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

[Minigiant]

The fact that it is old, not updated in a long time and was intended as an example of how-to world build strikes me as making it an ideal setting to demonstrate world building to new DMs.

I said it being old and not updated meaned it its too out of date to teach the modern interpretation of the game.

Unless the Modernize Greyhawk. Which is a Dice roll of WOTC does. They didn't put effort in the 2014 DMG. They admitted it was rushed.

I am entirely justified to not give them the benefit of the doubt until they state they are putting work into crafting Greyhawk as an educational setting

 

[Mournblade94]

lol....nope. This is one option I will not use. I assume they are continuing with the idiocy that half-orcs and half-elves pick the traits of either or and I will probably just continue to allow the older options.

Same pretty much. Its easy though. I allow Planetouched and Corrupted (Not inherently evil races) like Duergar and Drow. I've always allowed some form of Tabaxi. I allowed Gith in my planescape/realms campaign and 1 player used it.

I'm willing to run games with 'furry' races but when I do its through "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness."

 

[RedSquirrel]

The way I see it, changing warforged to, for the sake of argument, "ironforged" would be equivalent to changing tiefling to something like "fiendling". Sure, it would get the idea of what they are across just as well as, if not better than, the existing name, but the old names have years, nay decades, of brand recognition and player investment.

If the name's a problem in specific contexts, give an alternate to use for those contexts, but there's no reason that alternate has to take primacy, in my view, unless the old name has such issues that it needs to be fully retired.

Yes.
Just as the Player's Handbook says, "Wild elves in Dragonlance are called Kagonesti. In Greyhawk they're called "Grugach." It's that easy to note their differences and still have all the things.
There's no reason (other than sheer oppositional, argumentative obectionism) there can't be fiendlings or ironborn or artificers in Greyhawk (especially with it's history).

 

[Composer99]

I know I should have a sensible answer, but the last sentence of the thread title has got me like:

Tell me why! ain't nothin' but a mis-take
Tell me why! ain't nothin' but a heart-ache
Tell me why! I never want to hear you say
The Greyhawk setting is introduced in the 2024 D&D DMG

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(Disclaimer: I don't actually have an opinion one way or the other.)

 

[Hussar]

It's the opposite. "Setting Integrity" means there are actually meaningful differences between different settings that make them diverse, and interesting. Getting rid of that, they are all the same and lose any significance or meaning. That's not cool to me, I want Dark Sun to play and feel very different than FR, and I want Greyhawk to feel and play different from both of those and so on. That is the interesting good stuff about the different settings otherwise it's just a math exercise... I can do that on an old school calculator.

But lore isn’t really the clearest way to do that. Considering that Forgotten Realms has mined Greyhawk for a very long time, there are going to be obvious overlaps. Does that mean that GH and FR feel the same in play?

Well, no. Because the key here is “in play”. You differentiate by presentation. In FR, you tend to have a more epic fantasy approach. Big individuals doing big things. They talk about Realm Shaking Events for a reason.

But Greyhawk is much more characterized by local adventuring. That’s the whole sword and sorcery vibe. You aren’t saving the world. Your adventures tend to be more focused on specific places. So you have things like Against the Giants which only concerns one fairly small nation state instead of the whole setting like Storm Kings Thunder.

The mistake you are making is presuming that lore is the primary or even sole source of flavour in a setting.

 

[Mournblade94]

Greyhawk survived Unearthed Arcana with it cavaliers and PC drow. It survived 2e's From the Ashes with kits and specialty priests. It survived 3e with dwarf wizards and sorcerers. It will survive this.

And if you are right and Greyhawk is dead because of dragonborn warlocks, then if deserved to die and be harvested for parts. Let something new and glorious be born from the ashes of the old.

I 100% wish they would make something new. I am very jaded as to what happened with the Spellplague and the 4e friction. I have no problem letting the older things lay where they are.

I would rather have a new audience play with their new toy then change what came before to suit them. That's just not the way though with businesses.

Exandria (Crit role?) I Thought was goign to wind up being a new campaign setting for the newer rules through business deals. Its already been made with the sensibilities for the critter community. That would have been great.

 

[Mournblade94]

Oh yes. I'm imagining a lot of advice throughout the core books that I wouldn't touch with a 10-meter cattle prod. Another reason not to buy it.

So I bought Fantasy Age and the Dragon Age new Core rules (hah 'new' 2018). Within they have an entire section on management of playstyles. I don't need that section one bit, and yes I would prefer other content be there, but I do notice the questions on alot of forums by noobs. I read it in that light, and it really helps someone new to this figure out social dynamics as much as you can learn that from a book. It has a section on session 0 which is good! It didn't go into safety tool stuff or anything like that. It just showed the common sense to use in session 0.

There is merit in such things. Though I sincerely doubt alot of people are reading the rules to learn this game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet they reverted the high elf => eladrin change, to the point of us now having versions of both that are quite distinct from one another... Shrugs

The way I see it, changing warforged to, for the sake of argument, "ironforged" would be equivalent to changing tiefling to something like "fiendling". Sure, it would get the idea of what they are across just as well as, if not better than, the existing name, but the old names have years, nay decades, of brand recognition and player investment.

If the name's a problem in specific contexts, give an alternate to use for those contexts, but there's no reason that alternate has to take primacy, in my view, unless the old name has such extensive issues that it needs to be fully retired.

Heck, in the process of de-OGL-ifying Pathfinder 2e, tieflings and aasimar (and basically every other "outer" planetouched heritage) were unified under the name "nephilim", and despite understanding perfectly well why the change was made and it being an entirely separate game system, I still have a gut instinct to default to using the names tiefling and aasimar that is nigh impossible to overcome.

IMO, the name "warforged" has issues in any context that does not include a conflict in which manufactured intelligences were created and used. Otherwise, by definition it makes no sense. I am convinced the name is the primary reason why they did not appear in MMotM, when many other less popular species did. As a result, I see no good reason to keep the name as primary outside of Eberron. It's simply too setting specific.

 

[Mournblade94]

Of course I do. I'm also allowed to be annoyed by social trends I don't like. They're allowed to believe what they want, and so am I. If that's "elitist" then you're saying no one should express any opinion outside of the majority.

The crazy quirky is not my flavor at all but much to my chagrin EVERY group I have run has that one player that prefers it. Many of my friends prefer quirky over my stuffiness mud sticking and the differences in the games we run are very different. Those differences have been there for the last 30 years and i still play in that doofis game and he in mine.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I said it being old and not updated meaned it its too out of date to teach the modern interpretation of the game.

Unless the Modernize Greyhawk. Which is a Dice roll of WOTC does. They didn't put effort in the 2014 DMG. They admitted it was rushed.

I am entirely justified to not give them the benefit of the doubt until they state they are putting work into crafting Greyhawk as an educational setting

The modern interpretation of the game is the rules in the PHB, the Greyhawk chapter in the DMG is to teach a new DM to create a world using Greyhawk as an example. While it is possible that WoTC may fail in this, I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt until I see the actual result.
I will add that an example of how to create a new setting is not the same thing as a complete setting. This will be a chapter not a setting book.