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*POLL* Do You Feel That Greyhawk is a Dead Campaign Officially?

How would You Rate Greyhawk Support?


ShadowDenizen

Explorer
I voted "Barely Supported".

But alot of other cool settings are "Dead and withered". (At least in terms of "Official" Suport.)

Not to slight any of the fan sites, who do amazing stuff [esp. www.athas.org]...

But how do you think it feels to be a fan of "Dark Sun"? Or "Spelljammer"? Or "Al-Qadim?" Or.. (You get the idea.)

At least Greyhawk gets nominal support as the "default" setting.
 
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IanB

First Post
In terms of sheer volume, Greyhawk gets more support than any other setting, via the RPGA (though maybe Eberron is equalling it now with their Xen'drik Expeditions program.)

I think it is clearly, emphatically, *not* dead. The real issue is that it isn't the kind of support that you (and obviously many other poll-takers) apparently want.
 


Howndawg said:
What I would love to see is a Greyhawk setting with a first edition feel; forget about everything that happened in the world since EGG left and put out a supplement that captures the feel of the golden age of AD&D. This might bring some old grognards back into the fold.

Howndawg

Nod. It seems obvious to me that this is what the IP owners should do.

Well, I wouldn't throw out the Adventure Paths, certain good Dungeon adventures (generally the work of Wolfgang Baur), and the Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, though. Just tweak them a bit to re-set to factory defaul settings, which is to say, no Greyhawk Wars . . .
 

Mercule

Adventurer
This is one poll where I really needed the "other" option.

Greyhawk is sub-optimally supported and not dead, but it should be. Don't get me wrong -- I really liked Gygax's creation.

It's not that anymore, though. At this point, there is no way to turn out a version of the setting that would please enough of the die-hards to be profitable or sustainable.

The beauty of 1E Greyhawk wasn't in any particular genius in the design of the setting, though it was well done. The lure was in EGG's writing style and the way he used the Greyhawk flavor to make the 1E books come to life. 1E AD&D had an implied setting that was neither too distant, nor too dominant. Part of that balance came from the non-advancing timeline, archetypal concepts, and historical feel of the writing. You could not do the same thing with either FR (timeline advances and often requires too much backstory) or Eberron (too alien and too much backstory).

Greyhawk didn't work as the implied setting for 3E for several reasons. One is that there was legacy ideas that didn't translate well. Take Wee Jas, for example. In the 3E PHB and based on the default rules for undead, Wee Jas made a lot of sense for necromancers (divine or arcane), but the grognards knew that she hated undead. That's too much for a one-off in the PHB for a generic deity.

Another is the writing style used. The Knight Protector of the Great Kingdom class was pretty generic and easily adapted to another setting. Although there was mention of the Great Kingdom, there wasn't anything actually interesting or compelling to it. It just didn't resonate. EGG had a way of dropping a couple of tidbits that didn't take up much space, but sucked you into another world. The Binder section of Tome of Magic is the closest I can think of in 3E, though there was some posibility in the Tome of Battle, too. Though neither really measured up, I hope WotC continues to try in 4E.

Greyhawk should be left to die. I hope there is no 4E version. I hope they don't license it out. If it does happen, I want to see the 1983 box updated and nothing more. Just give the 1E or earlier grognards a way to use the new rules in the old setting.

What I'd rather see is WotC come up with a new implied setting for 4E. Not a setting search or anything hard and fast (at least at first). Just open up the option for writers to add a bit of fluff to their rules descriptions in a way that doesn't involve repeated use of the "iconics" or saying, "for example". The back story for the Duskblade is a good example, too, though I'm not a fan of that particular class. If people get really interested in the implied setting, then WotC can organize it and publish it just before rolling to 5E or in 2013, whichever.
 

Mortellan

Explorer
In terms of sheer volume, Greyhawk gets more support than any other setting, via the RPGA (though maybe Eberron is equalling it now with their Xen'drik Expeditions program.)
I think it is clearly, emphatically, *not* dead. The real issue is that it isn't the kind of support that you (and obviously many other poll-takers) apparently want.

I agree. And what most people (the majority players not DMs) want is crunch not just fluff. With paizo we got both, Greyhawk had been blessed with an abundance of adventures, articles, back drops, setting specific classes, feats, magic items, relics, major NPCs, etc. Back when they had the Living Greyhawk Journals in the magazine, I used to photocopy them to put in a binder but it quickly got FILLED and I stopped. That was a couple years ago, before the AP's started up in full force with adjoining Dragon articles. The Maure issue of Dungeon itself with two expansion levels could be a hardback book! If I didn't have something better to do i'd like to find a page count on all the Greyhawk material -just- paizo has put out since the beginning of their run. So 3rd edition-wise I have enough Greyhawk to run for years, the only drawback is it is not neatly and conveniently put in hardbooks for you. Tough.
 

Treebore

First Post
Yeah, outside of the RPGA we have what? One Gazeteer and honorable mention in a few of the HB's. So to most of us GH is essentially dead in terms of WOTC support. However I am playing in a campaign set in GH and so far surviving Ghost Tower of Inverness.

So its alive and well for those of us who are fans.
 

Mortellan

Explorer
Mercule said:
Greyhawk should be left to die. I hope there is no 4E version. I hope they don't license it out. If it does happen, I want to see the 1983 box updated and nothing more. Just give the 1E or earlier grognards a way to use the new rules in the old setting.

I could live with that and it might repair at least one rift in the fanbase.

What I'd rather see is WotC come up with a new implied setting for 4E. Not a setting search or anything hard and fast (at least at first). Just open up the option for writers to add a bit of fluff to their rules descriptions in a way that doesn't involve repeated use of the "iconics" or saying, "for example". The back story for the Duskblade is a good example, too, though I'm not a fan of that particular class. If people get really interested in the implied setting, then WotC can organize it and publish it just before rolling to 5E or in 2013, whichever.
So much for Eberron, eh? ;)
 

Treebore

First Post
amethal said:
Would that be financial madness, or not?

I have no idea how numerous Greyhawk fans are. They are certainly very vocal.

I don't know whether they buy Forgotten Realms or Eberron products.

I don't know whether they buy generic D&D products.

I don't know whether they are on a limited budget.

WotC probably has better information than I do, but if I was the brand manager and had a choice between

a) saying "No" to a licence; or
b) running the risk of future WotC products doing very badly in certain months because Paizo happened to release a competing Greyhawk product

then it would be very tempting to go with option a).

Especially when they have the option of producing their own Greyhawk book in 2010, probably written by the much the same people who would have written Paizo's.

Come to think of it, if I was the brand manager I'd bring out the Greyhawk book in 2010, then licence the setting to Paizo to produce adventures.


I agree that is WOTC should do, but only because I believe Erik and the Paizo crew would blow anything WOTC would do right out of the water.

So it would only be smart to hire Erik and hand picked members of Paizo to do the WOTC book and then license adventures to Paizo.
 

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