D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I have to admit, I really don't get the issue with the Forgotten Realms shaking events. I mean, I just played Storm Kings Thunder and ran Dragon Heist. Both are pretty solidly grounded in Forgotten Realms as far as modules go. Yet neither of those modules mention anything about any Realms shaking events, even though something like Storm Kings Thunder has you traveling all over the Sword Coast.

This kind of points out the issue of the world-shaking events, in that they are so odd that the modern modules try to ignore their events (though not what they practically change, like Dragonborn in FR). Which I think most players are happy with (though a vocal minority refuse to play with things like the Sundering).

And I'm quite happy playing before or after such an event, it's the during I don't like. The event often feels a little forced to include something the corporate suits want added into the setting (whether or not that's actually true). Greyhawk Wars and the Sundering feel like this, though I find playing before/after those events totally fine.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[David Howery]

FR grey box and 2e products from about that time (e.g. ruins of zhentilmyth drannor, undermountain etc. ) which I really like is a similar easy barebone fluffwise.

yes, you could do something similar, ignore all the stuff that came after 2E, etc. I have to admit, the main thing I liked about FR was the multicultural parts of it... along with the standard feudal Europe place, you have counterparts to the Far East, Mongolia, Arabia, and the new world. FR, even leaving out post-2E stuff, is more detailed than GH pre-Wars is, but I don't see either being all that difficult to convert to 5E. Again, part of it comes down to just what your players have experienced before. If they have played in the older versions of either world, then converting might be rather jarring. If not, then it shouldn't be hard at all.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is we may see a future shaking-world event in Grayhawk, but not yet when "remades" are enough and nothing new is necessary to sell more GH sourcebooks.

The chronomancers and time spheres are a joker card we shouldn't forget. This could become a own mini-seting, like the D&D version of Dr. Who. Why not to publish comics about "crossovers" of other franchises? Maybe the characters travel to the akasha demiplane, a "theme park" created by the collective memory (things how are rememberd, not how happened really) and they find, for example, the Eberron version of d20 Future. I guess they will await to publish Spelljammers and the rules for skyships.

I guess they are awaiting to find the righ key for me media, and then the future movies and series will change the lore of GH.

If the spelljammers are canon... how it would affect GH with visitors from other crystal spheres? It would be like V or Alien Nation.

* I don't like sandboxes with empty spaces but I would rather to edit "premade" worlds.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I suppose if I wanted to run these long, drawn out campaigns spanning several years all set in the same setting, I might see the problem, but, 99% of the time, it really doesn't matter.

See that's exactly the thing. Those of us who are disagreeing do have some long drawn out campaign, or at least maintain an ongoing continuity. We don't treat each new adventure (mega or otherwise) as a new "instance" of the world or a reboot. And just like any other IP lore enthusiasts, we get pissed when someone messed with it and makes the new products conform to something completely different.

Personally, I have no problem with the decanonization of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, since I am a casual fan who watches the movies, but has never read a novel/comic/whatever. However, because of my D&D fandom, I can understand the outrage amongst Star Wars enthusiasts, and think they should have put more thought into it. At least Star Trek had the common decency to formally make the new setting an alternate universe.

This stuff isn't meaningless, because it affects the assumptions of new fans coming into a medium. You really are disenfranchising older fans if new fans are introduced to different and contradictory lore. In D&D this even more of an issue, because new players are going to come in with whatever lore assumptions are currently official, and when they want to join a game with people using prior canon (and the purpose of canon is to create a broad shared experience, since lots of people like to be on the same page and "in the same world") there is going to be a problem where someone is either disappointed, confused, or forced to change/abandon some of their expectations. This is recreation, and should be created to minimize such potential conflict. The old adage not to fix what isn't broken goes a long way here. Want a new setting with different stuff inspired by more recent media? Make a new setting (hello Eberron!) Or add stuff in a place that actually fits and is easy to ignore by those who want to. Tabaxi come from Maxtica like they always have, not the Dalelands. The suggestion of having there be Dragonborn as a component of the previously mentioned distant empire from old lore makes sense. Even then it needs to be evaluated based on feel, and you shouldn't have it invade the previous areas. Set the material to be actually in that distant continent/galaxy/alternate universe; don't officially have stuff come from there into the classic parts of the setting.

Instead of ignoring enthusiasts, respect their passion. It isn't nearly as hard to do as people think; but content creators do need to put effort to think before they change.

TL;DR: Put any new setting material into a distant land and let consumers decide how much to integrate it into the core regions.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

My opinion is we may see a future shaking-world event in Grayhawk, but not yet when "remades" are enough and nothing new is necessary to sell more GH sourcebooks.

The chronomancers and time spheres are a joker card we shouldn't forget. This could become a own mini-seting, like the D&D version of Dr. Who. Why not to publish comics about "crossovers" of other franchises? Maybe the characters travel to the akasha demiplane, a "theme park" created by the collective memory (things how are rememberd, not how happened really) and they find, for example, the Eberron version of d20 Future. I guess they will await to publish Spelljammers and the rules for skyships.

I guess they are awaiting to find the righ key for me media, and then the future movies and series will change the lore of GH.

If the spelljammers are canon... how it would affect GH with visitors from other crystal spheres? It would be like V or Alien Nation.

* I don't like sandboxes with empty spaces but I would rather to edit "premade" worlds.

This sounds a lot more like conjecture based on preference for what you personally like to see rather than anything based on real evidence.

Sure technically Wizard's could write a "Infinity War" crossover event for all the D&D settings. But they won't, because it'd be messy and likely annoy people more than make them happy.

All of the tools you name are for the Dungeon Master to use, not for official content to smash all the worlds together like Marvel vs. Capcom. There are corssovers in some official content (Mordenkainen in Curse of Strahd, Acererak in Tomb of Annihilation, the Temple of Elemental Evil in Faerun), but these don't fundamentally change how each setting actually functions.

 

[Hussar]

Hopefully. For once you know everything the world is no longer "fantastical".

Honestly, as we're talking about Greyhawk and what makes GH different from other settings, I find that this is the main thing. Forgotten Realms is DETAILED. It's unbelievably detailed. I think I mentioned earlier reading an article from Ed Greenwood on the old WotC site detailing the shape of windows in a town in FR.

Greyhawk is much more of a framework. There's so much that is barely sketched in - The Hellfurnaces, the Amedio Jungle, the Pomarj, heck, even Greyhawk itself isn't really all that filled in. Which, to me,is such a fantastic starting place for a campaign. Everyone's Greyhawk is very different. I always get the sense, playing Greyhawk, that it's my setting whereas when I use Forgotten Realms, I'm just borrowing that setting.

I dunno. It's a bit hard to articulate. But, that's always the feeling I get.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Instead of ignoring enthusiasts, respect their passion. It isn't nearly as hard to do as people think; but content creators do need to put effort to think before they change.

TL;DR: Put any new setting material into a distant land and let consumers decide how much to integrate it into the core regions.

See, the problem with this is, "what is canon" is a very, very slippery issue. You don't really get to pick and choose. Like it or hate it, From the Ashes IS canon. The Greyhawk Wars ARE canon. Canon simply can't be a dog whistle for "stuff I like". We shouldn't fall into the trap of picking and choosing canon based on our personal preferences because, well, there's no actual way to go forward from that. "Only the original boxed set is canon". Really? What about all the 1e modules, classes, races and whatnot added to the game after 1983? Considering the boxed set was written in 1982, would things like Forgotten Temple ofTharizdun be considered canon or not? Isle of the Ape comes out in 1985 and includes many iconic GH characters. Is it canon or not? Barbarian class? After all, that came out in Unearthed Arcana in 1985.

On and on and on.

We've seen it in this discussion as well. Some people insist on the humanocentric nature of GH. Me, I don't see it as much simply because many of the GH published works show non-humans working with humans. Sure, Saltmarsh might be a mostly human town, but, around Saltmarsh there are halfling towns (not detailed in the module). You have a fairly large lizard folk settlement within walking distance. There are sea elven communities within swimming distance. IOW, there are numerous non-human communities all in fairly close proximity. Is it that hard to think that there would be some trade and possible interactions between these groups? The lizard folk are contacting human (and non-human) smugglers to buy weapons and those humans are willing to trade.

I'm not really convinced that the races are so segregated as has been presented in this thread. Many of the races can and do interact on a fairly regular basis.

And, as I mentioned in my last post, so much of Greyhawk simply isn't detailed. You can't really definitively say, "No, that's not in the setting". I mean, who lives on the Jetsom islands? AFAIK, that's not detailed. Nobody really lives there - there's a couple of undetailed towns and that's about it. More than enough space to plunk down a community of dragonborn. Never minding the Amedio, Hellfurnaces, or even the Dreadwood. There's so much blank space in the setting, that adding a semi-nomadic race of dragonpeople wouldn't actually take much work.

While I agree that we should respect canon to a degree, canon should never be held to such a standard that changes are seen as bad, not because the change doesn't make sense or would be contradictory, but, just because it's not canon itself. If elements can't stand on their own, coming first doesn't matter.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

See, the problem with this is, "what is canon" is a very, very slippery issue. You don't really get to pick and choose. Like it or hate it, From the Ashes IS canon. The Greyhawk Wars ARE canon. Canon simply can't be a dog whistle for "stuff I like". We shouldn't fall into the trap of picking and choosing canon based on our personal preferences because, well, there's no actual way to go forward from that. "Only the original boxed set is canon". Really? What about all the 1e modules, classes, races and whatnot added to the game after 1983? Considering the boxed set was written in 1982, would things like Forgotten Temple ofTharizdun be considered canon or not? Isle of the Ape comes out in 1985 and includes many iconic GH characters. Is it canon or not? Barbarian class? After all, that came out in Unearthed Arcana in 1985.

On and on and on.

We've seen it in this discussion as well. Some people insist on the humanocentric nature of GH. Me, I don't see it as much simply because many of the GH published works show non-humans working with humans. Sure, Saltmarsh might be a mostly human town, but, around Saltmarsh there are halfling towns (not detailed in the module). You have a fairly large lizard folk settlement within walking distance. There are sea elven communities within swimming distance. IOW, there are numerous non-human communities all in fairly close proximity. Is it that hard to think that there would be some trade and possible interactions between these groups? The lizard folk are contacting human (and non-human) smugglers to buy weapons and those humans are willing to trade.

I'm not really convinced that the races are so segregated as has been presented in this thread. Many of the races can and do interact on a fairly regular basis.

And, as I mentioned in my last post, so much of Greyhawk simply isn't detailed. You can't really definitively say, "No, that's not in the setting". I mean, who lives on the Jetsom islands? AFAIK, that's not detailed. Nobody really lives there - there's a couple of undetailed towns and that's about it. More than enough space to plunk down a community of dragonborn. Never minding the Amedio, Hellfurnaces, or even the Dreadwood. There's so much blank space in the setting, that adding a semi-nomadic race of dragonpeople wouldn't actually take much work.

While I agree that we should respect canon to a degree, canon should never be held to such a standard that changes are seen as bad, not because the change doesn't make sense or would be contradictory, but, just because it's not canon itself. If elements can't stand on their own, coming first doesn't matter.

Every single DM has their own canon. Then there's what is officially published. Thus when Gary and I DMed Greyhawk and created all its many elements for our shared campaign, published to date or not, is that not our canon? There was no "Official" at that point as you could not count our Supplement #1, Greyhawk, as it really did not detail any part of the world or its inhabitants. Consonant with "DM as Canon" is the folio release of WoGreyhawk itself which as much as channeled you to make your own canon. Greyhawk is not a canonical religion just as the original rules were not. It is an instrument for individual creative expression.