When you create a shared universe, you ask for trouble.
When the story is largely subservient to the game development, when the clock is ticking before the next expansion comes out and cards as well as articles might explain the story and sometimes the conclusion of it, before the actual storyline sources do, you ask for even more trouble.
When you find yourself in a situation where you have to deal with 25+ years of the past story and flavor material, trouble comes for you whether you ask for it or not.

These realities come with creative challenges, from the growing knowledge base a creative should have (or their editor, if there's any in the first place), to unforgiving deadlines (which directly and indirectly can negatively influence not only the canon but also the quality, internal consistency and the style).

From the perspective of the storyline fans, that translates to all the retcons, mistakes, misunderstandings, all different shades of canon violation.
(Retcons do not always have to be bad. Sometimes they are intentionally reinterpreted events that, while not planned initially, can make a lot of sense, sometimes even fix past issues; in a shared universe, they probably have to do with the mistakes and unplanned inconsistencies more often though).

That leads to confusion and likely a dropping interest in the stories, but also to disparate ways of dealing with the situation in the core fandom, who despite of what's thrown at them, keep following the storylines closely.

So how does a story fan navigate this storm? (Someone might ask - if the storm is so big, why still be a fan? But assuming one has reasons...)

Are there any principles such a person should have while approaching a shared universe like that of Magic?
(Ok, you might say it's the creatives who should have principles in the first place and I agree, but changes and mistakes are unavoidable; sooner or later something is going to come up, even if they tried 10 times as hard as they try now to avoid them).

And I wrote "should have" to consider a possibly ideal situation. Because all of us felt just too much frustration at some points and threw a book against the wall, metaphorically speaking (or not). Ideal situation may not exist, may not be reachable, at the same time providing direction or a standard one may wish to emulate.

I realise this may be somewhat subjective too. Should we try to salvage the mistakes or otherwise terrible retcons in the story (even though we may not like them, but at least when they are consistent)? At which point do we just call something a blatant mistake and write it off?

If two versions of the story cannot be reconciled in any reasonable way (what is a canon supposed to be, anyway), which version takes precedence? The older one, the newer one? The one on which more canon material rests? (<- by what measure and wouldn't that be changing as the material grows?) Which storyline sources are stronger? Books, articles, a word-of-god blog post? Does it depend on what it is AND who wrote it? How complex is that hierarchy?

Or, if we can't decide on it all, maybe we should simply, somewhat dispassionately, specify the principles of different approaches - "schools of thought" - so that their implications are clearer and we're allowed to discuss them easier, putting ourselves in the shoes of other fans? That would also potentially allow us to see more clearly their merits, as well as which schools of thought suffer most from what kinds of problems (maybe some frequently generate overly complex theories compared to others? Maybe some would require throwing away majority of the past sources?).

So what principles have you used, or think should be used and why? What source hierarchies have you considered?
And where lie the ideal limits of dealing with the story changes -- or your personal limits in that regard, while dealing with Magic's shared universe? Do you try to keep as much of the story as you can, or do you easily give up on the troubled waters?

Also, what's your perception of this storm? Has it always been going progressively stronger? Did it weaken at some points in history?

What a fun topic, and at such an appropriate time!

I can't speak to how a fan can navigate this storm, but I do feel like they shouldn't have to do it alone. Maybe it's because we're spoiled by Mark Rosewater's blog, but the silence coming out of the Creative Team for the last year is defeaning, especially when compared to communication from Pre-Dominaria (look at Magic Story Podcasts or Ten Burning Questions form Ixalan articles for examples). In fairness, we did get an interview with Kate Elliot ahead of the release of Throne of Eldraine (as well as a commissioned piece of the Kenrith family) and I guess we got a Drive to Work with Greg Weisman, but with the discontinuation of Magic Story, we have no Vorthos content coming out of the Mothership. I would really like to see a return of the Savor the Flavor articles just to have something.



I've been following the Magic story for 15 years and this feels like it's lowest point to me. The past year of blunders and anti-Vorthos decisions have soured me but they aren't the biggest issue (although they are still a big issue). The issue is the lack of communication. We don't have anyone from the Creative team fielding questions like Brady Dommermuth and Doug Beyer did. If you want to make changes, fine, but justify them. Defend them. Don't leave the fans to speculate or draw their own conclusions because you aren't going to come out of it looking good. Want to discontinue Magic Story and focus on E-books? Tell us why when we already had a period of time when we had both. Give us something like this explaining your reasoning instead of hiding the announcement in the article for a different announcement.

I wanted to say: What an excellent point! (And I still think there's merit to this).
But then I felt a little pinch of anxiety. What if it's sometimes for the better? What if we really won't like the answers they give us? What if they only expose they don't know their own sources? It's not like they'll necessarily admit they've been wrong and backtrack on it, doubling down instead or shrugging the problem off? It happened before.

So yes, maybe we shouldn't do it alone in the sense that we do our thing and they do their thing.
And maybe we shouldn't do it 'in communication' either, in the sense that we ask them questions and they potentially give us some wild explanations that may spoil more than they fix.
Maybe we should do it together is some sort of a collaboration? But then the question of what principles should be followed while resolving internal storyline issues seems even more pressing. Their principles seems largely based on serving the current story, whatever it may be, not necessarily on preserving the consistency of the past stories. And without a common set of principles, a collaboration wouldn't even get off the ground.

From what I recall Brady Dommermuth wasn't perfect when it comes to communication, but I do remember him having enough testicular fortitude to actually ask the fandom at an occasion or two about some old storyline matters (I think he must have been researching for the Coldsnap set at that moment?).

That was kind of an awesome, legendary moment in the fandom.



Speaking of Mark. In preparation for researching Tarkir, I'm going through articles in the archive. I started early, not to miss anything that might be of interest. Mark 'spoiled' there's going to be time travel after the first set months before that first set even came out (and the phrase he used felt like it already was a common knowledge). So what about storyline's subservient role to the game design? Shouldn't their approach to this change too?


I wasn't around, so I can't say. And I'm terrible when it comes to following social media. I lack that perspective, so thanks for pointing this out.


Oh, I wasn't aware. No more online stories, huh?
Is it not for the better in the long run? Maybe?
After all, they've gone for the online approach after failures with the book approach.
The fact they try to capitalize on the [e]books more again, may be a good sign of growing confidence* in their future products, no? And the lack of the online stories may incentivize fans to purchase an e-book.
[* it might not be really justified of course...]

Could you elaborate? (If possible, in a spoiler-free manner). I wasn't around [did I mention that before? ].


More communication would definitely be better. And when did that change occur exactly? Maybe we'll get an explanation yet?

Before I come across as too degrading, quick shout out to Ethan Fleischer for reaching out for his research on Dominaria. I started in the Mirrodin/Kamigawa era so I can't speak for Dominaria before *Dominaria* but I know people around here who appreciated it.


Creative has hired an old Vorthos know as VorthosJay as a "continuity consultant" to help try to keep everything in order, so there is precedence for it.



So basically everything since the story surrounding Ravnica and the War of the Spark has been a mess.
- The Gathering Storm is a weekly serial chronicling the events of Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegience. However, due to legal issues (allegedly) between Wizards and distributor Penguin Random House, these stories were released after War of the Spark, the set they were supposed to lead into. In fact, they are still in the process of releasing the last four chapters over a year after we were supposed to get the stories.

-The conclusion to the "Bolas Arc" that we have been following since Kaladesh gets paywalled behind a hardcover novel. In fairness, we get weekly stories that follow the same basic plot of the novel if you don't want to buy it but on the other hand, the weekly stories are almost (not quite) a word for word retelling of the $25 novel, but less so. This wouldn't be the worst except...

-War of the Spark: Ravnica was bad. Having the conclusion to a ten year plot thread be such a disappointment is bad enough but the lack of addressing community concerns in it's wake has made it's sequel Forsaken releasing in November (likely) DOA, jeopardizing the future of the novel line (if it had a future at all and wasn't supposed to be a one time thing).

-No story for Magic 2020. While Core Sets don't necessarily need a story, we got two for 2019 (Bolas and Vivien) AND a double sided ad in the Magic 2020 bundles suggested a Chandra story for 2020. As an aside, we did get Chandra comics from IDW, but it has taken almost a year to release four issues (last one releasing next month). The comics deal with the aftermath of WAR but started releasing before WAR did so it had to be very generic. Also, it's sequal series Trials of Alara has been cancelled but that's probably an IDW thing and not a WotC thing.

-Throne of Eldraine: We get an announcement of an E-book for the Throne of Eldraine set to be released before the set. That's all well and good but tucked away in that announcement is a single line discontinuing the weekly Magic Story articles. Compare this to when Savor the Flavor was cancelled or when Magic Origins marked a new era of story telling. The loss of a weekly narrative will probably severely hurt online engagement without a something to gather around and discuss every week.

-Like, I've read The Wildered Quest. It was a very good read. But that's it until November (unless you count The Gathering Storm, which we should have had a year ago) and November is Forsaken which I'm going to read more out of obligation than actually looking forward to it. So I don't have any Magic story to look forward to until next year when Theros: Beyond Death releases.

-The announcement of no Artbook for Eldraine puts the future of the artbook line in question.

These issues actually started around Dominaria when we moved away from an inhouse writing team but that's a rant for a different time.

Additionally, the decision to commit to e-book is understandable from an economic standpoint, but it further has issues of locking out those that prefer physical media, or straight up CAN'T engage with a digital sales platform.

First, I need to correct myself.
Maro wasn't the first that spoiled time travel of the Tarkir's second set. The first time this information appeared was at the Pax storyline panel, almost two months before the release of the first set, when they explained Sarkhan's backstory and teased his time travel, which was a moment later confirmed by the release of the name of the next set - Fate Reforged. Maro mentioned it about a month later [got my timing on this all wrong]. Still, my point stands, storyline panel spoiling a future plot of the story before the stories themselves are released is not something I like and it's something happening clearly because of the subservient role of the storyline to the game. It being the Creative Team releasing the info may the the most... graceful... way to deal with this, given the circumstances, but that doesn't mean it feels right. It's not to say, I see a clear way out of this that's without problems of its own... but I wish the story could just speak for itself before the perception of it is contaminated by all that backstory of set design choices, etc. That could incentivise even more players to buy storyline products. For those who opt out from reading the sources - give them a synopsis if you have to, but later!



That's pretty awesome, actually.



That's another great thing to hear. From what Jay wrote, there are more people like that. Though I'm not sure if it means more storyline experts consulting, or someone in the Wizards' office who actually calls the shots. Still, a good direction. There may be hope.



That's... pretty hilarious... in a way.



That reminds me of the situation when the first planeswalker novels appeared - Agents of Artifice and the like. I believe the first thing they released was similarly priced hardcover AoA. At least it wasn't that bad, but was it worth it? Probably not. I got it in paperback some time later. (But then, soon enough Test of Metal happened and some time later Liliana's novel was cancelled (on the one hand I believe it may have been cancelled for its own reasons, low quality, but maybe also misunderstanding of the Magic's universe; on the other, the reaction of the fandom to playing loosely with the canon in ToM may have influenced the decision not to release it)).


Personally, I'm fine with the Core Sets being more generic. To me it's almost always has been that way. I mean, it's almost definitely better to have a story, but with these sets I view it as a boon, more than requirement. Didn't I hear somewhere something about a future Teferi Core Set though?



Yeah, I've heard IDW were in some financial trouble.


Oh, they actually released it even before the previews! That's good! That's what I was talking about - making story side more independent from the sets and the info they spoil while discussing game design. If they keep that aspect up, this may actually be a really good thing!


Or it could shift the interest to the [e-]books, whatever problems come with that. I kinda want to give them this opportunity.
Are the storyline forums dead these days though? I remember there was always something new to talk about. Comparisons of old and new information, speculations, damage control for inevitable retcons or mistakes or both, integration of events and the metaphysical aspects, if some were expanded upon and so on and so forth.


They are also releasing an RPG Ravnica expansion for D&D. (I honestly have never played in D&D itself and would prefer an original system, but for the flavour info alone, I'd be interested to read it). I've watched a video with a relatively new[?] guy in the Creative Team, James Wyatt, who migrated from the D&D. I immediately liked the guy - the moment he pointed out the utter madness of "we don't do maps" statements he's been initially met with by the Magic's staff. So that's changing. And the work they've done on the Dominaria's map is great!

That does suck.

They may be repeating the Planeswalker Novels fiasco after all...
I wonder how taxing was it for them, to regularly release new stories though.
Btw, Jenna Helland doesn't work for the Creative Team[/Wizards?] any more? I clicked at her archive and it ends at that Magic Origins article you've linked. I also realised Magic Origins was a soft reboot of the Planeswalkers' stories, which I guess the Tarkir's Fate Reforged was used for...

----
So in the end, it seems to me that the same problems resurface when it comes to quality of their products and switching communication on and off. A repeating history. However, that aside, when it comes to aforementioned storm of retcons and mistakes that fans have to navigate through and hopefully somehow make sense of - are the oceans calmer these days? Here you've given me some initial hope. Half the major stories they release these days may be weak or bland, but are they also wrong or liveable?



I can very much sympathize with that. I'm not an e-book enthusiast myself, don't even own any reader. I prefer a printed, physical copy and use an e-book only if I'm forced to. All valid points I wished were addressed by Wizards.

Oh my no.

While I think Jenna still works for Wizards (I honestly have no idea), she is no longer the head of the Creative Team. In fact, I don't think the Creative team exists as it did during Origins to Amonkhet. That honor goes to Nic Kelman, the Senior Franchise Narrative Designer. In this interview (with the aforementioned VorthosJay, I think?) he talks about his role in shaping the story. Two major questions/answers spring to mind in regards to your question.



The second question has minor spoilers for Ixalan/Dominaria



So basically the major beats are important but the details don't really matter as far as Kelman is concerned. Which is terrible.

They lost approximately 90% of their sales over the course of a year. That's not entirely their fault due to being a smaller distributor, though some of their decisions (such as letting someone like say, Aubrey Sitterson) write certain books was a poor one.

But it's largely DC constantly scrambling their universe and pushing event after event and Marvel becoming a total dumpster fire of clique-y backstabbing political activists and burning sales that did more damage. IDW relied on browsing based buying systems, where you go for one book and something of their's might catch your eye.


The spirit is still willing, but in trying to chase the newest fad, most discussion has been driven to outside sources such as reddit and facebook, places it becomes much harder to form meaningful discussions and identities to the names we associate with the community due to their more transient focused infrastructure.

We're a small group. We try to keep the fire burning at least.


I have immense respect for James. He, essentially, single handedly created Eberron and penned a fair few tales there.
Eberron was a way more interesting setting, but Faerun ended up the golden goose they backed, mostly because of the schlocky stories R.A. Salvatore churned out like a machine starring everyone's favorite 'it's not a phase dad' drow, Drizzt.


There were people even here that were just straight up region locked out of buying digital books, either by lack of distributors or refusal of payment interfaces with existing publishers.

Thanks for the link!

That sounds too much like one of those "there's no objective truth" approaches which is twice as bad when the fiction is written from the perspective of the so-called all-knowing narrator [could be avoided though - by writing POV narrative]. We may end up with solipsism all the way down.

Which is a bit weird from a guy who in the same interview claims he's fascinated by the cosmology of this fictional universe [a passion I share], the nature of planeswalking, Blind Eternities, etc. - and does want to keep them true to their nature.
I mean, causality, or some kind of progression in time of the cosmos - and thus also history - as well as logical consistency of the universe are important parts of the ontology, so they shouldn't be disregarded either... That is, I get what he meant, I can see the difference in those areas of interest (I don't want to come across as if I am blaming physics students for disliking history or vice versa), it's just that pushed to its logical conclusions, cosmological approach must encompass historical one as well (and in the end neither historical nor physical sciences should be inconsistent with each other).


Art always had more of that interpretative dimension, the characters don't even look the same on a lot of art, not all artists draw realistic pieces either. But that's more akin to an author's style in writing, not the essence of the information that's delivered. Now, when it comes to Jace's toe, it's not really that relevant, especially given the fact that regenerative magic exists in this universe - this won't break the canon (but it would be actually awesome if they used such a detail and made it relevant!) - playing loosely with important details of history can very much break it though. And with one, irrelevant example, I'm not sure exactly where he draws that line.

But if they start an... um... MCU...? [Magic Cinematic Universe ] as a separate branch of the franchise - play with the details all you want. Creating stories in alternate realities is one way out of the rising complexity, but not one I'd prefer (it doesn't really solve the problem either, if one wants to return to telling stories in the original one). And even then, it should be clearly stated which stories share the reality and which don't. I didn't get the impression from Kelman, they'll make it clear necessarily.

===============


Was that something about some controversial changes in the G.I.Joe franchise? I've heard something in passing.


Has it advantages too, probably. Exposure, more brains potentially working on the same thing. Still, I'm not drawn to them at all, as the means of communication.



Not that it will necessarily change anything, but did they complain to Wizards? It's possible they are aware of the problem they created, but it could at least signal that it indeed affects the fans all over the world and how many.

In theory, this is okay (I mean, not really but for simplicity's sake, sure) but in practice the things that are being ignored are a little bit more important that toes. Things like...character arcs. And continuity.

I know you want to avoid spoilers but I need to get spoilerly to illustrate my point.



Now compare the same scene from Dominaria



All the character and animation gone and we are left with a generic Jace. It's not a coincidence that this was when the writing moved form an inhouse team to established authors.
Another scene that really ticks me off is at the end of Dominaria.



This flies in direct contrast to how the curse is presented in War of the Spark, where Liliana begins to burn away along her tattoos. Not only that, but the entire ending of WotS doesn't work if she dies in a moment, so they had to change it. You can try to make the argument that Bolas is a lying liar who lies, but that's a post hoc justification at best when really they just don't care about consistency between stories as long as the story they are currently telling is internally consistent (is the impression I get anyway).

My curse and/or blessing is that I often see characters and stories not as they are, but as they could be. Just in the post above it showed how a single storyline pretty much turned Jace back into a decent character, only to get it stripped away in the very next storyline.

Every character is just one good writer away from being a great character. Even Elspeth. Even, dare I say it, Nissa. The characters should not be paying for the sins of the writers. Yes, the Gatewatch were forced down our throats over and over, and were cringe-worthy at times. But we shouldn't dismiss a story based on who is in it, rather, on the quality on the writing, whether the story was crafted well or not, and whether they succeeded at realising the potential of a character or not.

I can broadly appreciate your point, but I have to disagree. Interaction with media tends to be analyzed through a personal and subjective lens and certain archetypes, tropes, and traits integral to a character might be the exact something that you can't stand, even if written objectively well.

If you find a character unenjoyable, unless that was the exact point of them, that will keep them from being great no matter the author's skill.

You make good points. But it does feel like sometimes on these forums, if I like a certain character that other people don't like, then people think that something is wrong for me for liking them.

Fair enough, there are characters I can't stand. I'm not saying you have to like, for example, Elspeth. But if you dislike her, you will probably dislike the Theros story, regardless of what happens in it, and that seems like pre-emptively denying yourself the ability to enjoy the story if it turns out to be good. (I am feeling slightly more confident about Magic story after the Eldraine novel was decent, but we could easily get another bad story.) But I'm not going to try and force you to like her, unlike WotC has tried to do with the Gatewatch.

I would like to explain why I like her, however. I see potential in her. If she could overcome her annoying insistence on being a melee knight combatant and actually embraced the rather powerful magic she has available but avoids using, she'd make a pretty good mage-knight, and could actually achieve notable things in a war against Phyrexia.

My issues with Elspeth aren't that I dislike her, it's that her resurrection WILL set a nasty precedent in the story. For that matter, it already HAS. Because it was never a question that she'd escape the underworld, we're already seeing instances of death just not sticking.

But on the larger side, it's that her story has an absolute conclusion as well, and for it, she doesn't need to be a walker. In fact, no longer needing to be a walker has been her goal the entire time, so that she's coming back, and expectations are going to force her into being a walker because she's too popular for what they'd planned, it just damages every aspect of her character except the part you like. Her aesthetic.


She really couldn't. Phyrexia as a force is so monumental, no amount of throwing around magic in a melee is going to make a dent. Karn isn't going to fight, it's a waste of time. He's going to find something that can level a plane.

You don't fight an army, you wipe them out. Elspeth doesn't have the mojo to do that. Virtually no walker in our stable does.

Fair enough.

"Principles of a Storyline Fan?"

Don't be one.

This.

The exact thought I had as soon as I read the title of this thread... It's sad, but in the long run, it will save you a lot of bitterness and frustration. Virtually everything is in shambles, to the point where it's simply not worth getting invested anymore.

There are still things worth being invested in, but you have to accept that what exists isn't monolithic.
The Invasion isn't any worse or better because of what happens now. It still exists and is worth the investment, but you have to draw lines between periods.

The part about things not being monolithic anymore is one of my main issues, though. Granted, you could argue Magic's storyline has never been entirely monolithic even from the beginning, but it used to be much easier to mentally gloss over that fact and to try and adjust things if necessary. Most of the existing material used to fit without blatant contradictions most of the time. Nowadays though? If you were to cross out all retcons, plotholes, inconsistencies and nonsensical handwaves from most of the newer stories, almost nothing would remain. I can't enjoy the stories anymore because it all falls apart in my head as soon as I look at pretty much any given character or plot thread, and I feel it's not worth the effort for me personally to try and make it fit anymore. It would be like trying to read a book that's all tape and no actual text.

Sure, I wasn't talking about the old material, that stuff still matters to me. I might as well quote what I wrote in the thread next door:

In a sense, I am drawing lines betwen periods, at least that one final line beyond which I no longer care. Magic's canon is pretty much finished in my head, at least until they bring up something that I want to engage with again in a few years or so. One of the myriad things that really made me happy about Dominaria was that the surrounding material - the map, the artbook, the podcasts etc. - sent us the message that the things that old school storyline fans care about are still worth caring about because they were considered by the people working on Dominaria. Ethan and other worldguide people dug through the same obscure websites, comics, old anthologies etc. that we like to dig through, desperate to get it right and make us happy. And it worked. I like the idea that Dominaria as a plane might be this Safe Haven in which continuity and consistency still matter (at least if you ignore the glitches in the actual short stories). Though looking at Core 19 and the way in which it ruined all Elder Dragons forever just one set later, I wouldn't count on it... I would agree that older stories like the Invasion generally don't become better or worse by what happens now, but sometimes it's a near miss. If I have to make a desperate effort to ignore the new stories in order to not have older material ruined for me, something's wrong with the so-called storyline.