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

[Paul Farquhar]

Beowulf is pretty close to S&S.

 

[Helldritch]

Stop feeding the Troll.

Anyway, I want a Greyhawk. Yes @Mort , GoS was not shy about being Greyhawk. This is why it more than raises my hopes for something more about Greyhawk for the 50th aniversary.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Personally, I have no need of such a product, and neither do most existing fans of the setting. They'll only get so much out of it. You seem to want to capture a new generation of fans for the setting. This is not in any way a bad idea.....but I think that the question then becomes: "how do you make Greyhawk seem as awesome to people today as it did to the early gamers?"

And that's kind of tough.

To the extent that making any great product is, yes. Of course! Almost by definition, it is harder to make good things than to make bad things.

But a re-imagined or re-engineered Greyhawk should, foremost, not cater to the nostalgia of old fans; instead, it should primarily be a vehicle so that new fans have play experiences that, in 20, 30, 40, and 50 years from now, they will recall with nostalgia.

This isn't that hard; the She-Ra cartoon of today is not the same as the one that came before. Mad Max was re-imagined for a new generation. Westworld had one season of a re-telling of an older story.* If you move farther out, you can turn the genre even farther- such as re-imaging a noir in a high school like Brick.

Which I covered in this thread-

D&D General - Genres and Campaign Settings, and why D&D is not a Work of Literature

Moving somewhat tangentially from the previous 3,804 threads on Greyhawk (numbers are approximate), I thought I'd go more deeply into a discussion about why there is a limit to analogies regarding campaign settings and genre. While this topic originally came up regarding Greyhawk and "Swords and...

www.enworld.org

On the other hand, Gus Van Sant's Psycho, while an interesting from a technical perspective, suffered as a slavish recreation.


Give a great creator the ability to re-imagine it for the people of today. Heck, release it at the same time as a M:TG set. Us old will always be able to wave around our Folios and our 1983 box sets and tell the players today to get off our lawn- but this is a fundamental part of D&D, practically the origin story, that needs to be kept alive.


*Westworld was cancelled after one season. This is the truth, and you will not convince me otherwise.

 

[hawkeyefan]

@Snarf Zagyg Okay, so I think then that what we're doing is actually ignoring those that are already passionate about Greyhawk, right? Or at least, focusing less on pleasing them and instead trying to find a way to make the setting appeal to a new audience. If that's the approach, then I think it may be possible.

I think the best approach would be to use the boxed set as a starting point for the lore and nations. Focus on some of the elements that you indicated in your OP were what makes GH different than the Realms (the quasi-post-apocalyptic vibe, the blank spots on the map, the focus on neutrality, the toned down level of fantasy, etc.). Make those things very central to the material in every way you can. Give mechanical rules for these elements so that they're a focus of play. Give suggestions about how to make the setting feel like a sword & sorcery story. Give some suggestions about how all the options in the PHB could potentially fit into this setting and maintain that feel.

This seems like a much more achievable goal to me than going with an approach that tries to please the existing fans while also appealing to new ones.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

@Snarf Zagyg Okay, so I think then that what we're doing is actually ignoring those that are already passionate about Greyhawk, right? Or at least, focusing less on pleasing them and instead trying to find a way to make the setting appeal to a new audience. If that's the approach, then I think it may be possible.

I wouldn't say ignore. Well, it depends on the value of ignore? I wouldn't cater to them. But I would include (perhaps) bits of fan service, and would seek to find some themes from "Old Greyhawk" to accentuate and play up.

But the best way to please people is to make a good product.

I think the best approach would be to use the boxed set as a starting point for the lore and nations. Focus on some of the elements that you indicated in your OP were what makes GH different than the Realms (the quasi-post-apocalyptic vibe, the blank spots on the map, the focus on neutrality, the toned down level of fantasy, etc.). Make those things very central to the material in every way you can. Give mechanical rules for these elements so that they're a focus of play. Give suggestions about how to make the setting feel like a sword & sorcery story. Give some suggestions about how all the options in the PHB could potentially fit into this setting and maintain that feel.

This seems like a much more achievable goal to me than going with an approach that tries to please the existing fans while also appealing to new ones.

Totally agree. The main area where I disagree with people is when they insist or argue that Greyhawk should be a "kitchen sink" setting; we don't need an alternate Forgotten Realms. There should be a reason to play to it.

 

[Zeromaru X]

The thing is, I wouldn't be interested in buying a book that basically says "all the things you like about D&D? Sorry, you cannot enjoy them in Greyhawk". Because that's what that approach suggest. And I don't enjoy the 80s-90s D&D tropes. I barely tolerate them in my table.

I maybe a minory, but that hypothetical book is one I will not buy.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The thing is, I wouldn't be interested in buying a book that basically says "all the things you like about D&D? Sorry, you cannot enjoy them in Greyhawk". Because that's what that approach suggest. And I don't enjoy the 80s-90s D&D tropes. I barely tolerate them in my table.

I maybe a minory, but that hypothetical book is one I will not buy.

Every ... single ... setting ... book released has added or changed the default of D&D in 5e.

Nevertheless, whenever this subject comes up with Greyhawk, people always want to make it into Forgotten Realms 2. Which is funny on so many levels. We already have a default setting in 5e.

Did everyone here stamp their feet at say, "Can't have Theros at my table! Can't have Ravnica! I really hate it when WoTC releases settings that are in any way different than the core rulebooks! Man, can't have that!"

.... and yet, in every single theoretical conversation about Greyhawk, this happens.

 

[Aldarc]

Totally agree. The main area where I disagree with people is when they insist or argue that Greyhawk should be a "kitchen sink" setting; we don't need an alternate Forgotten Realms. There should be a reason to play to it.

Forgotten Realms and Eberron are both kitchen sink settings, and yet there are ample reasons to play both in 5e. Greyhawk was already fairly kitchen sink, albeit in the context of 1e: it had crashed spaceships for crying out loud! So saying that Greyhawk shouldn't be a "kitchen sink" setting when we already have Forgotten Realms seems to suggest that there is not much that makes Greyhawk unique apart from being slightly less kitchen sink than Forgotten Realms. I would hope that there would be more reasons to play Greyhawk than simply "it's like FR but with less and rarer playable options!"

 

[Zeromaru X]

I don't have the Theros setting, but I understand if they said "no D&D here" because Theros is not a D&D setting to begin with. Is a Magic setting ported to D&D. And a setting I'm not interested about, either.

I don't want a "Forgotten Realms 2: Electric Bongaloo" either. What I want is to play what I enjoy. I don't enjoy replaying Lord of the Rings in every D&D game unlike many of you here. And find the idea of anthropocentrism in fantasy highly nonsensical. I'm more of a Warcraft-kind of fantasy guy.

So, yeah, I approach Greyhawk not only as a newbie (I started in 4e, so my starting settings where the maligned 4e Realms and the Nentir Vale), but also as an skeptical. What does Greyhawk has to offer me?

My only experience with Greyhawk so far doesn't help, either. Saltmarsh left a very bad taste in my mouth (a book that encourages the DM to bully you if you play a dragonborn or a tiefling don't qualify as fun in my experience).

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don't have the Theros setting, but I understand if they said "no D&D here" because Theros is not a D&D setting to begin with. Is a Magic setting ported to D&D. And a setting I'm not interested about, either.

I don't want a "Forgotten Realms 2: Electric Bongaloo" either. What I want is to play what I enjoy. I don't enjoy replaying Lord of the Rings in every D&D game unlike many of you here. And find the idea of anthropocentrism in fantasy highly nonsensical. I'm more of a Warcraft-kind of fantasy guy.

....regarding the bold bit .... I think you might have missed a fundamental argument that has gone on. This is roughly like saying, "I can't stand playing Eberron, because unlike the rest of you, I want to play a changeling Artificer, and Eberron doesn't allow that."

Okay?

So, yeah, I approach Greyhawk not only as a newbie (I started in 4e, so my starting settings where the maligned 4e Realms and the Nentir Vale), but also as an skeptical. What does Greyhawk has to offer me?

My only experience with Greyhawk so far doesn't help, either. Saltmarsh left a very bad taste in my mouth (a book that encourages the DM to bully you if you play a dragonborn or a tiefling don't qualify as fun in my experience).

A fundamental issue is "kitchen sink." I don't much care how they differentiate Greyhawk; after all, I'm not the designer. But any interesting campaign setting uses a combination of restrictions and enhancements; whether it's new races or subclasses or even a new class, these are all ways to make a setting different, in addition to changes of focus or expansions of rules.

No new setting in 5e has simply regurgitated the "kitchen sink" of FR, and it's offensive that Greyhawk be held to that standard when no other setting is, with people saying that they won't buy a setting that they haven't even seen unless it meets the arbitrary demand of being another default setting in 5e (when we already have one).