D&D (2024) How Does Greyhawk Fit In To The New Edition?

According to Game Informer — “the surprising importance and inclusions of what is arguably the oldest D&D campaign setting of them all – Greyhawk.”

So how does Greyhawk fit in? According to GI, the new 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk. Not only that, but the book will come with a double-sided poster map with the City of Greyhawk on one side and the Flannaes on the other—the eastern part of one of Oerth’s four continents.

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Even as the multiverse of D&D worlds sees increased attention, the Dungeon Master's Guide also offers a more discrete setting to get gaming groups started. After very few official releases in the last couple of decades, the world of Greyhawk takes center stage. The book fleshes out Greyhawk to illustrate how to create campaign settings of your own. Greyhawk was the original D&D game world crafted by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and a worthy setting to revisit on the occassion of D&D's golden anniversary. It's a world bristling with classic sword and sorcery concepts, from an intrigue-laden central city to wide tracts of uncharted wilderness. Compared to many D&D campaign settings, it's smaller and less fleshed out, and that's sort of the point; it begs for DMs to make it their own. The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed. For those eager to take the plunge, an included poster map of the Greyhawk setting sets the tone, and its reverse reveals a map of the city of the same name. "A big draw to Greyhawk is it's the origin place for such heroes as Mordenkainen, Tasha, and others," Perkins says. "There's this idea that the players in your campaign can be the next great world-hopping, spell-crafting heroes of D&D. It is the campaign where heroes are born."

- Game Informer​

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[timbannock]

same, Waterdeep, Sword Coast, Silverymoon, even Thay sound a helluva more fantasy world than...

Yeomanry,
Ulek...

Wooly Bay LOL (come on, its already challenging making my players immerse in a fantasy world without dropping "And you journey to the coast of Wooly Bay..." as they start laughing and cracking jokes).

But I know these were the conventions of Gygax naming things after his friends (or anagrams)

Gygax was frankly just bad with names all around. I feel like the anagrams were often his more inspired ones

 

[talien]

Per the full magazine article, Greyhawk is the sample Setting in Chapter 9 of the DMG, and the DMG will come with a poster map that has a map of the Flannaes on one side and a map of the City of Greyhawk on the other side.

Fun fact, the Sagard the Barbarian books extended out the Greyhawk maps beyond what was published in the box set. This blew my teenage mind when I discovered it: Sagard, Izmer, and Mapping Western Greyhawk

 

[DarkCrisis]

I felt that was terrible for Forgotten Realms and would be terrible for Greyhawk.

I expect them to either do 1e time period or 3e LGG post Great Wars/FtA, post crook of Rao reset last current date time period.

I expect a big picture overview hitting things like:

Iuz
Great Kingdom
Scarlet Brotherhood
Pomarj
Possibly Horned Society depending on time period

Pirates
Bandit Kingdoms
Fantasy Vikings
Other Barbarians
Fantasy Arabs

Greyhawk
Furyondy and other non-evil Great Kingdom splinter kingdoms
Wild Coast

Elven Celene
Valley of the Mage

The gods, hopefully broken out as multiple pantheons. Mention of druidism as old faith.

Possibly the Greyhawk ethnicities.

Mention of Rain of Colorless Fire and Invoked Devastation as ancient history big events.

Possibly some knighthoods.

Probably the most focus on Greyhawk with some mentions of Castle Greyhawk so it is a legendary site to be homebrewed as a megadungeon or allow a future big module.

To be fair, Faerun is a much more popular setting and had a whole lot more to lose. 4th Ed’s 100 year bump killed 90% of the iconics in the setting. Even New York Times best selling Drizzt crew got mostly obliterated and honestly never really recovered despite the resurrections.

But yeah WotC doesn’t want to lose legendary Strongheart to old age. I guess.

 

[GuyBoy]

I was 14 when I first walked the back alleys of the Free City, battled the terrors of the moathouse and searched soaring peaks for signs of the fabled treasures of Tsojcanth.
I’m 61 now, and my campaigning heart is still in Greyhawk. A good day!

 

[Queer Venger]

I love Greyhawk and I absolutely have no need for it being updated by WOTC because I can jettison the bad parts on my own with ease. Plus DMsGuild has the 32 page folio and City of Greyhawk as print on demand for cheap, and they are good quality. I do slightly prefer the 1e box set for its depth on deities and such, but that was easy to get second hand, and I'm sure that'll be up on DMsGuild for POD eventually, too.

More to the point, there's nothing they can do in 10-15 pages in the DMG that would be surprising/hard to DIY/worth looking at...aside from the poster map. That part is pretty stellar. But for the Greyhawk grognards? There's no way that appeals as a major/sole selling point except to collectors: the Paizo-era Flanaess map and the (several) City of Greyhawk maps available online can be purchased or printed for cheap. Far cheaper than buying a brand new DMG for them plus a few pages of "already read that" setting info.

Based on all that, I gotta agree with the folks saying this is about finding a setting that can be pulled together quickly, and is lore-light enough to fit into a short section, plus has the nostalgia value for the 50th anniversary. Greyhawk hits all those notes, but there's literally nothing they could do that would make it a "killer app" version of the setting that would cause the old-timers to buy it for this reason as a main selling point.

That's my take, at least.

this is pretty much how I feel about any publishes settings tbh; I don't need WotC to 'update' it. Ive been using Planescape for years before they released the recent books; same with Spelljammer. That said, I goth both boxed sets to steal art and ideas, streamline some of the clunkier bits rules wise and kept a good amount of what made both so iconic.

In fact, I don't think any 5e product can ever achieve the level of detail of most 2e setting box sets, unfortunately for many now entering the hobby, nevertheless some of that material now feels very dated and some of 5e products at least aim to give us fresher perspectives.

 

[Queer Venger]

Fun fact, the Sagard the Barbarian books extended out the Greyhawk maps beyond what was published in the box set. This blew my teenage mind when I discovered it: Sagard, Izmer, and Mapping Western Greyhawk

I remember reading those books...

 

[I'm A Banana]

I kind of love the janky weirdness of Greyhawk's names.

Wee Jass, Flanaess, Nyr Dyv, Baklunish, Oerik, Aerdy...

They ain't easy on the spellcheck or the pronunciation, I think, but they're pretty memorable in their own way.

 

[Starfox]

I'm a Greyhawk GM and to be honest I'd prefer to not get an update to confuse things. My version of Greyhawk has diverged enough that this may just create false expectations among players. Then again, none of my players are likely to pick up the DMG, so I guess it really doesn't matter.

Perhaps it might be fun to see what they make of it.

 

[Von Ether]

I’m as huge a Greyhawk fan as they come - see my previous posts on the subject.
The whole POINT of Greyhawk was to leave it intentionally open for DMs to have space for their own interpretation - that’s straight from Gygax. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always loved it.

Well, yes and no.

Part of the side bar should be exactly what you said. But new DMs have questions and they are often looking for answers and guidance. So the other half of the side bar would be, "But if you do want X, here some places they could be, but that's ultimately up to you and your version of Greyhawk." If WotC doesn't give them an answer, Reddit will.

And Twitter will try to shame both sides of the argument.

 

[grimslade]

I am glad Greyhawk is getting something finally. A new poster map with the Flaeness and City of Greyhawk. Sold right there.
I don't think we are getting a complete update to Greyhawk. This won't be the full setting. They will use Greyhawk to provide the examples for How to Build a Campaign World. So an example of making an organization might be a write up of the Knights of the Watch or the Thieves Guild of Greyhawk. Patrons might have a write up of the Circle of Eight. I don't see them including a minisetting in the DMG.
Hopefully, it opens WoG on the DMsGuild.