D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Remathilis]

My question is, what is a good start for Greyhawk material.

If you can't buy a Ouija board and hold a seance to commune directly with Gary, the 1983 folio if fine.

I personally like the late 2e "The Adventure Begins" stuff, but I'm told that isn't good Greyhawk. I guess it depends on what you want out of the setting and what your tolerance for changes are.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Hello!
I love Greyhawk because I read Gygax' novels about Gord the Rogue. They have a very special feeling that is different from the boxed sets, and IMO vastly superior. They also suggest a very interesting metaplot.

The main difference with the Realms is not in content but in style and atmosphere. Greyhawk Adventures are gritty, like in Conan the Barbarian.
Put in another way, in the Realms the evil guys are losing, in Greyhawk they are winning.

 

[Aaron L]

The World of Greyhawk is my absolute favorite setting. I love the 'Realms (especially the 1E Old Grey Box and the 3E FRCS) but Greyhawk is just my personal favorite thing, with all it's weirdness (in the original sense of Lovecraft/Clark Ashton Smith style Weird Fiction) oldschool 1930s pulp feel, and its mix of Late Dark Ages/Early Medieval Earth and Jack Vance Dying Earth. While the 'Realms are at a level equivalent to Earth circa 1400-1600 (Late Medieval to Renaissance) Greyhawk is at more of a 1000-1300 level. And I just love that. I loved the fact that you could walk into a major settlement, like the Free City of Greyhawk, pass by huddled beggars pleading for food (who were just as likely thieves ready to cut your purse if you stopped to help) and then continue on to the town square where there could be a subdued dragon up for auction! And I absolutely loved the fact that it was all a mish-mash of Knights and Wizards and monsters and magic and psychic powers and martial artist Monks. I love Alignment Languages! It really did feel like an old 1930 weird pulp story, with everything thrown in just because it was cool and fun, with a touch of darkness, and the "heroes" were more likely to be glory-seeking, tomb-robbing roughnecks out for gold and fame than they were to be high-minded, world-saving pinnacles of righteousness.

I love the way the original maps didn't have any hard, definite borders and instead just had the names of realms in large letters at the center of the area they controlled, and the areas between just sort of drifted off and individual towns and cities mattered more than kingdoms and large realms. Just like in real life medieval Europe. It really fit the setting with the rules, how a 9th level Fighter could just go out into one of those "in-between" areas, clear an area of monsters, build a castle, and now he was Lord So-and-So and could collect taxes from anyone who came to settle in his newly cleared land. (I really miss that aspect from the game, by the way, and just wish there was more of that kind of thing in the 5E rules, which I mostly love to pieces.)

The books and boxed sets that I consider to be the best sources for Oerth are:
The 1983 World of Greyhawk Boxed Set, for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition
The From the Ashes boxed set, for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition
The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

I personally use these three sets as my primary sources of information for Greyhawk. Also, the original 1980 World of Greyhawk Folio is great if you can get a hold of it, although I consider the 1983 Boxed Set to be superior.

I was first introduced to the World of Greyhawk setting with From the Ashes, which I found on discount in the bookstore I worked at during my freshman year of college, and I immediately fell in love with the setting. About a year later I was introduced to the 1983 boxed set by my friend who became our primary Dungeon Master, who preferred running his games using the 1st Edition rules instead of the current (at the time) 2nd Edition, and he lent me his copy of the '83 boxed set to read to my heart's content because he knew how much I loved Greyhawk (he also outright gave me his copy of Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun because he knew how much I loved Greyhawk and how much I loved HP Lovecraft.)

You should be able to buy PDF copies of all of these books to use for yourself. As for myself, two months ago a very good friend of mine, one of the guys I play D&D with, was able to buy both the 1980 and 1983 Greyhawk sets, in very, very wonderful crisp, clean condition, as part of a large lot of old D&D books (including two copies of the 1983 set!) from an older gentleman who was selling off his collection, and since my friend knew how much I love Greyhawk he asked me how much I thought they were worth, and if I would be maybe be interested in just buying them from him before he put them up for sale, if I didn't have them already. I showed him how much they were going for on eBay currently (in much, MUCH worse condition!), let him know that I had desperately been wanting to buy the 1983 boxed set for years but just hadn't had the money, and told him that I could pay him 40$ for the 1983 set now with more to come later.

Instead, he made me a counter-offer of $20 each for both the 1980 and 1983 sets, and said he wouldn't accept a cent more than that from me! He told me that he would much rather sell them to me than to some random guy online because he knew that I would really love them, and he wasn't concerned about the money (he knows how many medical problems I have and that I live on disability income and just don't have very much money, and also knows how much I love Greyhawk.) So no I am now the proud owner of physical copies of all the major World of Greyhawk campaign books and boxed sets, all in excellent condition, including the original, beautiful Flanaess maps by DARLENE. The only thing I'm missing now is the box for the 1983 Boxed Set, so I'm keeping my eyes out for one that I could pick up.

But that's enough rambling for now... sorry, I tend to get carried away when I start talking about Greyhawk.

(My friend is a really, really awesome guy with a huge, kind heart.)

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Urriak Uruk]

But would a product without "a bunch of new rules" (i.e. crunch) actually sell?

Well I'm thinking it would mostly be setting fluff, new monsters, a fairly big adventure, and a sprinkling of rules. So it would be more of a cross between an adventure book, a setting book like Ravnica, and a monster book like Mordenkainen's.

Well my hope is they rather do not touch it. It has last been seeing official use in 3e, and not much back there.
Most of the younger players have heard of it but other than eventually temple of the elemental evil 20 years ago and refeatured in DDO (They also did put in slave lords) it has not been featured in any recent product.
It simply would not make much sense and as i pointed out before:

The rules might be simply vanilla, and nothing new required rulewise but
the fluff of the setting the tone and the feel is out of date, it does not appeal to many of todays generations roleplayers. They do not want limitations, political incorrect puns, and are rather into worlds like Eberron or maybe Ravnica than into Greyhawk which most of them would see as a blander version of FR if an official product would try to shoehorn all modernisms into that settings.

For you grognards (i am a grognard too): Why aren't you much more interested in official rules on how to do Darksun with 5e or planescape or Dragonlance?
And i do not mean new content, which is really not needed, I absolutely mean the RULES
How shall i do Halfgiants or thrikreen in a balanced realistic way (Bound accuracy!)? How shall i do dragonlances in 5e?
How about minor quality equipment? How do i do the high magic partially needed in Planescape right?

What is unclear about how to do Greyhawk in 5e? Nothing! absolutely nothing! We do not need anything for Greyhawk 5e it is all out there and afaik in available in .pdf reprint if soemone needs the stories.

If you consider yourself able to DM a Greyhawk campaign then you absolutely should be able to convert the existing material to 5e because that is the easier part of the modification of official greyhawk material you are gona need to do to make things playable and smooth!

I'll say that if I had a choice, I'd put settings like Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer before Greyhawk. But I also recognize that those settings require much more playtesting and innovative rulesets, compared to a Greyhawk book that would be more monsters, backgrounds and fluff.

I'll also add that the reason I'd like to see Greyhawk getting a book is because I think the lack of content for that setting is the reason it's unpopular, not anything related to Greyhawk itself. After all Age of Worms is perhaps the most popular Adventure Path of all time (not adventure or module), and you can see Greyhawk's influence even in 5e's Forgotten Realms material with the Princes of the Apocalypse, Acererak in Tomb of Annihilation, and Vecna in both Critical Role and the upcoming Descent into Avernus.

I think a new Greyhawk book that essentially compiles older Greyhawk material to be better edited with new art and material for 5e, would go a long way to improve its popularity. And if you're not changing it extensively, there's not much risk of hurting the grognards either (I said no Dragonborn!)

 

[Parmandur]

Well I'm thinking it would mostly be setting fluff, new monsters, a fairly big adventure, and a sprinkling of rules. So it would be more of a cross between an adventure book, a setting book like Ravnica, and a monster book like Mordenkainen's.



I'll say that if I had a choice, I'd put settings like Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer before Greyhawk. But I also recognize that those settings require much more playtesting and innovative rulesets, compared to a Greyhawk book that would be more monsters, backgrounds and fluff.

I'll also add that the reason I'd like to see Greyhawk getting a book is because I think the lack of content for that setting is the reason it's unpopular, not anything related to Greyhawk itself. After all Age of Worms is perhaps the most popular Adventure Path of all time (not adventure or module), and you can see Greyhawk's influence even in 5e's Forgotten Realms material with the Princes of the Apocalypse, Acererak in Tomb of Annihilation, and Vecna in both Critical Role and the upcoming Descent into Avernus.

I think a new Greyhawk book that essentially compiles older Greyhawk material to be better edited with new art and material for 5e, would go a long way to improve its popularity. And if you're not changing it extensively, there's not much risk of hurting the grognards either (I said no Dragonborn!)

Point about the Ravnica book: it actually has a full adventure module included, and has just as many monsters as Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes per Crawford (and having read both, seems right).

A much meatier adventure module (Castle Greyhawk!) and extensive rules for Sword & Sorcery adventure building on top of that really getting into "appendix N" type stuff...yeah, there's a book there.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

They are other matter: the accidental retocn/reboot by the media. Hasbro wants movies, cartoons and teleseries of their franchises, but this could cause some changes in the background or lore. For example, do you remember now Spiderman's girlfriend isn't Mary Jane Watson?

The future of D&D are the franchises or intellectual property, and theses shouldn't be "snow globes" or their will fall in the olvidion.

I notice to start from zero creating a new world is easier than adding "patchs" or new zones, but maybe WotC should allow to publish as fan-fiction the homebreed version of canon worlds.

* D&D was created to be high fantasy. If we try to create a low fantasy world, lots of players will miss the crunch. It would be like a videogame patch to nerf some character special skill.

* I guess we will see a steampunk/fantasy gaslamp settin as a transition between D&D and d20 Modern 2.0. and I don't refer Ravenloft.

 

[Aaron L]

Loved your comment! However, I have to ask ....



O RLY? I don't think I've ever met someone who loved alignment languages. Is there a story here?

I just think they are really cool and flavorful, and add a whole other layer of esoteric/magical culture to the world of D&D, and to Greyhawk specifically. I get really irked by people who say the Alignment Languages are dumb, especially since their complaints about them usually make it clear that they don't actually understand what the ALs are supposed to be in the first place. In 1E AD&D and Greyhawk especially, the Alignment are a known fact of life of Oerth, and not just an abstract game mechanic. Paladins know they are Lawful Good. Assassins know they are Evil (which is actually more about Might Makes Right rather than "murdering just for fun.") In 1st Edition and Greyhawk the Alignments were esoteric philosophical/political/religious schools of thought, like Ancient Greek philosophical schools (such as Stoics, Pythagoreans, etc.) They were schools of thought that the high and mighty, intellectuals, those involved with magic and religion, and adventurers (who were frequently all of the above) would declare for (although not necessarily publicly!) Alignments weren't something that commoners cared about, being too high-falutin' and esoteric and having no bearing on their daily drudgery of just having to carve a life out of poverty, thus common people were mostly Neutral (Neutral as in "I don't care," not the Active True Neutrality of a Druid.) They simply didn't have enough time or spare mental bandwidth to learn or worry about such concepts, and to their minds declaring themselves for Neutral Good won't help them get the fields planted on time. It's all much the same way that many poorer people today don't spend the time they should to know about politics because they think it is too far above their concerns and out of their hands. "Alignments are the concern of Priests and Wizards and Kings, not dirt farmers like me."

The Gods were simultaneously the arbiters and servants of the Alignments, and the Alignments were in a way actually above the Gods. The Alignments were the collective of greater cosmic forces, of which the Gods were but one part, including the various energies of Magic and the actual physical forces of Life and Death (IE Positive and Negative Material.) That was why 1st Edition Paladins weren't specified as being servants of individual Gods the way they became in later Editions, but served the Alignment of Lawful Good itself. While Paladins certainly could serve as the agent of a specific individual God if they so wished, they certainly weren't required to; they were granted their holy powers by the Gods of Law and Goodness collectively.

The Alignments were known philosophical schools of thought in the world of Oerth, and the Alignment Languages were their jargon. A semi-magical jargon that was partly divinely granted. An adventurer wouldn't be raised with an Alignment taught by his parents when he was growing up (although he would certainly develop his ideas of ethics and morality from them, and those basic ideas would heavily influence his decision on which Alignment he would later swear allegiance to later in life.) Alignment was much more than just one's personal moral code; it was a sworn allegiance to a certain philosophical school of thought.) An adventurer would be taught the tenets of his Alignment by his mentor as part of his training to enter the membership of his Class, and it would be most heavily determined by the Alignment of his mentor, who would most likely choose a pupil who already leaned toward thinking that fit with the mentor's Alignment; Lawful Evil Fighters pick pupils who are bullies and jerks who like to learn the rules so they can twist them to their own ends, while a Paladin isn't going to pick a squire to train who is a sadistic bully who loves setting fire to small animals, he's going to pick one who is already pious and altruistic. Part of a Paladin's training would include heavy instruction in the philosophy of Lawful Good and in the Lawful Good Alignment Tongue, and part of a Ranger's training would be instruction in the tenets and principles and jargon of whichever Good Alignment his mentor belonged to, and the student would swear allegiance to the same Alignment as his mentor once he graduated to Runner status (1st Level Ranger. Level Titles were also known in-universe titles, not just an abstract game element.)

In other words, a mentor will pick a receptive pupil to train in his Class, one who already basically agrees with his Alignment even thought he isn't an actual member of said Alignment yet, and part of the training to become a 1st level member of his Class is instruction (and indoctrination) in his Alignment. A person would begin training under their Ranger mentor (perhaps the Lord of the local castle who saw potential and a good heart in the young man) starting out as a 0-Level Neutral Human (with tendencies toward Good) and come out the end of their training a Neutral Good Runner (1st level Ranger.) (This was why good role-playing adherence to a character's Alignment was a big part of the calculation for how long it took and how much it cost for level training in 1st Edition.)

The Alignment Languages weren't normal languages; you couldn't go to the local Lawful Good butcher and use the Lawful Good Alignment Tongue to order a beef tongue. p) They were a specialized jargon dedicated to discussing the finer points and details of the Alignment, and would be made up of words for very specific concepts of the philosophical positions espoused by each Alignment. For example, the Lawful Good Alignment Tongue would most likely have very specific words for different types of of altruistic acts, specific words for different kinds of personal sacrifice for the Greater Good, and unique words for extremely esoteric concepts of Lawful Good philosophical positions, words that would only be useful in philosophical discussions about Lawful Good. Likewise, Chaotic Good would have very specific words for every kind of Freedom, for each type of Beauty and Love, words describing situations where one is require to make sacrifices of their personal Freedom for the sake of Good. Again, very specific terms for discussing the philosophy of Chaotic Good.

And since the Alignments are so tied up with the realms and concerns of the Good and magic, the Gods would keep tight control over their Languages and who is able to understand them. And so if a person dissociates himself from his Alignment and declares loyalty to another the Gods of his former Alignment strips the knowledge of the Alignment Tongue from his mind, both as a punishment and as a matter of security. Since the Hit Points, Saving Throws, and other abilities gained through achieving higher levels are in large part gained through the grace and power of the Gods and other cosmic entities and beings of magic, if one changes their allegience to another Alignment it is close to a Cleric changing another God. The person loses part of their divinely granted abilities (loses a level) and has their knowledge of their old Alignment Tongue stripped away, but the powers of the new ALignment the person has sworn themselves to begin to gradually replace it with the new Alignment Language. But not all at once; at first the person is barely able to communicate at all in the new AL, and full knowledge of the new new AL is only achieved once the person has proven their loyalty to their new Alignment (IE gained enough experience to re-attain the level they had lost.)

I just love all the detail, story potential, and layers of meaning that are provided by Alignment Languages!

 

[Urriak Uruk]

They are other matter: the accidental retocn/reboot by the media. Hasbro wants movies, cartoons and teleseries of their franchises, but this could cause some changes in the background or lore. For example, do you remember now Spiderman's girlfriend isn't Mary Jane Watson?

You keep comparing D&D to Marvel when their is very little comparable between the two beyond "they're fictional worlds."

The future of D&D are the franchises or intellectual property, and theses shouldn't be "snow globes" or their will fall in the olvidion.

D&D is perhaps at it's highest point in popularity ever and is largely treating each setting as a snowglobe (with some exceptions of Greyhawk-characters/concepts bleeding into other settings).

I notice to start from zero creating a new world is easier than adding "patchs" or new zones, but maybe WotC should allow to publish as fan-fiction the homebreed version of canon worlds.

Wizard's occasionally entertains these through their platforms like Dragon+. And Acq. Inc. as well is a twist on the traditional Forgotten Realms concept. But this is not exactly a common practice, and is limited either in scope (Dragon+), or with influential people (Penny Arcade, Joe Manganiello).

I mean, homebrew is called homebrew for a reason; it's for your home-game, not official.

* D&D was created to be high fantasy. If we try to create a low fantasy world, lots of players will miss the crunch. It would be like a videogame patch to nerf some character special skill.

There are Unearth Arcana articles on how to do low fantasy. There are plenty of rules to play it if that's what you want to do.

* I guess we will see a steampunk/fantasy gaslamp settin as a transition between D&D and d20 Modern 2.0. and I don't refer Ravenloft.

Well there's Eberron, coming November, so yes?