Hasbro has got a great portafolio of IPs and franchises than have fallen into the oblivion but these could enjoy a new opportunity thanks D&D. For example C.O.P.S. redesigned to be part of "New Capena".
Or Micronauts could be reintroducted within Ravenloft in a wicked way. How? Easy, we strart with a group of heroic monster-hunters whose quest ends with a total killed party and a return in a inexpected way. The souls of those heroic monster-hunters are reincarnated within small action-figures. They are constructs and they don't need water or food but there are innocent children who need to be protected against werebeasts, hags and other supernatural predators.
The "Star Fairies" could be schoolgirls studing magic in Stryxhaven who are chosen to be "maho shojo" like Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure.
Moon Dreamers, Charmkins and Glo Friends could be domains of delight within "Witchlight".
The Inhumanoids are monsters that should be easy to be adapted into epic fantasy.
Jem and the Holograms could be an isekai comedy. The plot twist would be they weren't accidentally run over by a truck but this was an evil cybertronian/transformer using a ball of black energy to disintigrate them but really they were digitilally and sent to a virtual simulation style Tron.
Rom the space knight could be a "visitor" in Kamigawa: Neon Dinasty.
Robotix could be about a sword&sorcery world being discovered, explored and settled by the civilitation of "Visionaries", and when somebody explored an underground and secret temple the robotix who were hibernating in capsules, they wake up. The Terrakors actually awoke, but certain alarms were triggered, causing the Protectors to awaken from another secret refuge.In this post-apocaliptic world there is also M.A.S.K. vs V.E.N.O.M and both are the enemy of a Cobra-la global tiranny who rules all the planet.
Spiral Zone could be a child-friendly version of monster-plague apocalipse with touchs of new-weird-fiction. The infected wouldn't be undead but more elemental-touched or flesh mixed with psionic constructs. something like human turned monsters by the villains of "maho shojo" franchises.
This sounds like a load of soulless IP recycling for the sake of squeezing the last few pennies out of forgotten franchises, something that really gives me the ick
Also, for many of them, doing so would require completely changing them. D&D does a particular type of story. Jem and the Holograms, for instance, (which I believe is licensed out for comics, at the least) does not fit into that paradigm, and to do it would require changing most everything that people remember fondly about the show.
There's already more D&D material out there than WotC can publish meaningful amounts of support for. They don't need to spend development time on fitting all these square pegs into the round hole that they have, just to make something that will make them less money than a Grayhawk book would.
It's ok to let the past die. If you're really jonesing for a Jem and the Holograms fix, there are comic books out there to read. (Also a movie not that long ago.) Marvel just recently got the rights sorted to reprint their Micronauts and ROM comics.
If you really want your nostalgia fix in pog D&D form, you can do it for yourself. It'll probably come closer to hitting the notes you want it to hit than WotC could do, anyway.
This sounds like a load of soulless IP recycling for the sake of squeezing the last few pennies out of forgotten franchises, something that really gives me the ick
I'm glad you said this, because that was my 1st thought.
OP, while on the surface you think you have a great idea, let's look at the last time Hasbro did this.
Honestly I thought it was a good idea at the time, it was made in the 4th edition, and was timed perfectly to match with the hieght of Bronie culture. Yet somehow it flopped so hard you can still buy New In Box copies for retail prices 12 years later. To be clear they have not made them since 4th edition, yet the distrubuters still have them, they still sell enough of them to justify not sending them to landfill but not well enough to make more.
Had these sold well, we might have seen all the Hasbro IP made into souless D&D products. But no the experiment failed.
Also, for many of them, doing so would require completely changing them. D&D does a particular type of story. Jem and the Holograms, for instance, (which I believe is licensed out for comics, at the least) does not fit into that paradigm, and to do it would require changing most everything that people remember fondly about the show.
There's already more D&D material out there than WotC can publish meaningful amounts of support for. They don't need to spend development time on fitting all these square pegs into the round hole that they have, just to make something that will make them less money than a Grayhawk book would.
It's ok to let the past die. If you're really jonesing for a Jem and the Holograms fix, there are comic books out there to read. (Also a movie not that long ago.) Marvel just recently got the rights sorted to reprint their Micronauts and ROM comics.
If you really want your nostalgia fix in pog D&D form, you can do it for yourself. It'll probably come closer to hitting the notes you want it to hit than WotC could do, anyway.
I should point out D&D rules are setting agnostic, you can very easily convert D&D 5th edition into Sci-Fi, Modern, Space Opera, and other settings. People have been doing this for years, if you ever grab the Star Wars RPG from 2000 you will find it's just D&D 3rd edition repackaged as Star Wars, if you look at the new Exodusvideo game that is in development by Archetype & Wizards of the Coast, you will find out the sold out Exodus TTRPG being listed on their website. (Seriously I need these books, print more or sell the PDF!!)
It's basically D&D 5.5e all with a massive Sci-Fi gloss.
They could easily do this with all the Hasbro settings, and they wouldn't even need to use D&D staff to do it, they could just use a small team of game designers from the TTRPG community to make them, they could even lisence out the work to other publishers as right now there are more people writing D&D and TTRPG material then ever in history.
They shoved a spiderman Hotdog stand into MTG so i wouldn't be surprised if some of that had been floated. Don't particularly want any of it, but the game isn't made to cater to my tastes only, so I am not against it either.
Also a few of my friends have already made Jem and the Holograms in their "oops all bards" party so it very possible that people are already porting the IPs they like to it with official rules and Freerange flavor.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
D&D rules might be settings-agnostic but they're honestly rather terrible for use in things that are not high fantasy settings. D20 Modern and Star Wars D20 were experimentation on using the rules for other types of games and IIRC Star Wars D20 was regarded as okay while D20 Modern was largely ignored. Hasbro does have an RPG system out for GI Joe and Transformers that isn't based on 5E rules and I think that works a lot better than awkwardly shoving Inhumanoids or Micronauts into the D&D multiverse.
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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.
Hero Quest was a dead franchise but if the new edition has got so many expansions it should mean the sales are good. In a city where there is only one D&D fan several families have bought Hero Quest 2nd Ed for their children.
Some times to restore an old business where all the staff and stuff is ready is easier or cheaper than starting from zero. Today to be original is too difficult, and if you create something other could say it is plagiarism.
Sectaurs: warriors of Symbions, or Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones are two example more of forgotten IPs. The first could be a wildspace in Spelljammer and the second could be an astral domain or demiplane within Planescape setting. If the work is good the audience could allow a reimagination of the franchise. Let's remember the remake of She-ra and the power princesses. The remake of my little pony has been more popular than the original G1.
Those forgotten characters could be recycled to sell skins in Fortnite, for example, or licenced to comic publishers. With this strategy those IPs could recover brand power.
(How would be a Fornite game with M.A.S.K. vehicles?)
Also, for many of them, doing so would require completely changing them. D&D does a particular type of story. Jem and the Holograms, for instance, (which I believe is licensed out for comics, at the least) does not fit into that paradigm, and to do it would require changing most everything that people remember fondly about the show.
I should point out D&D rules are setting agnostic, you can very easily convert D&D 5th edition into Sci-Fi, Modern, Space Opera, and other settings. People have been doing this for years, if you ever grab the Star Wars RPG from 2000 you will find it's just D&D 3rd edition repackaged as Star Wars, if you look at the new Exodusvideo game that is in development by Archetype & Wizards of the Coast, you will find out the sold out Exodus TTRPG being listed on their website. (Seriously I need these books, print more or sell the PDF!!)
It's basically D&D 5.5e all with a massive Sci-Fi gloss.
They could easily do this with all the Hasbro settings, and they wouldn't even need to use D&D staff to do it, they could just use a small team of game designers from the TTRPG community to make them, they could even lisence out the work to other publishers as right now there are more people writing D&D and TTRPG material then ever in history.
You can do some other settings in D&D rules, but the fundamental assumptions of the game are an obstacle to many. The big ones are probably: classes, level progression, hit points, and combat focus.
And yes, you can change those mechanics until it fits, but by the time you get there for, say, Jem, you're not playing D&D anymore -- you're playing some other system that shares some resolution mechanics with D&D. (I believe that's what often happened in the D20 era, but I admit that I skipped all that.)
Hero Quest was a dead franchise but if the new edition has got so many expansions it should mean the sales are good. In a city where there is only one D&D fan several families have bought Hero Quest 2nd Ed for their children.
Some times to restore an old business where all the staff and stuff is ready is easier or cheaper than starting from zero. Today to be original is too difficult, and if you create something other could say it is plagiarism.
Sectaurs: warriors of Symbions, or Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones are two example more of forgotten IPs. The first could be a wildspace in Spelljammer and the second could be an astral domain or demiplane within Planescape setting. If the work is good the audience could allow a reimagination of the franchise. Let's remember the remake of She-ra and the power princesses. The remake of my little pony has been more popular than the original G1.
Those forgotten characters could be recycled to sell skins in Fortnite, for example, or licenced to comic publishers. With this strategy those IPs could recover brand power.
(How would be a Fornite game with M.A.S.K. vehicles?)
These are all very bizarre ramblings
I doubt there are enough (if any) cities where there's a meaningful population of people who play hero quest but no one who plays D&D.
The businesses and staff for these dead IPs are gone, they're not cryogenically preserved in some Hasbro warehouse
This is just trying to squeeze value out of dead IPs, likely to the detriment of D&D itself
This has nothing to do with D&D—tbh no one cares about these characters so why would they care about them as skins in D&D?
Any time Hasbro wants an RPG for one of their other IPs, GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony, etc, they’ve always farmed it out to Renegade Games under a license agreement. If they’re not putting their well known popular franchises in D&D they’re not going to do it with the obscure stuff
100% I do not want any of these until you can control what does or doesn't show up in the character builder for your campaign. Because it's hard enough repeatedly saying no to people asking for things like laser guns and pistols, and trying to manage spells, but until there's a book by book toggle of the official stuff, this would be wasted effort because so many people would avoid buying it.
They weren't great designs and used the older pony style that wasn't what bronies wanted. The MLP dice set from Hascon 2017 though was really nice. I still have mine displayed on my shelves with all my other TTRPG stuff.
We've all seen how Magic being crossed over with everything & their mothers worked out. Maybe DND is fine w/just Magic.
Let's keep official modules to WotC content only. I'd rather see a full Phrexyian invasion of the Forgotten Realms as a plot point after Ed Greenwood dies & his supreme continuity authority contract dies with him(No malice towards Greenwood(I'm critical of his work, but I don't hate him as a person), just the contract), than Rom(Who belongs back at Marvel along w/the Micronauts), Candy Land & Monopoly(Go!), let alone Marvel, Sonic, & so many other IPs that get slapped onto everything to the point of comedy(Though Pokemon might actually be interesting if they prune down the number of mons to cut out "modern" ones/reimagine some mons under DND lore...let alone a Warhammer 40k crossover's possibilities).
We've all seen how Magic being crossed over with everything & their mothers worked out. Maybe DND is fine w/just Magic.
This is not a particularly strong argument against crossovers - Magic’s introduction of Universes Beyond (for those who do not play, that is the term used for crossover sets) has been incredibly successful. Universes Beyond sets are consistently the best selling sets. They have brought more people into the Universes Within game by getting them interested in a game they otherwise might not have tried. They have produced a sets like LotR and Final Fantasy which were widely praised for their mechanics and Limited (formats where you build decks from random packs) environments. There have been some flops - but the two that really flopped both had design team problems that likely would (and have historically) resulted in a Universes Within set flopping.
By almost every metric, other than “purity of the game” arguments (that I expect, based on sales figures, is a dwindling minority of advocates), that Universes Beyond has “worked out” to use your terms. So, since you are arguing against crossovers… maybe “look at how wildly successful, especially using the benchmarks Wizards cares most about, these other crossovers have been!” is not the strongest argument in the world.
Now, I do think Magic and D&D are very different games, so I do not think the success of UB in Magic would similarly lead to success in D&D. Magic is primarily a mechanical game, where Wizards controls access to cards through its ban lists; D&D is a very lore-based game where DMs control access to mechanics. Magic also is completely compatible with other Magic cards because mechanics are the primary item of importance, whereas a Universes Beyond D&D product might not vibe with traditional D&D very well, such that it does not appeal to those running traditional D&D games, and might also lack the depth necessary to run a UB D&D game with that product, by not being compatible with the volumes of existing content.
So, while this might not be the best idea (though, frankly, I could care less if they did it - I can always exclude or reflavor the content from my home games, so it would have no effect on me), it is more important to point to the differences between D&D and Magic than just pointing to Magic, where Universes Beyond products have been extremely successful.
We've all seen how Magic being crossed over with everything & their mothers worked out. Maybe DND is fine w/just Magic.
So, while this might not be the best idea (though, frankly, I could care less if they did it - I can always exclude or reflavor the content from my home games, so it would have no effect on me), it is more important to point to the differences between D&D and Magic than just pointing to Magic, where Universes Beyond products have been extremely successful.
Of course, Magic uses extremely popular properties for the UB sets, not "let's shake the closet of old properties that most people have forgotten", which is what OP was suggesting. Micronauts Magic would probably not be a hot seller.
I do think Universes Beyond is not a great comparison point because of how it exists in relation to MtG. UB is basically just a "skin" on top of the mechanics of MtG with zero mechanical changes. This is evident from two points in MtG—the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths box toppers (and similar) cards, and the "Universes Within" sub-series.
The former were mechanical reprints of cards from the set Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths using art and "titles" of various godzilla monsters. However these cards were mechanically identical to their original versions. For example Godzilla, Doom Inevitable was mechanically identical to Yidaro, Wandering Monster from a games rules perspective—they'd count as the same card for all rules that care about that such as maximum copies and the legendary rule.
The latter are reprints of Universes Beyond cards such as those featuring IP such as Spider-Man, Avatar the Last Airbender, or The Walking Dead. However these cards feature new names and art that better grounds them within the Magic: the Gathering settings. This serves two purposes—appease those who don't want a Hot Dog Cart in their deck but want the mechanical benefits, and also get around limitations with what cards they can put on Magic Arena. So now for example, instead of Rick, Steadfast Leader, you have Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart.
The point I'm making here is that the IP "skin" on top of an MtG card is trivially replaceable but the same is not true with D&D where the "skin" is the game (in my opinion). For D&D the vast majority of people play to have their specific character interact with other specific characters in the context of a specific narrative to tell a story. Settings and in-game justifications exist explicitly for the purpose of explaining why two characters from different worlds can interact.
I used to work with some people who were very into MtG (as in representing the UK at Worlds into MtG) and one of them said something to me that stuck with me that I couldn't imagine a D&D player saying. To paraphrase if WotC stripped the cards of all art and flavour and narrative, so cards like Lightning Bolt and Craterhoof Behemoth were instead just called "Red Damage Spell 10" and "Large Green Creature 102", they'd be happier because it would make the game more efficient to play—all that fluff gets in the way.
D&D is the fluff. The mechanics just work to serve that fluff and give it some form of "validity" in the context of a game.
My viewpoint is the Exact opposite of Dayvd's. Flavor is free, mechanics are the 'agreement for play' at a table. The originator of this thread can have all the things they want by brewing them to fit into the ruleset, both mechanics and flavor wise. I really don't ascribe to Gygax's 'my way or the highway' attitude and am more in line with Arneson's freeform. You can have all the things you want at your table until the Official releases catch up.
Had a few games that I ran where such disparate things as; an Aliens Colonial Marine (artificer) an X-men Fire themed mutant (Draconic bloodline sorcerer red) a gardener (Fighter using a Scimitar reskinned as a Machete) and a normal Wizard (wizard) all playing in the same group and i didn't need to change any mechanics at all. Sure it would have fit better if i had, but they worked well enough to play without hitch.
D&D isn't the Fluff, it is a ruleset that works as a game-engine. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to help a bunch of extremely religious friends play 4E with a balanced party of Control-Wizard, cleric, Sorcerer and Palladin all of them re-flavored to be wielding Divine power. The rules didn't change, the fluff did. It was still D&D with a different Cosmology
Then we get into Mechanical Homebrew, which means the mechanics can be tweaked to fit the adapted source. It can be as small as "change this one damage type for this weapon" to making full on new components and mechanics for classes. The official stuff is a starting point, not the end.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
I think UB works because the IP are famous/mainstream in their own right and so serve as a jumping-on point for non-enthusiasts. Stuff like Micronauts and Inhumanoids and even Jem are far, far more niche than Spiderman, Final Fantasy, and LotR. People into those latter properties will be willing to try MTG to get more of the thing they love, people who love MTG will be willing to set aside any potential thematic clashes to get snazzy cards, and people who love both will basically be in heaven. The same likely wouldn't be true for the D-list IPs noted in the OP.
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Hasbro has got a great portafolio of IPs and franchises than have fallen into the oblivion but these could enjoy a new opportunity thanks D&D. For example C.O.P.S. redesigned to be part of "New Capena".
Or Micronauts could be reintroducted within Ravenloft in a wicked way. How? Easy, we strart with a group of heroic monster-hunters whose quest ends with a total killed party and a return in a inexpected way. The souls of those heroic monster-hunters are reincarnated within small action-figures. They are constructs and they don't need water or food but there are innocent children who need to be protected against werebeasts, hags and other supernatural predators.
The "Star Fairies" could be schoolgirls studing magic in Stryxhaven who are chosen to be "maho shojo" like Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure.
Moon Dreamers, Charmkins and Glo Friends could be domains of delight within "Witchlight".
The Inhumanoids are monsters that should be easy to be adapted into epic fantasy.
Jem and the Holograms could be an isekai comedy. The plot twist would be they weren't accidentally run over by a truck but this was an evil cybertronian/transformer using a ball of black energy to disintigrate them but really they were digitilally and sent to a virtual simulation style Tron.
Rom the space knight could be a "visitor" in Kamigawa: Neon Dinasty.
Robotix could be about a sword&sorcery world being discovered, explored and settled by the civilitation of "Visionaries", and when somebody explored an underground and secret temple the robotix who were hibernating in capsules, they wake up. The Terrakors actually awoke, but certain alarms were triggered, causing the Protectors to awaken from another secret refuge.In this post-apocaliptic world there is also M.A.S.K. vs V.E.N.O.M and both are the enemy of a Cobra-la global tiranny who rules all the planet.
Spiral Zone could be a child-friendly version of monster-plague apocalipse with touchs of new-weird-fiction. The infected wouldn't be undead but more elemental-touched or flesh mixed with psionic constructs. something like human turned monsters by the villains of "maho shojo" franchises.
This sounds like a load of soulless IP recycling for the sake of squeezing the last few pennies out of forgotten franchises, something that really gives me the ick
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Also, for many of them, doing so would require completely changing them. D&D does a particular type of story. Jem and the Holograms, for instance, (which I believe is licensed out for comics, at the least) does not fit into that paradigm, and to do it would require changing most everything that people remember fondly about the show.
There's already more D&D material out there than WotC can publish meaningful amounts of support for. They don't need to spend development time on fitting all these square pegs into the round hole that they have, just to make something that will make them less money than a Grayhawk book would.
It's ok to let the past die. If you're really jonesing for a Jem and the Holograms fix, there are comic books out there to read. (Also a movie not that long ago.) Marvel just recently got the rights sorted to reprint their Micronauts and ROM comics.
If you really want your nostalgia fix in
pogD&D form, you can do it for yourself. It'll probably come closer to hitting the notes you want it to hit than WotC could do, anyway.I'm glad you said this, because that was my 1st thought.
OP, while on the surface you think you have a great idea, let's look at the last time Hasbro did this.
Hasbro - Dungeons & Dragons MLP D&D Cutie Marks and Dragons - Roleplaying Game
Honestly I thought it was a good idea at the time, it was made in the 4th edition, and was timed perfectly to match with the hieght of Bronie culture. Yet somehow it flopped so hard you can still buy New In Box copies for retail prices 12 years later. To be clear they have not made them since 4th edition, yet the distrubuters still have them, they still sell enough of them to justify not sending them to landfill but not well enough to make more.
Had these sold well, we might have seen all the Hasbro IP made into souless D&D products. But no the experiment failed.
I should point out D&D rules are setting agnostic, you can very easily convert D&D 5th edition into Sci-Fi, Modern, Space Opera, and other settings. People have been doing this for years, if you ever grab the Star Wars RPG from 2000 you will find it's just D&D 3rd edition repackaged as Star Wars, if you look at the new Exodus video game that is in development by Archetype & Wizards of the Coast, you will find out the sold out Exodus TTRPG being listed on their website. (Seriously I need these books, print more or sell the PDF!!)
It's basically D&D 5.5e all with a massive Sci-Fi gloss.
They could easily do this with all the Hasbro settings, and they wouldn't even need to use D&D staff to do it, they could just use a small team of game designers from the TTRPG community to make them, they could even lisence out the work to other publishers as right now there are more people writing D&D and TTRPG material then ever in history.
They shoved a spiderman Hotdog stand into MTG so i wouldn't be surprised if some of that had been floated.
Don't particularly want any of it, but the game isn't made to cater to my tastes only, so I am not against it either.
Also a few of my friends have already made Jem and the Holograms in their "oops all bards" party so it very possible that people are already porting the IPs they like to it with official rules and Freerange flavor.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
D&D rules might be settings-agnostic but they're honestly rather terrible for use in things that are not high fantasy settings. D20 Modern and Star Wars D20 were experimentation on using the rules for other types of games and IIRC Star Wars D20 was regarded as okay while D20 Modern was largely ignored. Hasbro does have an RPG system out for GI Joe and Transformers that isn't based on 5E rules and I think that works a lot better than awkwardly shoving Inhumanoids or Micronauts into the D&D multiverse.
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.
Hero Quest was a dead franchise but if the new edition has got so many expansions it should mean the sales are good. In a city where there is only one D&D fan several families have bought Hero Quest 2nd Ed for their children.
Some times to restore an old business where all the staff and stuff is ready is easier or cheaper than starting from zero. Today to be original is too difficult, and if you create something other could say it is plagiarism.
Sectaurs: warriors of Symbions, or Golden Girl and the Guardians of the Gemstones are two example more of forgotten IPs. The first could be a wildspace in Spelljammer and the second could be an astral domain or demiplane within Planescape setting. If the work is good the audience could allow a reimagination of the franchise. Let's remember the remake of She-ra and the power princesses. The remake of my little pony has been more popular than the original G1.
Those forgotten characters could be recycled to sell skins in Fortnite, for example, or licenced to comic publishers. With this strategy those IPs could recover brand power.
(How would be a Fornite game with M.A.S.K. vehicles?)
You can do some other settings in D&D rules, but the fundamental assumptions of the game are an obstacle to many. The big ones are probably: classes, level progression, hit points, and combat focus.
And yes, you can change those mechanics until it fits, but by the time you get there for, say, Jem, you're not playing D&D anymore -- you're playing some other system that shares some resolution mechanics with D&D. (I believe that's what often happened in the D20 era, but I admit that I skipped all that.)
These are all very bizarre ramblings
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Any time Hasbro wants an RPG for one of their other IPs, GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony, etc, they’ve always farmed it out to Renegade Games under a license agreement. If they’re not putting their well known popular franchises in D&D they’re not going to do it with the obscure stuff
100% I do not want any of these until you can control what does or doesn't show up in the character builder for your campaign. Because it's hard enough repeatedly saying no to people asking for things like laser guns and pistols, and trying to manage spells, but until there's a book by book toggle of the official stuff, this would be wasted effort because so many people would avoid buying it.
They weren't great designs and used the older pony style that wasn't what bronies wanted. The MLP dice set from Hascon 2017 though was really nice. I still have mine displayed on my shelves with all my other TTRPG stuff.
We've all seen how Magic being crossed over with everything & their mothers worked out. Maybe DND is fine w/just Magic.
Let's keep official modules to WotC content only. I'd rather see a full Phrexyian invasion of the Forgotten Realms as a plot point after Ed Greenwood dies & his supreme continuity authority contract dies with him(No malice towards Greenwood(I'm critical of his work, but I don't hate him as a person), just the contract), than Rom(Who belongs back at Marvel along w/the Micronauts), Candy Land & Monopoly(Go!), let alone Marvel, Sonic, & so many other IPs that get slapped onto everything to the point of comedy(Though Pokemon might actually be interesting if they prune down the number of mons to cut out "modern" ones/reimagine some mons under DND lore...let alone a Warhammer 40k crossover's possibilities).
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
This is not a particularly strong argument against crossovers - Magic’s introduction of Universes Beyond (for those who do not play, that is the term used for crossover sets) has been incredibly successful. Universes Beyond sets are consistently the best selling sets. They have brought more people into the Universes Within game by getting them interested in a game they otherwise might not have tried. They have produced a sets like LotR and Final Fantasy which were widely praised for their mechanics and Limited (formats where you build decks from random packs) environments. There have been some flops - but the two that really flopped both had design team problems that likely would (and have historically) resulted in a Universes Within set flopping.
By almost every metric, other than “purity of the game” arguments (that I expect, based on sales figures, is a dwindling minority of advocates), that Universes Beyond has “worked out” to use your terms. So, since you are arguing against crossovers… maybe “look at how wildly successful, especially using the benchmarks Wizards cares most about, these other crossovers have been!” is not the strongest argument in the world.
Now, I do think Magic and D&D are very different games, so I do not think the success of UB in Magic would similarly lead to success in D&D. Magic is primarily a mechanical game, where Wizards controls access to cards through its ban lists; D&D is a very lore-based game where DMs control access to mechanics. Magic also is completely compatible with other Magic cards because mechanics are the primary item of importance, whereas a Universes Beyond D&D product might not vibe with traditional D&D very well, such that it does not appeal to those running traditional D&D games, and might also lack the depth necessary to run a UB D&D game with that product, by not being compatible with the volumes of existing content.
So, while this might not be the best idea (though, frankly, I could care less if they did it - I can always exclude or reflavor the content from my home games, so it would have no effect on me), it is more important to point to the differences between D&D and Magic than just pointing to Magic, where Universes Beyond products have been extremely successful.
Of course, Magic uses extremely popular properties for the UB sets, not "let's shake the closet of old properties that most people have forgotten", which is what OP was suggesting. Micronauts Magic would probably not be a hot seller.
I do think Universes Beyond is not a great comparison point because of how it exists in relation to MtG. UB is basically just a "skin" on top of the mechanics of MtG with zero mechanical changes. This is evident from two points in MtG—the Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths box toppers (and similar) cards, and the "Universes Within" sub-series.
The former were mechanical reprints of cards from the set Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths using art and "titles" of various godzilla monsters. However these cards were mechanically identical to their original versions. For example Godzilla, Doom Inevitable was mechanically identical to Yidaro, Wandering Monster from a games rules perspective—they'd count as the same card for all rules that care about that such as maximum copies and the legendary rule.
The latter are reprints of Universes Beyond cards such as those featuring IP such as Spider-Man, Avatar the Last Airbender, or The Walking Dead. However these cards feature new names and art that better grounds them within the Magic: the Gathering settings. This serves two purposes—appease those who don't want a Hot Dog Cart in their deck but want the mechanical benefits, and also get around limitations with what cards they can put on Magic Arena. So now for example, instead of Rick, Steadfast Leader, you have Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart.
The point I'm making here is that the IP "skin" on top of an MtG card is trivially replaceable but the same is not true with D&D where the "skin" is the game (in my opinion). For D&D the vast majority of people play to have their specific character interact with other specific characters in the context of a specific narrative to tell a story. Settings and in-game justifications exist explicitly for the purpose of explaining why two characters from different worlds can interact.
I used to work with some people who were very into MtG (as in representing the UK at Worlds into MtG) and one of them said something to me that stuck with me that I couldn't imagine a D&D player saying. To paraphrase if WotC stripped the cards of all art and flavour and narrative, so cards like Lightning Bolt and Craterhoof Behemoth were instead just called "Red Damage Spell 10" and "Large Green Creature 102", they'd be happier because it would make the game more efficient to play—all that fluff gets in the way.
D&D is the fluff. The mechanics just work to serve that fluff and give it some form of "validity" in the context of a game.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
My viewpoint is the Exact opposite of Dayvd's. Flavor is free, mechanics are the 'agreement for play' at a table.
The originator of this thread can have all the things they want by brewing them to fit into the ruleset, both mechanics and flavor wise. I really don't ascribe to Gygax's 'my way or the highway' attitude and am more in line with Arneson's freeform. You can have all the things you want at your table until the Official releases catch up.
Had a few games that I ran where such disparate things as; an Aliens Colonial Marine (artificer) an X-men Fire themed mutant (Draconic bloodline sorcerer red) a gardener (Fighter using a Scimitar reskinned as a Machete) and a normal Wizard (wizard) all playing in the same group and i didn't need to change any mechanics at all. Sure it would have fit better if i had, but they worked well enough to play without hitch.
D&D isn't the Fluff, it is a ruleset that works as a game-engine. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to help a bunch of extremely religious friends play 4E with a balanced party of Control-Wizard, cleric, Sorcerer and Palladin all of them re-flavored to be wielding Divine power. The rules didn't change, the fluff did. It was still D&D with a different Cosmology
Then we get into Mechanical Homebrew, which means the mechanics can be tweaked to fit the adapted source. It can be as small as "change this one damage type for this weapon" to making full on new components and mechanics for classes.
The official stuff is a starting point, not the end.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
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To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
I think UB works because the IP are famous/mainstream in their own right and so serve as a jumping-on point for non-enthusiasts. Stuff like Micronauts and Inhumanoids and even Jem are far, far more niche than Spiderman, Final Fantasy, and LotR. People into those latter properties will be willing to try MTG to get more of the thing they love, people who love MTG will be willing to set aside any potential thematic clashes to get snazzy cards, and people who love both will basically be in heaven. The same likely wouldn't be true for the D-list IPs noted in the OP.