freely admit I am a piece of trash that will probably buy most anything that gets published, but I don't see them putting out any M:tG books that tread on settings that already exist but haven't been published for 5e yet.
I very sincerely doubt they'd be able to pull off an Innistrad book while leaving Ravenloft out in the cold without getting flak (and Curse of Strahd doesn't count).
Mind you, I will freely admit I am a piece of trash that will probably buy most anything that gets published, but I don't see them putting out any M:tG books that tread on settings that already exist but haven't been published for 5e yet.
If they release a Ravenloft or an Innistrad book, they might have a sentence or two about how to convert one to another. The old Plane Shift: Innistrad mentioned how you could run Strahd there.
I feel like if they divorced a setting from the rest of the M:tG lore, it could be fairly interesting. They are definitely cash grabs though, but only one has been released yet and we haven't seen the contents of the second one. It could be better.
But, you can't really divorce M:tG settings from the rest of the lore. Take Theros, for example. So, at first, it doesn't seem to be that close to the other settings, and isn't very dependent on Planeswalkers. But, there also used to be a god named Xenagos. He was the satyr god of revelry, and he became a god, and was a planeswalker. Also, there was another god named Cacophony that was recently created by another planeswalker with mind-warping powers. Neither of these gods are currently a part of the lore of the world, but they are still important parts of the history of the setting and have made changes to the world overall.
Most, if not all M:tG settings are severely damaged if you separate them from the lore of all of M:tG. Amonkhet depends on planeswalking for its story. Ravnica was recently invaded by planes-traveling zombies and conquered by a dragon-pharoh god. Planeswalkers had to die to defeat Nicol Bolas, and now most, if not all, or Ravnica knows about planeswalkers.
M:tG settings depend on planeswalking for their story.
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Its not that difficult to understand why they merge these worlds and try to find ways to connect them. Its all about the players handbook. Basically, every world they put out today must include all options from the players handbook. They won't release a game world that doesn't have Dragonborn or Wild Sorcerers. Every world they make, even if they are rehashing old ones is converted into a generic fantasy world where everything in the players handbook exists.
This is why there is no point in them creating new fantasy settings because the default requirement is that it will have to be generic enough to allow for all character options in the players handbook including the existence of the Feywild and the underdark.. all of these things MUST be in the new setting.. you can rename them, but they must exist.
Uh, have you not read the Ravnica book? It lists the races that are present: Humans, elves, centaurs, goblins, loxodons, minotaurs, simic hybrids, vedalken and I assume half-elves.
There's no dwarves, dragonborn, halflings, warforged, shifters, thri-kreen, gnomes, hobgoblins, and I can go on and on and on. Your statement here is false. Magic the Gathering settings have restricted races, and I assume Theros will have a list of races like the Ravnica book. Eberron doesn't in the lore have kenku, tabaxi, and a lot of other races.
Guess what? Eberron doesn't have the Underdark. It has Khyber, which is very different. Eberron doesn't have a Feywild. It has Thelanis, but is still very different.
They can, will, and have created D&D worlds while restricting races and options from the Players Handbook and other books.
Sure, any DM can wave these restrictions, but they can create unique settings with unique lore.
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I very sincerely doubt they'd be able to pull off an Innistrad book while leaving Ravenloft out in the cold without getting flak (and Curse of Strahd doesn't count).
Mind you, I will freely admit I am a piece of trash that will probably buy most anything that gets published, but I don't see them putting out any M:tG books that tread on settings that already exist but haven't been published for 5e yet.
The Planeshift: Innistrad pdf mentions how to convert Ravenloft to a part of Innistrad. They can copy/paraphrase this.
I am also the person who will buy nearly any book. I own all the books except Rise of Tiamat.
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@Levi: I'm not sure why Wizards is better than anyone else when it comes to making stuff. While I get that Exandria is not a departure from the Classic Fantasy genre the way Eberron is, I don't see how the work originating from a talented creator outside the company makes it any less valid. While I wouldn't mind seeing some wild new tangents, regardless of who or what created them...well. We're not going to. You need to look to third party publishers for that sort of thing, folks making supplements and semifficial homebrew settings for 5e. Stuff like Grim Hollow or Humblewood. Wizards isn't going to bother releasing anything they don't absolutely know is going to be a surefire slam-dunk hit. Not after 4e, where they tried to get inventive and were soundly told to go **** themselves by all the people now clamoring for more 5e retreads of 3.5e stuff.
Sad. But true.
Wizards of the Coast is better at developing campaign settings because they're official, have better content and effort that go into them, and balance subclasses and races specific to them. It's better to get an official book than a homebrew one because of more support.
Exandria is great, and I love the book and setting, but I do want Wizards to develop their own setting.
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I wonder if the new book is going to be less of a setting thing and more of a Xanathar's 2. Assuming the UA is a sign of what's going to be in there, all the UA that's been pumped out has been mostly focused on subclasses and spells, like Xanathar's. I'd honestly rather have another rule heavy book like Xanathar's, and I feel like if it has to be in the form of setting, one of the more cosmic setting would be easier to use as a way to introduce new rules, spells and subclasses.
Wizards of the Coast is better at developing campaign settings because they're official, have better content and effort that go into them, and balance subclasses and races specific to them. It's better to get an official book than a homebrew one because of more support.
I think your being taken a bit by the quality of the production of the products, rather then the quality of the writing.
For one so far to date, Wizards of the Coast has produced ZERO settings unless you count that half ass thing they did called Nentir Vale which is Forgotten Realms with the names changed,, so lets make sure we are clear on that. They have published many settings, but they are actually yet to produce anything original. Eberron was the result of a writing competition and is by every definition of the word a 3rd party product. Forgotten Realms they basically ruined, so I would give that minus points and I suppose we can give them credit for the Magic The Gathering world, but that is such a god awful scraped together setting that I don't think it actually qualifies for the term.
What Wizards of the Coast does is as their name implies, they coast on the giants that came before them and they have been doing it since the day they bought TSR. In the two decades they have owned the Franchise they are yet to do anything original that wasn't already done better in the 20 years prior.
Wizards of the Coast is good with mechanics and that has been their saving grace, but when it comes to creating adventures and settings, they really suck at their job. I mean 5e is like 70% rehashes of adventures and stories that were already done and in most cases done a lot better.
The Nentir Vale was originally supposed to be apart of the Forgotten Realms, but it was change to be seperate. So yes it has FR DNA in it, but it evovled beyond that into Nerath and influenced FR in turn. They are very different setting with few simularities.
You really should actually read up on how Eberron was developed. The story contest was a bare bones setting pitch, not a fully fleshed out settings.
When Eberron got picked they kept the essence, but a team worked with Kieth Baker on the Setting, building it from its premise, adding and changing things. It was team effort between Kieth and the RPG team at Wizards. So yes it counts.
Now Exandia is mostly third party including like half the art, but WotC did alter and change some things.
Ravnica has some great elements, but it should had an extra 50 pages fleshing out the Guildless elements of the city, like the Order of the Star, as well as doing a few more creatures like Angels of Despair. You really need to read the original Ravnica trilogy of novels to really see how amazing the setting is IMHO, I don't even play MtG, but loved the original trilogy, the second one had Planeswalker Jace and his drama up stagies the setting, and I have resented Jace ever since.
I like 5e FR , except that it needs a FRCG type book.
The history of Tieflings and Dragonborn for one thing, the divine domains, and the focus on points of light.
The original trilogy of novels had great characters and the city worked better then you'd think, it's just that they focused later stories too much on planeswalkers, so it lost its sense of immersion slowly over time. The original trilogy also had the guilds feeling yes confined by the colour pie.
Anyways the next adventure is clearly going to be Icewind Dale, but perhaps with a twist, the modron March walking thru it.
Then next up will be the Planescape Setting, but I think it will absorb Ravenloft and Spelljammer, the hints of this have been coming for awhile. Like Spelljammers planeshifting and Ravenloft being in the Shadowfell.
But this won't be your daddy's Planescape because 5e uses a modified, expanded, hybrid version of the Great Wheel Cosomolgy. So add in the Feywild, Shadowfell, Border Elemental, and Elemental Chaos to Planescape.
Races I think will be Gith, Aasimar, Genasi, will be reprinted. Maybe Tritons, Centuars, and Satyrs.
New races Barbiurs, Bladelings, Shades, and Caliban.
Subraces Eladarin and Shadar Kai reprint.
And a pile of planar subclasses.
Also while the Psionic subclasses mention Darksun, they also mention Planar causes like the Gith, Feywild, and Far Realms.
I feel like if they divorced a setting from the rest of the M:tG lore, it could be fairly interesting. They are definitely cash grabs though, but only one has been released yet and we haven't seen the contents of the second one. It could be better.
But, you can't really divorce M:tG settings from the rest of the lore. Take Theros, for example. So, at first, it doesn't seem to be that close to the other settings, and isn't very dependent on Planeswalkers. But, there also used to be a god named Xenagos. He was the satyr god of revelry, and he became a god, and was a planeswalker. Also, there was another god named Cacophony that was recently created by another planeswalker with mind-warping powers. Neither of these gods are currently a part of the lore of the world, but they are still important parts of the history of the setting and have made changes to the world overall.
Most, if not all M:tG settings are severely damaged if you separate them from the lore of all of M:tG. Amonkhet depends on planeswalking for its story. Ravnica was recently invaded by planes-traveling zombies and conquered by a dragon-pharoh god. Planeswalkers had to die to defeat Nicol Bolas, and now most, if not all, or Ravnica knows about planeswalkers.
M:tG settings depend on planeswalking for their story.
This is true if you stick strictly to the M:tG storylines. There is another alternative, and its easier to show an example than explain.
You could set an adventure on Amonkhet with the players knowing nothing about Magic. You could have them be initiates of the same crop in the Trials, and eventually discover what the true purpose of the trials are for and become dissenters. Nicol Bolas's origins don't exactly have to be clear; we don't know where Asmodeus come from, yet he still works a a villain.
This is what I meant when I said "divorcing something from the rest of the lore." I guess it was a little to harsh, and I'll change it to "making it so that knowing all the M:tG is not an essential part of playing in the setting. Planeswalkers could be characters similar to Elminster and Mordenkainen. I know almost nothing about them, yet the actions of Elminster have shaped the Forgotten Realms, and I still play FR without this knowledge.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Anyways the next adventure is clearly going to be Icewind Dale, but perhaps with a twist, the modron March walking thru it.
Then next up will be the Planescape Setting, but I think it will absorb Ravenloft and Spelljammer, the hints of this have been coming for awhile. Like Spelljammers planeshifting and Ravenloft being in the Shadowfell.
But this won't be your daddy's Planescape because 5e uses a modified, expanded, hybrid version of the Great Wheel Cosomolgy. So add in the Feywild, Shadowfell, Border Elemental, and Elemental Chaos to Planescape.
Races I think will be Gith, Aasimar, Genasi, will be reprinted. Maybe Tritons, Centuars, and Satyrs.
New races Barbiurs, Bladelings, Shades, and Caliban.
Subraces Eladarin and Shadar Kai reprint.
And a pile of planar subclasses.
Also while the Psionic subclasses mention Darksun, they also mention Planar causes like the Gith, Feywild, and Far Realms.
Centaurs would be redundant with bauriers. The Shadowfell is basically the same as the Plane of Shadows from 3E, which was the Demiplane of Shadows in Planescape, so that's easy to explain. The Feywilds would probably get put into being another plane that's adjacent to the Prime Material Plane. As far as the Elemental Chaos goes, that was a 4th Edition thing and since 5E has the original Inner Planes already, it would be redundant.
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"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
The history of Tieflings and Dragonborn for one thing, the divine domains, and the focus on points of light.
The original trilogy of novels had great characters and the city worked better then you'd think, it's just that they focused later stories too much on planeswalkers, so it lost its sense of immersion slowly over time. The original trilogy also had the guilds feeling yes confined by the colour pie.
There really isn't much unique about that. Dragonborn and Tieflings were promptly added into Forgotten Realms retroactively in a vein effort to make sure every Wizards of the Coast setting has everything in a players handbook represented so the end result is always either the creation of generic fantasy settings or retroactively turning original settings like Forgotten Realms into generic fantasy.
Anyways the next adventure is clearly going to be Icewind Dale, but perhaps with a twist, the modron March walking thru it.
Then next up will be the Planescape Setting, but I think it will absorb Ravenloft and Spelljammer, the hints of this have been coming for awhile. Like Spelljammers planeshifting and Ravenloft being in the Shadowfell.
But this won't be your daddy's Planescape because 5e uses a modified, expanded, hybrid version of the Great Wheel Cosomolgy. So add in the Feywild, Shadowfell, Border Elemental, and Elemental Chaos to Planescape.
Races I think will be Gith, Aasimar, Genasi, will be reprinted. Maybe Tritons, Centuars, and Satyrs.
New races Barbiurs, Bladelings, Shades, and Caliban.
Subraces Eladarin and Shadar Kai reprint.
And a pile of planar subclasses.
Also while the Psionic subclasses mention Darksun, they also mention Planar causes like the Gith, Feywild, and Far Realms.
You have a lot of faith in Wizards of the Coast that has no record on which to base it.
I think what they will do with Planescape is exactly what they did with Forgotten Realms and Darksun, they will spend the entire book trying to squeeze in all of the generic fantasy tropes into it. You can expect planescape to have a feywild, shadowfell, underdark, Dragon Born, Tieflings and they will undoubtedly figure out a way to make sure that spell casting class remain unchanged.. By the time they are done, Planescape will be Forgotten Realms 2.0 and for that there is a precedence since its exactly what they did with Darksun in 4e and Eberron in 5e.
Yes they added Dragonborn in 4e and tied Tieflings to the Hells in 4e Forgotten Realms, but the background story/history for these races are radically different from the Nerath version. Their histories are nothing alike. Nerath's Dragonborn and Tieflings had powerful ancient empires that warred till their empires fell. Both were deeply religious. The Dragonborn of Nerath look up to Dragons and have a largely good relationship with them. Nerath Tieflings are the product of a series of pacts with Devils, but they aren't Planetouched in the traditional sense.
In FR Dragonborn dwelled on a godless parrell low magic world where where they were slaves of Primordials and later Dragons, until some revolted. Then the Spellplague happened and a lot of them ended up on Toril. All of a sudden they have to deal with Wizards and Gods. This was weird to them. A few converted to Torm, Bahumut, and Tiamat until Enlil (Untherite/Bablonian God) came along to save them from the Spellplague.
Tieflings in FR were a mix of Planescape Tieflings and Godborn Tieflings descended from Evil Gods, then after the Spellplague, the Brimstone Angels happened and via a ritual and pact with Asmodeus they transformed most, but not all Tieflings into a pure breeding form, but this did not completely eliminate their divine bloodlines.
What's more when the Mulhorand Gods came back, Tiefling, Aasimar, and Humans Chosen acted as hosts for them.
And that is just a tip of the spear when it comes to Historical, Religious, and Cultural differences.
Anyways the next adventure is clearly going to be Icewind Dale, but perhaps with a twist, the modron March walking thru it.
Then next up will be the Planescape Setting, but I think it will absorb Ravenloft and Spelljammer, the hints of this have been coming for awhile. Like Spelljammers planeshifting and Ravenloft being in the Shadowfell.
But this won't be your daddy's Planescape because 5e uses a modified, expanded, hybrid version of the Great Wheel Cosomolgy. So add in the Feywild, Shadowfell, Border Elemental, and Elemental Chaos to Planescape.
Races I think will be Gith, Aasimar, Genasi, will be reprinted. Maybe Tritons, Centuars, and Satyrs.
New races Barbiurs, Bladelings, Shades, and Caliban.
Subraces Eladarin and Shadar Kai reprint.
And a pile of planar subclasses.
Also while the Psionic subclasses mention Darksun, they also mention Planar causes like the Gith, Feywild, and Far Realms.
Centaurs would be redundant with bauriers. The Shadowfell is basically the same as the Plane of Shadows from 3E, which was the Demiplane of Shadows in Planescape, so that's easy to explain. The Feywilds would probably get put into being another plane that's adjacent to the Prime Material Plane. As far as the Elemental Chaos goes, that was a 4th Edition thing and since 5E has the original Inner Planes already, it would be redundant.
The Planescape Cosmology is right in the core books, any Planescape Campaign Book is just going to go into greater details, it's not going to rewrite the default Great Wheel Axis cosmology in favour of the old Great Wheel cosmology, because part of the function of Planescape utility is it's interconnectedness to other settings, so it has to use the default edition cosmology. And the Elemental Chaos is mentioned right in the core 5e books along with the old school type pure elemental/paraelemental planes, and the border elemental planes.
Bariurs are as simular to Centuars as Satyrs are to humans. In 5e terms Centaur are Fey, Bariurs would be Celestials. I think Bariurs are slightly smaller then Centaurs too, but I'm not a 100% on that.
As for Eberron, don't get me wrong I love Eberron, but Wizards of the Coast does not get to take credit for it. The hardest part of creating a setting is to create the core concept, the idea and putting it to paper.
We don't know how many changes came to Eberron after it originally won the contest, but we know it was a lot. The world wasn't even named yet. WotC definitely gets major credit for it, nearly as much as Keith Baker.
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Anyways the next adventure is clearly going to be Icewind Dale, but perhaps with a twist, the modron March walking thru it.
Then next up will be the Planescape Setting, but I think it will absorb Ravenloft and Spelljammer, the hints of this have been coming for awhile. Like Spelljammers planeshifting and Ravenloft being in the Shadowfell.
But this won't be your daddy's Planescape because 5e uses a modified, expanded, hybrid version of the Great Wheel Cosomolgy. So add in the Feywild, Shadowfell, Border Elemental, and Elemental Chaos to Planescape.
Races I think will be Gith, Aasimar, Genasi, will be reprinted. Maybe Tritons, Centuars, and Satyrs.
New races Barbiurs, Bladelings, Shades, and Caliban.
Subraces Eladarin and Shadar Kai reprint.
And a pile of planar subclasses.
Also while the Psionic subclasses mention Darksun, they also mention Planar causes like the Gith, Feywild, and Far Realms.
You have a lot of faith in Wizards of the Coast that has no record on which to base it.
I think what they will do with Planescape is exactly what they did with Forgotten Realms and Darksun, they will spend the entire book trying to squeeze in all of the generic fantasy tropes into it. You can expect planescape to have a feywild, shadowfell, underdark, Dragon Born, Tieflings and they will undoubtedly figure out a way to make sure that spell casting class remain unchanged.. By the time they are done, Planescape will be Forgotten Realms 2.0 and for that there is a precedence since its exactly what they did with Darksun in 4e and Eberron in 5e.
Do you know what planescape is? It wouldn't take much to make it come to 5e. Descent into Avernus has information on how to run a game in the Nine Hells, and it doesn't take many pages from the book. They could make a book with player options taking up 1/3rd of the book, and then have the rest be planar information. Just look at how many pages of XGtE is dedicated to Player Options. They could easily make a Xanathar's 2.0 that has both a ton of player options and planar information.
Also, what do you even mean about "they will undoubtedly figure out a way to make sure that spell casting class remain unchanged." I don't have any idea what you're talking about here. Planescape doesn't change spellcasters in any significant mechanical way.
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I don’t hate M:tG, I just gave up on it. I started playing M:tG with Unlimited/Revised edition (1993ish) and kept collecting until Kamigawa, around 10 years later. But the story kept getting weaker and weaker and it got boring and too expensive.
Ravnica was probably fine as an M:tG setting, but it sucks eggs as a D&D setting. They shoehorned it together and it just didn’t work. The story suffered for it. Add to that how those backgrounds mess up game balance.
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Which is exactly why Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Wild Magic should not be in the PHB.
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Ravnica is actually one of the most well liked M:tG settings. I personally never understood that view, and strongly disliked it. Theros was not one of my favorite settings either. Innistrad, Zendikar, or New Phyrexia would all be planes that I would like to see adapted to a D&D setting.
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I very sincerely doubt they'd be able to pull off an Innistrad book while leaving Ravenloft out in the cold without getting flak (and Curse of Strahd doesn't count).
Mind you, I will freely admit I am a piece of trash that will probably buy most anything that gets published, but I don't see them putting out any M:tG books that tread on settings that already exist but haven't been published for 5e yet.
If they release a Ravenloft or an Innistrad book, they might have a sentence or two about how to convert one to another. The old Plane Shift: Innistrad mentioned how you could run Strahd there.
https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/Plane_Shift_Innistrad.pdf
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But, you can't really divorce M:tG settings from the rest of the lore. Take Theros, for example. So, at first, it doesn't seem to be that close to the other settings, and isn't very dependent on Planeswalkers. But, there also used to be a god named Xenagos. He was the satyr god of revelry, and he became a god, and was a planeswalker. Also, there was another god named Cacophony that was recently created by another planeswalker with mind-warping powers. Neither of these gods are currently a part of the lore of the world, but they are still important parts of the history of the setting and have made changes to the world overall.
Most, if not all M:tG settings are severely damaged if you separate them from the lore of all of M:tG. Amonkhet depends on planeswalking for its story. Ravnica was recently invaded by planes-traveling zombies and conquered by a dragon-pharoh god. Planeswalkers had to die to defeat Nicol Bolas, and now most, if not all, or Ravnica knows about planeswalkers.
M:tG settings depend on planeswalking for their story.
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Uh, have you not read the Ravnica book? It lists the races that are present: Humans, elves, centaurs, goblins, loxodons, minotaurs, simic hybrids, vedalken and I assume half-elves.
There's no dwarves, dragonborn, halflings, warforged, shifters, thri-kreen, gnomes, hobgoblins, and I can go on and on and on. Your statement here is false. Magic the Gathering settings have restricted races, and I assume Theros will have a list of races like the Ravnica book. Eberron doesn't in the lore have kenku, tabaxi, and a lot of other races.
Guess what? Eberron doesn't have the Underdark. It has Khyber, which is very different. Eberron doesn't have a Feywild. It has Thelanis, but is still very different.
They can, will, and have created D&D worlds while restricting races and options from the Players Handbook and other books.
Sure, any DM can wave these restrictions, but they can create unique settings with unique lore.
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The Planeshift: Innistrad pdf mentions how to convert Ravenloft to a part of Innistrad. They can copy/paraphrase this.
I am also the person who will buy nearly any book. I own all the books except Rise of Tiamat.
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I don't know what you have against Tieflings, Dragonborn, and Wild Magic, but the only one of those 3 I dislike in the current form is Wild Magic.
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Don't insult the Giff! What'd they do to you?
Wizards of the Coast is better at developing campaign settings because they're official, have better content and effort that go into them, and balance subclasses and races specific to them. It's better to get an official book than a homebrew one because of more support.
Exandria is great, and I love the book and setting, but I do want Wizards to develop their own setting.
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I wonder if the new book is going to be less of a setting thing and more of a Xanathar's 2. Assuming the UA is a sign of what's going to be in there, all the UA that's been pumped out has been mostly focused on subclasses and spells, like Xanathar's. I'd honestly rather have another rule heavy book like Xanathar's, and I feel like if it has to be in the form of setting, one of the more cosmic setting would be easier to use as a way to introduce new rules, spells and subclasses.
Hombrew: Way of Wresting, Circle of Sacrifice
The Nentir Vale was originally supposed to be apart of the Forgotten Realms, but it was change to be seperate. So yes it has FR DNA in it, but it evovled beyond that into Nerath and influenced FR in turn. They are very different setting with few simularities.
You really should actually read up on how Eberron was developed. The story contest was a bare bones setting pitch, not a fully fleshed out settings.
When Eberron got picked they kept the essence, but a team worked with Kieth Baker on the Setting, building it from its premise, adding and changing things. It was team effort between Kieth and the RPG team at Wizards. So yes it counts.
Now Exandia is mostly third party including like half the art, but WotC did alter and change some things.
Ravnica has some great elements, but it should had an extra 50 pages fleshing out the Guildless elements of the city, like the Order of the Star, as well as doing a few more creatures like Angels of Despair. You really need to read the original Ravnica trilogy of novels to really see how amazing the setting is IMHO, I don't even play MtG, but loved the original trilogy, the second one had Planeswalker Jace and his drama up stagies the setting, and I have resented Jace ever since.
I like 5e FR , except that it needs a FRCG type book.
The history of Tieflings and Dragonborn for one thing, the divine domains, and the focus on points of light.
The original trilogy of novels had great characters and the city worked better then you'd think, it's just that they focused later stories too much on planeswalkers, so it lost its sense of immersion slowly over time. The original trilogy also had the guilds feeling yes confined by the colour pie.
Anyways the next adventure is clearly going to be Icewind Dale, but perhaps with a twist, the modron March walking thru it.
Then next up will be the Planescape Setting, but I think it will absorb Ravenloft and Spelljammer, the hints of this have been coming for awhile. Like Spelljammers planeshifting and Ravenloft being in the Shadowfell.
But this won't be your daddy's Planescape because 5e uses a modified, expanded, hybrid version of the Great Wheel Cosomolgy. So add in the Feywild, Shadowfell, Border Elemental, and Elemental Chaos to Planescape.
Races I think will be Gith, Aasimar, Genasi, will be reprinted. Maybe Tritons, Centuars, and Satyrs.
New races Barbiurs, Bladelings, Shades, and Caliban.
Subraces Eladarin and Shadar Kai reprint.
And a pile of planar subclasses.
Also while the Psionic subclasses mention Darksun, they also mention Planar causes like the Gith, Feywild, and Far Realms.
This is true if you stick strictly to the M:tG storylines. There is another alternative, and its easier to show an example than explain.
You could set an adventure on Amonkhet with the players knowing nothing about Magic. You could have them be initiates of the same crop in the Trials, and eventually discover what the true purpose of the trials are for and become dissenters. Nicol Bolas's origins don't exactly have to be clear; we don't know where Asmodeus come from, yet he still works a a villain.
This is what I meant when I said "divorcing something from the rest of the lore." I guess it was a little to harsh, and I'll change it to "making it so that knowing all the M:tG is not an essential part of playing in the setting. Planeswalkers could be characters similar to Elminster and Mordenkainen. I know almost nothing about them, yet the actions of Elminster have shaped the Forgotten Realms, and I still play FR without this knowledge.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Centaurs would be redundant with bauriers. The Shadowfell is basically the same as the Plane of Shadows from 3E, which was the Demiplane of Shadows in Planescape, so that's easy to explain. The Feywilds would probably get put into being another plane that's adjacent to the Prime Material Plane. As far as the Elemental Chaos goes, that was a 4th Edition thing and since 5E has the original Inner Planes already, it would be redundant.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Yes they added Dragonborn in 4e and tied Tieflings to the Hells in 4e Forgotten Realms, but the background story/history for these races are radically different from the Nerath version. Their histories are nothing alike. Nerath's Dragonborn and Tieflings had powerful ancient empires that warred till their empires fell. Both were deeply religious. The Dragonborn of Nerath look up to Dragons and have a largely good relationship with them. Nerath Tieflings are the product of a series of pacts with Devils, but they aren't Planetouched in the traditional sense.
In FR Dragonborn dwelled on a godless parrell low magic world where where they were slaves of Primordials and later Dragons, until some revolted. Then the Spellplague happened and a lot of them ended up on Toril. All of a sudden they have to deal with Wizards and Gods. This was weird to them. A few converted to Torm, Bahumut, and Tiamat until Enlil (Untherite/Bablonian God) came along to save them from the Spellplague.
Tieflings in FR were a mix of Planescape Tieflings and Godborn Tieflings descended from Evil Gods, then after the Spellplague, the Brimstone Angels happened and via a ritual and pact with Asmodeus they transformed most, but not all Tieflings into a pure breeding form, but this did not completely eliminate their divine bloodlines.
What's more when the Mulhorand Gods came back, Tiefling, Aasimar, and Humans Chosen acted as hosts for them.
And that is just a tip of the spear when it comes to Historical, Religious, and Cultural differences.
The Planescape Cosmology is right in the core books, any Planescape Campaign Book is just going to go into greater details, it's not going to rewrite the default Great Wheel Axis cosmology in favour of the old Great Wheel cosmology, because part of the function of Planescape utility is it's interconnectedness to other settings, so it has to use the default edition cosmology. And the Elemental Chaos is mentioned right in the core 5e books along with the old school type pure elemental/paraelemental planes, and the border elemental planes.
Bariurs are as simular to Centuars as Satyrs are to humans. In 5e terms Centaur are Fey, Bariurs would be Celestials. I think Bariurs are slightly smaller then Centaurs too, but I'm not a 100% on that.
We don't know how many changes came to Eberron after it originally won the contest, but we know it was a lot. The world wasn't even named yet. WotC definitely gets major credit for it, nearly as much as Keith Baker.
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Do you know what planescape is? It wouldn't take much to make it come to 5e. Descent into Avernus has information on how to run a game in the Nine Hells, and it doesn't take many pages from the book. They could make a book with player options taking up 1/3rd of the book, and then have the rest be planar information. Just look at how many pages of XGtE is dedicated to Player Options. They could easily make a Xanathar's 2.0 that has both a ton of player options and planar information.
Also, what do you even mean about "they will undoubtedly figure out a way to make sure that spell casting class remain unchanged." I don't have any idea what you're talking about here. Planescape doesn't change spellcasters in any significant mechanical way.
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