Monday, December 16, 2019

On the Net 3: What I've Been Working On, Fall 2019 Edition

I got laid off in October, so most of my energy these days has been spent looking for work. But that doesn't mean I don't occasionally have the energy to write something. Here's what I've been doing since October.

Ars Technica

The most exciting thing I've managed to do is get a freelance contract writing weekend culture pieces for Ars Technica. I've done three so far, on Homestuck, the wonderful pop linguistics book Because Internet (and its associated podcast Lingthusiasm), and longtime favorite podcast Reasonably Sound. Right now I'm excited and honored to be working on a year-end list of podcasts, which you should watch for if you've stuck with my blog for this long.

Magic marketing

I've been writing a couple articles a month for Card Kingdom's blog, most recently today's piece about what to do with cards from a powerful Standard deck now that its centerpiece, Oko, Thief of Crowns, has been banned from the format. I've also done a strategy guide for the best lands in the game, and I've just submitted a bio of once-and-future main character Elspeth Tirel.

I've also been writing a weekly-ish deckbuilding column for MtG Nexus, the latest installment of which is here. The site is still getting its feet under it, but keep an eye out for more columns soon.

Fanfiction

Sometimes, very occasionally, I have enough energy left at the end of the day that I can spend it writing fiction. Specifically Magic fanfiction, and especially in response to the disastrously anti-queer (and disastrously clumsily written) official Magic novel War of the Spark: Forsaken. My ongoing Ravnica series features planeswalking therapist Esther, head of a Guildpact-funded medical clinic, and her wife Zofia, a master clockmaker from the Izzet League, trying to save the world one patient at a time.

Stories so far:
  • "The Guildpact's Clinic": Esther's ex, a famous main character, appears on her doorstep out of nowhere, requiring her to figure out how he fits into her new life. (Technically finished in August, but it's the first one in the series, so it belongs on the list.)
  • "Suburban Angst": Esther and Zofia meet the cast of the D&D campaign Bylaw in Order. Comedy interlude in progress.
  • "Coffee Date:" A oneshot set during War of the Spark. Esther's clinic may be the busiest it's ever been, but it's still somehow the only place on Gateway Plaza with coffee.
  • "Gatherings": The war is over; now how do we make it not happen again? Ongoing story featuring Esther, Zofia, and various members of the Gatewatch.
I hope you enjoy reading more things that I have written. I also hope I have more time to write soon.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Creating a Planeswalker Character in Dungeons & Dragons


Magic: the Gathering casts its players in the role of planeswalkers, powerful wizards with the ability to travel between the planes of the Multiverse. They can learn to use each plane’s unique spells, creatures, and resources in their duels with other planeswalkers. But it can be easy to get caught up in the game’s complex mechanics and lose sight of the fact that the players are supposed to be part of the story.

Wizards of the Coast has begun to fix this problem by releasing Dungeons and Dragons supplements for a number of planes, including the marvelous Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. These supplements allow players to play Magic characters and feel more like they’re part of the Multiverse. But there are not yet official rules for playing in these settings as a planeswalker. Luckily, my Dungeons and Dragons playgroup is working on a solution. Our campaign integrates Magic’s rules and mechanics into Dungeons and Dragons character creation and combat by giving its planeswalker characters decks of Magic cards instead of spell lists.

To explain how the system works, I’ll be using my own character as an example. Ariel is a newly-ignited planeswalker who grew up in Ravnica’s Selesnya Conclave.

Creating Your Character

To start creating a planeswalker, use the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition rules to create a spellcaster. If there’s a supplement for your character’s home plane, use that. If there isn’t, work with your DM to find the best approximation. Choose a color identity instead of (or in addition to) an alignment, and build your character’s identity and goals around it. You may want to create your character at level 3 or higher so that they have access to some interesting magic that fits their color identity.

Ariel is a wood elf druid with the Selesnya Initiate background from Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. She is a member of the Circle of the Land, in both the Grassland and Forest domains. Her color identity is white/green, with a blue splash that makes her curious about what life is like in other guilds. Our campaign is set shortly after War of the Spark, but Ariel lives outside Ravnica’s Tenth District, where the war actually happened, and has only read vague stories about it in her local newspaper.

Even though your character will probably be leaving their home plane, it’s a good idea to figure out what personal connections they have there. Your DM may want to use this information to flesh out the story. For example, my playgroup began our campaign with four short adventures telling the stories of how each character’s spark ignited, with the other players playing temporary characters. In Ariel’s adventure, she was sent to investigate the theft of some important documents with a team of low-ranking members of other guilds, including her Dimir friend Milo, who works at Ariel’s favorite bookstore. Her spark ignited during a confrontation with the Orzhov vampire who had stolen and sold the documents.

Planeswalkers’ magic works differently from other kinds of magic. If your character’s spark has already ignited, choose your cantrips and build a spell deck to replace spells of level 1 and higher. If your group will be running prequel adventures, choose spells normally and build your spell deck with your character’s original spell list in mind.

Building a Spell Deck

The spell decks my playgroup uses have a number of cards equal to 20 times their owner's proficiency bonus, and only use cards in their owner’s color identity. They contain no legendary creatures or planeswalkers, and have a number of rare or mythic cards less than or equal to the character’s spellcaster level. (For example, at level 4, a deck should have 40 cards and up to 4 rares.)

Build your spell deck from a roleplaying perspective. Use spells your character would cast, even if they’re not good spells for competitive Magic. For example, Ariel’s deck includes Sprouting Renewal and Healing Grace, two spells that are not widely played in Magic but can be interpreted as having powerful effects in Dungeons and Dragons

Remember to keep your character’s abilities in mind: unless your character’s magic is specifically based on summoning creatures, you will want to include fewer creatures than is usual for Magic decks. And even if your character is a summoner, noncreature spells will be more useful outside combat, so you may want to focus on spells with modes that create creature tokens, as I do in Ariel's deck.

Don't worry about making your deck consistent. The fewer duplicates you include in your deck, the more different spells your character can cast.

Be creative with how you interpret spells. Effects that apply to your opponent’s creatures can be used on your enemies in combat, and effects that apply to your creatures can be used on your party members. Ariel’s deck includes Assure // Assemble, which can be used to strengthen her party members; and Totally Lost, which can be used to confuse an enemy and cause them to wander away. If you’re not sure how a spell will be interpreted, ask your DM about it before you put it in your deck.

Use creatures and lands from planes your character has spent a lot of time on. These will be the easiest for your character to use. For a newly-ignited planeswalker like Ariel, this will just be their home plane. Ariel’s deck includes creatures with Selesnya watermarks from Guilds of Ravnica, as well as several copies of Selesnya Guildgate. Make sure to include plenty of basic lands in your deck, since you will be using them to represent your available mana at the start of combat. (For more on that, keep an eye out for my next article.)

Leveling up 

Leveling up works the same way as it normally would for your character class, except that you also get to modify your deck by replacing some of the cards. A fun way to choose those cards is to open a booster pack from a set on the plane your campaign is set on, and add cards in your color identity from that pack to represent your planeswalker learning about the lands and spells available on that plane. The campaign I'm in is set on a homebrew plane, so there isn't a set associated with it, but the DM has created some custom cards representing NPCs and encounters that players can include in their decks as proxies.



Your playgroup may also want to create Signature Spells for your characters. These spells should be in the character's color identity and represent a core aspect of their magic--a spell they cast often or something that means a lot to them. Ariel's Signature Spell is based on her druidic ability to speak to the land, and her Selesnyan willingness to make friends with everyone she can.

In my next post, I'll talk more about how to use your spell deck once you’ve built it. In the meantime, here's Ariel's Signature Spell and her decklist at level 4, which includes both her Signature and the custom nonbasic Road-type land Prairie Turnpike.


Creatures


Noncreature spells
Ariel's Greeting

Lands
2 Prairie Turnpike
3 Plains
2 Island
6 Forest