Is Greyhawk Relevant?

[Dragonhelm]

I was talking with a friend about this topic today, and few thoughts came to mind.

First, I think Greyhawk could really shine again if someone would give it the right love and production values. Paizo showed us that there were still possibilities.

However, my friend brought up an interesting thought.

But I can't help but wonder if there isn't a reason why it's faded into the background. Can it be made to shine while still remaining true to what drew fans in all those years ago.

Could it be that any attempt to modernize Greyhawk or make it a 4e setting would land up killing the heart of the setting? Or should the setting evolve past the original vision to meet the expectations of the modern 4e audience?

 

[Semah G Noj]

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.

Interestingly enough, the events in Savage Tide are treated as canon in Demonomicon, having occurred 100 years or so ago. It has Demogorgon getting killed and replaced by a PC. He got better.

 

[the Jester]

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.

Why does that matter? You could do the same with just about any of the 1e modules, most of which are totally Greyhawk. They usually have less GH references than the Age of Worms adventures did.

 

[Philosopher]

Could it be that any attempt to modernize Greyhawk or make it a 4e setting would land up killing the heart of the setting? Or should the setting evolve past the original vision to meet the expectations of the modern 4e audience?

That's a good question - if it's changed enough, is it still Greyhawk? If it isn't, then is there a point to "updating" it?

 

[Voadam]

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.

Eh, I've got the 1e folio and gazeteer, the 1e/2e Greyhawk Adventures, for 2e From the Ashes and then later the Player's Guide, plus I had the LGG for a while.

There was a late 1e module about Vecna rising up from being a lich to trying to be a god, in 2e he was hinted as a god and he went to ravenloft and did the whole ravenloft, greyhawk, planescape apocalypse thing to remake the world with him as a god and became more and more central as a god in 3e and 4e. This seems to mirror Bane from FR being a big 1e god killed in the 2e transition avatar trilogy modules and novels and then returning out of his demigod son before becoming a core 3e FR god again and then becoming a 4e central core god alongside Vecna in POL land.

There were some 2e modules culminating in Iuz impersonating a barbarian god and starting the Greyhawk wars, then the Greyhawk wars boxed set. Then From the Ashes uses these metaplot events to recast the world as a grim dark post war with the scarlet brotherhood out in the open, the Great Kingdom splintered, Iuz expanded to an empire, good nations exhausted from war, and the land swarming with unleashed demons. Then late 2e the player guide advances the timeline, says someone took the Crook of Rao from the 1e module Isle of the Ape and banishes most of the demons, forcing Iuz into a significant reduction as a looming threat and the campaign world is a lot more sunlit medieval fantasy without the grimy war issues.

LGG I mostly read the god stuff and not the countries and history so I didn't really get a sense of how world plot stuff stayed the same or changed again.

Having started with Greyhawk in the early 80s and following a lot of transitions it looked like a world that developed a lot of metaplot even if it was not novel plot.

 

[deinol]

Short answer: Yes. It is still relevant.

I did an informal poll over at Pazio about what settings people are playing using Pathfinder.

Top 5 Pathfinder Settings:

1. Homebrew (17.8%)
2. Golarion (16.2%)
3. Forgotten Realms (13.9%)
4. Eberron (8.1%)
5. Greyhawk (6.9%)

Other settings (37.07%)

Coming from Paizo, Golarion is probably a little more represented than the global gaming community. Still, Greyhawk has a reasonable number of people still playing it. More than Ravenloft, Dark Sun, or Planescape (All excellent settings which most people would say are still relevant today.) I suspect Greyhawk will remain relevant for a long time to come.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Short answer: Yes. It is still relevant.

I did an informal poll over at Pazio about what settings people are playing using Pathfinder.

Top 5 Pathfinder Settings:

1. Homebrew (17.8%)
2. Golarion (16.2%)
3. Forgotten Realms (13.9%)
4. Eberron (8.1%)
5. Greyhawk (6.9%)

Other settings (37.07%)

Coming from Paizo, Golarion is probably a little more represented than the global gaming community. Still, Greyhawk has a reasonable number of people still playing it. More than Ravenloft, Dark Sun, or Planescape (All excellent settings which most people would say are still relevant today.) I suspect Greyhawk will remain relevant for a long time to come.

Got a link? I'd be curious what people are saying.

 

[deinol]

Got a link? I'd be curious what people are saying.

Settings Thread

I started the thread to see how tied to Golarion Pathfinder players are. When I compiled some numbers I noticed Greyhawk was in the top 5 so I figured people here might be curious.

Most people do say they use homebrew modifications, or bring stuff from other settings into their favorite world. Greyhawk is just as easy to do that with as Forgotten Realms or Golarion.

 

[Mortellan]

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

Hah! I forgot about that. Shows how my brain filled in those blanks. Those were weird times. Paizo couldn't use Tenser or Greyhawk City, in the name of adaptability I guess, but for every name that got changed they slipped 9 others by.

 

[haakon1]

Really depends on whether you think Paizohawk is Greyhawk canon or not. It's not... exactly ... canon, but, it certainly could be.

More or less is in my campaigns. A PC doing library research found a secret history that mentioned Cauldron . . . first reference the players have ever heard to this jungle volcano city, which IMC, at the time the history was written, was controlled by the Hold of Sea Princes.

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.

Indeed. Erik Mona is genius.

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

It's 'hawk. Nothing fundamental happens until the players are involved in it happening.