D&D 5E Greyhawk: Pitching the Reboot

[hopeless]

Which setting books would you suggest to pick up to get a good handle on the setting?
The boxed set for 1e perhaps 2e how would you rate the 3e version?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Which setting books would you suggest to pick up to get a good handle on the setting?
The boxed set for 1e perhaps 2e how would you rate the 3e version?

Oof. Without wading into anything controversial ...

The best setting book to get a quick handle on the setting would be the 1e (Gygax) set- either the Folio (1980) or Campaign Setting (aka, Boxed Set 1983).

That has everything you need to know.

If you're keeping it "strictly Gygax" you want to stick to to pre-85 material, such as in Dragon Magazine.

After that is the later City of Greyhawk boxed set and Greyhawk Adventures hardcover in 1e. They are ... well, some enjoy it.

The 2e stuff moves to a different timeline and is the Wars / From the Ashes.

The 3e stuff is comprehensive, and is the Living Greyhawk period.

In essence, there are four periods:
Gygaxian Greyhawk (through 1985)
Late 1e (1985 - 1990)
Wars/Ashes (2e)
Living Greyhawk (3e)

ps- whatever you do, don't get WG7.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I don't agree that's particularly important. And if the individual group feels it is, it's simple to introduce by modifying the advancement rules. Just put the sidebar in the setting book.

Well, sure, but what I'm saying is the modification needed would result directly in poor sales. Your average player wants to be flinging Fireballs after a few game sessions.

But my point was, nothing is baked in to low level adventuring. Plenty of Greyhawk modules that go well above level 10.

Low-level adventuring is baked in via the XP system and the higher lethality of the game. Sure, you can buy a 14th-level adventure for AD&D. But how much adventuring did it take your players to get to 14th level? By my estimation, it has taken my ToEE party more than twice as long to reach level 8 as my Out of the Abyss party, and I still have them leveling up at about 15% faster than AD&D.

I don't disagree on the "feel" of it. I totally agree that by 10th level (or well before actually) PCs shouldn't be mooks of any kind. But that wasn't what I was quibbling about - it was the assertion that 10+ leveled characters (and NPCs) were extraordinarily rare.

At least per the rules (IDK how well this was followed in official publications, especially in the late 80s), there is only 1 10th-level monk in the entire Flanaess. There are only 3 druids of 13th level. A 9th-level Fighter rules a parcel of territory from 40 to 100 miles across. This embodies dramatically different assumptions from how the typical 5e storybook adventure runs. For example, Out of the Abyss gives you a gaggle of Veterans, who are about equal to 9th-level warriors, as nameless, faceless henchmen. They're nobodies, just dudes who work for some other dude. They're not feudal lords of modest renown who have laid aside their prerogatives to address the dire threat to the world, which is what they'd be in Greyhawk.

So, IMO, if you want to reboot Greyhawk, you've got to recapture that feeling that making it to tenth level is a noteworthy achievement, requiring luck, hard work, and dedication. Running into a Veteran or Drow Elite Warrior is an event, not just some random sack of combat stats that fell out of a table. I don't think you need to explicitly copy-and-paste the rules for Archdruid combat from 1e. What you need is pacing mechanics and interaction with the world that players feel like the kind of people that kings are starting to pay attention to, not just hired guns who have run a monster-killing treadmill for a few weeks.

And that's what Greyhawk should add to the 5e system. Give me a different XP chart, and some new mechanics to handle all that.

 

[Mort]

ps- whatever you do, don't get WG7.

Completely by accident, that was my first introduction to Greyhawk.

And you know, it's actually an amusing, self contained module with lots and lots of stuff for players to explore. Granted some of the levels make no sense or are nearly unplayable as written but that's no different than quite a few other modules of the era.

I didn't realize until quite a bit later and after getting the "real" Greyhawk material that the entire book was, essentially, a big middle finger to Gygax. So while it leaves a bad taste in my mouth now, it at least got me into the setting.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I didn't realize until quite a bit later and after getting the "real" Greyhawk material that the entire book was, essentially, a big middle finger to Gygax. So while it leaves a bad taste in my mouth now, it at least got me into the setting.

To be clear, you have to fully understand the context.

Imagine being in the low-information 1980s. All you had were the rumblings from conventions and the updates in Dragon Magazine. For the longest time, the Holy Grail of D&D was legendary Castle Greyhawk and its dungeons.

That's right. Everyone knew about it. We all dreamed of it. The ur-dungeon. We knew of the hints, the rumors, we had read Gygax's posts in Dragon. There was nothing we wanted more. It's like being a Game of Thrones fan and waiting for GRRM to finish his new book. WHERE ARE THE PAGES???!!!???!!

And then ... Gygax was ousted. I can't explain to you how shocking that was at the time. Still, the game went on.

But suddenly, in the store, we saw it! What is this? WG7, CASTLE GREYHAWK???!!!!???? Can it be? Finally?

So you buy it, take it home, and eagerly begin devouring it (because again, it's not like there was any advance warning or internet to tell us what we are about to see ....).

And slowly, the realization that not only was this not Castle Greyhawk, it was a parody. And a mean-spirited one at that.

To continue the analogy above, it would be like bringing home the new Game of Thrones book, and realizing that it was a joke book, and that the entire purpose of it was to make fun of people reading it.

I get angry just thinking back on it.

 

[dave2008]

The issue is, if you throw out 90% of the rulebook, it's not 5e at all, is it? It's more of a reskin, like The One Ring or Esper Genesis.

No, we've played 5e from the beginning and we have only used 3 classes and 4 subclasses (for 6 players).

Fighter - battlemaster
Wizard - ???
Rogue - Thief & Scout (we call him our ranger)

I wouldn't call "everyone has a little bit of magic" low magic. I would say "no more than one party member has any magic whatsoever" would qualify.

There is no one definition of "low magic." If you allow magic using classes, the assumption would be the characters are special. Like a Witcher. There is not much magic in the world to speak off, but a very few have access to it - those are special NPCs and the characters. That fits a definition of low magic to me.

I wouldn't call The Witcher low magic. The place is stiff with bloody sorceresses!

I have not read the books or played the games, I've just read some wikis and watched the netflix show. That is not the impression I get from the sources I am familiar with. However, that is not really relevant to the discussion. If it is a bad example, so be it.

 

[Umbran]

He never stated that the old material wasn't good.

I think it is strongly implied in the two choices - putting out a high quality version of the original product would not be something good. Ergo, that content is lacking. But, you know, I'll allow that Snarf has a habit of using inexact phrasing for effect, so let's set that aside for the moment. I'll drop coming at it from that angle.

The root of the matter is in where the analogy to ST:TNG fails. Star Trek had a large and active fanbase - it had the original series, a ton of novels, and four successful movies - Star Trek IV came out the year before Next Gen premiered, remember. The property was a fan favorite, and compelling to the audience at the time. Appealing to the established fanbase, and expanding for the future, made a lot of sense at that moment.

Greyhawk... doesn't have any of that. It is, all in all, an obscure intellectual property, even to the D&D playerbase at this time.

In fact, looking at this thread, with all the stress on making it into GoT or The Witcher, what I get is that Greyhawk doesn't have much compelling of its own that isn't being done by some more recent and culturally relevant property. Why, then, is Greyhawk, specifically, called for?

And heck, if I wanted that world-in-decline, humanocentric, low-magic feel.... I think I'd not bother with D&D at all, and just pick up Swords of the Serpentine, because it's game is actually more geared to producing Fafhrd & Grey Mouser or Conan-style action-adventure, and the Eversink setting has all the elements necessary to support the feel.

Thus my questions. I don't actually see what's compelling about Greyhawk itself at this time.

And, btw, I say this as a gamer who cut his teeth on Greyhawk. I didn't touch FR until I ran Phandelver for a friend's kid.

 

[TwoSix]

Thus my questions. I don't actually see what's compelling about Greyhawk itself at this time.

And, btw, I say this as a gamer who cut his teeth on Greyhawk. I didn't touch FR until I ran Phandelver for a friend's kid.

Ironically, as a 2E kid, I have no connection to Greyhawk whatsoever other than thumbing through a friend's copy of From the Ashes. I'm just think the core argument of the thread is interesting.

As I'm reading Snarf, the basic point is "Greyhawk has value as the progenitor of a ton of core D&Disms, and a newer audience could easily enjoy being introduced to that legacy through a supplement. A lot of the details could use a fresh coat of paint after 40 years, and a high-quality paint job could produce a supplement that attracts an audience of both veterans and new D&D fans intrigued by the game's history."

I have no idea if Snarf is actually right, or if any of the many colors of possible paint job proposed in this thread would be right, but I think it's interesting to discuss.

And yes, consigning Greyhawk to the trash can of history is quite possibly the best commercial approach, no argument there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

No, we've played 5e from the beginning and we have only used 3 classes and 4 subclasses (for 6 players).

Fighter - battlemaster
Wizard - ???
Rogue - Thief & Scout (we call him our ranger)

No, you have played a very tiny part of 5e.

There is no one definition of "low magic." If you allow magic using classes, the assumption would be the characters are special. Like a Witcher. There is not much magic in the world to speak off, but a very few have access to it - those are special NPCs and the characters. That fits a definition of low magic to me./

That's not even near "low magic". That's just the D&D default. The PCs are superpowered heroes, they fight superpowered villains, the rest of the world are powerless "normal people".

In a Low Magic setting most people don't even believe magic exists.

I have not read the books or played the games, I've just read some wikis and watched the netflix show. That is not the impression I get from the sources I am familiar with. However, that is not really relevant to the discussion. If it is a bad example, so be it.

I've done all three. It's pretty much D&D standard.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And yes, consigning Greyhawk to the trash can of history is quite possibly the best commercial approach, no argument there.

I think that's going too far the other way.