Dragon Talk Interview with Kate Welch re Ghosts of Saltmarsh

Parmandur · Mar 8, 2019

ehenning said:
Anytime an author (or product manager of any kind) goes out of their way to say “who knows!?” or anything similar, it means they are doing it. I would put money down they are in the middle of development and just don’t want us to forget about Greyhawk. This is all about building demand so when it comes out we all go crazy and buy two copies of the sourcebook each. Haha

This seems to be the most likely interpretation, given what we know of Mearls plans.

epithet · Mar 8, 2019

Morrus said:
That's a really unkind, and uncharitable rewrite of what she said.

Respectfully, I think it is fair. She dismissed Greyhawk as a "vintage" setting, in contrast to the Forgotten Realms which Ed began publishing in Dragon in 1979, and which had it's big "Gray Box" release in 1987. Greyhawk was originally published in 1980, and updated as part of the "Living Greyhawk" campaign through 2008. They're both "vintage" settings dating back to TSR. She went on to imply, to my ears anyway, an association between Greyhawk fans and the "gatekeeping" that Mearls made comments about when she was hired, referring to a "barrier" and a "gate" that Greyhawk, or its lore, or its fandom represents.

It is difficult to take her comments as anything other than entirely dismissive of both Greyhawk and its fans. She spoke about Greyhawk lore as something that not a lot of people (including herself) are interested in. She suggested that the Forgotten Realms is more "new-player friendly" as if that is the cause of their abandonment of other settings, not the result of it. Having then spoken about Greyhawk fans, her only comment for them was that she didn't know whether there was much GH material on the DMs Guild, but if she wanted to find "old Greyhawk stuff" that's where she would look.

I think in all fairness paraphrasing her comments the way I did (don't know, don't care, FR is the setting that matters) was giving her the benefit of the doubt. I don't know, but I suspect that she associates Greyhawk with whatever crap she caught when she started working for WotC (I didn't see it, but I saw the conversation here about it.) If that is the case, it would explain her apparent low regard for the setting, and I'm not trying to say that she ought to be a huge Greyhawk fan. It's perfectly fine for her to not like or care about a setting, just like it's fine for Mike to unabashedly love that setting. Ultimately, she did say she didn't know much about Greyhawk, she made it pretty clear that she doesn't care much about Greyhawk, and she went out of her way to point out that the Forgotten Realms is more popular and more useful. It's just what she said.

Ralif Redhammer · Mar 8, 2019

As much as I would love to see an official 5e Greyhawk setting, this. Like, most of the AL people I game with, just want to play D&D. They might have one setting or another that they really like, but most are just more attached to the game. The setting could be Brooklyn, and they'd still be excited to play D&D. New Jersey, on the other hand...maybe not...

The Big BZ said:
I have regular contact with close to one hundred D&D players every two weeks between the AL I run and my home game and exactly one of those people is mad keen for Greyhawk. Now I sincerely hope he gets what we wants and I will snap that sh*t up in multiple formats as soon as it drops but I can't blame WotC one little bit for focusing on the other 99 people.

epithet · Mar 8, 2019

Parmandur said:
This seems to be the most likely interpretation, given what we know of Mearls plans.

Mearls' recent LYSK on Greyhawk included him saying that he would like to publish a Greyhawk product, but that he doesn't know how to approach it. He said that he might approach the Gygax kids at Garycon to see if they had any ideas. My guess is that he would like to work with Luke to put together something like the Eberron pdf that Keith Baker wrote for them, to be put up on the DMs Guild. If so, that might be something we see in 2020.

Parmandur · Mar 8, 2019

Listening to the podcast now: that is not what she or they said. They actually put significant energy into talking up Greyhawk.

Paul Farquhar · Mar 8, 2019

epithet said:
Respectfully, I think it is fair. She dismissed Greyhawk as a "vintage" setting,

If someone refers to a vintage wine, are they "dismissing" it?

Personally, I would describe Greyhawk as "dated", "unpopular", "barely sketched out" and "badly written", so I would say "vintage" is being far more generous than it deserves.

mach1.9pants · Mar 8, 2019

I don't agree, I like Greyhawk, but this comment still made me laugh out loud!

Morrus · Mar 8, 2019

epithet said:
Respectfully, I think it is fair. She dismissed Greyhawk as a "vintage" setting, in contrast to the Forgotten Realms which Ed began publishing in Dragon in 1979, and which had it's big "Gray Box" release in 1987. Greyhawk was originally published in 1980, and updated as part of the "Living Greyhawk" campaign through 2008. They're both "vintage" settings dating back to TSR. She went on to imply, to my ears anyway, an association between Greyhawk fans and the "gatekeeping" that Mearls made comments about when she was hired, referring to a "barrier" and a "gate" that Greyhawk, or its lore, or its fandom represents.

It is difficult to take her comments as anything other than entirely dismissive of both Greyhawk and its fans. She spoke about Greyhawk lore as something that not a lot of people (including herself) are interested in. She suggested that the Forgotten Realms is more "new-player friendly" as if that is the cause of their abandonment of other settings, not the result of it. Having then spoken about Greyhawk fans, her only comment for them was that she didn't know whether there was much GH material on the DMs Guild, but if she wanted to find "old Greyhawk stuff" that's where she would look.

I think in all fairness paraphrasing her comments the way I did (don't know, don't care, FR is the setting that matters) was giving her the benefit of the doubt. I don't know, but I suspect that she associates Greyhawk with whatever crap she caught when she started working for WotC (I didn't see it, but I saw the conversation here about it.) If that is the case, it would explain her apparent low regard for the setting, and I'm not trying to say that she ought to be a huge Greyhawk fan. It's perfectly fine for her to not like or care about a setting, just like it's fine for Mike to unabashedly love that setting. Ultimately, she did say she didn't know much about Greyhawk, she made it pretty clear that she doesn't care much about Greyhawk, and she went out of her way to point out that the Forgotten Realms is more popular and more useful. It's just what she said.

It sounds like you’re trying really hard to find insult there. You say “It is difficult to take her comments as anything other than entirely dismissive of both Greyhawk and its fans” but I assure you it’s not. I’m doing it right now.

dave2008 · Mar 8, 2019

pkt77242 said:
That isn’t quite accurate. There is a lot of Greyhawk material on DmsGuild, it is just old TSR, WoTC material from prior editions. People can not create new stuff for Greyhawk on the DmsGuild but that doesn’t mean there isn’t material there.

Thanks for the clarification! Still - no 5e specific content on DMsGuild, but it is not like that is really needed for the most part.