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

[Paul Farquhar]

I'll admit it's been a while since I looked at the Slaver series, and even then, only the original 4 modules, but, I don't recall any connection whatsoever to the Scarlet Brotherhood. And the Slavers certainly had no intentions of conquest at all.

Temple and Queen of the Demonweb pits aside, there are a lot of GH modules that have nothing to do with saving the world. The Cult of the Reptile God, the G series, the Saltmarsh series, the S series modules, the EX series, Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan, I'm sure there are more. The presence of exceptions doesn't really change the point. GH modules and the presentation of material in GH, generally focuses on the local - thus the whole Sword and Sorcery angle as opposed to Epic fantasy. Most of the modules are pretty self contained and only affect a local area.

World saving might not be foreign, but, it is fairly rare. Some of the most iconic GH adventures are local. The S series being a prime example. Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Tsojcanth. None of these are "save the world" adventures.

This is more to do with them being 1st edition modules, rather than Greyhawk modules. Many of them are only "Greyhawk" because Greyhawk was the default setting for all 1st edition modules. With the exception of Gygax's world-saving Against the Giants - Vault of the Drow arc, most 1st edition stuff was more S&S than HF. It was the addition of the Hickmans to the staff in the 1980s that took D&D more HF than S&S. It's really more that the changing tone of adventure modules was driving the settings (especially Dragonlance) rather than the setting determining the tone of the adventure.

Settings reflect the people creating them. And people reflect the times they grew up in.

 

[Aldarc]

Jonah.

Also King Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Daniel.

Neither of these books constitute the Torah. And they are both late texts, with the Book of Daniel probably being one of the latest books in the Tanakh, as it was in all likelihood written during the time of the Maccabean Revolt.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Neither of these books constitute the Torah. And they are both late texts, with the Book of Daniel probably being one of the latest books in the Tanakh, as it was in all likelihood written during the time of the Maccabean Revolt.

True, I was referring the bible in general, in the form that would be familiar to most 20th Century American writers.

Gilgamesh is older than the Torah though.

Gilgamesh is a pretty S&S type guy. Daniel is more HF.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I’ve never read Gary Gygax’s Gord the Rogue series, which is set in Greyhawk. However, going by the plot summaries on wikipedia it looks like the first novel, Saga of Old City, resembles Fritz Leiber’s stories about Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser while the final novel, Dance of Demons, is extremely similar to Michael Moorcock’s Stormbringer, an Elric novel.

Saga of Old City... starts in Gord's childhood, and ends with his triumphant return to Greyhawk City as a young man and master thief. He learns his trade in the "beggars' guild", and gets involved in the gang war touched off by the beggars encroaching on the official thieves' guild's territory. He travels and has a variety of swashbuckling adventures, ranging from participating in a war to liberating a young noblewoman held hostage...

Dance of Demons is the finale, in which Gord and Gellor enter the Abyss on a mission from the world's most powerful forces of Balance, to retrieve the remaining Theorparts. The goal is nothing less than to free Tharizdun, the long-imprisoned god of ultimate evil and entropy, and to finally destroy him. The novel ends with the complete destruction of Oerth, and the unveiling of a new and better world.​

The first novel is episodic, the scope is personal, and it deals with larcenous enterprises. It is sword and sorcery. The final novel is an epic quest with the fate of the world at stake. It’s closer to being high fantasy.

Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels are normally considered to be sword and sorcery. Most of the early stories published in the 1960s are episodic and of personal scope, though Elric is not motivated by a desire for material wealth. However Stormbringer is an epic that describes a Ragnarok-like conflict between Law and Chaos. The entire world is destroyed at the end.

The transition from sword and sorcery to high fantasy that occurs between Saga of Old City and Dance of Demons mirrors the transformation in understanding and escalation of stakes described in this passage in the 1e DMG (pg 112):

[T]here must be some purpose to it all. There must be some backdrop against which adventures are carried out, and no matter how tenuous the strands, some web which connects the evil and good, the opposing powers, the rival states and various peoples. This need not be evident at first, but as play continues, hints should be given to players, and their characters should become involved in the interaction and struggle between these vaster entities. Thus, characters begin as less than pawns, but as they progress in expertise, each eventually realizes that he or she is a meaningful, if lowly, piece in the cosmic game being conducted. When this occurs, players then have a dual purpose to their play, for not only will their player characters and henchmen gain levels of experience, but their actions have meaning above and beyond that of personal aggrandizement.​

This would be a bit like Conan, if he lived in Middle-earth*, discovering that all the demons and wizards he defeated were the servants of Sauron and resolving to oppose the dark lord.

*I think Conan could exist in Middle-earth, but Sauron couldn’t exist in the Hyborian Age, because Sauron’s existence depends on the Valar and Ilúvatar.

 

[Coroc]

I'm only limitedly familiar with it, but literally everything I know about the setting itself screams "EPIC FANTASY" at the top of its lungs. The way the group in Critical Role plays may well be much more S&S, but that just makes them like about 75% of D&D groups, who act more like Conan and Geralt than Aragorn or Jon Snow.

EDIT - Re: Eberron yeah, that leans very close to noir in a lot of ways, including the post-war setting, though the huge importance of the Houses combined with them being morally ambiguous rather than outright morally bankrupt reads as post-cyberpunk. It doesn't typically feel very S&S because it's so built-up and there's so much communication, so there's little of the feeling of wonder and dread S&S often evokes.

That said, the relatively benign/neutral nature of the Houses by default is probably the least plausible part about the setting. Throughout human history, every guild and company with the kind of monopolies they have has exploited the hell out of them, but Baker wanted to have his cake and eat it, so just arbitrarily has them not doing that for "reasons". I've read his explanations, but they're deeply half-hearted compared to the tremendous enthusiasm he has for the rest of his setting - basically coming down to "I dunno, I guess they're afraid bad things would happen if they did exploit the monopolies". Which is fundamentally implausible - if they had recently done that, and bad things had happened, it might be plausible, but that's not the case (the recent horrific events weren't related to exploiting monopolistic power).

Now that one is interesting indeed, you say that 75% of the players play like s&s, no matter what the flavor of the setting is?

 

[Aldarc]

True, I was referring the bible in general, in the form that would be familiar to most 20th Century American writers.

"Redemption arc" is basically refers to a villain to hero story arc, but this isn't really a common trope for biblical writers. It's not entirely absent, but I would not say that what we think of nowadays as "redemption arcs" are particularly biblical in origin. I honestly think that is more indebted to comic book writing than anything as it often involves taking popular antagonistic characters and turning them into protagonistic characters or good-aligned side characters over the course of serialized publications.

Gilgamesh is a pretty S&S type guy. Daniel is more HF.

There is approximately 2000 years of literature between the earliest written story of Gilgamesh and the Book of Daniel. So roughly the same length of time between today and either Virgil's Aeneid or the New Testament Gospels.

 

[Coroc]

I’ve never read Gary Gygax’s Gord the Rogue series, which is set in Greyhawk. However, going by the plot summaries on wikipedia it looks like the first novel, Saga of Old City, resembles Fritz Leiber’s stories about Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser while the final novel, Dance of Demons, is extremely similar to Michael Moorcock’s Stormbringer, an Elric novel.

Saga of Old City... starts in Gord's childhood, and ends with his triumphant return to Greyhawk City as a young man and master thief. He learns his trade in the "beggars' guild", and gets involved in the gang war touched off by the beggars encroaching on the official thieves' guild's territory. He travels and has a variety of swashbuckling adventures, ranging from participating in a war to liberating a young noblewoman held hostage...​

​

Dance of Demons is the finale, in which Gord and Gellor enter the Abyss on a mission from the world's most powerful forces of Balance, to retrieve the remaining Theorparts. The goal is nothing less than to free Tharizdun, the long-imprisoned god of ultimate evil and entropy, and to finally destroy him. The novel ends with the complete destruction of Oerth, and the unveiling of a new and better world.​

The first novel is episodic, the scope is personal, and it deals with larcenous enterprises. It is sword and sorcery. The final novel is an epic quest with the fate of the world at stake. It’s closer to being high fantasy.

Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels are normally considered to be sword and sorcery. Most of the early stories published in the 1960s are episodic and of personal scope, though Elric is not motivated by a desire for material wealth. However Stormbringer is an epic that describes a Ragnarok-like conflict between Law and Chaos. The entire world is destroyed at the end.

The transition from sword and sorcery to high fantasy that occurs between Saga of Old City and Dance of Demons mirrors the transformation in understanding and escalation of stakes described in this passage in the 1e DMG (pg 112):

[T]here must be some purpose to it all. There must be some backdrop against which adventures are carried out, and no matter how tenuous the strands, some web which connects the evil and good, the opposing powers, the rival states and various peoples. This need not be evident at first, but as play continues, hints should be given to players, and their characters should become involved in the interaction and struggle between these vaster entities. Thus, characters begin as less than pawns, but as they progress in expertise, each eventually realizes that he or she is a meaningful, if lowly, piece in the cosmic game being conducted. When this occurs, players then have a dual purpose to their play, for not only will their player characters and henchmen gain levels of experience, but their actions have meaning above and beyond that of personal aggrandizement.​

This would be a bit like Conan, if he lived in Middle-earth*, discovering that all the demons and wizards he defeated were the servants of Sauron and resolving to oppose the dark lord.

*I think Conan could exist in Middle-earth, but Sauron couldn’t exist in the Hyborian Age, because Sauron’s existence depends on the Valar and Ilúvatar.

on elric, s&s fine, but do not forget he is just an incarnation of the eternal hero, e.g. Quorum among many others is one of his alter egos. As far as i can remember i hope i remember it correctly, in one of the books Elric visits Nazi Germany.
Elric is planescape to the extreme in my pov, which goes beyond s&s very clearly.

 

[pemerton]

This would be a bit like Conan, if he lived in Middle-earth*, discovering that all the demons and wizards he defeated were the servants of Sauron and resolving to oppose the dark lord.

*I think Conan could exist in Middle-earth, but Sauron couldn’t exist in the Hyborian Age, because Sauron’s existence depends on the Valar and Ilúvatar.

This is a fairly outrageous counterfactual!

I think a character superficially like Conan might exist in Middle Earth - probably coming from somewhere in Wilderland. But I don't think that character could genuinely be Conan, because in Middle Earth one cannot trample the thrones of the world beneath one's sandalled feet. There is providence at work that limits such things!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Redemption arc" is basically refers to a villain to hero story arc, but this isn't really a common trope for biblical writers.

Nebuchadnezzar begins as a villain and ends up a friend to the hero.

I would not say that what we think of nowadays as "redemption arcs" are particularly biblical in origin.

No, it predates the Bible, and forms one of the fundamental stories humans tell each other. The "Villain's Journey" to sit alongside the "Hero's Journey".

I honestly think that is more indebted to comic book writing than anything as it often involves taking popular antagonistic characters and turning them into protagonistic characters or good-aligned side characters over the course of serialized publications.

It's way older than comics, although it does often feature there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

on elric, s&s fine, but do not forget he is just an incarnation of the eternal hero, e.g. Quorum among many others is one of his alter egos. As far as i can remember i hope i remember it correctly, in one of the books Elric visits Nazi Germany.
Elric is planescape to the extreme in my pov, which goes beyond s&s very clearly.

Elric certainly fights Nazis in The Dreamthief's Daughter.

I don't think Moorcock really belongs with the others. Especially in later books there is a strong, if unconventional, morality running through them: Extremes of anything, ether Law or Chaos (which represent political Right and Left) are "bad". Maintaining the balance is "good". The Eternal Champion fights to protect Tanelorn, the Utopian city of Balance.