So There I Was

The internet is a thing that exists and it has an amazing breadth of readable content, if you can stop looking at boobs for a few minutes.

I'm a forever DM, out of choice. I love running games for people more than I'd like to play a character in one, for the most part. And when that urge strikes, I usually look for DM-less games like Fallout WW where the system has an AI and we can all play co-op. My players can depend on me to put some effort into whatever I'm doing, whether it was the DnD campaign from here or the long-lost memories of Aeon/Trinity, or a Chronicles of Darkness one-shot or even turning a wargame like BattleTech into a more narrative experience, etc. True/non-neckbeard DMs do it out of love, not out of a power trip.

I assume. The internet is rife with DMs that seem like huge pricks and I do my best to avoid that, but that also usually means accommodating player requests that I might not really be gung ho about. And I assumed that's the diametrically opposed choices I have when setting up a campaign or a chronicle. Given that most of my friends, if not all, that game are players and not DMs, it seemed like a normal and logical "either/or" situation.

Then I met Ian, my sister-in-law's DM.

Couple of prefacing points here. I'm, sadly, not super BFF close with my SiL, so I don't know how long her DnD group has been together, though I'm fairly certain they've all been friends forever (at least judging by their elf), and I gotta imagine they've been spelunking in the darkest depths together for years. I also don't know how long Ian has been their DM or a DM in general. Also, this was at a last-shebang party party at a hotel as a going away brouhaha before the building was to be demolished (it was our con hotel) and, well, let's just say sobriety and I had split fairly quickly from one another that day.

So I might not have presented myself as the most eloquent version I can be. Fortunately, he was either really patient, or also mildly inebriated, or a combo thereof which seems the most likely. In any case, he seemed like a super good guy.

And since he was introduced to me as my SiL's DM, at a time when I was drinking and frustrated, boy did I have a conversation with him.

So there I was, meeting another DM in person, and immediately had to jump into "lemme -slur- ask you a question..."

It was about Tieflings, and how they've exploded in popularity thanks to Critical Role, and how we really wish they wouldn't have. Okay, maybe I was bitter that night, but we were in agreement on three things;

1) Not every party needs a Tiefling, please.
2) Fuck Matt Mercer.
3) Elves are cocksleeves.

OKAY SO I NEED TO ELABORATE.

1) I know that it's a personal issue with me at this point, but even before it became so, I was already swinging this way. As a DM, if you're going "by the book" in how they're written up, Tieflings should generally be treated like shit by everyone, instantly distrusted wherever they go, and for the most part, have a huge uphill battle to be accepted by anyone. And if writing fiction, that's perfect. Farideh from the Brimstone Angels series is a great Tiefling character and she goes from adversity to adversity over the course of the books. But, on the tabletop, I can't imagine a player would be comfortable with their character constantly being the DM's punching bag, so you gotta sorta... Show a bit of out-of-universe favoritism there. Which also limits character growth and definitely leads to some Mary Sue-isms. Just saying. So I made the call of "never again," and Ian totally agreed with my logic.Also with taking on a disability.

There's nothing wrong with being inspired by a character in pop culture. There's lots of "how to play as..." videos out there covering building DnD characters based on different archetypes and I would totally let someone play a Trevor Belmont type in an Innistrad campaign in a heartbeat. Hell, I'll let you build a dhampir and a soul sorceror & run Alucard and Sypha as well. Believe it! Just... Be creative instead of a straight reskin.

2) I love Matt Mercer. He's a great dude and an awesome voice actor. And Critical Role, along with other "actual plays" have done more to popularize DnD since 5e came out than... Well, the entire history of DnD before. Note - I've only -run- 5e, but I used to read the books and stuff from 3e/3.5e/4e and just didn't get into them like I did with 5e. So I have no beef with Matt as a human (but if I'm being honest and had to choose, Joe Manganiello is my pick for GOAT and not just because Alcide was my favorite character from True Blood) but as a DM that has people looking towards them expecting Matt Mercer-level DMing, oof, fuck that guy. Not sure how many times I have to preface it - Matt is an exceptional DM, and his group of friends are lucky to have him, but he's also made serious bank off of Critical Role and with his professional career, he can focus a LOT of time and effort into making CR the best it can be. And he has a large amount of player-driven narrative with his team. And scripts. I'm sorry, but yes, there are scripts. It's okay. Nothing wrong with it. Just saying. So the tl;dr here is that you CANNOT expect a guy who is doing this in his free time, with fifty other hobby endeavors and a full time 40+ a week job and a family life to produce Critical Role quality stuff. All I can do is my best and that's a lot of pressure to measure up against. 

3) Okay, I say this jokingly because elves in popular media are just so... Cocksleeve-y. And there are Goblin Slayer memes that reinforce this. Maybe it's all the anime, but other than Ryuu in the Picking Up Chicks in a Dungeon show, I've never been overly fond of any elf character. Legolas? Nah. Never heard of her. But it was really just joking back and forth, and even their elf player laughed. So good times.

Anyway, it's nice to have in person conversations with other DMs. I'm gonna try to do it more often.

The Pros of the Cons and the Cons of the Pros

I miss DnD. Not the group. At all (this is a lie, slightly). But the game. Despite the fact that it is basically like having a second full time job, I miss the hell out of running DnD. I love BattleTech, and I'd be down to run games of Fallout or any of the dozen RPGs on my bookshelves any time, yet nothing is as "DM-friendly" as DnD 5e w/the huge amount of current support and continuing product releases and whatnot.

Or maybe that's because I didn't do any older editions and fantasy isn't usually my genre of choice so compared to a World of/Chronicles of Darkness game or getting people into Legend of the Five Rings, A Time of War, or Fallout 2d20, 5e -seems- more friendly.

Either way. Not really my point here.

When I do run DnD again, with whatever group I end up building or finding, I very much want to run a magic-themed campaign world based upon one of the planes (though I wouldn't be opposed to returning to the Realms) and featuring NPCs that at least some of my players will likely recognize, or at least the ones that play MtG. So, I have the following as options in my head currently;

Dominaria
Innistrad
Ixalan
Theros
Ravnica
Whatever Plane Strixhaven is on
Zendikar

That's not an exhaustive list of planes, or even an exhaustive lists of ones that have art books and tons of information out there for, just the ones that I'm looking at for running games. Kamigawa I dismissed outright since L5R would scratch that itch. Mirrodin/New Phyrexia doesn't appeal to me for DnD. I don't know enough about Lorwyn or whatever plane Thrones of Eldraine was on, same with the plane that Conspiracy is on, which I can't be assed to just Google the answer for. Ikoria and Kaldheim both super appeal to me but they also feel much less established w/only one set for each. Homelands would almost have been a cool setting, and I'm pretty sure I have a couple full sets of it, for the all of $20 they're worth though I'm pretty sure Innistrad does the vampire stuff better. But that's all digression and the seven above are really only in contention (and even then, some not entirely all that much).

So pros and cons and whatnot of each, just to think aloud, and try to puzzle through which I'd like to run/which would be easiest for players to get into.

Miniatures are a big pro/con regardless of setting. If I don't have minis that I like that'd work, it's kind of a bummer. I like minis and terrain and maps and visual representation. It's my DM style.

Dominaria

As the "original" Magic plane, Big D has a LOT of background information so little scratch homebrew work is needed on that front. Plus, it's as close to a "normal DnD/Forgotten Realms-esque" setting as it comes, with most of the big popular character options easily presentable. Tieflings aren't there, I don't think, but I wouldn't allow one in my future games anyway, so that's moot. But most races/classes would work just fine with only a few tweaks here and there. There are multiple points of history that a campaign could be set in, from the Thran Empire to The Brother's War, to the Ice Age, to everything that came after up to and including the most recent set released there. But this is also kind of a con, as information that was totally valid for 4th edition MtG was later dashed during the Urza's Sage block/not to say anything of the later Phyrexian invasion and whatnot. Plus, a lot of the later content, I wasn't actively playing MtG for and there's a big disconnect for me from US to the latest set. But with the art book and the internet, anything is possible. Also, always found it weird that Urza "planeswalked" all over, but like Shiv and Tolaria are considered "on" Dominaria so... Yeah.

Innistrad

This is the current frontrunner in my head. I love Innistrad. It's my favorite MtG plane and the reason I came back to Magic after a long, lone hiatus (Urza's Destiny was the last set I bought boosters from until Dark Ascension). The gothic styling and preponderance of weird horror stuff just speaks to my soul. Werewolves, vampires, zombies galore, etc. Not only is there a current set coming out with another right behind that (Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow), making it "fresh" in the hearts and minds of people, but the last Innistrad block was heavily Lovecraftian with Emrakul the Eldrazi titan, and y'all know I love me some cosmic horror. Buuuut the downside is that Innistrad is also a very heavily human-oriented plane. It -might- be acceptable to squeeze in an Aasimar (or a Tiefling, but again, banned) and the "lineages" from Van Richten's would certainly fit the theme, but otherwise, we're looking at either variant human rules or the "regional" human rules from the Planeshift Innistrad article. There's a ton of lore information, an artbook, the planeshift article, and multiple full blocks to draw inspiration and stories from, as well as a wealth of fan stuff online like maps and adventures. It's just the "can my players just play humans from different areas instead of needing to be super extra rare one-off sparkly subtype of this one race made trendy due to popculture?" stumbling block, as well as limiting certain class options to be thematically on point. Bards are fairly uncommon and the "suggestions" for how they may be incorporated honestly work better for druids. Barbarians are kind of rarer, but at least certain provinces would make sense. Clerics, Fighters, and Paladins are all on point, with the various magic users either Church of Avacyn-related, or like heretical necromancer types. That's mostly easy to work around.

Ixalan

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a blog drafted as a rough outline for an Ixalan campaign already. Sure, there's the "natives versus colonizers" part you could focus on but let's be real, we know there's only one true campaign for me on Ixalan, and that's mother lovin' pirates. A Brazen Coalition campaign with plunder and adventure, whether Indiana Jones-ing it through lost cities or going toe-to-toe in shipboard combat with the Legion of Dusk, this plane is a-may-zing. Since only a handful of the plane has been "explored" in official releases, there isn't a lot to stop players from using most DnD character races, though classes are a bit rougher as rogues and fighters make the most sense from a Brazen Coalition standpoint. Everything else is more Legion or Empire or River Heralds and would take a bit more work. But orcs, goblins, humans, and sirens, under the captaincy of a medusa or a minotaur is pretty epic awesome.

Ravnica

 

Ravnica has a lot of merit for a bunch of reasons. It's a giant city, but that also has tons of unused or rundown or desolated areas, several novels, a bunch of card sets, an artbook, AND already has an official DnD sourcebook. It takes the races and classes of DnD & mixes them with the Guilds of Ravnica as well as kind of delves into colors and whatnot, I think. Honestly, I haven't read read the book cover to cover in a while, beyond snagging the Golgari and Izzet goblins for ToE. But there's a good intro adventure and a bunch of stuff on the DMs Guild for it, and there are enough race options straight out that it would be a good campaign setting. Actually, there aren't a lot of cons here, other than it's not a plane I am super passionate about. There's even extra miniature support from Wizkids here w/their prepainted GGtR releases. So it's definitely in consideration right now.

Strixhaven (Arcavios)

Had to Google what plane Strixhaven is on, hah. Now, this was a one-set plane and an incredibly recent one, so how does it even merit inclusion into consideration? Well, first off, it's effing Harry Potter in the Magic-verse. Magical school with "Houses" based on MtG color pairings that compete with each other. And it has a very "cross planar" feel so few character options would feel wholly out of place. Except martial classes. Since, you know, it's a magic school. I figure the best way around that would be if players started as third level characters w/magic-oriented subclasses for the martial stuff but that's nothing set in stone. Also, later this year, a Strixhaven book is coming out for DnD and whilst I'm disappointed there's no sourcebook for Innistrad instead (James Wyatt mostly just tacked it onto Ravenloft in his PS article so..), I imagine it'll be a worthy purchase regardless. And it has owlfolk. I'm... Not really into the "fursuiter" races but I guess owlfolk aren't much different then acrocockrocackra bird people and still less furry than rabbitfolk coming out in the feywild book soon. And there's an elephant NPC guy, like on Ravnica. I dunno what that race is called. Elephantfolk is most likely not right. Anyway, this is ranked probably #4 currently (tied with Dominaria maybe), but I feel like I'd be able to get players more easily if I say "Harry Potter DnD!" Wizkids is also dropping unpainted minis for the NPCs, including a dragon, next month.
 

Theros

You get a Grecian God, and -you- get a Grecian God, and YOU get a Grecian God, etc. Like Ravnica, Theros gets some bonus points for having a DnD book, and extra bonus points for having Polukranos, my favorite legendary hydra. And also like Ravnica, Wizkids has Theros minis as well. I think? I feel like I remember there being some. Maybe I'll have to double check. IN any case, Leonin are way cooler than Tabaxi, and there are some Nacatl minis coming out that'd be perfect for them as brawny warrior cats. Centaurs and satyrs and other Grecian tropes abound here. So for the "classical" kinda themes, Homeric epics and whatnot, it's hard to top. But also, out of the entire list of things here, Theros is at the bottom of my desire to run. Also, there're a lot of the PHB races that wouldn't make sense, and not sure about all of the classes either. Okay, I -have- this book, but mostly just skimmed it, and mostly just for Polukranos stats. Maybe after a read through or two, I can get more interest here.

Zendikar

Zendikar is right up there in my affection with Innistrad and Ixalan. So that'd rank it a solid #3 if I were doing this as a poll, or quite possibly tied at #2 with Ixalan. We have an artbook, several MtG sets, miniatures, a planeshift article, great character options in Kor, Mer, Vamps, etc, and the plane itself is just tailor-made for DnD, up to and including that the last set had a "party" mechanic that encouraged having warriors and rogues and whatnot team up. Imagining players line-slinging their way into ruins in the sky, avoiding mana-quakes, plumbing the depths of sunken cities, etc is pure unf. But there's also a lot of work involved here with really understanding back story or doing worldbuilding despite the above (also because I don't own the artbook yet). Zendikar also got pretty curbstomped by the Eldrazi and that leaves the temptation to do a campaign at an earlier point in history. Or even to run a campaign whilst the Gatewatch attempts to defeat Bobert and Dichard or whatever their names were. I have some specifically-Eldrazi minis from the short living MtG skirmish game so that helps, too. Considering who was on Zendikar, if I actually wanted PWs to be NPCs (and that's iffy), I already have minis for all of the important actors there as well.

So that's kinda that. Innistrad - Ixalan/Zendikar - Ravnica - Strixhaven/Dominaria - Theros is the current order I'm pondering. For someday. When I DnD again.