Running a Greyhawk campaign

[S'mon]

Just out of curiosity, what do people think about Greyhawk Adventures (by James Ward, I think)?

I quite like Greyhawk Adventures; best used as a folio of ideas rather than as holy writ.

Were I to do things over, I think I'd use the 1983 boxed set as the sole primary source, with everything else just mined for ideas, adventures and such, especially for a more 'low fantasy' setting. I think the 1983 setting is by far the richest in potential, with lots and lots of interesting nations & cultures that get steamrollered to oblivion in later works (including by EGG in the Gord novels). Nations like Tenh, Stonefist, Bissel, Aerdy and Horned Society are all very interesting and deserve development in their '576 CY' forms, rather than what actually happened with an interesting low-fantasy world being hammered into something much less interesting. The main thing then is to play down Alignment and the supernatural, no invading hordes of demons trashing everything.

 

[S'mon]

The "Hall of Heroes" and "Legendary Places" chapters of Greyhawk Adventures were generally very good, and played a huge role in the development of the setting. Most of the material in it hasn't appeared in any detail anywhere else, either.

The new spells, magic items, and rules for 0-level characters were eminently skipable.

The deity section was good, but not so useful if you have earlier or later material on those deities.

The monster section was good, although the same monsters have been covered elsewhere.

Yep, I'd say that was a spot on analysis. The spell section was notably poor AIR.

 

[diaglo]

Just out of curiosity, what do people think about Greyhawk Adventures (by James Ward, I think)?

i try not to think about it as much as possible.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

Ivid the Undying is really fantastic. However, instead of downloading the Wizards' file, get this nicely edited and formated pdf version by William Allman, available at the Acaeum.

Thanks!

 

[SavageRobby]

You can buy PDFs of most of the material as well. The scans aren't always the best (and they're nearly as scans), but they're useful and relatively cheap to review the material and see if you like it enough to go find a hard copy (which I usually tend to do).

 

[GVDammerung]

Were I to do things over, I think I'd use the 1983 boxed set as the sole primary source, with everything else just mined for ideas, adventures and such, especially for a more 'low fantasy' setting. I think the 1983 setting is by far the richest in potential, with lots and lots of interesting nations & cultures that get steamrollered to oblivion in later works (including by EGG in the Gord novels).

I am of the same opinion.

I'll go a little further. While there are exceptions, the more I see of the way Greyhawk is "developed," the less I like what Greyhawk becomes. It seems its two steps forward and one step back, too often maybe two steps back.

The 83 Set stands, IMO, as the high watermark for the setting in terms of consistency, tone and utility. It is still fairly readily available. I see used copies reasonably often.

 

[Thulcondar]

Is there any known way to get my hands on that?

It was actually in Dungeon Magazine issues 118-121. I was able to get them straight off the Paizo website; they might still be available there. Some minor inconsistencies witht he original Darlene maps, but glorious nonetheless when tacked up on the wall together. (My suggestion; get them laminated at your local Staples.)

 

[SWBaxter]

I guess I'm mainly looking to have the campaign setting as a backdrop for my own adventures, with some details on cities and the countryside, as well as notable persons and organizations.

For that, I'd just grab one of the 1980 folio, the 1983 boxed set, or the 2000 D&D Gazetteer (the 32 page booklet, the larger Living Greyhawk Gazetteer would probably be overkill), and use that as a reference. With any of these, you get a map and a book with an overview of each nation and its rulers, along with brief descriptions of other interesting locations. The '83 box set has a bit more detail that may or may not be useful to you, but any of them will give you a backdrop that you can expand as you like. Then if you want to see more detail, Canonfire and Google will set you on to more stuff than you're likely to use, plenty of inspiration and resources out there.

 

[pedr]

It was actually in Dungeon Magazine issues 118-121. I was able to get them straight off the Paizo website; they might still be available there. Some minor inconsistencies witht he original Darlene maps, but glorious nonetheless when tacked up on the wall together. (My suggestion; get them laminated at your local Staples.)

I think he was actually referring to the Living Greyhawk Journal which had the map of the City of Greyhawk in it. I think it was Edition 0 or 1, and I have a feeling it's sold out and not available in pdf. Ebay might have it. Various districts of the city were then detailed in subsequent editions - all free-standing ones, I think, before the LGJ got folded into Dungeon or Dragon (I forget which)

 

[Anthraxus]

1. Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (This is the UPDATED world setting..complete). It has nothing to do with Living Greyhawk. They just put "Living" on the cover to sell it to 14,000 players.

Eh?

The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer was the starting point (591CY) for the Living Greyhawk campaign, with updated settings for each region; rules for character creation, and an expanded set of deities for use in Greyhawk. Hardly "nothing to do with Living Greyhawk".