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

[Quickleaf]

Copyright doesn’t work that way. You can’t lose it through lack of use like you can a trademark. You have it for a [editorial viewpoint: excessively long] length of time, then you lose it… for each particular work.

That’s what it was thank you. Sorry brain. is fried today. So Greyhawk is a trademark, right?

 

[billd91]

That’s what it was thank you. Sorry brain. is fried today. So Greyhawk is a trademark, right?

There are trademark Greyhawk things (logos, titles) but many of those have seen use recently. So I doubt it’s really trademark maintenance. I think D&D hitting the Big Five-Oh and nostalgia is the prime motivator.

 

[CleverNickName]

Wasn't Greyhawk originally presented as an example of worldbuilding in D&D? And if that's the case, why are folks so surprised to see it being used in the same manner again?

EDIT: I might be thinking of Mystara.

 

[Yaarel]

Greyhawk is a museum for the origins of D&D. The Anniversary Edition necessarily celebrates it.

D&D originated with every table creating its own universes. All of the publications were jumping off points to help inspire DMs to come up with a new world. Dragon Magazine was a font of different ideas.

Arneson and Gygax published various ideas that they came up with, such as the Blackmoor and City of Greyhawk. Both came into existence from a shared world.

Original DMs invented their own worlds. Creating worlds − ones own setting − is the point of D&D.


The Greyhawk setting is something different. Greyhawk is a thought experiment. What if everything that D&D officially published is simultaneously true? Somewhere in this world there is room for each Dragon Magazine article, each adventure "module", each laser pistol, to exist.


Like all legacy D&D products, much of it passes the test of time. Much of it is already "normal" D&D, such as the Monster Manual monster descriptions. But some of it ages less well. The descriptions and premises of the ethnicities are occasionally problematic. The class level limits for its "races" unpopular. And so on. But all of this is where D&D comes from. It is good to rescue the baby from the bathwater.

I expect WotC to carefully vet and present each local regional settings within the world Oerth, one at at time, in a kind of "points of light" approach to building a world.


Greyhawk is the entire TSR era of D&D assembling together as a living world. The setting is itself an Anniversary Edition.

 

[Reynard]

EDIT: I might be thinking of Mystara.

At least in the E of BECMI this was the case.

 

[Parmandur]

Let's also keep something clear. They're not making Greyhawk the default setting for the PHB. They're using it as a sample setting in the DMG to illustrate world building for DMs. The two are not the same.

In the article we got this from, it talks about how the PHB having a setting appendix that covers all the major D&D official settings. And that makes sense, because the currency of an IP is recognizable characters and places, and WotC doesn't want to discard anything valuable. So the PHB is likely to be full of art and references for all the various settings, not just one implied default one.

Yup, apparently they are going to be visually highlighting a boatload of Settigns in the Core books. Example does not equal default!

 

[Parmandur]

What does a "example of making a setting" look like, do you think? My guess is there will be a campaign setting design chapter or setting, and the Greyhawk Gazeteer appendix will follow whatever format that is, with sidebars unobtrusively pointing back to the design chapter. This way the gazeteer remains useful beyond as an example of the process.

What do you think?

Well, we know from Chris Perkins outline that Chapter 7 will ne a template for how to construct an Adventure, and a sample Adventure (my bet is Keep on the Borserlands), Chapter 8 will be a template on how to striking together adventures into a campaign with some sort of example (James Wyatt said there will be a lot of Adventures). Given that formula, Chapter 9 is likely to be a template on how to go about building a Setting, and then a Gazetter of Greyhawk showcasing how to do that.

 

[Charlaquin]

What does a "example of making a setting" look like, do you think? My guess is there will be a campaign setting design chapter or setting, and the Greyhawk Gazeteer appendix will follow whatever format that is, with sidebars unobtrusively pointing back to the design chapter. This way the gazeteer remains useful beyond as an example of the process.

What do you think?

Could be sort of a brief rundown of how the setting was created.

 

[Parmandur]

Not to be overly cynical, but my assumption would be that the decision came down to something on the legal side.

I know there’s some thing about maintaining a copyright where you have to use it a certain number of years or it can lapse.

We also know there was some kind of legal issues around Grayhawk pertaining to the Gygax estate, but I’m not privy to the details.

We also know that Ed Greenwood has some kind of vetting or some kind of limited say about the forgotten realms, but somebody will have to remind me of the specifics.

Trademark, nit copyright: and ine if the bonuses for WotC of the DMsGuild is that offering anything that way keeps it in active trademark.

 

[MerricB]

Why Greyhawk? Because it's medieval Europe, to a large extent. You know, an actual setting that resonates with a lot of players because it's based on something real.

(Same as Harry Potter takes known tropes and then does new things with them).

The more you move away from familiar concepts, the harder the sell is for a setting. Doesn't mean that it can't be amazing, but for the most popular Fantasy RPG, you want a starting point that more people can understand.

The advantage that Greyhawk has is that it is less developed. You can go back to the basics of the 1983 boxed set and then let people loose to do what they will with it. (I have a sneaking suspicion is that its nations are a lot easier to explain than those of the Forgotten Realms). It has classic dungeons to point out, but otherwise gets out of the way.

"Generic fantasy" is, in this case, an advantage.

Cheers,
Merric