D&D 5E Greyhawk: Pitching the Reboot

[Rob Kuntz]

I love the history of greyhawk. I just dont think blowing it up (i presume we are talking catyclysmic reset) is a good idea. Now if you want to just skipp 100 years or so into the future with st cuthbert and mordenkainen, and other icons still trying to hold the darkness at bay, i'd be all in

That's what makes apples and oranges. Differing POVs are actually good. In the wash, as I imagine my concept, it goes beyond yet secures all. As stated above there's nothing to it but three lone words. But the proof is in the re-imagined details, none of which I'd post here due to my low expectations for any concrete return of WoG. Besides, WotC controls the horizontal and the vertical, not current WoG fans or designers like myself. But this is a what-if? thread...

 

[Caliburn101]

It would also be a good thing to have developed for the upcoming movie and (especially) TV show; one of the reasons you don't have live-action high fantasy is because the budget would be too high. Low-magic fantasy cuts down on the cost a lot. (Unless you do battles with 1000s of extras on location and have CGI dragons, of course.)

Actually I don't think that is right. The issue is, hardly any truly successful writers of mainstream fantasy do high magic. Lord of the Rings, Conan, Game of Thrones, The Witcher, Assassin's Apprentice, Shannara, Wizard of Earthsea, Druss the Legend (anything by Gemmel), The Dragonbone Chair, The Mists of Avalon, Chronicles of the Black Company, The Spooks Apprentice, The Name of the Wind, Tigana, The Dark Tower, The Call of Cthulhu, The Narnia Chronicles, Six of Crows, Queen of Shadows, The Black Magician Trilogy, ... all of these have considerably less high power Gonzo magic like D&D. The Magician cycle (R.E.Feist) , Mazalan Book of the Fallen etc, The Wheel of Time series, Elric - these do have higher magic, but it is still RARE and wielded only by a few. Magic normally isn't utilitarian and everyday even in those worlds, and is commonly scary and has a price. It is far from the 'click -> boom & repeat' of D&D.

There are vanishingly few worlds written (except D&D close-derivative novels like Drizzt et al) where most of the heroes and many NPCs wield magic and they commonly encounter fantastical enemies and magic using enemies round every corner. One exception here is Harry Potter - but that saga is literally about magicians alone, and even the magic there is not as Gonzo. There were no Meteor Swarms going off and full use of battle magic was reserved for all-out war, and STILL wasn't of the superhero variety of high level D&D play. So it isn't that lots of magic cannot be done as you say, it's because there are barely any decent stories out there in the real world which are also good stories and are super high magic like D&D.

If you pack a world full of magic you either go with a Potter themepark or you have real difficulty making it relatable to readers or movie-watchers. It would be like every second person in Star Wars being a Jedi - the mystique of being one would soon be gone and scenes like at the end of The Mandalorian would lose their impact. Storytellers don't want that, and I would imagine that the upcoming D&D movie will not go full-gonzo like a D&D game, it will keep the magic more impactful by it not being used repeatedly by 3/4 of the party in every encounter.

Personally that's what I liked about AD&D and Greyhawk - magic was rarer, much more special and wielded by dangerous egocentrics in the main. It was not a part of daily life even in the City of Greyhawk. Of course it proliferated in later editions until now where even the Bard is a demigod caster at high levels.

Wheoever thought crowbarring in yet another full arcane caster into a game already overflowing with them was just being lazy.

I cannot say I like the development. But I think it has to do with the fact that virtually all iterations of non-magical classes and subclasses through the editions have been mostly as dull as dishwater. Of course you can claim 'ki' isn't magic for Monks, but you get my point. Spellcasting is by far the most varied, impactiful and 'toolbox of cool' thing you can use in an encounter, and WoTC do not seem to be able to break out of that paradigm.

That's why a properly relaunched Greyhawk would have to put serious curbs and houserules on the extent of 5e magic ubiquity - to maintain it's flavour and impact on the rich tapestry oof that world as envisioned when it was created.

It would also have to break martial classes out of being one-trick ponies - which they are, from 'sneak attack, set up next sneak attack' to 'roll/hit, roll/miss and add the brief condition to the damage' to 'never send in your pet or it will die above CR 5', and of course 'I rage or I don't, and that's it'... pure 'damage with just a weapon' classes need variety and fun re-injected. THEY should be looking at all the lovely options they have from round to round instead of making one choice, roling the die and doing maths for 20 seconds or so and then waiting 5 minutes for all the spellcasters to make choices between all the interesting stuff available to them that makes non-magic classes look like the poor cousins of the party before the next turn.

So many other systems do exciting and varied combat well. D&D has never managed to get there and has increasingly used flashy magic options to hide the elephant in the room.

 

[hopeless]

Should these limits also include divine casters as well as arcane casters?
Since Wizards need to learn new spells, shouldn't sorcerors, clerics, druids, etc...?
Part of the deal that involves training to a new level perhaps?
For the wizard and the cleric they return to their wizards tower or church to practice their new skills and abilities over a period of time.
Druid returns to their grove and the sorceror perhaps have their own resource in this regard?
Bards however I suspect that would be taverns and reminiscing with their mentor or their "friends"!

Would that help?
Or just complicate things too much?

EDIT: Just received my print copy of the World of Greyhawk book from drive thru rpg so will hopefully catch up on the background for this setting.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

But if a low level magic then who would bought the crunch sourcebooks about magic item?

 

[hopeless]

Identify is supposed to be able to be used to discern the crafting process.
That was a lot easier to deal with under 3.0, but 5e it depends on its rarity and if your DM decides you need some ridiculous materials to craft it.
I'm surprised no one has suggested a grimoire or tome filled with the crafting processes involved with the various items they have either learned or perfected?

 

[Greyhawk Geezer]

I loved reading this. I'm a geezer and I play Greyhawk (slightly homebrewed) because: a) I know it well and b) think it has true virtues - though it has a lot of funky liabilities as well. One thing that was cool about how Greyhawk evolved in 3e through 3.5e was the fact that players were writing cannon. I suspect the players today are among the smartest and most creative. I think it would fascinating to see a well curated fan based cannon. Greyhawk is distinct and yeah, kinda bleak, VERY political and definitely dated (but hopefully in a charming way). The blatant racism and sexism of the setting should be addressed head-on and compellingly. I don't know about marketing or how to "woo the younguns" but I know that the most obvious point made about quality can't be stressed enough.

I think some of the schmaltz should be kept (like they did in Witcher). There's no question that any reboot will have its detractors. You just can't please all the people all the time.

I think since most of the iconic monsters and many iconic figures spring from Greyhawk, an overarching "grand unification theory" could be amazing (like the Pixar grand unification theory). One that would explain why some of the iconic dungeons are so stupid and non-sensical and trace the origins of great (but under examined) races, e.g., Doppelgängers.

 

[jdrakeh]

It's been a while since I've posted about Greyhawk ... AND I HAVE COME BACK FOR MORE!

I was inspired by this recent post by @The Glen:

Marketing is the biggest issue. How do you make a setting sound fun? Greyhawk is a complete mess politically. The entire region is a powder keg waiting to blow. You've got expansionist Nations looking to increase their borders, secret societies trying to purge the impure, and the supposed good guys can't put aside their differences to present a united front.

That's what the players are facing. There isn't an elminster in Greyhawk. There isn't going to be high-level saviors that are going to keep the status quo. The high-level Wizards here really don't care about anyone but themselves. And that's a reoccurring theme because a lot of the Nations don't care about what's outside their borders. The elves would watch the Flaeness burn rather than risk their own people.

It's grim. It's bleak. At any given moment you're looking at Fantasy World War 1 as all the old grudges get settled in a geyser of blood. There aren't many happy endings in Greyhawk. But unlike ravenloft or dark Sun they are still possible. You will earn your happy ending.


This is in accord with my general ideas for how to "reboot" or "reintroduce" Greyhawk. In order to bring a viable Greyhawk to 5e, I would observe the following rules:

A. Do not slavishly recreate the past.
This Is A Dude Who, 700 Years Ago, Totally Ravaged China, And Who, We Were Told, 2 Hours Ago, Totally Ravaged Oshman’s Sporting Goods. -Bill .... or Ted... mmm, Esquire?

Greyhawk has a lot of fans, even still. Some love the 1983 set. Others are more about the 3e timeline. Thing is, people like what they like. But you can't go back to the past. If someone loves the old stuff ... they can always play it! There are so many resources for it- from print on demand, to Canonfire, to innumerable Grognards who will be happy to tell you what "real Greyhawk" is like. Point being- if you want the "real" thing, play the real thing. Heck- most of it is doesn't even require much "updating" to 5e, since it was mostly sketches that didn't really rely on rules.

The worst approach would be, IMO, to simply cater to the prior fans. For three simple reasons- (1) a slavish re-creation can never live up to what they have in their minds, because they are no longer living in the 80s or 90s or whenever they were playing it, and are not nearly as awesome and young; (2) prior fans would not agree on what makes a good recreation, anyway, and what needed to be incorporated to modernize it while staying true to Greyhawk (just toss out the term "Dragonborn" and see what happens); and (3) new fans DON'T CARE about your past, gramps. And we want new fans.


B. Quality is what matters.
Quality writing will always attract the high-brow audience. -Chuck Tingle, perhaps.

When you think back about any successful installment in a movie franchise, or any successful "reboot" of a media property, one thing immediately comes to mind- what matters is the quality. It's such a banal point it should be obvious, and yet ... what matters, what always matters, and what only matters, is the quality of the product. People can (and do) discuss things like "fidelity to canon" or "fan service," and these are all good things; but whether a particular media property is reifying expectations, or subverting them, what matters is that it is ... good. People, even the hardcore-iest of the hardcore fans, forgive a multitude of sins when something is good, whereas it's a lot harder to enjoy if it's bad.

More simply- making something high quality is the top priority; fan service should always be the secondary consideration.


C. Make it relevant and make it different.
See, you can't rewrite, 'cause to rewrite is to deceive and lie, and you betray your own thoughts. -Britney Spears, possibly.

The most important thing about any new version of Greyhawk would be that it has some type of relevance to people today. To use a (perhaps trite) example, elements of the reboot of BSG incorporated concepts from the then-current war on terror to give it some added pathos for current viewers. From that perspective, any person looking to re-do or re-launch Greyhawk would be best served looking at those elements from the past that would differentiate Greyhawk from other settings and make it a distinctive and appealing setting for some gamers.

With this is mind, I would argue for the following aspects of Greyhawk that should be brought forward and accentuated, and very much believe that a Greyhawk that more closely resembles a "Game of Thrones" type setting, with darkness, war, and a political backdrop would be very successful!

1. The Dying of the Light.
The Flanaess was once a place of great civilizations. Empires of unimaginable power and magic ruled the land, until they crumbled into dust, victims of their own hubris. Today, the great powers are corrupted from within (the Great Kingdom) or teetering on the edge; a few proud city-states, such as Onnwal, Greyhawk, and Dyvers welcoming traders from far and wide, but much of the land is empty and desolate, with villages and hommlets scraping by meager existences, and the presence of raiding parties a constant threat.

The greatest powers lie within tombs, hidden away in forgotten ruins and wrecked cities covered by jungle, long forgotten.


2. Politics is a zero-sum game.
The nations of the Flanaess are in constant competition with each other. There are theocracies and bandit kingdoms, free cities and associations of free yeoman; but while alliances are easily made, they are more easily broken. Most nations, even the "good" ones, are looking to expand, and all of them are terrified of any new rising power.


3. There is real evil, and it's winning.
While the good and neutral nations mostly squabble amongst themselves, real evil walk the world and cooperates in their plans. At least ... for now. Iuz. The Great Kingdom. And the Scarlet Brotherhood.


That's just an opening. But, in the end, pushing Greyhawk as a setting that really accentuates these differences would make it more interesting for a new set of gamers to play.

So - what's your pitch? How would you reboot Greyhawk?

I would really dig a thorough supplement on the Greyhawk Wars era, where PCs could work as actual agents of change and affect the outcome of those events. This would, of course, change Greyhawk's future - but I don't think an alternate timeline would be that awful.

 

[haakon1]

I’m a huge Greyhawk fan. I don’t see a reason to reboot. If you must, reissue Living Greyhawk Gazeteer with 5e rules. Be like Harn - never advance the timeline.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I'd love to see GREYHAWK setting revisited, and would welcome a low magic, more grimdark feel as it would make it stands more apart from Forgotten Realms.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd love to see GREYHAWK setting revisited, and would welcome a low magic, more grimdark feel as it would make it stands more apart from Forgotten Realms.

I kind of wonder if the success of Mork Borg points to the general direction WotC might want to take with a rebooted Greyhawk. Obviously toned-down and more mainstream-oriented (and with actual words on pages), but in the same way that I think Planescape was at least in part a reaction to World of Darkness and so on, I think a Greyhawk that was a reaction to Mork Borg might make some sense.