MtG meets D&D

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**Manchu**

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

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

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

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

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

We'd love your feedback on Plane Shift: Zendikar!

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/plane-shift-zendikar-2016-04-27

**Sinful Hero**

Eh, I was never interested in Zendikar. Now, if it were Mirrodin, Kamigawa, or Ravnica I'd be all over that like white on rice.

Zendikar just seemed so boring.

**jmurph**

Yeah, Zendikar always seems like kind of a generic fantasy place so they can have the major trope tribes and add in some extradimensional threats (who come across more goofy than Lovecraftian IMHO).

Innistrad I liked. But the return is shifting it into more of a high/generic fantasy concept. Previously it was pretty much everything preying on humans, but Avacyn was an (artificial) bright spot that they could naively hope upon. Now, it's evil, corrupted angels turning on humanity (which is fine) causing a team up of werewolves, vampire, men, etc. against the new threat. I hate the superfriends vibe. It robs a lot of the grimness from the setting. Oh and now troperific grim good guy vampire planeswalker (who is handsome with white hair, natch) is back to find out what's going on and face off against his betrayed protégé. So, superheroes basically Yawn. At least the prior sets focused on more or less normal people struggling to survive against supernatural predators and awaken a divine patron (which turned out to be more than they bargained for). Much more dark/low fantasy.

**thekingofkings**

Dominaria would have been more ideal with its old lore.

**penguini3**

thekingofkings wrote:
Dominaria would have been more ideal with its old lore.

I definitely agree

**Bran Dawri**

It's the same with the planeswalkers and colours in general. They used to all have identities and conflicts; now it's basically Yay! Superfriends. Hugs and hearts all around.

Booooring!

**Ahtman**

When I played Magic no one knew or cared about the lore and we walked both ways uphill in the snow to play games, not tournaments. dagnabbit.

**Orlanth**

Wizards have largely neglected D&D in favourof Magic. Up to the point when in 2014 they pissed on a lot of the fanbase by saying in convention press conference that the were only willing to talk about Magic and not "D&D next". They refused every and all questions, inluding ones on supply issue for 4e. They just were not interested.

Shovelling MTG fluff into D&D could end up a way of marginalising D&D into a support vessel for magic. While 5e has been good support has been thin on the ground, core publications have been quality, bt not reinforced like 3e or 3.5e was. The scenario packs are glossly hardback magazines with very little usable content, or mechanics, just flavour text.

I will look at the new D&D Innistrad with a heavy dose of scepticsm.

**jmurph**

I wonder if it's because D&D just isn't very profitable and Magic is like printing money?

Still, it seems like you would want to do *something* with the grand daddy of RPGs.

**LordofHats**

I would echo that Zendikar is not a setting that interests me (didn't it get blown up or something recently anyway?). Innistrad or Ravnica would definitely have interested me enough to try.

**Manchu**

Then you are in luck:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/696479.page

**Orlanth**

jmurph wrote:
I wonder if it's because D&D just isn't very profitable and Magic is like printing money?

Still, it seems like you would want to do *something* with the grand daddy of RPGs.

Compared to Magic cards, D&D is not as profitable, but it is profitable and well received. There is a market for 5e.

Reissuing Forgotten Realms books for 5e to the extent the did for previous editions would be a start. Either that or Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft or Greyhawk.

Also most players don't play Magic for the fluff, and it is in fact quite meaningless, as you can mix anything with anything at any scale. As a result all most players are aware of is th title of the current edition, not anything it supposedly stands for.

**Manchu**

All 5E books are FR books nowadays; Faerun is the default setting.

IME MtG fluff always sounds a lot better scattered across cards and embedded in artwork than written out as a narrative.

**Orlanth**

Manchu wrote:
All 5E books are FR books nowadays; Faerun is the default setting.

I think this is nominal at best. the product list is very thin.

**LordofHats**

Manchu wrote:
Then you are in luck:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/696479.page

Can I be a Werewolf? please say yes.

**Ahtman**

Orlanth wrote:
Manchu wrote:
All 5E books are FR books nowadays; Faerun is the default setting.

I think this is nominal at best. the product list is very thin.

They are probably trying to avoid the avalanche of splat books that characterized 3/3.5 and 4. I'm sure for some it was a collectors paradise but overall it probably turned many away.

**infinite_array**

Concerning Zendikar: our on/off D&D group ran a one-shot through a Zendikar base scenario. Our DM came up with a great idea - a grid map with floating islands, corresponding to the five types of mana, which moved as the party met with an encounter on each island. The objective was to get to the other side of the map to stop a demon from siphoning power from a group of hedrons.

Highlights of the game included our goblin warlock battling another demon as a giant crocodile, a panicked escape from a group of ambushing trolls, and an encounter with a Deck of Many things, which allowed us to skip past half the grid to the final boss, who was taken down via a dogpiling of polymorphed T-rex. My grapple-focused vampire monk managed to land the killing blow.

**Manchu**

Making FR the default setting has only highlighted the fact that FR was extremely generic to begin with - honestly, it has basically no edge, in terms of distinctiveness, over Greyhawk. But in fairness, these Zendikar and Innistrad PDFs are the closest thing to (non-FR) campaign settings WotC has offered for 5E.

As far as the pace of releases, I am pretty sure WotC invests basically nothing into D&D. I think they bothered with 5E to save the brand for licensing purposes. Even so, the fact that it immediately and consistently beats Pathfinder in the ICv2 rankings is telling about the state of the RPG market.

**jmurph**

Ahtman wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
Manchu wrote:
All 5E books are FR books nowadays; Faerun is the default setting.

I think this is nominal at best. the product list is very thin.

They are probably trying to avoid the avalanche of splat books that characterized 3/3.5 and 4. I'm sure for some it was a collectors paradise but overall it probably turned many away.

But surely without some product support the lines wither? Updating the old standbys (FR, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, etc.) seems like a no brainer. Expanding the settings is great because it develops the IP. Overloading on new races/classes/skills/feats/whatever seems to be what breaks the game.

**Orlanth**

Yep more scenarios, less prestige classes.