D&D 5E Greyhawk, and race options for Oerth PCs

[Don Durito]

I don't feel strongly, about whether there are Tieflings or Dragonborn in Oerth. It wouldn't be all that hard to find a way to include them that makes sense.

But I find the idea that all options need to be turned on somewhat depressing. There's a certain kind of corporate blandness in the notion. It reminds me of the insistence of including Tieflings in 4e Dark Sun.

 

[Hussar]

Whatever the history of the setting may be, I think that if someone were interested in a 5e version of Greyhawk, it wouldn't be a bad idea to reframe it a little, to focus on what makes it distinct from Forgotten Realms and Eberron. If you were to tell me "Well, Greyhawk is just another kitchen sink setting, anything goes", I'm not interested (and I've played in Greyhawk), but if you tell me, "it's a humanocentric, gritty, postapocalyptic setting", it gives me all kinds of nice ideas.

Where is this "postappocalyptic" thing coming from? The Rain of Colorless Fire was a thousand years before the current date of the setting. There's nothing post apocalyptic about the setting. We have well established kingdoms, many of them actually, and a fairly stable political setting.

That's what I mean about people's views of the setting. Humanocentric? Well, depends on where you are - there are non-human nations, several, throughout the setting - Ulek, Pomarj, Wild Coast, Kron Hills, Iuz, and so on. It's not like these are minor areas - pretty much the central third of the setting is filled with non-human nation states.

On and on. I really wonder where people get these views of the setting from.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

On and on. I really wonder where people get these views of the setting from.

Sorry, it was not meant to be a view of the setting. I meant it as an angle to differentiate Greyhawk from Forgotten Realms and Eberron. I could have written "Greyhawk is a high-level setting in a world of feudalism and cultural wars", though I like my first idea better. My point was that if you want to bring Greyhawk back, you have to bend it so that it feels a little more focused, a little less generic, and presenting it as the "torches and pitchforks, age of scarcity, doom and gloom" setting is not the worst betrayal of the material one could imagine.

 

[Quartz]

I too dislike the menagerie party.

Tieflings = Iuz, killed on sight outside that empire's bounds.
Aasimar - killed on sight in evil lands.
Dragonborn - other side of Sea of Dust
Elves - drow are killed on sight. Other elves tend to the mystic.
Half-elves - vanishingly rare.
Dwarves - boring
Gnomes - just no.
Halflings - If you're starting in Greyhawk fine.
Centaurs - a party starting in the Bright Desert / Sulm might well be primarily centaurs.
Lizardfolk - southern jungles & swamps.
Minotaurs and all the rest - no. Most will be killed on sight.

Part of the problem - for me - is players not playing different races as, well, different.

 

[Coroc]

Would/Should the 6 human races be mechanically different from each other, or would they all use the basic PHB Human?

Those only vary in looks, like prevalent colors of hair skin and eyes. If you want to stay true or make an sharper distinction for PCs (Which I did not for my campaign) then you should know that they have some different languages and the pantheon is also a bit different but overlapping for some deities.
I did not use that either, other than having the scarlet brotherhood npcs being of the Nordic look, and mentioning if something was e.g. written in old Suel (still understandable for the PCs though).
I also tend to limit the pantheon to what I see as most fitting and then let the PCs choose for it.
Only important for me (most of the time) is to have all domains covered somehow.

 

[Coroc]

I understand. Nobody could stand up to a group of gnomish paladins, that level of awesomeness could break any campaign.

In my campaign it is no halflings. Gnomes are allowed though, but only for certain classes (99 gnomes but paladin aint one )

 

[Fenris-77]

C7's LotR game distinguishes different sorts of human with slightly different stat bonuses, a specific +1 and two floating +1's, plus a thematic skill and an ability. All human, but with slightly different feels. It's not rocket science.

 

[HarbingerX]

The Greyhawk post-apocalyptic narrative comes from the history of the Rain of Colorless Fire causing a mass migration and the fact that the lands is strangely empty of population. Discussions usual point out the 'howling wilderness' that is Greyhawk's demographics. There is indeed civilization, but a lot of the land claimed by the political states are not civilized, much like a post-apocalyptic setting and unlike a more true to life medieval setting.

As for human centric, most nations are human dominated and human ruled. But it does include demi-human enclaves so you can adventure there.

The thing I most love about Greyhawk is that it has so many different flavors of states available for me to choose to set the adventure. I know it gets criticized for this, but it does give me immense flexibility in finding the a perfect location to get the feel I want from a campaign.

 

[Coroc]

Whatever the history of the setting may be, I think that if someone were interested in a 5e version of Greyhawk, it wouldn't be a bad idea to reframe it a little, to focus on what makes it distinct from Forgotten Realms and Eberron. If you were to tell me "Well, Greyhawk is just another kitchen sink setting, anything goes", I'm not interested (and I've played in Greyhawk), but if you tell me, "it's a humanocentric, gritty, postapocalyptic setting", it gives me all kinds of nice ideas.

Well except it is not postapocalyptic, it had its cataclysm but that was 6000 years prior to the starting time in the blue box.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Well except it is not postapocalyptic, it had its cataclysm but that was 6000 years prior to the starting time in the blue box.

I’ve already addressed that point.