D&D 5E Greyhawk: Pitching the Reboot

[hopeless]

Not yet, but that's an oversight I plan on correcting.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Personally, I think that Greyhawk is less magical than 5E typically presents, but it's not "low magic" in the LotR sense. There's plenty of magic in the world, but it's inaccessible to most, leaving information about it rather rare. People fear what they don't understand, giving magic a bad reputation, which many magic-users would gladly take advantage of. The PCs are obviously going to be outliers in any edition, but especially so in a highly magical edition like 5E.


I think the fact that there's divisions within GH fans doesn't help either. I appreciate the work you've done to carry the banner all these years, but after the "Greyhawk is the default setting" from 3E, I found this isn't a winnable battle. This was by far the worst thing that could happen to GH (including the Greyhawk Wars), since it gave the impression to everyone unfamiliar with the setting that it's just generic. Because of this, no one wants to actually learn anything about it, being instead drawn to other settings.

I honestly don't want any more official GH material; I'm just too afraid of what it would look like. If they got you, Luke, or other old school authors to work on it, that'd be amazing, but I find that highly unlikely. Instead I expect they'll make an anniversary book, reprinting previous material without adding anything new. I'd be happy if they'd open the DMGuild for GH, since it would allow a lot of material that each DM can pick and choose from, without any "official" material forced upon them.

I have repeatedly said over the years that the GH fandom is one large problem re WotC's inclination to revive the setting. How much this factor has now become a convenient excuse for the latter is debatable.

While waiting for the next crust of bread to be thrown to the GH "beggars" below mayt be a Greyhawkers "Ground Hog Day" tradition it does serve the purpose of symbolizing their station in relation to the Grand Coastal Wizards. I do not say this out of spite for the die-hard fans out there, but do pose it as a reminder: Don't eat the crust. Demand better or receive nothing. If they are going to kill-it-through-a-thousand-crusts rather let it die a dignified death.

In between I am championing "Black" Hawk! Blowing up the world as Gary did in his novels and starting over, Dying Earth style. New names, familiar but somewhat changed faces, a regression and a progression at once, and a heavy-handed lateral move for sure. BLOW iT UP, because "it's better to burn out than fade away" -- Neil Young

 

[hopeless]

Or set it much earlier so they can avoid most of the problems they feel trying to have it set during the current era poses for them?
Maybe not as early as Blackmoor mind you.

 

[Stormonu]

I would like to remind people that Ghosts of Saltmarsh exists. It's a 5E book that uses Greyhawk stuff. I assume everyone in this thread who loves Greyhawk already purchased their own copy of it???

Yep, and loving it (mostly - it does have some content drawn from elsewhere). I’d love to see more - an expanded L series would be another nice series of modules to bring Greyhawk back into the limelite.

I’ll be curious to see if Goodman’s Game update of Elemental Evil will retain the Greyhawk references and what it might do for the call to open Greyhawk up to the likes of the DM’s guild for more GH content.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I like the comparison to GOT
But greyhawk was not a low magic setting. It was just that the magic was concentrated in certain cities.
Remember back then level 10 was High.
Despite the ever present desire on the internet for low magic games every setting that has been successful was not low magic. Low magic has always had a much smaller playrbase and appeal.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are talking like Greyhawk was designed with low level NPCs and PCs as a core design feature. But, it wasn't. Dungeons and Dragons was designed that way.

I understand the mental conflation between Greyhawk and 1e or 2e, but it is correlation and nothing more. It really sounds like what people want is an older version of DnD, and that isn't something that 5e should do.

 

[Mecheon]

In between I am championing "Black" Hawk! Blowing up the world as Gary did in his novels and starting over, Dying Earth style. New names, familiar but somewhat changed faces, a regression and a progression at once, and a heavy-handed lateral move for sure. BLOW iT UP, because "it's better to burn out than fade away" -- Neil Young

Honestly with Wizard's thing at the moment being setpieces (See: Candlekeep being an entire book of them) I reckon any Greyhawk stuff in the future will just be setpieces grabbed from Greyhawk that can then be used elsewhere

Not great in terms of wanting access to it on the DM's Guild (Still not sure why they didn't open that up for Saltmarsh), but in line with what WotC seem to be doing with the line at present. I think in general the age of the 'How's this setting been getting along?' sourcebook may be done, and they're just going to focus on the ones with the mechanical stuff

 

[Hussar]

Again, it depends entirerly on what you consider low magic. Is Greyhawk low magic? The answer is both yes and no. Magic is not as pervasive in Greyhawk as in other settings like FR or Eberron. In FR, the availability of high level casters is staggering, bordering on the almost ridiculous. In Eberron, magic is so common that even the normal people can have access to it.

In Greyhawk, magic is as powerful as in any of these two settings (or any other for that matter) but the actual number of high level practitioners is way lower than in the FR and thw availability of magic is way lower than in Eberron.
/snip

Something to also remember is when we say Forgotten Realms or Eberron, both settings are a HELL of a lot bigger than Greyhawk. Isn't GH about the size of the Sword coast? That Sword Coast map that WotC banged out for 5e from Mike Schley - shows the Sword Coast area to be roughly a large chunk of the continental United States. Here's one comparison I found:

Sorry, bit big. But, it gets the idea. FR is freaking HUGE. Greyhawk isn't much bigger than the Sword Coast IIRC.

 

[Shiroiken]

The Flannaess is pretty large in size, at about 6.8 million square miles, which is not quite twice the size of the US (3.8 million square miles per Bing). It's larger than the map in the SCAG (5 million square miles), which is much more than just the Sword Coast (the white cliff coastline between Baldur's Gate and Waterdeep). The difference is that the Flanaess is all that got done with Greyhawk (the original plan was to add more of Oerik instead of advancing the timeline), while Greenwood fully expanded out of Faerun. Realms even got the other continents of Toril filled out (if only by absorbing Kara-Tur and Al-Qadim).

 

[House_Of_Dexter]

Would this work better if the magic was being hoarded thus no magic shops and what little they can find is either used or ends up being bought by the very people hoarding the stuff to insure the local populace never develops the means to topple those in charge?
You could have Mage Guilds supervising these expeditions and eventually making sure the most dangerous stuff remains under their control even if its means backstabbing their adventurers' without them realising whats actually going on?
What books best describe the Greyhawk setting?

In Gygax time...it was the Gord books...but he killed off that version of Greyhawk...when Tharizdun was locked away in it.

 

[House_Of_Dexter]

How do you handle the power growth?
I ran a game and still feel like I wasn't handling it properly so I'm interested to learn how you handled that!

In AD&D the sweet spot was 5th to 7th level...keep your players there as long as you can...Instead of making the world magic poor, make the world gold poor. Make the players pay for training to level up. This will slow down leveling faster than anything else. This will also have the party selling all those minor magic items to help with paying for training.