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

Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk.

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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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Parmandur

Book-Friend
You'd never properly fit Faerun in a single chapter of the DMG, they went with a lore lighter setting for the DMG, which means it would have to be either Greyhawk, Birthright, Isle of Wyrms, or an MtG setting like Eldraine. I think they made the right call. Greyhawk isn't popular amd unique enough for its own book apparently, but it has the gravity of legacy so this will open it up to dmsguild, and give folks who normally skip buying tje DMG (the most skippable of the core books) a reason to buy it.
Exactly this, it is a perfect fit.
 

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Parmandur

Book-Friend
True, I wonder how big a chapter it will be.

Greyhawk might not be as well-published as FR, but it still has plenty to write about, so I'm curious how much detail they'll give us. The 3e Gazetteer was 32 pages, but that feels like a big ask for a "sample setting." But also something Nentir Vale or Domainds of Dread sized would feel much too small.
The OG Folio was 32 pages, and 1E books had lower word counts per page, so assuming Chapter 9 is about the size of a 2014 DMG Chapter, they could fit the whole original Setting as presented, frankly.
 

payn

He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
I can understand the that kind of treatment for a small fishing village. But we're talking about an entire campaign setting, a world with 40+ years of gaming history.
I can't imagine it being anything other than a disappointment - a crumb of what we've been wanting for 20 years.
Eh, whaaddya gonna do? They barely publish anything anymore.
 


Mortellan

Explorer
The OG Folio was 32 pages, and 1E books had lower word counts per page, so assuming Chapter 9 is about the size of a 2014 DMG Chapter, they could fit the whole original Setting as presented, frankly.
Facts. Though iirc the OG folio has no cultural info, or gods for that matter. Given the City of GH is supposedly featured on one side of this map, that place alone could eat up any word count.
 


Why are we getting excited about something that's likely going to be around 10 pages? This isn't like a full Greyhawk campaign setting. It's going to be a section of what's traditionally the most anemic book in the line - put in largely to pander to old-timers who wouldn't have purchased the book without it.
Wow, did you put lemon juice instead of milk in your cereal this morning?!
 


Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
I can understand the that kind of treatment for a small fishing village. But we're talking about an entire campaign setting, a world with 40+ years of gaming history.
I can't imagine it being anything other than a disappointment - a crumb of what we've been wanting for 20 years.
Is your standard "is this as good as a full setting publication?" Because I think 16 pages would be the absolute limit on what we'll get, and I think eight pages is probably a more realistic expectation.

The original folio was 32 pages, but that includes a cover page and layout that doesn't maximize the use of space.

Greyhawk's modern history is probably going to be reduced to "the region is still recovering after devastating wars that took place several decades ago." And for the purposes of the DMG, more detail than that would probably just overwhelm people using it to learn how to build a campaign setting -- and arguably be teaching them bad lessons.

Fingers crossed they open the setting up on the DMs Guild, where everyone can really go to town.
 

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