D&D (2024) How Does Greyhawk Fit In To The New Edition?

According to Game Informer — “the surprising importance and inclusions of what is arguably the oldest D&D campaign setting of them all – Greyhawk.”

So how does Greyhawk fit in? According to GI, the new 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk. Not only that, but the book will come with a double-sided poster map with the City of Greyhawk on one side and the Flannaes on the other—the eastern part of one of Oerth’s four continents.

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Even as the multiverse of D&D worlds sees increased attention, the Dungeon Master's Guide also offers a more discrete setting to get gaming groups started. After very few official releases in the last couple of decades, the world of Greyhawk takes center stage. The book fleshes out Greyhawk to illustrate how to create campaign settings of your own. Greyhawk was the original D&D game world crafted by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and a worthy setting to revisit on the occassion of D&D's golden anniversary. It's a world bristling with classic sword and sorcery concepts, from an intrigue-laden central city to wide tracts of uncharted wilderness. Compared to many D&D campaign settings, it's smaller and less fleshed out, and that's sort of the point; it begs for DMs to make it their own. The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed. For those eager to take the plunge, an included poster map of the Greyhawk setting sets the tone, and its reverse reveals a map of the city of the same name. "A big draw to Greyhawk is it's the origin place for such heroes as Mordenkainen, Tasha, and others," Perkins says. "There's this idea that the players in your campaign can be the next great world-hopping, spell-crafting heroes of D&D. It is the campaign where heroes are born."

- Game Informer​

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[TrippyHippy]

This is about the first bit of news about the new D&D edition (not a new edition) that has actually made me interested in it.

 

[amethal]

There is zero chance (sorry @Mistwell ) that nobody will be irritated. Folks would be wise to gird themselves for hundreds of posts of hyperbolic screeds once we see it.

If there isn't a full page dedicated to heraldry, I've got my my torch and pitchfork ready!

Dammit, now I want a full page of heraldry as well!

I hope WotC doesn't listen to any misguided developers who suggest using the space to actually describe more places. Show me a purple shield with a white unicorn on it; what more do I need to know about the County of Ulek?

 

[Yaarel]

WG7 Castle Greyhawk is the one Greyhawk fans have nightmares about. (AD&D TSR, 1988)
View attachment 363118

WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins (AD&D 2E, TSR, 1990) is a lot more serious. Not great, IMO, but has its moments.

Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk (D&D 3E, Wizards, 2007) builds on the basis of Greyhawk Ruins, using the better parts of that adventure.

Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works (C&C; Troll Lord Games, 2008) was a version of Gary's original upper level/castle... except greatly changed from what I gather. I think it's about to be reprinted.

Heh, there is something karmic about Gygax trying to expel Arneson from the business and destroying Blackmoor, then Gygax himself getting expelled from the business and getting Castle Greyhawk destroyed.

I hope 5e can grant both Arneson and Gygax a happily ever after.

I want to see versions of 5e Blackmoor and Greyhawk alive and well, and bustling.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Except for the rules updates.

What rules updates? It's Greyhawk, LOL! Even the settings that have "special rules" (Dark Sun's defiling, Eberron's dragonmarks) have like at most four of them, all of which a person could just update themselves if they really needed to.

What's more likely? Being pleased that Greyhawk "updated" some random rule in their setting that the player couldn't be bothered to update themself... or getting pissed because the 5E24 version says nothing about banning dragonborn and goliaths from the setting (thus implying they can be found and therefore "breaking canon" from what Greyhawk was.) We know how you feel about changes to canon... don't tell me you actually think 5E24 Greyhawk is going to be a benefit for you, because we all know that the new version's going to change a lot of the assumptions people who owned it back in the '80s believed in and will break canon all over the place to update the setting to a modern audience.

As I've said in threads of the last three setting updates... be careful what (general) you wish for.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is it for free? WotC is a business. They will do what’s in the best interest of the share holders.

And it’s not just WotC, it’s any corporation.

Any publically-owned corporation. That's the issue.

 

[Parmandur]

You'd never properly fit Faerun in a single chapter of the DMG

As an aside, a decentering of the Forgotten Realms in the Core does make it much, much more likely that a fat Forgotten Realms Setting product might be coming down the pike.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What rules updates? It's Greyhawk, LOL! Even the settings that have "special rules" (Dark Sun's defiling, Eberron's dragonmarks) have like at most four of them, all of which a person could just update themselves if they really needed to.

What's more likely? Being pleased that Greyhawk "updated" some random rule in their setting that the player couldn't be bothered to update themself... or getting pissed because the 5E24 version says nothing about banning dragonborn and goliaths from the setting (thus implying they can be found and therefore "breaking canon" from what Greyhawk was.) We know how you feel about changes to canon... don't tell me you actually think 5E24 Greyhawk is going to be a benefit for you, because we all know that the new version's going to change a lot of the assumptions people who owned it back in the '80s believed in and will break canon all over the place to update the setting to a modern audience.

As I've said in threads of the last three setting updates... be careful what (general) you wish for.

Oh no, I don't care about Greyhawk personally at all. I just support the Guild's ability to get hands and minds other than WotC's on the content.

I also think you are minimizing the rules changes and additions present in many D&D settings (although not Greyhawk admittedly). Many of them have large bestiaries of unique monsters, for example. And then there's stuff like ships in Spelljammer, the moons in Dragonlance, dark powers and domain mechanics in Ravenloft, portals and planar effects in Planescape, dynastic abilities in Birthright, and of course psionics in Dark Sun and elsewhere.

On the player side, most if not all of the settings referenced above also would have new heritage, class/subclass, feat, equipment, and spell options. That's a lot of material to just tell folks they can and should make up themselves.

Now I agree that WotC can't be trusted to do a good job with setting lore (boy howdy do I agree), with the occasional exception like the decent job they did with Planescape. But rules update are still potentially valuable, and there are a lot of rules to update.

Of course, my preference is that they pass off all of it to the Guild. That material still tends to be colored by WotC 5e's version to some degree, but it's better than WotC doing all of it.

 

[Voadam]

Dammit, now I want a full page of heraldry as well!

I hope WotC doesn't listen to any misguided developers who suggest using the space to actually describe more places. Show me a purple shield with a white unicorn on it; what more do I need to know about the County of Ulek?

Mod Edit: There were a couple images here posted that might be considered Fair Use, as they could have been considered part of study or critique of pieces. This, however, seems to have been posting copyright protected work because someone wanted to have it, which is not okay. I have removed the images here.

Please, folks, think about why you are posting images, and keep them to fair use within discussion.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Any publically-owned corporation. That's the issue.

I don’t believe in humanities collective goodness enough to not see anyone in power use it against others to maintain their wealth and power.

I’ve worked for a few “good” companies but I was always aware I was an easily replaceable pawn.

 

[Shardstone]

I will never for the life of me understand Greyhawk fans.

You want the setting to come back, but you don't want ANY changes to the setting, NOTHING new. What do you want? Them to copy and paste the exact text from 2E books, same art of course since yall usually get mad over new art, and then put it into a new book with "5E" on the logo????????

I've never understood the inability to embrace change to an IP. Evolve the idea, play with it, and if you don't like it you have all the old stuff still remaining.