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The modules and the Greyhawk guides give me plenty of inspiration and I still think of Greyhawk as "the" D&D setting. But, it's a setting where I can change things to meet my needs. It's as if Gygax/ TSR/ WOTC provide a house and I get to choose the furniture, the shrubs and if I want a garage. As a specific 4e example, I chucked the gnomes out of the Kron Hills and made it the ancient home of the dragonborn.
I'd like to see a 4e Greyhawk published. One giant hardcover with all the classic 1e modules converted to 4e should suffice.
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But, didn't the modules predate the folio? My history is a bit fuzzy. I know I picked up the boxed set way back when, but, I don't remember if it was new or had been around for a while when I did so.
The folio isn't the same thing as the box set. The box set was released in 1983 and the folio in 1980. Only the original D and G series predated the folio in their entirety. Additionally, two of the tourney modules (S1 and S2) and Village of Hommlet (T1) predated the folio. All of the other original Greyhawk adventure modules were published the same year as the folio or came later.
This has turned into a pretty interesting thread. As I said above, I like Greyhawk, and except for homebrew worlds, it is the only place I play in.
One reason is it is so chock-full of adventuring opportunities, and it has always seemed that different areas lend themselves to different play and campaign styles. Want to explore ancient ruins, SW. Like intrigue head E. Survival against nature, head N. And so on.
Greyhawk is chock full of evocative ideas, from the Scarlet Brotherhood and Horned Society to the mad mayor of Greyhawk City or the Mage of the Valley.
Just like any good D&D setting, it is full of adventure potential at every turn.
That, combined with a slightly grittier feel than most pre-3e D&D worlds and the historic ties to the game itself makes for a fascinating world.
I'm a big student of D&D lore, such as it is, and learning more about Iggwilv, Mordenkainen and the origins of this creature or that spell holds a special attraction for me.
The only real downfall is the naming conventions of the setting. A nation called Geoff? Why not the Kingdom of Harry? Most of my players and friends attended St. Cuthbert Primary School...the chuckles at the god with that name ruined him forever in our eyes.
Other than that flaw? Greyhawk is a part of D&D's history, and that's what makes it special.
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The only real downfall is the naming conventions of the setting. A nation called Geoff? Why not the Kingdom of Harry? Most of my players and friends attended St. Cuthbert Primary School...the chuckles at the god with that name ruined him forever in our eyes.
Reminds me of somebody I know who once complained about the name I picked for some villain being a swear word in some language I didn't speak.
Me, I just thought it was some random syllables that sounded nice.
The only real downfall is the naming conventions of the setting. A nation called Geoff? Why not the Kingdom of Harry? Most of my players and friends attended St. Cuthbert Primary School...the chuckles at the god with that name ruined him forever in our eyes.
I think this is a cultural thing. FREX, with St Cuthbert, here in the US St Cuthbert is an obscure English saint, and I thought it kind of an interesting parallel.
One thing we did for the Geoff issue is pronounce it more like it was spelled. Thus it wasn't "Jeff" but "Joff." This made it a bit less lame. YMMV.
A Greyhawk campaign setting wouldn't be too big an investment.
It actually is - publishing Greyhawk means anything that would actually be interesting will be pushed back at least a year.
IMO, the only right way to re-release a vintage setting would be to do a complete reboot. Forget the metaplot, the decades of modules and supplements that nobody new to the setting could ever find to read. Go back to what made the setting great at the beginning. I want a complete product, not just what amounts to a book of hyperlinks to out-of-print material.
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Last edited by Stogoe; 19th May 2009 at 03:45 AM..
It actually is - publishing Greyhawk means anything that would actually be interesting will be pushed back at least a year.
IMO, the only right way to re-release a vintage setting would be to do a complete reboot. Forget the metaplot, the decades of modules and supplements that nobody new to the setting could ever find to read. Go back to what made the setting great at the beginning. I want a complete product, not just what amounts to a book of hyperlinks to out-of-print material.
Why is it that you think staying relatively consistent with what has come before and going back to what made the setting great at the beginning are mutually exclusive?
The Whispering Cairn (my module in Dungeon #124 and the kick-off for the Age of Worms) is absolutely 100% a Greyhawk module, but you don't need to know anything about the setting for it to be an enjoyable "first edition style" experience.
Keep the focus on adventure and what's going on RIGHT NOW, and you don't need to worry about invalidating a bunch of continuity. Advance the timeline to the year 600, keep a few marquee NPCs like Iuz and Mordenkainen, and thereafter keep the focus on the adventures of the PLAYER CHARACTERS, and not on NPCs and history, and you're back at the original formula that made the campaign setting great.
You do not need to burn down 20 years of development (including the exposure of the setting to tens of thousands of players through Living Greyhawk) to put out cool material that does not require a master's degree to understand and enjoy.
Not sure if it's even necessary, or if it'd just end up as filler, but you could always present a chapter on "Playing in the different eras of Greyhawk." Similar to what many Star Wars rulebooks did, where they explain not just the whole history, but also insert the "playable action points" of the various eras.
Want to play pre-Wars GH? You can run the battle of Emridy Meadows and the fall of the TOEE.
Post-Wars GH? You can run...whatever the hell happened then. (Can you tell which era I know more about?)
Just a thought.
I do have reservations on how to do the setting justice with 4e's fundamental ideology. I don't think it's impossible (or even very difficult for good designers), but I do think certain assumptions in terms of the population and some of the badguys of the setting might need tweaking. Just a gut feeling, so I can't really provide anything more specific.
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Last edited by neuronphaser; 20th May 2009 at 03:45 PM..
Thanks everyone for answering my question in the OP. I think I can see what makes Greyhawk different from other settings more clearly now, and I'm inspired to read more about the setting's origins.
In a recent thread on WotC's forums, Chris Perkins listed several prerequisites for launching a campaign setting.
How do you feel Greyhawk measures up here?
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Originally Posted by sigil_beguiler
It would be nice to here how WoTC goes about deciding what settings to build. Perhaps even a bit behind their building process.
Now THAT'S a multi-layered conversation that usually starts with us asking a bunch of questions and doing some research. Some questions that spring to mind whenever someone says the words "campaign setting" to me:
1. Is there a business need or opportunity for a new setting or a reincarnated old setting?
2. Where is popular culture heading? Can we create a setting that isn't irrelevant one or two years from now?
3. Are there any non-active settings that we're revitalizing in other arenas (digital games, novels, Hollywood, etc.)?
4. Is there an important niche that a new or old setting can fill?
5. Is there a particular setting that a significant number of D&D players want to see resurrected or reincarnated?
6. Is there a setting that we can turn into a $X million sub-brand with multiple revenue streams?
7. Can we design a setting that doesn't fracture the D&D audience into a dozen squabbling sects that utterly loathe one another (a la TSR circa 1997)?
In a recent thread on WotC's forums, Chris Perkins listed several prerequisites for launching a campaign setting.
How do you feel Greyhawk measures up here?
1. Is there a business need or opportunity for a new setting or a reincarnated old setting?
Well, they do promise to release one of these annually, so "yes."
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2. Where is popular culture heading? Can we create a setting that isn't irrelevant one or two years from now?
Greyhawk will be no less relevant two years from now than it already is today.
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3. Are there any non-active settings that we're revitalizing in other arenas (digital games, novels, Hollywood, etc.)?
How did TOEE (the video game) do? I haven't heard of any other Greyhawk tie-ins.
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4. Is there an important niche that a new or old setting can fill?
Not really. It overlaps heavily with Forgotten Realms in flavor. Well, with 1e-3e FR, anyway.
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5. Is there a particular setting that a significant number of D&D players want to see resurrected or reincarnated?
Yes, Greyhawk does have these.
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6. Is there a setting that we can turn into a million sub-brand with multiple revenue streams?
It's never really caught on in the past as a distinct brand.
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7. Can we design a setting that doesn't fracture the D&D audience into a dozen squabbling sects that utterly loathe one another (a la TSR circa 1997)?
I think it overlaps too much with FR, which means that the two camps can get all worked up over the trivial differences between them. Sort of like edition wars.
I love Greyhawk, and I may always run a Greyhawk game, but I don't see why WOTC should bother to publish a new edition of the world. Given Chris Perkins' criteria, Dark Sun seems to be a much better choice for the next setting. It's very distinct, and it has more potential for novels/movies/etc distinct from the D&D brand itself.
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Again, going to disagree with you. That 6th level sheriff, if he was statted out by a module, likely had a magical weapon, magical armor and, quite possibly, another item or two.
I will note:
* This doesn't contradict what I said about the modules being exceptional circumstances. Thus, you could very well be right and you still would not have a reason to state you disagree with me about Greyhawk. You would have to furnish a different reason.
* I'd like to see some examples from modules to compare. I haven't looked at one of those things in ages.
* I didn't say anything about characters statted up in the modules. I said the world. I can flip through the NPC guidelines, the treasure tables, and the rest and quickly satisfy myself that a 6th level NPC is not likely, as the rules are set forth, to have many magic iterms, and is likely to have none. Thus, even if I run several Greyhawk modules, I can still, as I said, have the players go back to town and discover that it is still quite town-ish. The sheriff of a town in the grips of an evil conspiracy, or built right next door to a kobold mining operation, or that serves a town home to a special magic item that has been stolen, may very well be more exceptional than your average 6th level NPC.
Having seen what happened to The Realms when WotC "re-invigorated" the setting for 4E, I'd be more than happy for Greyhawk to be quietly ignored by the Powers that Be. I'd much rather keep the Greyhawk I have now (FtA, LGG, Oerth Journal and the three Dragon AP's) than have Mordenkainen turned into a half-devil, Iuz convert to a Champion of Orcus and The Scarlet Brotherhood become a dance-troop.
As might happen
ETA: Though, if you look at Mike Mearls' Blog, his home campaign is set on Greyhawk (seemingly, City of Greyhawk), so there may be some play-testing going on there on the quiet. Shh!
7. Can we design a setting that doesn't fracture the D&D audience into a dozen squabbling sects that utterly loathe one another (a la TSR circa 1997)?
Am I the only one who saw this and thought "Now you're worrying about this?"
(I was around in 1997, and the setting snobbery and squabbles could get bad, but only among the hardest fringe, like a few who demanded people be fired over a Greyhawk reference in On Hallowed Ground, did it approach the venom of the present edition wars.)
Greyhawk is a campaign where there can be barbarians and cavaliers in the same party, and it makes sense.
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First and foremost, munchkinism arose as a contemporary of the OD&D game. Nothing in the rules of that or any other version of the game was needed to make it flourish.
There is no relationship between 3E and original D&D, or OAD&D for that matter. Different games, style, and spirit.
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This maybe wrong, but I've always thought of Greyhawk as setting that deliberately tries not to be epic. It has history and events, but they seem to be local and personal in scope, rather than world-shaking.
But I never really played much Greyhawk, so that may be an outsider's perspective.
The folio isn't the same thing as the box set. The box set was released in 1983 and the folio in 1980. Only the original D and G series predated the folio in their entirety. Additionally, two of the tourney modules (S1 and S2) and Village of Hommlet (T1) predated the folio. All of the other original Greyhawk adventure modules were published the same year as the folio or came later.
Just to clarify the publishing chronology, here's the the GH products through 1983 with the box set, pulled from Russ Taylor's site, with a few tweaks of my own:
[ ] 9022 S1 Tomb of Horrors
[ ] 9016 G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief
[ ] 9017 G2 The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl
[ ] 9018 G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King
[ ] 9019 D1 Descent into the Depths of the Earth
[ ] 9020 D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa
[ ] 9021 D3 Vault of the Drow
[ ] Quag Keep [Novel, Andre Norton]
1979
Lost Tamoachan - Origins Convention tourney
Ghost Tower of Inverness - Origins Convention tourney
[ ] 9026 T1 The Village of Hommlet
[ ] 9027 S2 White Plume Mountain
[ ] 9023 B1 In Search of the Unknown -- some GHC
[ ] 2011 Dungeon Masters Guide (1st edition) -- some GHC
[ ] Dungeons and Dragons coloring book (set in Greyhawk!)
1980
[ ] 9039 A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity
[ ] 9032 C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
[ ] 9033 S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
[ ] 9035 Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits
[ ] 9038 C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness
[ ] 9021 D3 Vault of the Drow (1980 revision, blue cover)
[ ] 9025 The World of Greyhawk Folio
[ ] 9031 The Rogues Gallery (1st edition) -- some GHC
1981
[ ] 9040 A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade
[ ] 9041 A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords
[ ] 9042 A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords
[ ] 9045 L1 The Secret of Bone Hill
[ ] 9046 I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City
[ ] 9058 G1-3 Against the Giants
[ ] 9059 D1-2 Descent into the Depths
[ ] 9062 U1 The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
[ ] 9022 S1 Tomb of Horrors (1981 revision, green cover)
[ ] 9026 T1 The Village of Hommlet (1981 revision, moss cover)
[ ] 9027 S2 White Plume Mountain (1981 revision, orange cover)
[ ] 9032 C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (1981 revision)
[ ] 9033 S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1981 revision)
[ ] 2012 Fiend Folio -- some GHC
1982
[ ] 9061 S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
[ ] 9063 N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God
[ ] 9064 U2 Danger at Dunwater
[ ] 9112 WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
1983
[ ] 9057 L2 The Assassin's Knot
[ ] 9066 UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave
[ ] 9072 EX1 Dungeonland
[ ] 9073 EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror
[ ] 9076 U3 The Final Enemy
[ ] 9101 UK2 The Sentinel
[ ] 1015 World of Greyhawk Campaign Setting [boxed]
[ ] 2016 Monster Manual 2 -- some GHC
Not sure if it's even necessary, or if it'd just end up as filler, but you could always present a chapter on "Playing in the different eras of Greyhawk." Similar to what many Star Wars rulebooks did, where they explain not just the whole history, but also insert the "playable action points" of the various eras.
This is a great idea, neuronphaser, and one that should be an introductory article at Canonfire!. You can also extend the idea a little further by applying the rules systems to the eras of history/publishing, and matrix them to help people see that the Greyhawk Wars are just as viable an era when played with 1e as 4e, for example, or help folks see how 576 CY would change when run under OD&D vs. 3.5e.
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