[5E] Towards a new, better campaign setting.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The important part though is that under no circumstances should the Disciple of the Vault actually lose his powers just because someone killed Geth and set fire to The Vault. Clerics need to be reflavored as a bookish alternative to the Shaman rather than being a personal avatar of a much more powerful being.

That's pretty much what I'm advocating. Zeus can every now and then point at Maxwell and instantly make him go from a 1st level commoner to a level 18 badass angel knight, but Zeus can't kick him back down or make him lose his powers. Unless he sent some other avatar to kill Maxwell, but that's another story.

[JigokuBosatsu]

Well, definitely. I especially like the concept of the particular flavors of mana being the phlebotinum that powers class abilities as well as magic. So if your White deity is dethroned, you lose your connection to White mana and any of your abilities powered by such- at least until you can learn to tap it yourself. Sounds like a nice adventure-generating mechanic to me. Now you can have fallen paladins and clerics, but also fallen sorcerors, gadgeteers, goblin saboteurs... limited only by MC/player creativity.

And in other news, I'd tap that:

[/img][/spoiler]

[Vnonymous]

Remember that the ancient greek pantheon also included dudes like Hephaestion and Alexander - being a sufficiently awesome hero got you into the ranks of the divine in ancient greece (we're also pretty sure Alexander qualified)

[PhoneLobster]

Fuck. Is Frank pushing his "Magic the gathering as D&D" thing for this project.

Again.

Because seriously, if that gets any fucking leverage thats the end of this being worth a fuck to me and a good chance of it being worthless to the rest of us.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Yeah, we kind of humor Frank on that whole MtG thing. Not that there aren't some concepts we can't pull from it, but if MtG becomes the default setting of D&D then I'm willing to completely forgo playing any D&D game that uses it. So no point getting riled up about it. It's less of a 'OMFG how can those jackasses do that to my game' and more of a 'well, there is it, time to find a new hobby' moment.

Hopefully WotC will sell off D&D and we can forget this nonsense forever.

[PhoneLobster]

I have no problem with Magic as A setting... for a WOTC produced D&D title.

But it should not be the "core" setting, and unless you are WOTC it shouldn't even be one of SEVERAL "core" settings. No elements from magic should be imported to core, no part of Core should be dependent on magic setting ideas.

And if you are talking about a potential community developed D&D title, which we know is what Lago is promoting here, then you are only risking shooting yourself in the foot with a cease and desist by even publicly speculating on how to use Magic in your project.

Also lots of people fucking hate Magic, and the strange inward looking community that plays it. So you know. There is that too.

[Sashi]

The one benefit of making a M:tG campaign setting would be that TONS of annoying little shits kids play M:tG, and that's the demographic that new players are going to come from. The old grognards are all too busy furiously masturbating to their intricate houserules or favorite retro-clone to even give a damn about any RPG published in the current millennium.

[Username17]

What the "core" setting is doesn't make fuck all difference for people who play in their own sandboxes. I don't run games "In Eberron" like, at all. I don't run things "In Greyhawk" and never have.

The core setting really only matters for purposes of what gods and prestige classes get into the core books, and for purposes of WotC owned settings, what art they can recycle.

Magic the Gathering has had thousands of high quality art pieces produced for it already, and produces hundreds more every year. Putting a M:tG world in as "the standard world" would allow the PHB and DMG to be filled with art that is higher quality than what we are getting now and free.

And the cost would be... that you'd want to include prestige classes like "Vulshok Sorcerer". Is that any stupider than including "Red Wizard" in the DMG? Really?

-Username17

[Ferret]

We would indeed see some knee-jerk reactions like Lago quitting D&D, and I'd be sad to see them go.

But Frank is right. Magic: The Gathering provides a phenominal concept and art mine, and as Sashi notes it provides an ever-renewing pool of potential new players as long as the you roll out a new Campaign book every year or two years to keep the RPG covering the same world as the CCG.

It also provides a relatively rigorously tested magic system - I wouldn't mind at all giving magic users a Mana score and literally having them use the Tap-and-cast mechanic.

We can even normalize to some other Magic conventions pretty transparently: Medium creatures get 20 Hit Points (hit boxes) as per the normal Magic rules, etc.

[Username17]

For example, here are the amazing things that would happen to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting should the next edition be written to be M:tG compatible:

• Since Catfolk and Goblins would be core races, you would make sure to include Chult and the Sword Coast as places to set your campaign. Which you were probably going to do anyway.
• Since you would have 5 schools of magic instead of 8, you'd have 5 Zulkirs instead of six and two empty slots because you couldn't be fucking bothered to write the extra two.
• Since you'd be operating with a different alignment system and a new color wheel, you'd have Maglubiyet be his own god again like he was in 3e instead of being a disciple of Bane like he was in 4e, and Clerics (and everyone else because this is FRCS) would have to go get new gods and domains because you'd have reassigned all the gods. Again. Because you've done that every single edition.
• Loxos would be portrayed with only one trunk like they are in M:tG, rather than two trunks like they are in the Shaar book.
• The thing that Thultanthar does with the dimension shifting would be called "Phasing".
• Sample characters would appear who had the new Warrior, Archer, Berserker, Soldier, Artificer, Knight, and Shaman Classes. They would largely replace (or be) characters who appeared in 3e with the Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, or Sorcerer Classes.
• The bonus core class in the Forgotten Realms book would be the Paladin, since in the basic book "Paladin" would just be a title that Knights get.

And... that's basically it. M:tG just isn't very intrusive into the actual RPG because it's a relatively high point of view card game. The 3e Oriental Adventures book did not suffer from having a Rokugan point of view back when WotC owned the license to that card game, and it wouldn't suffer from bing linked to their Kamigawa M:tG setting.

Linking the OA book to Rokugan garnered them some awesome art and was relatively unobtrusive. And the inclusion of Mirrodin or Zendikar as a default setting would likewise hurt nothing. Keep in mind: I haven't played M:tG for years, and I don't follow their plotlines. I never followed their plotlines, because I don't care. Just like I don't follow the Forgotten Realms plotlines because I don't care. The bottom line is that the generic fantasy locations and maps you provide are mostly a help in jumpstarting your own ideas rather than actually being a thing to care over much about. The fact is that choosing these fantasy locations based on things your company has already commissioned high quality portraits of for other reasons is simply good sense.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

I know it's rather sad news to be pointing out, but art is cheap. And you will have a better and more respected product with NEW art, even if you made the D&D Magic edition, if you wanted the magic players to respect it and care about it you would still use new art, and indeed better art.

As for the "gold mine" of new players...

I call total and utter bullshit.

Magic players already have any number of opportunities to branch into role playing and other gaming. D&D is ALREADY close enough by a long shot to their generic ass fantasy crap.

What overlap between the magic community and the D&D community that doesn't ALREADY exist do you imagine you will attract with a brand name magic setting?

Here is what you get, whatever TINY market of magic players who would ALMOST play D&D but don't already, plus maybe some sales on the side of campaign books to magic players who already play D&D but would not normally buy a campaign book.

If you are WOTC it is probably worth it as a splat book/splat campaign book. Hell it would have made any amount more sense than Eberron. But does it make more sense than a Forgotten Realms campaign book? Almost certainly not.

[Username17]

If you are WOTC it is probably worth it as a splat book/splat campaign book. Hell it would have made any amount more sense than Eberron. But does it make more sense than a Forgotten Realms campaign book? Almost certainly not.

Well, you would also make a Forgotten Realms book. But here's the problem right now: there are almost six M:tG players for every 4e D&D player right now. If they made a "World of Mirrodin" book that had preview art for the next couple of expansions in it and shit, the "crossover" purchasers - the M:tG players who bought it in order to have a more complete Card Game Experience would actually exceed the number of D&D players who purchased it because it included the Archer and Berserker class.

Just as it would exceed the number of D&D players who actually bought the 4e Forgotten Realms books because they included the Spellsword class.

I don't think you fully appreciate how many more Magic players there are than D&D players right now.

-Username17

[erik]

Not that there aren't some concepts we can't pull from it, but if MtG becomes the default setting of D&D then I'm willing to completely forgo playing any D&D game that uses it. So no point getting riled up about it. It's less of a 'OMFG how can those jackasses do that to my game' and more of a 'well, there is it, time to find a new hobby' moment.

Because seriously, if that gets any fucking leverage thats the end of this being worth a fuck to me and a good chance of it being worthless to the rest of us.

Why the hate for M:tG as a setting? It is a fantasy setting, has a few different flavors/mechanics, and has a very large following.

The more I consider a M:tG setting and basis for DnD 5e, the more appealing it becomes. It has just the right amount of reboot that might make me love DnD again.

[Sashi]

Why the hate for M:tG as a setting? It is a fantasy setting, has a few different flavors/mechanics, and has a very large following.

One reason to get your hate on for using the M:tG setting in an RPG is that the fluff of the game produces gigantic penis wizards in its continuity basically by accident.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Then gosh, why not make the default setting of D&D Final Fantasy or World of Warcraft or some unholy amalgamation of Dragon Quest in that case? Even MOAR players than M:tG. Yes, you'd need licensing money for it, but if D&D was able to do WoW they can do it again.

[erik]

So he have "penis wizards" and "LOL no" as the two objections. Penis wizards is a valid objection, though it doesn't sound any different than Forgotten Realms on that basis.

I suppose part of my verve for DnD:tG is that I know almost nothing about the Gathering setting and thus it is mostly a blank slate. There's various factions and agents, and they conquer land to tap it for uber magical powa.

If a verbatim M:tG setting is unappealing, I could still totally dig having an alternate universe which uses the same themes (colored mana, same creatures, etc.), but is a fresh start. It keeps some of the familiarity without being locked in to whatever undesirables existed.

[K]

Fantasy RPGing will always have penis wizards, and any setting that gets more than one novelization will fill up with various high-level NPCs who will make the PC's adventures pale in comparison, so that's not an argument for or against any setting.

I still don't think Magic will draw people in as a RPG setting. I mean, CCG players do overlap on the Venn diagram with RPGers, but considering that in almost every game I've played in DnD it was a homebrew I don't have a lot of faith in any setting bringing in new players. I mean, RPGs overlap with football fans but I don't see a lot of football-based RPGs cluttering the shelves. Sometimes a combination of two popular things is not like peanut butter and chocolate, but peanut butter and whiskey.

I mean, WotC was brilliant when they stumbled on the model of "some setting fluff, some crunchy must-have options for your character, and some adventure hooks" as a model for selling books, and I don't see that model being tied to any particular setting.

[PhoneLobster]

considering that in almost every game I've played in DnD it was a homebrew I don't have a lot of faith in any setting bringing in new players.

This is why your ideal settings are full of things which are highly loot-able tool boxes usable by players and GMs not actually using the setting as printed.

Ideally your settings should look a lot like the sorts of settings GMs tend to make as homebrews and should cover some interesting ground like "D&D only in a desert" or "D&D on pirate ships!" with a bunch of interesting and relevant rules, monsters and character options that could be used in any campaign that even VISITS a pirate ship or desert.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So he have "penis wizards" and "LOL no" as the two objections.

Okay, here are two more.

My two main objections against using another license as the basis for the default campaign setting is this:

1) It gives too much ammunition to detractors. Surely you remember all of the '4E is WoW!' complaints leveled against the game. I can see the canned complaint right now: 'WotC is so fucking desperate that they're trying to shoehorn in a successful CCG for their RPG. 5E is M:tG!' Whether or not it's true doesn't mean that it won't have traction. While it's true that knee-jerk haters will find any excuse they can get for their hating, the fact is that if the excuse is 'solid' enough it'll pollute the minds of people who are neutral or indifferent to the product. '4E wanks too much to a low power level' or '4E enforces too much racial segregation', while a valid complaint, does not poison the well as much as '4E is WoW!' Similarly, '5E has too many cyborgs' or '5E's geography is dumbed down' simply just does not have the same punch as '5E is trying to sneak in a CCG!'

Sound bites, people.

2) It's fucking lazy. I'd rather build up a setting from scratch because if you have a licensed product you have to include stupider elements from it for your setting which they will invariably have. Hopefully the fun elements will draw in enough people to play.

But seriously, all of the cool things that I've heard about Magic the Gathering are not very unique at all (oooh, ooh, color continents, that sounds just like the elemental continents I proposed right in this thread) or are visually oriented. From what I've seen in this thread there's not a unique 'M:tG' hook that's worth porting over to the setting that can only exist if you bring the rest of the CCG over.

[For Valor]

I honestly don't think "4e is WoW!" really affected a large number of peoples' buying choices... The people who were receptive of that kind of argument were the same people who already hated 4e for whatever reason and just wanted more ammunition to throw.

Saying "5e is MtG!" honestly won't hurt sales much. The people against 5e (for whatever reason) will yell it, and the people who like it will be like "Yes it is. Why do you give a damn?"

EDIT: "4e is WoW" came from game mechanics. "5e is MtG" will come from flavor. One of these carries much less magnitude.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I honestly don't think "4e is WoW!" really affected a large number of peoples' buying choices...

I think that this is optimistic to the point of naive. Neutral or indifferent people are very receptive to sound bites, true or not.

and the people who like it will be like "Yes it is. Why do you give a damn?"

Really? Do you think that they'll like it or that it'll just be something that people put up with because D&D is the biggest game in town?

EDIT: "4e is WoW" came from game mechanics. "5e is MtG" will come from flavor. One of these carries much less magnitude.

And I'm so sure that the average, on-the-fence gamer will notice and care about the difference.

[For Valor]

I don't know a lot of average, on-the-fence gamers who make their decisions based on sound bites. I mean, that kinda works for politicians (in the USA, at least) because it's like "SENATOR X IS A SATAN-WORSHIPPER" and, well, that's a big claim that sticks in peoples' minds.

"4e is WoW!" was not the decision-maker for any of the people I play D&D with. Most people I knew who chose 3.5e did so because I owned the books and I told them to. They wanted to play 4e even after I explained how much bullshit there was in the game, because 4e was "half an edition ahead". And the people who play 4e at my school do so because they think its better.

I'm pretty sure, out of all the people I've tried to convince about D&D (granted, that isn't a lot of people... 30-ish), maybe 1 chose 3.5e because "4e is WoW".

[Lago PARANOIA]

If gamers didn't respond to sound bites and glitz then 3.5E would've been the massive failure it deserved to be, since that revision was a downgrade on almost every level. If 3.5E didn't have 'harm/haste/heal are fixed' or the more generic '3.5E is more balanced!' it wouldn't have had anything going for it.

There's my proof that gamers respond to sound bites more than reasoned arguments. Rebuttal?

[For Valor]

Rebuttal using a different argument:

If we're going to talk about sound bites in general, then "5e is MtG!" should be taken into consideration with "5e is flexible!" and "5e is user-friendly!"

3.5e had its positive sound bites, as well as its negative ones. Same with 4e. Unless you can show that "5e is MtG" will have a profound negative effect, it shouldn't be included in 5e's advertising net ionic equation.

[Sashi]

M:tG doesn't just have penis wizards, it's a setting that's literally about penis wizards walking through the planes and warring with each other.