Is Greyhawk Relevant?

[Starfox]

Saying role-playing games copy Twilight is like saying AD&D copied the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

 

[Jor-El]

Saying role-playing games copy Twilight is like saying AD&D copied the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.

Sigh. It was called HUMOR people! Laugh a little!

 

[Tharen the Damned]

Dropped the stones, and made Ioun a "default" goddess of magic. Can't say as I'm happy with the decision, myself.

EDIT: Correction: I checked the compendium, and they have been re-introducing Ioun Stones a bit at the time.

Funny when you know that EGG ported the Item directly from Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" books. Here Ion was a legendary magician who created these Items.

 

[Coldwyn]

What would you say is the meta-plot focus of FR? Is it significantly different from say the GH metaplot of the greyhawk wars introduced in 2e?

With the 3e FRCS I felt it was similar to the LGG in providing a short entry on a ton of countries and gods so you could pick a place and go run with it.

It depends on the books you bought. If you´ve bought the FRCS and nothing else, I´d say you have more or less the same.
But most of the later sourcebooks (and Dragon mag articles) also included more of the book plots into the canon, adding their more or less substantional meta-plot to the whole. Return of the shades and the Lloth-thingie as an prime example.

With GH, there hasn´t been much canonization going on, as far as I can see.

 

[Mortellan]

With GH, there hasn´t been much canonization going on, as far as I can see.

It's not been easy for GH because its canon material was scattered like shot all over the D&D map. In 3x GH was publicly declared the default world, plus Dragon and Dungeon Mags had a little blurb in the corner of every issue that said 100% Official Content. So, technically everything WotC and Paizo put out that related to GH was all canon at that point yeah? The rub with GH fans I'd guess is besides the LGG, none of them had a GH banner across the top like we're used to since the old TSR days, also GH fans have been burnt by b.s. canon before. Then throw in the RPGA's literal thousands of published adventures and even the most stalwart GH advocate working for WotC would have a hard time tracking what's canon anymore.

So the fact recent GH hasn't been burdened with this set-in-stone canonization is probably an advantage over FR at this point.

 

[Philosopher]

It depends on the books you bought. If you´ve bought the FRCS and nothing else, I´d say you have more or less the same.
But most of the later sourcebooks (and Dragon mag articles) also included more of the book plots into the canon, adding their more or less substantional meta-plot to the whole. Return of the shades and the Lloth-thingie as an prime example.

With GH, there hasn´t been much canonization going on, as far as I can see.

What about Age of Worms?

 

[Hussar]

What about Age of Worms?

Really depends on whether you think Paizohawk is Greyhawk canon or not. It's not... exactly ... canon, but, it certainly could be. The nice part is, most of it was set very far away from the main parts of Greyhawk that you could likely ignore most of it anyway.

Although it might be hard to ignore the death of Demogorgon.

But, as was said, there's nothing really approaching anything like a setting bible for Greyhawk, so, it's more of a readers buffet than anything else - pick and choose your own canon and you probably don't have to worry too much about other canon since, unless your players are REALLY energetic, they likely can't find any contradictory canon anyway.

 

[Mortellan]

Hate to correct ya Hussar as I agree with the spirit of the post. I just don't want people to be confused. Age of Worms was the paizohawk AP that was set FIRMLY in the central Flanaess, using Greyhawk City and its environs for half the quest. The follow up, Savage Tide was set far far away and the preceeding AP, Shackled City was retrofitted into the Flanaess a while after it was concluded.

 

[Coldwyn]

It's not been easy for GH because its canon material was scattered like shot all over the D&D map. In 3x GH was publicly declared the default world, plus Dragon and Dungeon Mags had a little blurb in the corner of every issue that said 100% Official Content. So, technically everything WotC and Paizo put out that related to GH was all canon at that point yeah? The rub with GH fans I'd guess is besides the LGG, none of them had a GH banner across the top like we're used to since the old TSR days, also GH fans have been burnt by b.s. canon before. Then throw in the RPGA's literal thousands of published adventures and even the most stalwart GH advocate working for WotC would have a hard time tracking what's canon anymore.

So the fact recent GH hasn't been burdened with this set-in-stone canonization is probably an advantage over FR at this point.

Consider this for once: When all the unbranded stuff from the 3E era is part of the GH-canon, that would be more than horrible. All that stuff, beginning from Sword & Fist to the later Complete and Races series all suggest GH as default setting.

What about Age of Worms?

I´m of two minds in regards to AoW and ST. At their core, both are GH at its finest but if I remember correctly, both had direct conversion guides for FR and Eberron availlable from day one, showing how easily transportable they are. This begets the question whether they should be counted as generic because they could have easily been rpinted with another branding and nothing much would change.

 

[Hussar]

Hate to correct ya Hussar as I agree with the spirit of the post. I just don't want people to be confused. Age of Worms was the paizohawk AP that was set FIRMLY in the central Flanaess, using Greyhawk City and its environs for half the quest. The follow up, Savage Tide was set far far away and the preceeding AP, Shackled City was retrofitted into the Flanaess a while after it was concluded.

I thought most of the names were filed off to protect the innocent? Something like that. Free City and all that.

But, yeah, it was pretty steeped in Greyhawk. So was Savage Tide as well. Honestly, it was running STAP that got me interested in the Oerth Journals. Didn't read all of them, but, there was some fascinating stuff there.