D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[Parmandur]

I think it's ridiculous.

(1) Greyhawk is not great literature. It's a a grab-bag of fantasy ideas and D&D mechanical elements merged together on some adaptation of an old wargame club map.

(2) A commercial publisher like WotC will publish stuff it thinks will sell. If you don't like the stuff, you don't buy it.

(3) The setting has no independent existence. It can't be "blown up". Either you enjoy and make use of what they publish, or you don't.

In the 1990s I was using GH material that referred to the Horned Society taking over the Shield Lands (the City of GH boxed set) and other GH material that just ignored those events even though set later in the imaginary timeline (the post-GH Wars stuff). I just picked and chose what I wanted to use. It's not hard!

All of this (RPG products are supposed to be malleable!), amd also WotC is still selling old Greyhawk...every iteration of Greyhawk. The coffee I'm drinking now costs as much as the Greyhawk 1983 box set PDFs. WotC is not going to stop selling Greyhawk.

 

[AstroCat]

This is being published as a "Hey here's an example setting thing" in the book that's introducing people to the game for the first time. Its going to be doing an absolutely poor job of that if it goes "Okay remove 50% of the races of the game because they didn't exist before 90% of the people reading this book were born"

Plus, well, we are talking, y'know. Greyhawk. Its not like Greyhawk hasn't just spat new things into existence every single time there was a new monster book to sell. This is the setting where, due to someone reading a book, decided there are now Dark Elves who were totally around the whole time and actually there's this big mysterious underground you've never herad about, and despite these being a functioning civilisation no one has ever encountered them before (with all of the grace of an MMO introducing a new expansion zone)

Well if you are going to change everything why use any pre-existing settings at all? Just make up a new one and abandon all previous works. And remember as soon as 7e comes up abandon that just created world as well, because you know, strict rules.

Why is it so hard to just keep the "flavor and integrity" of a world's vision while in good faith judiciously tweaking things as needed? We do it all the time, and others have been with 5e and GH for years. It works, it's being done right now. This seems like arguing just to argue.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's not all or nothing, you can make some adjustments to some "rules" while 100% maintaining the integrity of the setting. I never said you can't, you did.

I will point out that there was never any rule in Greyhawk that said "there are no dragonborn in this setting". All the player races in the Player's Handbook where allowed (plus a bunch of others added later, through Dragon magazine). That's not going to change.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’ve literally never heard this complaint unless the players specifically didn’t like a setting because of some restriction or quirk of the setting, i.e. someone who doesn’t like the sci-fi aspects of Spelljammer or Shadow of the Demon Lord was too dark for them. I’ve never heard a player complain that without a connection to the lore, they couldn’t get into the game. If anything, I’ve heard people complain about lore dumps.

So you're making the argument against having settings altogether? It's seemed that way for a while now from you. Is that what you're saying?

 

[AstroCat]

I will point out that there was never any rule in Greyhawk that said "there are no dragonborn in this setting". All the player races in the Player's Handbook where allowed (plus a bunch of others added later, through Dragon magazine). That's not going to change.

Yeah it's not going to change with the new 6e GH, agreed. There would be a setting "cool" way to introduce more rare and "funky" races previously not seen in the setting. And, there would be the lame out version of, now we say they were always there, you know just because.

Find a cool way to let DB come around and others, make them rare or visitors from another unknown continent, etc... you could do a zillion cools ways better than, hey they were always there because we say so.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Look, to answer the question that the OP poses, why is Greyhawk confirmed... the answer is quite simple.

ME.

That's right. I take full credit. My ceaseless shilling for Greyhawk, and continued dropping of #GREYHAWKCONFIRMED are solely responsible for this. I mean ... have I written about Greyhawk before? YOU TELL ME?

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As for why Greyhawk? Allow me to quote myself, the only truly reliable source of all information-

Greyhawk is D&D before people thought they needed to color within the lines. Greyhawk is D&D your way. It's the infinite multiverse and crashed spaceships, it's ninja nazi monks and demon-possessed emperors, it's endless black ice and dead civilizations blasted by colorless fire.

It's a mechanical bejeweled songbird from two millennia ago with powers that amaze and terrify, and an ancient computer designed by a long-ago Baron driven insane by his creation. It's a dark nameless god dreaming within a crystalline cyst, and demi-gods raised from the ranks of mere mortal adventurers.

It's a land that contains both the hospitable and brave free people of the Yeomanry who regularly elect their leaders from amongst their ranks, as well as the infamy of Vlek, the Stonefist, who acquired power through the slaughter of the Coltens Feodality under cover of negotiation.

 

[TiQuinn]

Also, to be honest making the Horned Society a Tiefling Warlock magocracy would require changing...not much.

It’s pretty much a perfect fit.

 

[TiQuinn]

Well if you are going to change everything why use any pre-existing settings at all? Just make up a new one and abandon all previous works. And remember as soon as 7e comes up abandon that just created world as well, because you know, strict rules.

Because creating something new whole-cloth is more work than taking a starting point and modifying it.

And “strict rules?” What does that mean?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm getting the vibe that some people think a Greyhawk Setting is going to contain some canon to use as instruments to enforce an old school playstyle on newer players.

That's not going to happen.

 

[TiQuinn]

So you're making the argument against having settings altogether? It's seemed that way for a while now from you. Is that what you're saying?

I’m not making an argument against settings. You just have a completely different view of what a setting is supposed to do.