D&D General For the Love of Greyhawk: Why People Still Fight to Preserve Greyhawk

[FrozenNorth]

As you noted, Greyhawk material was already waning by 1985 - that was 35 years ago. That means that Greyhawk fans are generally in the 40+ age category... which seems to be around 11% of the current D&D player base.

More like 50+.
I’m in my forties and I started playing in 1990. Despite being pretty all in on D&D in that period, I don‘t really have any positive or negative associations with Greyhawk. I remember it being a setting...and that’s about it.

Dragonlance? I read all the books. Mystara? That is where my campaigns were set and I owned all of the Gazeeteers. Forgotten Realms? Didn’t really play but by dint of so many novels, adventures and general osmosis, I know it pretty well. Even Planescape and DS, which were more niche, stick out pretty well in my mind (DS even got a 4e reboot).

And I don’t even consider myself the future or the target of RPGs. Those are my kids, who are 11-12. You’d better believe they have not heard of Greyhawk.

Ultimately, it isn’t really a selling point that even those that argue most passionately for Grayhawk don’t really articulate what made it distinctive. I mean “swords and sorcery”, “adventurers who adventure for money”, “slightly more gritty than Forgotten Realms“, that describes pretty much every setting in existence, including FR.

 

[Umbran]

More like 50+.

Yeah. I was trying to be generous, and maybe allow for a few who were late to the party, but picked up Greyhawk anyway.

And I don’t even consider myself the future or the target of RPGs. Those are my kids, who are 11-12. You’d better believe they have not heard of Greyhawk.

Even if they did, I don't think Dad's old war stories about gaming are going to be a real market-shaping force for newer gamers.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Ultimately, it isn’t really a selling point that even those that argue most passionately for Grayhawk don’t really articulate what made it distinctive. I mean “swords and sorcery”, “adventurers who adventure for money”, “slightly more gritty than Forgotten Realms“, that describes pretty much every setting in existence, including FR.

Bob: Yo, Frozen North. I'd like you to watch this TV Show.

Frozen North: Okay, what is it like?

Bob: Well, it's kind of like that show you like... Batman. Except instead of being an Adam West "camp" take on Batman, it's actually a gritty take on Batman.

Frozen North: Okay! So it's exactly like every Batman. It's a campy Batman. Got it!

 

[The Glen]

It would require somebody who can better define the setting than how it has been largely described in 5e. The setting is on the brink of war. There's a lot of nations who are packed together and don't trust each other. The realms has several nations but you don't have the constant threat of conflict. Mystara's nations are packed right next to each other but you've got two giant empires in Thyatis and Alphatia locked in a cold war that isn't going hot anytime soon.

It's a low magic setting in the fact that almost all the magic is going to be low level. A fireball is not a spell most people see cast, a meteor swarm spell is talked about only in legends. High level characters number in the dozens, you don't find them in every single town like a good chunk of the realms.

The theme of Greyhawk is tension. Focus on that. War is looming. There's big bads just on the edge of civilization waiting to attack. Just ask the Duchy of Geoff. Drow are the unseen boogie men rather than a playable race. Ramp up the fear of the unknown. Play up the racial tensions that are a major factor in the setting. Sell Greyhawk on its theme. And get somebody that understands that to be the pitchman.

 

[Remathilis]

Eberron adds races and classes, and has a completely different setting.
Wildemount adds races and reprints (makes official) twelve races that were supplemental.
Theros restricts choices.

Settings add and subtract material all the time.

If you just went generic 5e D&D, play Forgotten Realms. That's the default.

Then we're right back to where we were when you quoted me: a setting encased in amber that cannot grow to meet the expectations of the current edition but is hopelessly married the expectations of an edition that ended 30 years ago.

 

[FrozenNorth]

What does antidotes have to do with getting old... did someone somehow live from 1985 until now and NOT age 35 years!?!

Tom Cruise.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Greyhawk is preserved. You can find the maps online easily, and you can get most of the old products for it on DM's Guild.

This isn't an argument for how to preserve Greyhawk, it's an argument how to grow the setting into greater prominence among younger gamers.

Well, for starters, you need to have them figure out that unfortunately a growing number of them frankly just a) simply do not care about Gary Gygax or b) his style of games.

My players LOATHE dungeon crawls and have outright told me that they never want to run one without an actual reason for doing so. And while anecdotal I have more than 20 different players across three cities and nearly two decades of age range who have all shared the same thoughts. I don't presume to think that this is the majority of D&D players but it is by far from a small share of players.

The problem is largely just a matter of raw incompatibility, not just exposure. The vast majority of D&D gamer at this point weren't even born before Greyhawk began to "fall downhill". Hell, I'm on middle of the pack when it comes of the 5e age range and particularly well informed in the hobby's history for my age, but even I struggle with finding a reason to give a crap about Gygax or Greyhawk. The simple truth is the setting is silly by modern standards, filled with impossible to pronounce names that look rediculous (and are just reference now largely lost to time), over the top cliches, blatant favoritism for Wizards being the One True Class (tm) and a number of dated (and frankly racist/sexist) tropes. ...but to keep this from descending into another thread discussing orcs and heritage/ancestry, I shall leave it there.

I mean hell, to put it in perspective, there are people who are fully legal adults who play D&D that have no idea what even Dragonlance is or who Elminster is despite playing D&D set in the realms for years now, outside of two or three references in the PHB or a Book's name. It's the unfortunate truth.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Then we're right back to where we were when you quoted me: a setting encased in amber that cannot grow to meet the expectations of the current edition but is hopelessly married the expectations of an edition that ended 30 years ago.

Not really. I already wrote a whole post about it, including a section where I explained ways that we could move forward.

But the one thing that usually doesn't work is the people who don't care about Greyhawk at all lecturing the people that do about how it's just a generic setting, and why aren't we just playing Forgotten Realms anyway?

We don't want a setting encased in amber- we just don't want people who don't seem to like or understand the setting wrecking it again. I mean, as I went through in the thread, that's already happened plenty of times.

 

[Helldritch]

But for most of a typical game, a GH and FR PC used the same rules, spells, and mechanics. There was nothing "grittier or lower magic" about one setting or the other, assuming the same edition of rules and the later excesses of 2e kept in check. The difference was tonal, not mechanical.

Exactly my point. I remember when the FR box set that me and a few other DMs were like: "Wow! So many high level NPCs and the rule that Khelben was always 5? Levels higher than the highest PC were baffling us but it was also exciting. It was quite a change of pace from Greyhawk.

This tone might be why the five younger DMs I showed the setting to were so interested in Greyhawk. It is quite a change of pace from what they read in the other source books of other settings. When high level NPCs are common (relatively speaking) being high level yourself becomes just a number.

Or maybe it was because of the way I play. I still put a lot of importance on "name level (9th)". Reaching this level brings recognition from NPCs around your area and a lot of respect and deference. When the Duke calls on the PCs, he knows he is still on the throne because the PCs are not against him. He knows these PCs could take the castle by themselves. Thus the Duke shows a lot of respect and he makes sure that the PCs are aware that he owes them a favor because they agree to help him. The same goes for the other lords and ladies in the areas. In FR, you're just an other "high" level, there are others like you if you do not agree....

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Not really. Amazingly enough, I wrote a whole post about it, including a section where I explained where we could go.

But the one thing that usually doesn't work is the people who don't care about Greyhawk at all lecturing the people that do about how it's just a generic setting, and why aren't we just playing Forgotten Realms anyway?

We don't want a setting encased in amber- we just don't want people who don't seem to like or understand the setting (such as you) wrecking it again. I mean, as I went through in the thread, that's already happened plenty of times.

To address your point directly: I actually question how many designers there are left that the Greyhawk fans would actually trust that WoTC could actually hire. I hate to keep calling out the passage of time but I don't imagine that is a large pool to draw from, particularly from a business standpoint where WoTC only has so many coveted designer spots in their budget and would gain much more from someone who could work for their company for decades more.

To be clear, I do understand Greyhawk and everything that you have said. It is because I have taken the time to research it that I simply do not like it, but I understand why others enjoy it, as I have similar wishes for Dragonlance to be brought up to a modern audience. But I say to you the same I say to Dragonlance fans whom only want to see the setting rerelease the original trilogy reprinted and the series never updated after: nostalgia obsession leads to nothing but the death of any hobby or fandom, and it is the other piece of of the puzzle for WHY the settings other than Forgotten Realms are in the state that they are in. It is not just all the fault of TSR or WotC. And hell, this is coming from one of the biggest critics of Disney Star Wars here.

We have to realize that most of the settings at this point are so dated they basically are all blank slates at this point to the majority of the WoTC audience, and like it or not, if a setting is to continue existing it needs to have a reason to exist. You claiming "Sword and sorcery" is nice and all, and I understand what you mean because I'm a fantasy junkie, but most of the people who play the game frankly do not know the difference between Sword and Sorcery and High Magic, to them it's all just "let's be elves and dwarves and go fight dragons with flaming swords." I could seen a solid argument for maybe making Greyhawk the setting for those who prefer a traditional sandbox campaign largely focused on dungeon crawls, but again I hark back to my earlier post: does enough of the modern D&D customer base care enough to actually make making such a book, especially when the large part of the Greyhawk fans will hate the book anyway? Opening it up to the DMG guild is honestly probably the best call they could make.

Related point: I'd actually like to see the actual metrics on hardcore Greyhawk fans and if they still largely play first or second edition versions of the game compared to 5e to be frank. I'd wager a large sum that most of them don't even play 5e, and it would largely be more profitable to just reprint older modules anyway that are out of print, but I welcome being proven wrong on this point. To the point of updating older modules, I point you to multiple books we've already had: Tales of the Yawning Portal, Curse of Strahd, and Saltmarsh.