D&D 5E Greyhawk: Pitching the Reboot

[Mercurius]

There is plenty of magic, but it is in the hands of the few.

I think that's the point, and why it is low magic relative to most other D&D worlds, namely the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

In D&D? I don't buy it. I don't buy that that audience really plays TT RPGs, or if they do, wants D&D to be like that. And D&D is extremely bad at that because of the Vancian magic system. The idea that you can have "grounded low-magic" when people are daily summoning magic animals and shooting fireballs and so on at level 5 is pretty silly imho.

The whole point of this thread is to see what niche Greyhawk fits in. We are discussing how GH would work as an alternative to typical D&D. Saying "Oh people won't like this because it's not high-magic enough" defeats the purpose. People buy new setting books for alternative ways of playing D&D.

And yes, there is obviously a market for people who want to play in low-magic settings, even if the PCs themselves do not follow the rules of the setting around them. Some people do want to play Daenarys discovering dragons in a bleak desert, or Geralt helping a hapless town from the griffin taking their livestock.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Another popular grimdark thing is Dark Souls

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Another popular grimdark thing is Dark Souls

I'll add, Lord of the Rings is pretty low-magic too! The only spellcaster on the side of the good guys in the key battles is Gandalf!

 

[TwiceBorn2]

I'll add, Lord of the Rings is pretty low-magic too! The only spellcaster on the side of the good guys in the key battles is Gandalf!

And in the 5e Adventures in Middle-Earth setting, which sold well, Cubicle 7 completely redesigned the classes and stripped them of spell-casting ability (including the lore master). There are no wizards, no sorcerers, no clerics, etc (notwithstanding Istari and rare NPCs/monsters with spell-casting ability). I haven't actually played the system so can't assess the final outcome (i.e., how well it works in practice). And while I'm not suggesting that WotC totally strip magic from Greyhawk player classes, they certainly have design space to create a lower magic alternative to the default game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Marketing is the biggest issue.

No. The biggest issue is "why bother?"

No one cares about Greyhawk apart from a few geriatric grognards who will throw their toys out the pram the first time they meet a tiefling.

Just start from scratch and make a 2020s GenericFantasyland.

For those who like Greyhawk, they can use the original publications, which had little crunch, and therefore work perfectly well for any edition of D&D.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

No. The biggest issue is "why bother?"

No one cares about Greyhawk apart from a few geriatric grognards who will throw their toys out the pram the first time they meet a tiefling.

Oh, it is probably more than that, but still less than what would make WotC/Hasbro enough of a profit from the book to want to publish it. That is the problem with a lot of 5E requests. People got so spoiled by the tons of product that was put out for 3E and 4E, that they expect the same niche production with 5E, even when the reality is that it would not be profitable enough to publish. Which leads us to the whole digital vs physical debate, and WotC not doing official digital-only releases of major works. Sure, they did that one for Eberron, which they claimed was a test to see if a hardcover Eberron book would sell. And it worked for that, but they have not used that format again since then. So maybe a $50 hardcover update of Greyhawk would not be profitable, but a $20-30 PDF update might be, if they would just get over this only doing physical releases problem. But this topic has me wondering how many people who bought Saltmarsh did it because of the connection to Greyhawk, and not just because it was a book of adventures?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If you want a Greyhawk with lower magic level my suggestion is the alternate earths, the Oerth "twins": Yarth, Aerth, Uerth and "Earth". The possible loophole could be to use different (no-magic) powers, for example psionic, but also (ki) martial maneuvers or incarnum soulmelding. One of these could be perfect for a WotC version of "7th Sea".

Other matter is the "human-centrism", where the longer-live humanoids haven't enough political influence..(maybe because they would rather to avoid wars when the humans can recover demographicaly faster after natural disasters, epidemic or other crisis). I guess now the main cities are more cosmopolitan, with streets for other races (dwarftown, elftown, gnometown)...

And I guess WotC notices settings with low magic levels are harder to sell sourcebooks about crunchs as magic items or new spell lists.

Maybe WotC in the future wanted to add a Greyhawk version of Kara-Tur for their own D&D xuanhuan spinoff.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But this topic has me wondering how many people who bought Saltmarsh did it because of the connection to Greyhawk, and not just because it was a book of adventures?

I bought it because I liked the original U1, and I find collections of adventures useful.

I actually ran Sinister Secret in Eberron. First time round in the 1980s I ran it in homebrew (the imaginatively named "Erf").

 

[Coroc]

It's been a while since I've posted about Greyhawk ... AND I HAVE COME BACK FOR MORE!

I was inspired by this recent post by @The Glen:

Marketing is the biggest issue. How do you make a setting sound fun? Greyhawk is a complete mess politically. The entire region is a powder keg waiting to blow. You've got expansionist Nations looking to increase their borders, secret societies trying to purge the impure, and the supposed good guys can't put aside their differences to present a united front.

That's what the players are facing. There isn't an elminster in Greyhawk. There isn't going to be high-level saviors that are going to keep the status quo. The high-level Wizards here really don't care about anyone but themselves. And that's a reoccurring theme because a lot of the Nations don't care about what's outside their borders. The elves would watch the Flaeness burn rather than risk their own people.

It's grim. It's bleak. At any given moment you're looking at Fantasy World War 1 as all the old grudges get settled in a geyser of blood. There aren't many happy endings in Greyhawk. But unlike ravenloft or dark Sun they are still possible. You will earn your happy ending.


This is in accord with my general ideas for how to "reboot" or "reintroduce" Greyhawk. In order to bring a viable Greyhawk to 5e, I would observe the following rules:

A. Do not slavishly recreate the past.
This Is A Dude Who, 700 Years Ago, Totally Ravaged China, And Who, We Were Told, 2 Hours Ago, Totally Ravaged Oshman’s Sporting Goods. -Bill .... or Ted... mmm, Esquire?

Greyhawk has a lot of fans, even still. Some love the 1983 set. Others are more about the 3e timeline. Thing is, people like what they like. But you can't go back to the past. If someone loves the old stuff ... they can always play it! There are so many resources for it- from print on demand, to Canonfire, to innumerable Grognards who will be happy to tell you what "real Greyhawk" is like. Point being- if you want the "real" thing, play the real thing. Heck- most of it is doesn't even require much "updating" to 5e, since it was mostly sketches that didn't really rely on rules.

The worst approach would be, IMO, to simply cater to the prior fans. For three simple reasons- (1) a slavish re-creation can never live up to what they have in their minds, because they are no longer living in the 80s or 90s or whenever they were playing it, and are not nearly as awesome and young; (2) prior fans would not agree on what makes a good recreation, anyway, and what needed to be incorporated to modernize it while staying true to Greyhawk (just toss out the term "Dragonborn" and see what happens); and (3) new fans DON'T CARE about your past, gramps. And we want new fans.


B. Quality is what matters.
Quality writing will always attract the high-brow audience. -Chuck Tingle, perhaps.

When you think back about any successful installment in a movie franchise, or any successful "reboot" of a media property, one thing immediately comes to mind- what matters is the quality. It's such a banal point it should be obvious, and yet ... what matters, what always matters, and what only matters, is the quality of the product. People can (and do) discuss things like "fidelity to canon" or "fan service," and these are all good things; but whether a particular media property is reifying expectations, or subverting them, what matters is that it is ... good. People, even the hardcore-iest of the hardcore fans, forgive a multitude of sins when something is good, whereas it's a lot harder to enjoy if it's bad.

More simply- making something high quality is the top priority; fan service should always be the secondary consideration.


C. Make it relevant and make it different.
See, you can't rewrite, 'cause to rewrite is to deceive and lie, and you betray your own thoughts. -Britney Spears, possibly.

The most important thing about any new version of Greyhawk would be that it has some type of relevance to people today. To use a (perhaps trite) example, elements of the reboot of BSG incorporated concepts from the then-current war on terror to give it some added pathos for current viewers. From that perspective, any person looking to re-do or re-launch Greyhawk would be best served looking at those elements from the past that would differentiate Greyhawk from other settings and make it a distinctive and appealing setting for some gamers.

With this is mind, I would argue for the following aspects of Greyhawk that should be brought forward and accentuated, and very much believe that a Greyhawk that more closely resembles a "Game of Thrones" type setting, with darkness, war, and a political backdrop would be very successful!

1. The Dying of the Light.
The Flanaess was once a place of great civilizations. Empires of unimaginable power and magic ruled the land, until they crumbled into dust, victims of their own hubris. Today, the great powers are corrupted from within (the Great Kingdom) or teetering on the edge; a few proud city-states, such as Onnwal, Greyhawk, and Dyvers welcoming traders from far and wide, but much of the land is empty and desolate, with villages and hommlets scraping by meager existences, and the presence of raiding parties a constant threat.

The greatest powers lie within tombs, hidden away in forgotten ruins and wrecked cities covered by jungle, long forgotten.


2. Politics is a zero-sum game.
The nations of the Flanaess are in constant competition with each other. There are theocracies and bandit kingdoms, free cities and associations of free yeoman; but while alliances are easily made, they are more easily broken. Most nations, even the "good" ones, are looking to expand, and all of them are terrified of any new rising power.


3. There is real evil, and it's winning.
While the good and neutral nations mostly squabble amongst themselves, real evil walk the world and cooperates in their plans. At least ... for now. Iuz. The Great Kingdom. And the Scarlet Brotherhood.


That's just an opening. But, in the end, pushing Greyhawk as a setting that really accentuates these differences would make it more interesting for a new set of gamers to play.

So - what's your pitch? How would you reboot Greyhawk?

You nailed it but ...

He said Dragon born ! Stone him !