D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Parmandur]

as much as I would like to see a revamped WoG… I wonder if they would do better to continue what they did with GoS… revamp some classic material and add in some of the better stuff from Dungeon. Haven't seen GoS yet, but it seems to be getting good reviews. Lord knows that WoG has a lot of classic stuff that could be used similarly...

Yeah, GoS is pretty great: probably if higher value if one doesn't have the older material, but the sandbox stuff is a great addition. I imagine we'll see more like this before and we see a new Greyhawk setting book.

 

[David Howery]

Yeah, GoS is pretty great: probably if higher value if one doesn't have the older material, but the sandbox stuff is a great addition. I imagine we'll see more like this before and we see a new Greyhawk setting book.

well, earlier we talked about the Tjoscanth/Tharizdun modules... they would make a pretty good book, and there is quite a bit of stuff in Dungeon that would fit in those mountains. The Flame adventures would work well in it, and others....

 

[Zardnaar]

Fair enough I suppose @lowkey13. To me, it sounds like you want everyone to be forced to play YOUR version of Greyhawk, and anything you happen not to like should be excised from the base set, not because it happens to be a bad idea but because YOU don't like it.

I mean, it's a tad hyperbolic to argue that adding Dragonborn to Greyhawk turns it into Forgotten Realms. Then again, you've already compared it to adding an ocean and vampiric giant squid to Dark Sun, so, I guess hyperbole is the standard response.

I mean, you've talked at length about how interesting the Scarlet Brotherhood is. But, if we go back to boxed set, the SB is a couple of paragraphs buried in the back of a book. No details, not information, nothing. They don't feature in a single module or any GH material until 1998. How could they be considered iconic to the setting? They are iconic to the setting NOW. But, that's because you've got SK Reynold's fingerprints all over them.

I totally agree that one of the main draws of GH is the open nature of the setting. That it's a bare bones framework that DM's should be filling in. FANTASTIC. My GoS campaign is set after the GH wars. Is it canon? Nope. Not even remotely and that's great. Others want to run it earlier? That's also fantastic and not terribly difficult to do.

But good grief. If the only way we get a 5e Greyhawk is if they eject everything after 1983? No thanks. I don't mind a bit more detail in my setting than a pretty thin softcover book that gives more details about the bloody trees you find in Greyhawk than to the organizations that move and shake the political landscape. And, frankly, if someone's mental idea of Greyhawk is so fragile that adding Dragonborn (oh noes, 4e cooties!) breaks the setting? Well, sorry, but, too freaking bad. I'd rather WotC bury the setting and never look at it again than appease fans like that. Why should everyone else get screwed over just because you cannot say no to your players? You don't want Dragonborn in your game? Cool, not a problem. But, stop telling me I can't have them in my game. One of us is going to have to do some work, and, well, I'm selfish enough that I WANT the lore of the last thirty years to be used rather than all that fantastic work by writers like Erik Mona, SK Reynolds and others to get left on the cutting room floor just because someone can't wrap their head around something that didn't come out of the 80's.

Dragonborn sucked in 3E as well, never allowed them.

Another reason for the 1983 is a lot if the settings have been ruined by TSR metaplot.

Say you made a new GH and set it at the 83 boxed set. You can still add anything to it that came after.

If you set it later and try removing something there's always that one player who goes but the boxed set say.......

Imagine if they did Nerath but cut Tieflings and Dragonborn. How many kitchen sink settings do you need, Nerath, FR, Eberron and Greyhawk?

Ravnica for example is a modern setting without a few phb races.

Why Tieflings over Dragonbon? Tiefling at least make sense because of Iuz. Drow exist as well.

Dragonborn could be replaced with any other race there's nothing really special or logical to them to tie them to Greyhawk.

You could make up some nation I suppose over the sea or whatever but you could add any race that way.

Adding Yuan Ti from VGtM makes more sense for ecample.

 

[David Howery]

another possibility is using N1/Cult of the Reptile God as a start, and making a long term 'swamp adventure'. Maybe reset it all to the Vast Swamp, throw in I2/Tomb of the Lizard King, add in some stuff with Wastri, maybe some swamp adventures from Dungeon (if there are any good ones)….

 

[Parmandur]

another possibility is using N1/Cult of the Reptile God as a start, and making a long term 'swamp adventure'. Maybe reset it all to the Vast Swamp, throw in I2/Tomb of the Lizard King, add in some stuff with Wastri, maybe some swamp adventures from Dungeon (if there are any good ones)….

Mud Sorcerer's Tomb is apparently good.

 

[Hussar]

Since when are Dragonborn a "Forgotten Realms" race? Heck, people freaked when they added them to FR too.

I guess that's the part that baffles me. So much of Greyhawk is left blank, even today. There's huge areas of the setting that have never been detailed or are only very sketchily detailed. Plunking down a "Dragonborn nation" wouldn't cause the slightest ripple in the setting.

To me, the whole "let's hit the reset thing" just throws the baby out with the bathwater. Maure Castle? Shackled City? The Demonomicon series? Iggwilv? And a host of other stuff that is pretty darn good.

I mean, if you want Baphomet, Paizuzu, or most of the demon lords, they don't appear in D&D until after 1983. I would argue that Cauldron and Sasserine are just as iconically Greyhawk as anything in the Boxed Set. Resetting to 1983 is just the grognard way of forcing everyone else to play the way they want. Why should everyone else be forced to do all the work adding material back in just because you folks happen not to like some of the changes done to the setting?

 

[Hussar]

Mud Sorcerer's Tomb is apparently good.

Sorry, nope. Can't have this. Published after 1983. Nothing after 1983 is allowed to be in Greyhawk officially. Cult of the Reptile God just makes the cut.

 

[David Howery]

Sorry, nope. Can't have this. Published after 1983. Nothing after 1983 is allowed to be in Greyhawk officially. Cult of the Reptile God just makes the cut.

IIRC, the adventure was not setting specific, so no problem. That probably applies to a lot of Dungeon stuff.

 

[David Howery]

I mean, if you want Baphomet, Paizuzu, or most of the demon lords, they don't appear in D&D until after 1983

I think you're taking this a bit too literally... let's say 'pre-Wars', not 'everything pre-1984'. In any event, this seems to be an argument without resolution. A lot of people disliked everything that the Wars did to the WoG. A lot of others don't. A reboot is going to disappoint one or the other. So maybe let's think about more stuff like GoS instead of a new boxed set....

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Since when are Dragonborn a "Forgotten Realms" race? Heck, people freaked when they added them to FR too.

I guess that's the part that baffles me. So much of Greyhawk is left blank, even today. There's huge areas of the setting that have never been detailed or are only very sketchily detailed. Plunking down a "Dragonborn nation" wouldn't cause the slightest ripple in the setting.

The focus of Greyhawk has always been largely on the Flaeness, so dropping a Dragonborn kingdom there is super disruptive.

Making a kingdom far away like the Empire of Lynn have Dragonborn is fine; there's like a paragraph of lore there.

I still haven't heard a good argument for why Greyhawk needs every PHB race though, beyond "because I don't want to invent a reason of my own," which I find lacking strength.