hawkeyefan
Legend
Yes, and no.
I mostly agree, in the sense that a lot of this has been filled out; I don't think that it needed to, or should have been (pretty much everything post 1985 that is Greyhawk is, IMO, garbage, but that's okay). So to the extent that prior references were truly unexplored, whereas 5e references are more like "fan service" in a Marvel movie, yes.
I can understand the preference for things to be only hints, and leaving it up to the readers/players to decide.
But to a 10 year old kid picking up the PHB for the first time, is the description of the fall of the drow "fan service"? Is it there to make you and I go "right, right" or is it there to inspire players?
It's hard to know. I suppose the only real answer is that it's a mixture of both those things.
OTOH, there was something truly bizarre and subversive about the original core books, partly because they were so very idiosyncratic. While some things did not age well (the random harlot's table) other things did (the bizarre side excursion into tariffs after government types, for example). The mix of history (real history, albeit combined from multiple sources) with fantastical lore (like the artifact descriptions) to the ... well, strange authorial advice (hey- the bad of beans requires imagination and judgment) and verbiage (pretty sure that the only reason antipathy has any currency today is because of ex-D&D players).
Those books were certainly original in that sense. I often get the impression they were the way they were because that's how things made sense for Gygax. Like, if there was a rule that was really more class related than anything, but it had only come up in play in a discussion about alignment, then it would be found in the alignment section. It likely made sense in a way, if you were designing the rules as you went.
Do you think Gygax was torn about implying a world or not? That's the impression I get. It seemed like he expected that everyone would come up with their own world, so his is only mentioned when examples are needed, or for flavor for some of the artifacts. I feel like he could have committed more or left it out altogether, but instead he went with a middle road.
I wonder if the books would have been so immersive if he'd come right out and detailed the world.
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