Monday, January 13, 2014

Random Musings: Magic: The Gathering Sets as Campaign Settings?

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I have a love/hate relationship with Magic: The Gathering. While I find the game fun to play and the enjoy the strategic elements of building a deck, I've never been a big fan of tournament play and I hate having to keep up with all these different sets and the rules that change and are introduced within them (yes, I understand how strange that statement is since I love roleplaying games and they do the same thing. Humans can be illogical sometimes).

However, there is one specific element about Magic: The Gathering that I've always loved and believe could be utilized for roleplaying games: the background fluff the creators attach to the different sets.

Almost every set of new cards presents a new "plane of existence" that embodies the set's overall theme. For example, the current Theros set is based of Geek mythology, so the plane of existence is based on Greek culture and legends. You can find a lot of the information for each plane of existence on Wikipedia or the Planeswalker's Guide articles on Wizards of the Coast's website.

Since there is a lot of information out there for these planes, I believe you could easily adapt them into campaign settings for a Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder game. Since most of these sets possess creatures and concepts that already exist in both games (like elves and certain classes), conversion shouldn't be all that difficult. Also, the unique nature of some of the planes could lead to some interesting campaigns. For example, I'd love to run a game in Theros, or the Gothic horror inspired plane of Innistad, or the artificial world of Mirrodin.

I can't be the only one, right?

Question Time: Would you ever use a Magic: The Gathering plane as a campaign setting? If so, which set would you use? (Ravnica, Theros, Innistad, Mirrodin, Kamigawa, etc.)

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