PLANE SHIFT: ZENDIKAR

April 28, 2016 8:09 AM

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

Direct link to the PDF

posted by griphus (38 comments total)

Is there a GURPS for this?

/ducks
posted by Artw at 8:17 AM on April 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

Surprised this method of cross-pollination was never used earlier. I know there was concern about "crossing the streams", but that was more about diluting the games themselves by having "MtG the RPG". Just giving some notes about using a Magic setting for a D&D game doesn't really hurt anyone.

It also helps that it is mostly just pulled from the Art of Zendikar book, matching the D&D team's motto: "As little effort as possible because we're just two guys in a broom closet."
posted by charred husk at 8:20 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Doesn't the Illuminati: New World Order CCG cross over into GURPS somehow?
posted by griphus at 8:20 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

They've been so wary about crossing the streams, I was surprised this was official. It's great though, definitely the best thing out of WotC this week.
posted by yellowbinder at 8:21 AM on April 28, 2016

Given that I am in the process of doing a bunch of world-building for a Magic-themed campaign (think kind of the various block settings meets Crisis on Infinite Worlds), this is extremely relevant to my interests.
posted by Tknophobia at 8:22 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Lost City of Planescape: Torment: Underdark - the Collectible Card Game.

I'm sold.
posted by GuyZero at 8:25 AM on April 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

I saw this yesterday and downloaded it today. I'm very excited about this, because while I have never been a fan of the gameplay of Magic: The Gathering, I have always been a fan of its different "planes" of game settings, and wanted to adapt them to an tabletop RPG setting. Guess someone at Wizards realized that they are potentially leaving money on the table by not doing this. I'd like to see them adapt Innistraad next, as I think that would work well with the new 5E Ravenloft adventure, "The Curse of Strahd."
posted by KingEdRa at 8:25 AM on April 28, 2016

I once found an extremely complicated TXT file on my computer as a teen that explained how the Go-bot and Transformer universes were connected and I'm still not sure if someone in my family wrote it.
posted by selfnoise at 8:30 AM on April 28, 2016 [8 favorites]

Griphus - there's a sourcebook. There's a sourcebook for everything...
posted by Artw at 8:32 AM on April 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Soon the power bloat of AD&D will meet the power bloat of MtG, becoming the second most ridiculous gaming product in the world.

If you want a good gurps book about the Illuminati, the Gurps IOU sourcebook is a fantastic, funny crackerjack of a product.
posted by boo_radley at 8:35 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

At this point, my gaming circles have taken to creating Apocalypse World hacks for basically whatever they/we want to play: Mass Effect RPGs, Shadowrun, superheroes, whatever.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 8:36 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

GURPS bunnies and burrows Is an actual thing - beat that, D20.
posted by Artw at 8:39 AM on April 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

I once found an extremely complicated TXT file on my computer as a teen that explained how the Go-bot and Transformer universes were connected and I'm still not sure if someone in my family wrote it.

They are officially connected now, both in-universe and legally, since Hasbro basically owns both sets of IP, with some complications on the GoBots side. The GoBots pages on the Transformers Wiki are both illuminating and snarky. From the page for Gargent, the GoBots parallel universe in the Transformers multiverse:

"Gargent" was made to invoke argentum, the Latin for "silver". As in, what's used to make second-place medals.

posted by jedicus at 8:46 AM on April 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Artw:

"GURPS bunnies and burrows Is an actual thing - beat that, D20."

D20 Bunnies and Burrows is a perfectly fun game, but you just have to accept that it has a different feel than the original. Instead of the whole "survival in a harsh world" element, you need to hone in more on action sequences like firing automatic weapons at cultists from the back of a speeding car.
posted by charred husk at 8:47 AM on April 28, 2016

One of the interesting side effects of MtG's multiverse is the variations of typical fantasy creatures that exist on each plane.

The vampires of Zendikar are not undead; but an actual race with the insect-like traits of a fertile caste and larger worker drones. The vampires of Innistrad are created by undergoing a dark ritual that grants immortality, not though the typical means of draining blood and resurrection.

It's almost as if in each plane of the MtG multiverse, there a niche that 'wants' to be filled by vampires , and they are all just examples of convergent evolution. The same with goblins, elves, etc.

It would make for a nice surprise for an adventuring party to somehow wander onto one of these planes for a short period of time and find their preconceived notions broken; how would the party handle suddenly finding that rebuke undead is not working against a zendikarian vampire.
posted by kzin602 at 9:36 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sandy Peterson's doing a Kickstarter to bring the Cthulhu Mythos to Pathfinder, so if you want Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath, and Nyarlathotep instead of Emrakul, Ulamog, and Kozilek go there.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:37 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's almost as if in each plane of the MtG multiverse, there a niche that 'wants' to be filled by vampires , and they are all just examples of convergent evolution.

Nosferatization
posted by griphus at 9:39 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

It would make for a nice surprise for an adventuring party to somehow wander onto one of these planes for a short period of time and find their preconceived notions broken; how would the party handle suddenly finding that rebuke undead is not working against a zendikarian vampire.

"Hey guys! Let's just stay with these elves while we try to understand this Ravnica place. What could go wrong? They're elves!"
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:39 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Speaking of Magic: The Gathering, there's a documentary out on Netflix and YouTube called Enter The Battlefield about a few professional players. It's all right.
posted by ODiV at 10:00 AM on April 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, if anyone wants details there have been a couple of "big" recent dust-ups involving Wizards of the Coast and the Magic community. Some judges for the game are suing WotC, claiming they are being treated as employees of WotC without being paid by or receiving benefits. More recently, WotC drastically cut the appearance fees the top professional players would receive for playing at Pro Tours, from $3,000 to $250 (along with some other changes), but then mostly rolled that back almost immediately due to community outcry.
posted by ODiV at 10:30 AM on April 28, 2016

Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering are two different games

Really? As a casual observer (I've played two D&D games in my life) and parent/funder of two MtG players, I find this to be kind of a stretch. Isn't MtG just a more carefully monetized & structured version of D&D? I know I'm glossing over a whole bunch of detail, but I'm asking about functional differences.
posted by sneebler at 10:48 AM on April 28, 2016

One's a collectible card game, the other's a pen-and-paper tabletop role-playing game. They're completely different formats, with drastically different numbers of adjectives in the format names.
posted by Apocryphon at 10:52 AM on April 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering are two different games

Prove it
posted by dry white toast at 10:57 AM on April 28, 2016

I was going to snark, but wait you might be onto something there
posted by Apocryphon at 11:05 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I know I'm glossing over a whole bunch of detail, but I'm asking about functional differences.

Functionally they're pretty different because one is a Card Game and one is a, for the lack of a better term, Imagination Game. The card game, as you might be aware (not sure how much interest you take), revolves around discrete, one-shot effects: spells, creatures, whatever. Just about all of them come out the same way (tapping mana) and the base rules of how the cards interact are symmetric for the players. For instance, just because I'm playing a green deck doesn't mean I get more mana from green land. I get the same as my opponent unless I cast a spell modifying something. You can take all the flavor off the cards and still play M:TG just fine as an abstract card game (this is how we played online in the Old Days of dial-up connections and Apprentice.)

D&D is much, much more asymmetric: there are different base rules for each class and how they interact is often as much creativity of the DM as it is following of the rules. You can strip the flavor off, but you're left with very, very little to actually work with.
posted by griphus at 11:14 AM on April 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

It's like the difference between poker and mystery dinner theater. Which, now that I think about it, wonder why there's no fantasy-themed version for the latter.
posted by Apocryphon at 11:15 AM on April 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Isn't MtG just a more carefully monetized & structured version of D&D?

This is like saying caterpillars and snakes are basically the same thing. No, no they are not. That said, sure, they're both games.
posted by GuyZero at 11:16 AM on April 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

D&D being a game is arguable, as there's no real rules for winning.
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:18 AM on April 28, 2016

oh no, there's a crusty rabbit hole of D&D Tournament Rules you can crawl down if you want
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:30 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Which, now that I think about it, wonder why there's no fantasy-themed version for the latter.

Tony 'n Tina's Red Wedding
posted by griphus at 11:36 AM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Isn't that what all the White Wolf stuff is?
posted by Zalzidrax at 11:47 AM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm surprised they're making this official. I would've expected homebrew rules to be all over the place. Although I suppose back when I was a kid, and M:tG was really taking off, there was a pretty hard bias against it with the tabletop crowd, so... maybe not? (One can argue all day about the specifics of nerd hierarchies, but they were certainly a thing in my day.)

D&D being a game is arguable, as there's no real rules for winning.

It's not arguable, no. Not all games are zero-sum.

Griphus - there's a sourcebook. There's a sourcebook for everything...

While the rules pedant in me wants to go on a ten page rant about problems with the GURPS paradigm over, say, HERO or FUDGE, their sourcebooks are full of wonderful things and that one is their crowning jewel. Worth the price for the cartoons alone.
posted by mordax at 12:24 PM on April 28, 2016

D&D being a game is arguable, as there's no real rules for winning.

I would say it's much clearer than that: D&D is definitely not a game. It has none of the structure of a game. There's no win state and there's no fail state. D&D is an exercise in improvisational theater and cooperative narrative building and also it's wonderful (play RPGs, everyone!), but it is definitely not a game. We only have the game nomenclature at all because Gygax and Arneson came to the design from a wargaming background and didn't know what else to call it.

Magic, on the other hand, is completely a game, and honestly aside from the sharing of broad fantasy concepts (and a publisher now) almost couldn't be more different from D&D. Magic is much more about concrete problem solving and competition and everything you do is about getting to a concrete predetermined endpoint. They're both a great deal of fun as long as everyone involved is interested in not being a jerk, but they are extremely different.
posted by IAmUnaware at 1:42 PM on April 28, 2016 [3 favorites]

Isn't that what all the White Wolf stuff is?

I've actually never LARPed (nor played a pen-and-paper game before, unless you count the board gamefied experience of Betrayal at House on the Hill), but I'm pretty sure Vampire: the Masquerade doesn't actually happen at mealtime, in a restaurant or a resort or on a boat. WHICH IT SHOULD
posted by Apocryphon at 1:45 PM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Really? As a casual observer (I've played two D&D games in my life) and parent/funder of two MtG players, I find this to be kind of a stretch. Isn't MtG just a more carefully monetized & structured version of D&D? I know I'm glossing over a whole bunch of detail, but I'm asking about functional differences.

In M:tG, players buy cards and assemble decks designed around certain strategies, and then sit down opposite each other and play the game, which is won by one player defeating the other. Decks may become more powerful over time via new purchases, trades, or winning cards in a duel. In general, the interaction of the cards is straightforward and resolvable through both players adhering to the rules of the game. There is strategy, there is randomness, there is cash outlay, there is a winner.

In D&D, players buy big expensive books and supplemental materials, including dice. One player becomes the DM and assembles adventures; the others assemble characters, usually in consultation with the DM. Characters will become more powerful over time via the awarding of experience points for taking part in adventures. Everyone comes together and plays through the adventure, using the abilities of their characters, their wits, and various levels of improv theatre to do so. The DM is intended as the neutral arbiter/interpreter of the rules, who describes the scene and setting, and then describes the results of the actions of the players and the responses of any foes/monsters/non-player characters; a good DM applies the rules fairly and, depending on their personal preferences and those of the group, may ignore, change, or alter rules to handle the moments where the rules conflict with each other, where the group has found itself in a situation that the rules don't cover, or if they conflict with the overall purpose of the game, which is "having fun". Each group may define "having fun" in its own way, and so each group will likely have different interpretations and applications of the rules, in addition to house or table rules that evolve over time, and the DM should be working with the players to ensure that the game matches what the players want, which can be a laundry list of non-mutually exclusive things like gritty, tactical combat or lots of "in character" play or lots of exploration and discovery of strange new worlds. There is strategy, there is randomness, there is cash outlay, but "winning" at D&D, at least from my perspective, is about everyone having a good time and feeling like they were involved. The focus of the game is on the shared & combined storytelling input of everyone at the table.
posted by nubs at 1:50 PM on April 28, 2016 [1 favorite]

Thanks! This makes sense: "D&D is an exercise in improvisational theater and cooperative narrative building and also it's wonderful (play RPGs, everyone!), but it is definitely not a game." Sorry about the AskMe...
posted by sneebler at 3:44 PM on April 28, 2016

I remember buying Dragon Magazine (and White Dwarf, obvs) back when MtG came out and I swear every issue had a pained letter in Sage Advice from a GM whose players just wanted to play Magic. Hard times!

I also remember TSR's riposte to MtG - Spellfire. Just about. It's actually super-impressive that Magic: The Gathering established itself so firmly as more than just a Pog-like fad, the same way the success of D&D isn't to be scoffed at.
posted by comealongpole at 6:57 AM on April 29, 2016

Almost everyone I've played MTG with has had like zero interaction with the lore. We're not telling a story together using the cards, we're just playing a competitive two player game. For most people the names and pictures help you remember what each card does, but it doesn't go much beyond that. Through the course of a game you might have rats wearing heavy armour and zombie fish enchanted to fly and none of it is given a second thought. Every once and a while someone will remark on the "flavour"-appropriateness of a play or interaction, but it's all far behind the game itself.

I'm sure it varies quite a bit between groups of players. Wizards of the Coast put a lot of emphasis on the art and lore, so they definitely think it's important. And really it's what drew me to the game in the first place. But I don't think I could play D&D that way. I imagine some have tried, but it doesn't sound fun at all.
posted by ODiV at 9:28 AM on April 29, 2016