Is Greyhawk Relevant?

[gamerprinter]

Huh?

'4 PCs beating on one monster until it dies' idea behind CR.

Wow, our group of five members never get to fight just one monster in encounters in our PF game (nor 3.5 for that matter) - where does this idea come from, that that's the idea behind CR? Unless a random encounter generates a single monster, almost every combat scenario are group encounters is more individuals than consisting in the party. Its almost always 2:1 in ratio between opponents vs. the PC party ALWAYS, with one bad ass that's about half the party in equivalent CR, with a bunch of minion like guys about half as tough as any in the party.

Nobody told us, we're only supposed to fight one monster, things would be much simpler if that were true.

In fact both PF and Trailblazer fervently recommends to never make CR just one monster - where is this CR as one monster even mentioned, never heard that concept before!?

GP

 

[pemerton]

To me, Greyhawk is a much lower-power setting than, say, FR with its 18th-level archmages

I just wanted to pick up on this comment.

The 1st ed AD&D folio and boxed sets actually identified numerous high-level NPCs as part of the world - I remember the rulers of Stonefist and of the other northern barbarians being particularly high level, but by no means the only ones. There were also the NPCs in the Isle of the Ape, and by implication the original campaign NPCs - Bigby, Mordenkainen etc - had to be pretty high level just to account for the spells they'd researched (I know that Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure has them at around 12the level, and I can't remember what level they are in the Rogue's Gallery).

The 2nd ed Greyhawk material didn't do anything to reduce this proliferation of high-level NPCs - what with the Circle of Eight in its various incarnations, the evil NPCs in Iuz the Evil, etc - and I don't think things were very different in 3E's Greyhawk either.

Now I don't know FR very well. Maybe it has twice or ten times as many high-level NPCs. Nevertheless, Greyhawk as published has never been lacking them, and to that extent I wouldn't call it low-powered.

 

[Argyle King]

Wow, our group of five members never get to fight just one monster in encounters in our PF game (nor 3.5 for that matter) - where does this idea come from, that that's the idea behind CR? Unless a random encounter generates a single monster, almost every combat scenario are group encounters is more individuals than consisting in the party. Its almost always 2:1 in ratio between opponents vs. the PC party ALWAYS, with one bad ass that's about half the party in equivalent CR, with a bunch of minion like guys about half as tough as any in the party.

Nobody told us, we're only supposed to fight one monster, things would be much simpler if that were true.

In fact both PF and Trailblazer fervently recommends to never make CR just one monster - where is this CR as one monster even mentioned, never heard that concept before!?

GP

I was always under the impression that a given CR meant that a monster of that CR was an adequate challenge for a party of that level...? I'm more than a little rusty on my 3rd Edition knowledge though.

I'm aware that you can use multiple monsters to increase the CR, but, in my experiences, that works at a more shallow range of levels than the 4E system. To use an extreme absurd example, no amount of CR 1 creatures can even remotely hope to challenge even a single level 1 PC. (Yes, I know this is true of 4E too, but it's been a while since I've played 3E, so I'm fuzzy on the CRs of specific creatures at this point.) It might not always be a whole party against one creature, but -in my experiences- 4E tends to be friendlier to the concept of having a lot of elements involved in a combat.

 

[MoxieFu]

If WotC really wanted to get back some of the good will of older players I wish they would release Greyhawk into the public domain. This would do far more than anything in the Essentials Line in winning back some of what they have lost.

I don't think there's much chance of them doing anything with it. It is not a good fit for 4E. They have said many times that it is not financially viable.

I would love to see what Paizo, Goodman Games, and other publishers could do with the setting and their game systems. Not to mention that they Gygax Estate would be so much freer to release material of Gary's that is held up from publication.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized.

Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go. Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea Princes, pick one. Etc.

Keep the good stuff only, such as the Free City of Greyhawk, Iuz, Great Kingdom, Scarlet Brotherhood, Theocracy of the Pale, one of the good guy nations, etc.

When to set it is tricky. The classic prelude to war period is best for a rpg campaign setting, but it smacks of the Cold War, not the 2010s.

Relevance:
1. More female rulers and NPCs.
2. Environmentalism vs commercial development. Environmental disaster, perhaps represented by magic gone awry while attempting to control elemental forces such as giants or the Temple of Elemental Evil.
3. Economic decline, possibly due to the aforementioned disaster. Hits City of Greyhawk hard. Many made homeless.
4. A new, good-aligned ruler comes to power in the Great Kingdom. Ends war, forges diplomatic ties with good-aligned nations.
5. Minor wars still rage. With the Baklunish if you want to be super-obvious. Savage humanoids in their mountain strongholds would be another option. Or perhaps dwarves.

The world I recently made up for a session at the weekend had economic decline in a Roman/Holy Roman-style empire, and commercial exploitation of the environment as its big issues. Both were probably unconscious on my part.

<- Relevant

 

[Doug McCrae]

Now I don't know FR very well. Maybe it has twice or ten times as many high-level NPCs. Nevertheless, Greyhawk as published has never been lacking them, and to that extent I wouldn't call it low-powered.

FR definitely goes a step or two further than Greyhawk. Greyhawk's rulers are 10-20. FR's are 20-30. The guy who runs the bar over the Ruins of Undermountain is an 18th level fighter. I think his teenage daughter is 4th level. Those are the power levels in the 1e/2e setting books, anyway.

I get the impression with FR that the setting is very 'hard' in the sense that the PCs can't mess with it and will get a smackdown if they try. Ofc in another sense it's very, very soft, being a hippy Canadian nudie free love commune, with elves and wizards. If Conan somehow got in and started a drunken brawl, he'd be magicly spanked (probably literally) by a 25th level Gandalf-type or his 28th level hawt elven girlfriend.

 

[Desdichado]

I think that for Greyhawk to rise again as a "top tier" setting, it probably needs devoted attention from WotC, and to have a team of writers who can write to its strengths as well as create new material that blends with its rich history of already-published content. A reboot like what was done recently with Star Trek might or might not work: Greyhawk's already had a few reboots in its past, although none other than Greyhawk Wars were very major in how they changed the setting.

I don't think it needs a reboot, if that's the goal. I think a line of novels would do the trick.

I know that there were some for 3e, but those weren't really Greyhawk novels, they were "generic D&D" novels that happened (like the rest of D&D in those days) to be set in Greyhawk. But that was more like an afterthought. Setting novels need to, among other things, showcase the setting.

 

[Desdichado]

But it "can't" be, says the familiar argument for edition-churning and against selling different games!

But "what if"?

Pretty much "what grodog said".

EDIT: Er... just this. Could you please clarify what you mean here?

 

[Jhaelen]

Greyhawk as a setting is no longer relevant. The 4e default setting killed it and took its stuff.

I used Greyhawk as a basis for my 3e campaign, but really, I could have just as well used any other setting.

It probably already wasn't really relevant anymore as soon as the next big generic/vanilla setting was published ('The Realms Best Forgotten').

 

[3catcircus]

If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized.

Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go. Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea Princes, pick one. Etc.

Keep the good stuff only, such as the Free City of Greyhawk, Iuz, Great Kingdom, Scarlet Brotherhood, Theocracy of the Pale, one of the good guy nations, etc.

When to set it is tricky. The classic prelude to war period is best for a rpg campaign setting, but it smacks of the Cold War, not the 2010s.

Relevance:
1. More female rulers and NPCs.
2. Environmentalism vs commercial development. Environmental disaster, perhaps represented by magic gone awry while attempting to control elemental forces such as giants or the Temple of Elemental Evil.
3. Economic decline, possibly due to the aforementioned disaster. Hits City of Greyhawk hard. Many made homeless.
4. A new, good-aligned ruler comes to power in the Great Kingdom. Ends war, forges diplomatic ties with good-aligned nations.
5. Minor wars still rage. With the Baklunish if you want to be super-obvious. Savage humanoids in their mountain strongholds would be another option. Or perhaps dwarves.

The world I recently made up for a session at the weekend had economic decline in a Roman/Holy Roman-style empire, and commercial exploitation of the environment as its big issues. Both were probably unconscious on my part.

<- Relevant

That Balkanization is what makes Greyhawk so good as a framework setting that allows the DM to customize it to his campaign. More importantly, it *feels* more realistic than Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Dragonlance *because* of those multiple similar "nations." Real cultures aren't black-and-white "this region is this, that region is that." There are always multiple similar cultures within close proximity to one another that are close but not identical to each other.

"Keep the good stuff...?" For some, the "other" stuff is the good stuff.

As to more females and your comments about "relevance," it sounds like you want change just to mimic the slippery slope of political correctness run amok that we have to deal with in the real world. No thanks. I want my fantasy settings to feel realistic without having to deal with the real-world headaches. Or - I don't want to play "Papers and Paychecks."