A few weeks ago I was visiting my brother and we ended up at a pre-release event for the newest Magic set, Avacyn Restored. After seeing the turnout, atmosphere, and support I started to wonder: why doesn’t D&D have something like this? Magic and D&D are owned by the same company. Since Magic’s considerably more profitable there have been a few attempts to make D&D more like Magic, but they’ve largely been derided by fans (or at least vocal fans on the internet) and haven’t stuck around for long. Prior attempts to learn from Magic have centered on the randomized element. Magic’s sold in randomized...

This week’s Legends and Lore continues the look at core classes, but takes a different approach: instead of design goals, we’re looking at balancing wizards. It’s really interesting that the wizard is the class where this series of posts shifts. Mike mentions that wizard’s don’t need to be clarified, but I disagree. Wizards have perhaps more fictional bases then any other class: Harry Potter, Rincewind, Gandalf, Gwydion, Merlin, Circe, Elric, Dallben, Harry Dresden, Prospero, Doctor Strange, John Constantine, &etc. So which of these does our wizard share something in common with? Even within gaming, or ever...