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

[Swanosaurus]

Again for the zillion time, you can add stuff to GH and still explain it in away the makes sense with the setting. Not sure I will ever understand why this is a bad thing, and not a good one. You get the setting and the new stuff both.

This is a little absurd, because I'm pretty sure that's exactly what pretty much everyone you've been arguing with the last few pages of this thread has stated; that a) it is possible to add stuff to GH, b) it is possible do it respectfully without overthrowing the setting c) we don't know if WotC will do it, but we can hope. I don't think I've read anyone who said: "No, that's a bad thing, we want that everything is changed around radically without rhyme or reason!" I might have come closest to being possibly interpreted that way by stating that I prefer the "there's always been Goliaths in the setting, they're just reclusive" approach to the "a lot of dragonborn recently came here from another continent", because I find it less intrusive than having several big events to explain the presence of new ancestries.

 

[pemerton]

If the settings doesn't match your current vision of the game, maybe it's the wrong setting. Seems also like a ton more work to haphazardly shoehorn in your game into a settings that doesn't match than just making a new one, or using a an existing one.

The vision of GH is S&S + high fantasy combo that is good for playing D&D in. I think it will suit contemporary D&D as well as it did AD&D.

You are proving my point, you can add "new" stuff without destroying the setting's flavor and what makes it fun and unique to other settings. You don't have to turn GH into FR, if that's the case just use FR and be done, why bother? For the record, we actually ran a 5e GH campaign with a DB PC, it was fun and we totally made it work without "breaking" the setting. We even included our version of White Plume, which some of the players had never done before... super fun!

So if you did it, what makes you so confident that WotC can't?

 

[pemerton]

I guess I disagree, all of sudden having Tieflings and Dragonborn and Bunny/Cat people walking around everywhere with no rhyme or reason and no connection or interplay with the world breaks it for me on many levels. It makes it not that world but a different one, so why not just use the different one you already got, like FR. Just use that if that is what you really want?

When I used GH in my RM game, in the 1990s, I used the Tiger and Wolf Nomads as literal Catfolk and Wolfolk (both found in RM's Creatures and Treasures book). It didn't break anything. None of my players revolted. It didn't require changing anything important about how those peoples fitted into the larger setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sorry, it's not elitist to point out that GH is not great literature. It's a hodgepodge setting for FRPGing.

And nothing is being "manipulated".

I have a shelf of GH material: Folio, Boxed Set, City of GH Boxed Set, FtA Boxed Set, The Adventure Begins, Living GH, plus various modules from classic A&D and 2nd ed AD&D. Nothing that WotC does this year will change any of that stuff.

My current Torchbearer game and current Burning Wheel game both use GH as their setting (the area around Tenh, the Pale and the Bandit Kingdoms for Torchbearer; Hardby and environs for BW). I use what I need and ignore what I don't - eg in our TB game Burne (a NPC from T1 Village of Hommlet) is the wizard of the Wizard's Tower on the Bluff Hills; the Forgotten Temple Complex in the foothills of the Griff Mountains adjacent to the Troll Fens (placed there by a player as part of PC build) is modelled on the Temple of Elemental Evil; the Moathouse is in the Troll Fens with Nulb a Remote Village on the south-east border of the Fens.

These published settings are for game play. Not for admiring as exhibitions.

I'm not dealing with this anymore. Have fun.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Of course I have an idea what the flavor or integrity of the Greyhawk is, I've been using the setting forever. Good grief, I was being sarcastic to show the ridiculousness having defend such begin simple concept. I am not going to write a complete lore guide, those already exist. Just read one if you want. Again for the zillion time, you can add stuff to GH and still explain it in away the makes sense with the setting. Not sure I will ever understand why this is a bad thing, and not a good one. You get the setting and the new stuff both.

Cool. So there is literally no issue that is going to come up from the use of Greyhawk in the DMG or the new material in the PHB and this entire tangent has been a pointless waste of everyone's time.

You say you've had to defend a "Simple concept" but there is no concept to defend. No one has said that there will be zero explanation for the inclusion of the Dragonborn, and we've all pointed out that Aasimar, Tieflings, Orcs, and Goliaths are trivial to fit into the setting. As are sorcerers, warlocks, and the various barbarians.

Heck, we had someone claim that MONKS were going to be a difficulty the DMG has to tackle, when the only purely Greyhawk villain organization I know is full of them.

People seem to mostly be panicking at the sheer idea that Greyhawk could possibly be mishandled, maybe, in a chapter about writing examples for worldbuilding.

Edit: I do also hope you understand the absurdity of "read a lore book to understand my arguments!" Because... people who have read those books seem to be disagreeing with you.

 

[MNblockhead]

You are probably right about that, but that doesn't mean that Greyhawk was specifically intended to be all of whatever D&D is, and therefore is intended to be expanded to take on anything added to D&D over the decades. Again, that's Eberron.

People keep saying that. My only exposure to Greyhawk was the AD&D boxed set. It was clearly meant as a setting to use whatever classes and races were in the core books and cross-referenced them throughout. If the the races and classes in Greyhawk were limited it was because they were not in the core rules. I see no reason why it would not grow to include core races and classes added to the game. I never owned any subsequent GH material and never played in Living Greyhawk. Did subsequent official GH material explicitly state that certain races and classes from the core books did not exist in the setting?

Further they leaned in hard in their History of the Guide to the World of Greyhawk that the material presented was an incomplete copy of the Savant-Sage's work and that it was meant to be altered and added to to fit your game:

The WORLD OF GREYHAWK Fantasy Setting is yours now, to do with as you wish. You can mold new states from old, or inflame ancient rivalries into open warfare, as you tailor the world to suit the needs of your players. The time has come for new legends to be created, new battles to be fought, new songs to be sung. It is your world — welcome to it!

Arguments that WotC should limit the setting to what was available in the 1st edition books, seems very un-Greyhawk to me.

 

[Parmandur]

Did subsequent official GH material explicitly state that certain races and classes from the core books did not exist in the setting?

Noooope, quite the oppisite: everything in 3E books was explicitly supplsed to be available in Greyhawk.

 

[Minigiant]

Since their introduction in 3e, Warforged are the go to example for entitled players ruining DM's carefully curated settings and a sign of everything wrong with D&D.

DIdn't you know that?

Now its Harengon

People seem to mostly be panicking at the sheer idea that Greyhawk could possibly be mishandled, maybe, in a chapter about writing examples for worldbuilding.

Manhandled.

I'm more afraid WOTC does nothing and throws new and inexperienced DMs to the wolves unaided....

..Again

 

[MNblockhead]

Kara Tur was in Faerun. And I'm not saying the setting cannot accommodate change. I am refuting the claim that Greyhawk was always intended to cover everything D&D, which functionally means it never had any flavor of its own. Greyhawk was created as Gary's setting, and it was intended to have what Gary wanted it to have. Since he was also a foundational member of D&D's design team, Greyhawk and D&D at the time closely resembled each other. Extending that similarity across time, long after the passing of its creator, and claiming that was always the intent of the setting is inaccurate.

Also, your simile is aggravating and insulting. Please don't assume that your opinions are more correct than others because they happen to be in vogue.

Greyhawk was created in response to those asking for an official setting and was created as a product to cater to that demand. Gary would have made the setting accommodate whatever would help TSR sell more product.

And if we are going to get precious about "Gary's setting", keep in mind that in the early days Gary was resistant to the idea of not only publishing settings, but he expressed similar views about adventures. It was expected that DMs would create their own adventures and settings. It took third-party publisher's like Judges Guild for Gary to see he was leaving money on the table.

 

[Hussar]

There is... I am not going to write a lore and world setting essay here. There are plenty of books out there you can look over at your leisure that cover both settings. Your opinion of the GH setting and mine are different. I find much more value in it then you do. That's ok, for example, I don't love FR and others do.

You are missing my point. Actually there aren't "plenty of books" out there that cover Greyhawk. What there actually are is a couple of folios, a shopping list of Dragon articles and a lengthy list of adventures set in Greyhawk. Books? Not so much.

So, again, my point stands here. GH has been mined so heavily by Forgotten Realms and the fact that both settings rely on the same sources - the PHB and the Monster Manual - for much of the setting elements, that of course there are some serious overlaps. What makes GH stand out from FR though is the lack of large meta-plots and the lack of specific material detailing the setting. GH is a much less detailed setting than FR. By a lot. Which makes GH a much better setting (IMO) for homebrewers and those who want to make the setting their own. Who were the last fifteen mayors of Saltmarsh? Who knows? Who cares? If I want that level of detail, I have Forgotten Realms. In GH, if I want that level of detail, I make it up myself.