Is Greyhawk Relevant?

[Mallus]

I think of Greyhawk as kitchen sink fantasy also.

Without a doubt.

 

[ferratus]

I think the early Greyhawk modules are indeed some of the best adventures ever written for D&D. They have certain vitality in them that was hard to match. Don't get me wrong, I don't think they are more well designed or well constructed than the 3e or even 4e modules, but they do benefit by being the first and establishing the tropes that later adventures would either follow or react to.

However, the setting itself bores me to tears. The wider setting isn't anything different from any standard fantasy setting. There is an arab place, a viking place, a vaguely anti-catholic presentation of a theocracy, and other standard pseudo-medieval places common to every fantasy setting.

All the vitality of the setting has gone into the demons, the monsters, the cults, and the dungeons. Tharizdun, the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Witch Queen Iggwilv, Iuz the Old, the Scarlet Brotherhood, the Horned Society, the Fiend-Seeing Throne, etc. etc. are all fantastic. However, they are all easily lifted out of the setting, and that has been pretty much what WotC has done.

Now that said, everything I've said about Greyhawk can be said about Dragonlance too. That is a generic setting, and the original adventure path is the best part of it. That adventure path could be easily lifted out and run in another setting as well. So asking if Dragonlance is relevant is sauce for the goose.

 

[Desdichado]

Given that I was making a general claim, and not exempting anything from a general rule, in what sense is what I said special pleading?

The claim itself is special pleading. If something is being ignored, it's irrelevant, and the idea of, "Well, it could be relevent, if only people paid attention to it!" is a pretty vacuous claim, since it's true for literally everything. If taken at it's face value, your claim alleviates the need for a word with the definition of irrelevent. Nothing could ever be irrelevent under this scheme.

Special pleading.

 

[Desdichado]

With the setting having that freedom and some level of being generic, I would like to see Greyhawk recreated with a rules system which better supports a broader array of playstyles and character types. I think a generic/universal system which can better mechanically match and keep pace with the freedom of fantasy choice provided by the Greyhawk fluff would make for the best experience. Building a castle and/or engaging in the politics of the land should be just as viable as options as dungeon delving.

Not to derail the discussion, and I won't be dragged into an argument about this, but this claim is completely baloney. There's nothing "generic" about AD&D compared to 4e. Neither is generic, both make a lot of assumptions about how the fantasy world that they're portraying is supposed to work. The older D&D assumptions are so ingrained in many people's minds that they no longer see them as specific, but they absolutely are. D&D is unlike just about any non-D&D fantasy in a lot of very striking ways.

In that same sense, Greyhawk wasn't ever generic either. It's just so familiar to a certain subset of gamers that they see it as generic, because it's their baseline for fantasy. Not because it truly is.

 

[3catcircus]

We're still wondering how Greyhawk is relevant. Let's look at it from a different perspective - ease of use by a new player or DM who doesn't have the tribal knowledge needed of other campaign settings.

Greyhawk is relevant because a DM can take either the WoG boxed set or the LGG and use it as-is as campaign setting without having to deal with any metaplot problems. More importantly, unlike Forgotten Realms, there haven't been more than one world-shattering event. We had, in recent in-game history, one - one event - a world war, which is very easy to ignore. You can go pre-war, or you can go post-war. No worrying about the deities walking the earth and multiple iterations of the same (Bane, Iyachtu Xvim, back to Bane, Orcus/Tenebrous/Kiaransalee, etc.), no worrying about spell plagues.

For the players and DMs getting into D&D for the first time, that is way too much backstory, history, and metaplot to try and digest, especially since it is much more detailed than Greyhawk.

I think that if Greyhawk were to be re-issued, they would need to go the Goodman Games "Known Realms" treatment - a big boxed set and then pretty much hands-off other than tidbits within the adventure modules, or the FRCS route - one big book, but then hands-off. Golarion is being handled fairly well, but they have the horsepower to produce quality supplements adding detail to various locales.

Looking at the Gazetteer of the Known Realms, each realm averages maybe two pages, tops, for each entry - and they are just detailed enough to set visions dancing in both player's and DM's heads alike - and that's all the info the player's should be getting (recent history, various settlements, rulers, population, power centers/factions.) The DM's guide goes into some detail about ancient history/creation myths (with no crunch) and then details the pantheon, world-specific monsters, feats, classes, equipment, and spells - stuff that the DM can choose (or not) to expose to his players. The details of each of the various significant NPCs (rulers, famous heroes/villains, etc.) are very limited (for example, the leader of the "main" dwarven kingdom is really not much detailed than his name - he is described as "LG male dwarf Ari3/Ftr14, Str 16, Con 17, Wis 15, Cha 14, along with some text about his motivations) That's it. No detailed list of spells, feats, or magic items he carries. No long drawn-out history of his achievements and how uber he is. This fits with the old-school feel sought by the DCC line. It is that feel that makes Greyhawk feel "right." Limited details, providing DMs and players the framework to provided a populated world that they can go and conquer.

Seriously - the way to properly support Greyhawk is to clean up inconsistencies, clarify canon, and then allow DMs and players to expand upon it as they see fit within their own campaigns. No metaplots, no one-pager descriptions of NPCs, No having to track through a convoluted history. If *any* metaplot is desired, it ought to be done only in the way that (go ahead and groan now) they attempted to do in the TORG game - individual DMs provide feedback to the company and the majority outcomes of various strategic plot points becomes the "official" canon moving forward into the next products. No novels driving the metaplot. No deltas between various novels, no arbitrary changes to the campaign world that the players and DMs didn't at least have an opportunity to affect.

 

[amerigoV]

Seriously - the way to properly support Greyhawk is to clean up inconsistencies, clarify canon, and then allow DMs and players to expand upon it as they see fit within their own campaigns. No metaplots, no one-pager descriptions of NPCs, No having to track through a convoluted history. If *any* metaplot is desired, it ought to be done only in the way that (go ahead and groan now) they attempted to do in the TORG game - individual DMs provide feedback to the company and the majority outcomes of various strategic plot points becomes the "official" canon moving forward into the next products. No novels driving the metaplot. No deltas between various novels, no arbitrary changes to the campaign world that the players and DMs didn't at least have an opportunity to affect.

I agree with that. I was reading through Expedition to Castle Greyhawk and the there was some interesting backstory that drove the adventure. I would think a cleaned up, low/no crunch version of GH would do pretty well - something for the Grognards and for those that might want take a run at the old girl even with 4e. I have not partook of Greyhawk in many years, but I would pick up a clean up version.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Why I'd rather not see even Paizo or some other company create Greyhawk is because of one of the areas where I feel 4E actually succeeds very well. One thing which I feel 4E does extremely well is encounter design. I feel that having more creatures involved in a combat is more exciting and allows for more creative story telling through encounters than the '4 PCs beating on one monster until it dies' idea behind CR. I say this as someone who loved D&D 3rd Edition. I enjoyed the game, and I like what little experience I've had with Pathfinder, but this is one area where I 100% feel that 4th Edition's mechanics perform better than the old CR system.

If you actually loved 3rd Edition, it might behoove you to actually read the guidelines for encounter design.

Just on the sidebar about CR: If you think that the presumption of combat numbers was larger than 1-3, take a look at pretty much every 3e published module from either WOTC or Paizo. While there are exceptions, the overwhelming majority of encounters features 1-3 opponents.

I grabbed some random circa 5th-level samples of adventure design from WotC and Paizo.

(3 or less / 4 or more)

Speaker in Dreams - 15 / 12
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (Chapter 5) - 66 / 68
Age of Wyrms (Blackwall Keep) - 5 / 5
Legacy of Fire (Part 2) - 13 / 18

I think your definition of "overwhelming majority" needs some work.

In quite a few cases, the number of < 3 encounters is inflated because in actual practice the DM is advised to have solo creatures move from their quarters to engage if they overhear fighting in other areas (creating larger encounters). But the count here is based on static counts in each encounter area.

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.

The problem with this approach is that you lose the internal regional politics which, IMO, make the setting interesting. It's like saying, "France and England are practically identical. Lose one of them." Well, OK. But then you lose both William the Conqueror and the Hundred Years War.

Maybe you could help us all by explaining exactly how it is relevant, then. I see it as an out of print setting that hasn't seen any significant new treatment in years, and is played by a steadily shrinking, small subset of gamers.

That's iconic irrelevant, right there.

10-15 years ago the same thing could be said about Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories: They had been out of print for a generation. So, clearly, Robert Jordon's Conan novels were relevant and Howard's stories weren't when it came to Conan, right?

In short, hinging "relevancy" to the decision of a copyright holder to publish or not publish material is a questionable measure in any case.

It becomes downright silly, however, to define "not relevant" as "out of print" in a thread where the OP is asking whether or not Greyhawk is relevant enough to re-publish it. Your argument boils down to, "It's not currently in print, so it shouldn't be in print." Tautological nonsense.

 

[Aeolius]

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... 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... 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.

The whole "pick one" philosophy is one of 4e's terminal flaws, IMO. "We have a water race, we don't need more?" So long, locathah and sea elves. "We have a pretty evil outsider, we don't need two", "We have a pretty nymph-like creature, no need for another", etc etc... In the end you end up with a vacuous Monster Manual that reads more like a jumble of playing cards. Leave my kitchen sink alone, dernnit! One man's trash is another man's treasure. Let me decide what my own "good stuff" is, thank you.

I know my Greyhawk games are typically not stereotypical adventures. With Oerth fans, you have those that like 1e, those that like 2e, those that like 3e, some that like more than one, some that hate all but one, and so forth. I consider that a feature, not a bug. There is something in the World of Greyhawk for everyone. It's a sandbox; treat is as such. Granted, it's a sandbox with a set of suggested directions, but who reads directions anyway?

I started playing D&D in 1979. The only campaign setting I have used with regularity is WoG. All of my online games since 1995 have been set there (with the exception of one game set in Hades, but the PCs came from Oerth). I have notes for my next game and it too is set on Oerth. I have looked at other campaign settings, but the World of Greyhawk has a sense of familiarity and comfortability, yet remains unfinished and malleable.

Over the past few weeks I have been looking at origin stories for the sahuagin. I have come across at least three different myths, ranging from "came from humans", "came from elves", and "came from anguilians". Should I "pick one?" No, I am enjoying the chaos that the different and distinct concepts contained by all. In the end, I might amalgamate two or more ideas into my own.

That's what it's all about.

 

[Philosopher]

This is one thing I like about an officially "dead" setting - it is ALL MINE to play with. There will be no further official releases that I have to decide whether to use or not. Of course, this also means that the setting will disappear from the minds of the gaming audience at large.

That's a good point. All the information is there for me to play in a Greyhawk campaign. If what I'm after is a campaign that I can make my own, then I don't need WotC or anyone else to publish the setting anew. Of course, if we follow through with that line of reasoning, if I want to make my campaign setting my own, then I don't need Greyhawk. Of course, if we conclude that Greyhawk has no relevance because of this, then we can conclude the same thing for any campaign setting. Not everyone wants a setting that is entirely their own.

Ahem if you must but you know as well as I Merric that LGG simply wasn't intended to be a full blown treatment. It lacked the features: no Greyhawk monsters, no Greyhawk magic items, no special character stuff or prestige classes, no starter adventure, no section focusing on a city; the things that back then came in the box, and I'm assuming (simply for the sake of comparison) are representative of the sorts of things that appeared in the 3e era FR books - I don't know, I don't own em - and presumably still appear in the hardbacks of setting treatments.

Yes, because it was the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, not the Living Greyhawk Campaign Setting. Personally, I prefer the gazetteer format for Greyhawk, but you are correct that it did not receive the full treatment.

 

[Philosopher]

The claim itself is special pleading. If something is being ignored, it's irrelevant, and the idea of, "Well, it could be relevent, if only people paid attention to it!" is a pretty vacuous claim, since it's true for literally everything. If taken at it's face value, your claim alleviates the need for a word with the definition of irrelevent. Nothing could ever be irrelevent under this scheme.

Special pleading.

No. Not at all.

I was challenging your definition of relevance as requiring people to be paying attention to it. To describe what I was doing as special pleading is to beg the question on your understanding of relevance.

A society could pay no attention to medical science; that does not mean that medical research has nothing to offer them. Before anyone jumps on me for the analogy, I am not claiming that Greyhawk is as valuable as medical science - I'm just saying that relevance need not be recognized. If Greyhawk does have something to offer current and future gamers (and I'm open to the possibility that this is not the case), it may still need to be marketed to them as such.