Names Are Hard

I think they've made a mistake with the next Magic set. I want to be clear up front: I do understand what's going on here but I think the execution is a problem. Specifically: they want to give you the sense of playing a D&D game instead of giving players the sense of playing in a D&D realm, and I think this shows up most in the names of the cards.

Check out the new cards from the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms (Forgotten Realms from here on out) set.

Some of these card names are pretty standard for Magic: Battle Cry Goblin, Werewolf Pack Leader, Devour Intellect. I wouldn't be surprised to see a card with that name in any set. Even something as silly as Froghemoth is pretty on brand for Magic.

Others I can't believe they hadn't used the word already, like Fly or Wish. Flying has been around since the game's inception, and wishing not long after. 

However, with most of the instants, while I appreciate the intent, cards like You See A Guard Approach or You See A Pair of Goblins are jarring. Magic has a story riding on its game, it isn't a story you play and the use of second person pulls me right out of the game. This isn't a D&D adventure and the attempt to make it feel like one, while clever, doesn't work for me. 

It will undoubtedly make for amusing gameplay moments, when some players riff off these statements, and I can see someone being interested enough to actually create a story off these cards. I find it weird though, and less like I am commanding a game and more like I'm stuck in a story. 

It's taken to a different immersion break with +2 Mace. There isn't even a lampshade over that card: it's just flat out saying what it is. They think there's a joke there but if there is one, what is the punchline? That card is literally saying what it is and, to my knowledge, people playing D&D don't call their weapons by such names. It's just a copy/paste from a rulebook-one that isn't even in Magic.

It's flat out defying players to engage in a fantasy setting.

Then there are the Very Eighties Names: Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant, Adult Gold Dragon, The Book of Vile Darkness, Purple Worm, Power Word Kill, Flameskull...I mean can't you just see the heavy metal album covers? There's something both awesome and icky about that, especially if you have any knowledge of what heavy metal album covers looked like.

Worse, they're references for something that feels dated, instead of cool. Like, Black Sabbath is cool but clearly doesn't sound like modern heavy metal, whereas there's nothing exciting about Bush when thinking about the grunge era vs. our modern fuzzed out rock bands. (I bet you didn't even remember Bush was a band until now.) Nostalgia in the worst sense, a shine being put on something that at the time was the best they could do but the bloom came off that rose quickly. Now we're stuck with it, instead of improving on it. 

Finally, there's the sadly banal names, like Black Dragon, Green Dragon, Dueling Rapier or Fifty Feet of Rope. Again, these things worked fine when they came up with them nearly 50 years ago. But now...calling something what it is feels generic. It's anti-worldbuilding.

There's always going to be a card in Magic called Fifty Feet of Rope and no one is going to be intrigued or excited about that. 

Perhaps what I'm experiencing is similar to what new players who got into Magic around the Time Spiral era went through. I got a lot of the references in Time Spiral block, because I've been playing since Ice Age. But at least those references were to Magic-there was a place for new players to go who enjoyed the game they were playing, to enrich their knowledge and fun. 

I understand that there are a lot of references in Forgotten Realms but those references aren't for me. They're for someone else, maybe someone who doesn't play Magic at all. But my issue is that these references arrive in a way that doesn't feel like visiting Forgotten Realms, but instead visiting a game of Forgotten Realms. 

Maybe there wasn't a better way to do this; maybe the point is that Magic, a game that is built off of the foundation that D&D built, must feel dated in order to give people that sense of where Magic came from. Even though D&D has evolved significantly from it's 70's roots and the 'satanic panic' to youtube series with celebrities, at least in some aspects, we're saddled with what people remember, and less with what currently is. 

Which is a shame. D&D is more than it ever was, and Magic should be, too.