pemerton said he kept the maps and modern things the same, but changed all the history of Greyhawk.
Where I altered one small thing in a full setting, you've axed 95%+ of it and just kept the maps.
You say right there that the history doesn't matter much other than a few general events, and you change the details. You keep a few vague things and fill in the rest with what you feel like.
Maxperson, I strongly encourage you to work on your paraphrase.
You have asserted the above three things I've quoted. They are different - so which one are you intending to attribute to me?
Furthermore, none of them is an accurate account
even of the part of my post that you highlighted:
But as far as history is concerned, I'll use the general tropes - ancient wars, Suel wizards who migrated east, etc, but won't bother with the details. For instance, I find the idea that GH's vikings are actually Suel migrants; or that the martial arts monks are actually survivors of the Suel Empire; too silly for words, and so I just ignore that stuff and use "real" (pulp) vikings and "real" (pulp) martial artists living atop a hidden plateau.
Ancient wars are not a "vague thing" - the Invoked Devastation and the Rain of Colourless Fire, as the culmination of a devastating conflict between the Suel and the Bakun empires, are very concrete things, and in my view are at the "pulp-y" heart of GH.
I've said that I don't sweat over the details. I've given examples of why I mean by
details. In another
post of mine - which you read, because you quoted it and highlighted some of it in your own post 223 - I used the term "minutiae":
What makes this game a GH one is the basic geography and history (Hardby is a city ruled by a magic-using Gynarch, across the Wooly Bay from the Bright Desert, which is populated by Suel tribesmen). Not the minutiae of canon: the details of the setting I make up as needed for play or determined during the course of play.
I've given ample description of my game - how it uses history, what bits of history I disregard, what canon I am not interested in (eg most of the LG/Oerth Journal stuff), how the game works. Why don't you engage with that, instead of just making up (inconsistent) paraphrases?
The name is a direct tie in to DL. They were created for that setting.
The level title
Strider is a direct tie-in to LotR. It was created, by JRRT, for his novel.
That's the nature of pastiche.
Furthermore, the use of the name doesn't change the fact that my WoHS are based on the DL ones - and you are the one who said that "based on X" is not equivalent to "is X". Are you now resiling from your claim? Are you adding a caveat - that "based on X"
is equivalent to "is X" if the proper name for X is maintained? (So, eg, the Tom Cruise movie War of the Worlds is
and must be the same story as HG Wells', rather than something loosely inspred by it, because it happens to keep the same name?)
And to answer [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s question, here is another account of WoHS in my GH game:
They are an ancient Suloise order of wizards, whose power is drawn from three moons - Celene, Luna, and an "invisible" (because of size, speed of orbit etc) black moon. The order is divided into three "branches" - White Robes, Red Robes and Black Robes, whose magical power is predominantly helpful stuff, elemental/trasmutation stuff, and destructive/necromantic stuff respectively. Each division of the order draws its power from one particular moon Celene, Luna and the black moon respectively), and the power waxes and wanes with that moon. The wizards live in towers (of High Sorcerery), and members join by taking a test. The order is governed by a Conclave of Wizardry.
The order is active primarily in the Great Kingdom and satellite lands - in practical terms, these are little-detailed in the GH lore c 1990; and in in-fiction terms, these are the lands of eastern Oerike which have the greatest enduring legacy of Suel culture (well, Keoland also, but in my game Keoland has its own idiosyncracies, and the wizards are found there but are not dominant as they are in the Great Kingdom).
As I have said multiple times, nothing in there - nothing about magic, about history, about astronomy or astrology, contradicts Greyhawk canon c 1990.
Yes expectations vary from person to person. That in no way means that they don't exist. The mere existence of expectations based on what you portray to the players means that you really should take those expectations into account. The courteous thing to do is let players know if the Greyhawk game you are going to run is going to have changes to canon.
Some people, when they invite you to dinner, inquirte whether or not you eat meat. Others don't. Whether the failure to make the inquiry is discurteous or not depends extremely heavily on context. No blanket rule applies.
Likewise for many things.
Expectations differe from person to person. Not everyone has the same expectations that you and your friends do when someone suggests, "Hey, I'll run a game set in GH". For one thing, as I have emphasised several times and which you have not responded to, in 1990 the only D&D setting with anything like the degree of canon that you seem to take as a given was Dragonlance. GH canon was some modules, some Dragon articles on the disposition and movements of forces (they could have been reports from a wargaming club) plus the folio/boxed set. I posted the full canon of Hardby upthread (post 225) - here it is again:
[T]he heir [of the Landgraf of the Selintan] was wed to the daughter of the Gynarch (Despotrix) of Hardby, a sorceress of no small repute. Their descendants ruled a growing domain . . . In 498 it [Greyhawk] was declared a free and independent city, ruling a territory from Hardby . . . to the Nyr Dyv . . . These holdings have been lost over the intervening decades . . . The Despotrix of Hardby now pays tribute to Greyhawk to avoid being absorbed into the growing city state once again . . . Portions of the [Wild Coast] have been under the control of . . . the Gynarch of Hardby . . . at various times. (pp 23, 25, 41 of the Boxed Set Guide to the WoG).
In the context in which I was running my game - expectations among that gaming community, what GH "canon" was in 1990 - it was absolutely taken for granted that a "GH game" would be a creative and not just a recitative endeavour on the GM's part.
Upthread you asserted this:
Those "details" comprise the vast, vast majority of canon. Keeping just the maps and a very broad detail or two about those maps is a trivial amount of lore.
Putting to one side that this, is yet again, an inaccruate paraprhase of my account of how I set up and run my game;
and putting to one side that the sorts of details you have in mind ("What colour stockings does Nerof Gasgal wear?") DID NOT EXIST in respect of GH c 1990; this is nevertheless an idisoyncratic and hence contentious account of what constitutes a setting.
For some players - perhaps many players - the colour of stocking preferred by the Lord Mayor of the City of GH is absolutely irrelevant to what makes a game a GH game. Even if it is important to you.
