D&D 4E How would you re-envision Greyhawk with 4e?

[IanB]

I'd give it the Eberron treatment. I wouldn't roll back FtA or the Roger Moore late 2E stuff or anything that is already in (well, out of) print. If the storylines doesn't suck, I'd consider updating the LG Gazeteer with whatever events/changes have happened via Living Greyhawk. That's it. Use the gazeteer as the core starting point, make whatever changes are necessary to bring the rules in line. The LGG is almost entirely fluff anyway so that wouldn't be terribly difficult.

I guess if they're not available somewhere else, player race stats for gnomes would need to be added. I'm of two minds as to the idea of including half-orcs; they're so distasteful in their origin that I think the game is better off without them, but they've been a pretty important core race in GH. I'd lean towards leaving them out as far as a player option goes.

 

[A'koss]

Personally I would advance the timeline just as they've done in FR. I think it's come to the point where sweeping changes are needed to help revitalize the setting.

The first thing I'd do is leverage all the great Greyhawk villains who really have no power bases in the setting and give them all new realms in the Flanaess. The great thing is, all the major baddies are immortal and therefore have no problem appearing 100 years in the future.

First up - Iggwilv. She is the new marquee "Big Bad". Iuz is on the verge of losing his empire to a century of attrition from the forces of Furyondy, Veluna, resurgant Shield Lands, etc. before Iggwilv steps in and supplants him. She strips him of his divine power and now must serve his mother as a mere retainer. Backed by Grazz't in the Abyss, she strikes back with hordes of demons, monsters of her own design and her own god-like power. The campaign starts with the war still going on, pushing the forces of good back. All children born inside the borders of this new nation are tieflings (but not automatically evil) due to Iggwilv's demonic magics.

Next - St. Kargoth conquers most of the Yomanry with the aid of his death knights and... devils! Clearly Kargoth has had a significant change of alliegance and begins making overtures to the fire giants of the Hellfurnaces and forays beyond into the Sea of Dust. Most of the people there are slaves, forced to help build new fortifications, opposed by various guerrilla bands.

Then the third major player - Kas returns and strikes in the east, conquering much territory. Kas brings the entire Citadel Cavitus to the Flanaess, which swiftly corrupts all the territory around it. However his purpose in Greyhawk is not clear as rumors begin to circulate that he has met with various luminaries of good in Greyhawk in secret.

With a heavy heart Melf Brightflame reluctantly stages a coup in Celene with the aid of the noble Dragonborn from beyond Oerth, but Yolande escapes with a number of loyal followers. Much political turmoil ensues as she finds asylum in Greyhawk City.

The Circle of Eight is now a distant memory, but the PCs can be a part of helping rebuild a new Circle. Greyhawk City could be expanded. Mordenkainen the quasi-deity? Do any of the original Circle survive? Also, there are a great number of signature Greyhawk artifacts in the setting - I would definitely leverage those as well.

Anyway, this would be groundwork I build upon for a 4e Greyhawk.

 

[GVDammerung]

I have no idea how you so unmake 4e to fit GH and still have it 4e, or so bend, fold and mutilate GH to make it fit 4e and still have it resemble GH in more than name. I'd just as soon GH never be touched by 4e. I'm looking at 4e Realms and shuddering. Frankly, with the hyper-thyroid fluff of 4e, 4e needs a brand new 4e setting, IMO. Leave the old dead settings old and dead. If Wotc is so devoid of imaginmation that they can't come up with a new 4e setting that they can sell, Hasbro should can every last one of them and start over. Which might not be a bad idea just on general principles if 4e underperforms.

 

[Mistwell]

I am not spamming. Each dicussion is intended to be kept in its own threads for keeping poster focus on that one campaign setting. Mushing the threads together defeats keeping the feel, brainstorming and concepts around each campaign seperated which was why I intentional posted them as their own threads.

I think the complaint was valid. You're spamming. This is too many virtually identical threads. All you did was change a word or two here or there. A single thread on "how would you change the various settings" would have sufficed. Not only that, but you duplicated several threads, at least one of which is virtually identical and on the front page right now (Ravenloft).

And it would probably be in your best interest as well, since you've diluted the topic between so many threads that few will be able to stay on top of the forum.

 

[Ranger REG]

Probably either. I suspect he is merely asking "If you were in charge of Greyhawk for 4e, would you pull an FR and make big changes (re-envision), or pull an Eberron and keep things the same (revise)?"

Me? Personally?

I wasn't fond of FR Time of Trouble event to explain the changes from 1e rules to 2e rules.

I'm glad that WotC didn't do any world-shattering event when we converted from 2e to 3e.

I prefer the "business as usual" approach. Kinda like how the late Roddenberry explained the Klingon difference between the movies and TOS. "There were always like that. We just lack the budget."

 

[Najo]

I have no idea how you so unmake 4e to fit GH and still have it 4e, or so bend, fold and mutilate GH to make it fit 4e and still have it resemble GH in more than name. I'd just as soon GH never be touched by 4e. I'm looking at 4e Realms and shuddering. Frankly, with the hyper-thyroid fluff of 4e, 4e needs a brand new 4e setting, IMO. Leave the old dead settings old and dead. If Wotc is so devoid of imaginmation that they can't come up with a new 4e setting that they can sell, Hasbro should can every last one of them and start over. Which might not be a bad idea just on general principles if 4e underperforms.

Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms were originally 1st edition settings. Many of these other worlds were created for 2nd edition. Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk all got overhauled for 3/3.5e. Each time these settings have gotten improved.

Bringing well loved settings into 4e is not lacking imagination, it is relaunching brands that were popular fantasy settings. Why condemn the settigns to die?

If D&D is the pinnacle of fantasy roleplaying, then it should be able to convert and handle these worlds. Likewise, these worlds are made to adapt to rule changes as they are gaming settings. There is nothing wrong with retrofiting a setting to work with a new rule set. Personally, I think some of the changes require imagination and actually improve the setting. The clean up forgotten realms got for 3.0/3.5 was very good and overall the 4e re-envisioning is likely going to be good for the setting.

 

[Najo]

I think the complaint was valid. You're spamming. This is too many virtually identical threads. All you did was change a word or two here or there. A single thread on "how would you change the various settings" would have sufficed. Not only that, but you duplicated several threads, at least one of which is virtually identical and on the front page right now (Ravenloft).

And it would probably be in your best interest as well, since you've diluted the topic between so many threads that few will be able to stay on top of the forum.

The post like A'koss placed is exactly what I am looking for. By throwing a thread together that address all of the settings together, we would end up with a huge homogenous mess where people would be posting about every single D&D setting in one post.

Likewise, the restarted ravenloft thread has a post that shows the same promise and why my thread was not the same as the other one that is up. Spamming is me posting the samething over and over, each of these threads is a seperate discussion on a specific setting. Not the same thing at all.

 

[Zweischneid]

I prefer the "business as usual" approach. Kinda like how the late Roddenberry explained the Klingon difference between the movies and TOS. "There were always like that. We just lack the budget."

Only that Star Trek did use some convoluted mutating genetic virus story line to explain the the Klingon retcon anyways...

 

[ruleslawyer]

I have no idea how you so unmake 4e to fit GH and still have it 4e, or so bend, fold and mutilate GH to make it fit 4e and still have it resemble GH in more than name. I'd just as soon GH never be touched by 4e. I'm looking at 4e Realms and shuddering. Frankly, with the hyper-thyroid fluff of 4e, 4e needs a brand new 4e setting, IMO. Leave the old dead settings old and dead. If Wotc is so devoid of imaginmation that they can't come up with a new 4e setting that they can sell, Hasbro should can every last one of them and start over. Which might not be a bad idea just on general principles if 4e underperforms.

Except, of course, that fluff isn't really edition-specific. Just because 4e's core books will incorporate some references to imaginary events that weren't in 1/2/3e books doesn't mean that using said fluff is a requirement of the setting. Nothing that I've seen about 4e militates a difference in GH. In fact, all the fiendish fluff (warlocks, tieflings, etc.) is very much in line with the old-line GH fluff, what with Iuz and the Great Kingdom and the Horned Society.

 

[Greg K]

Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms were originally 1st edition settings. Many of these other worlds were created for 2nd edition. Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk all got overhauled for 3/3.5e. Each time these settings have gotten improved. .

Well, I'd disagree. I don't think Greyhawk or FR improved at all in terms of setting. With respect to Greyhawk, I think they ruined it with the introduction of alchemical items, spiked chains (and similar weapons), and a lot of other things. However, I do think game play improved from to the unified mechanical changes to the core mechanics. On the other hand, I can't speak for Ravenloft or Dragonlance as I didn't check either of them out under 3.x.