D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[TiQuinn]

My problem with that book is that I...have all the art on my bookshelf already.

Yeah, it looked like a victory lap of 5e which was not something I wanted to drop $50 for.

 

[Staffan]

It looks like the book will have 32 pages just on Greyhawk, in addition to Mystara, Dragonlance, the Forgotten Realms and Eberron:

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This insult will not stand! Why is there nothing for all of us Jakandor fans?!

 

[Parmandur]

This insult will not stand! Why is there nothing for all of us Jakandor fans?!

I mean, it wouldn't shock me if other Settings at least get namechecked.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You're free to do what you want with your game, but I lol a little with the Mos Eisley comparison whenever it gets trotted out. If I crack open the Monster Manual, there are dozens of humanoid monsters, including monstrous humanoids. There are a dozen dragons and half a dozen giants. And that's not counting the various sentient fey, aberrations, and planar beings. There are more monsters in your typical dungeon than were ever in the Cantina scene and monster books are top selling because people desire even more. But people don't think about that because they are monsters that exist to be killed by PCs rather than unique peoples with cultures and ecologies. A D&D world using only the Monster Manual has hundreds of sentient species. If the only PC species you allow was human, you still have more variety than all the Star Wars films combined.

Yet I don't know too many DMs who highly curate the Monster Manual the same way they do player species.

To these creatures always hang out together in the same place? Cosmopolitan fantasy is just one way to portray the genre.

 

[Remathilis]

To these creatures always hang out together in the same place? Cosmopolitan fantasy is just one way to portray the genre.

They all live in the same 20 level dungeon, don't they?

Honestly, look at something like the Caves of Chaos. That's half a dozen humanoid species living in pretty close proximity to each other, sharing or competing over resources, before you even touch the PC races in the Keep. Those creatures who aren't tribes (like the minotaur or medusa) still come from species that are likewise capable of culture and have an ecological niche. And KotB is a small area with low-level foes, it's much harder to justify when every humanoid from aarakorca to yak-folk live in communities between demihuman settlements.

 

[Mournblade94]

They all live in the same 20 level dungeon, don't they?

Honestly, look at something like the Caves of Chaos. That's half a dozen humanoid species living in pretty close proximity to each other, sharing or competing over resources, before you even touch the PC races in the Keep. Those creatures who aren't tribes (like the minotaur or medusa) still come from species that are likewise capable of culture and have an ecological niche. And KotB is a small area with low-level foes, it's much harder to justify when every humanoid from aarakorca to yak-folk live in communities between demihuman settlements.

PLanets are big. I have no problem envisioning some of these people never meeting, especially when underground or on mountain tops. Adventurers come in contact with them. In no way do I find the fact there could be monster settlements or civilization that humans don't know about surprising.

Its when they make themselves known that the conflict occurs.

Ecological Niches and food webs are completely upended by any setting like this. Its already impossible that Apex Beast predators can exist in the same niche as a magical beast. It breaks all what we know about energy flow. In light of that I am completely OK with handwaving that there are many cultures in the Monster Manual that have no contact with the outside world.

D&D already breaks fundamental rules of ecosystems. I'm not going to sweat those things. I am going to sweat it in a dungeon though. I have to have a logic to energy and nutrient flow in a dungeon or it doesn't work for me. Maybe that logic is all undead, But dungeons are closed systems with no resources, so for Versimilitude sake I need an input and an output.

 

[Faolyn]

None of these are significant in number compared to new players and people new to DMing.

And they don’t need a lesson anyway.

One of D&D’s biggest problems is a shortage of DMs. Presenting world building as something that requires a lot of work is the last thing WotC needs to be doing.

Um. That's why this hypothetical chapter would be a way to simplify it, not presenting it as a complex thing.

It would probably have a bunch of tables to roll or chose on, even, in addition to thought exercises. Can't get much simpler than that.

 

[Remathilis]

PLanets are big. I have no problem envisioning some of these people never meeting, especially when underground or on mountain tops. Adventurers come in contact with them. In no way do I find the fact there could be monster settlements or civilization that humans don't know about surprising.

Its when they make themselves known that the conflict occurs.

Ecological Niches and food webs are completely upended by any setting like this. Its already impossible that Apex Beast predators can exist in the same niche as a magical beast. It breaks all what we know about energy flow. In light of that I am completely OK with handwaving that there are many cultures in the Monster Manual that have no contact with the outside world.

D&D already breaks fundamental rules of ecosystems. I'm not going to sweat those things. I am going to sweat it in a dungeon though. I have to have a logic to energy and nutrient flow in a dungeon or it doesn't work for me. Maybe that logic is all undead, But dungeons are closed systems with no resources, so for Versimilitude sake I need an input and an output.

Which is my point; the existence of 30+ PC races is nothing when there are 600+ monster species.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Um. That's why this hypothetical chapter would be a way to simplify it, not presenting it as a complex thing.

It would probably have a bunch of tables to roll or chose on, even, in addition to thought exercises. Can't get much simpler than that.

Random tables are unlikely to produce anything remotely coherent.

But the point is, it’s pointless. None of it needed for a game of D&D. Worldbuilding is a fun activity to do on your own, but your players are not interested in the lineage of King Krabunkle XI to the 27th generation, they just want to know were the monsters and treasure are at.

 

[Faolyn]

Random tables are unlikely to produce anything remotely coherent.

But the point is, it’s pointless. None of it needed for a game of D&D. Worldbuilding is a fun activity to do on your own, but your players are not interested in the lineage of King Krabunkle XI to the 27th generation, they just want to know were the monsters and treasure are at.

OK, you do realize that that the bolded bit is not the kind of worldbuilding I'm talking about, right?