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

[Warpiglet-7]

I am so tired of "quirky and unique" being the top priority for some very many players.

I really would enjoy a gritty pseudo dark age game. I think it would be fun and I like the aesthetic.

As you point out though, many players want options. No options generally mean no players.

I feel for you! Though I will say I have found fun in adding some new things and when others do so, it often does not detract from my fun as much as I once assumed.

Half orc paladins! Heresy! Later I played one. A dwarf wizard! No way! Later I played one in 3e…

But as to special…I always play something that is special and unique. I think making up unique things is the fun of characters for most of us. I don’t want to play Bob the fighter…but I never disrupt things of f with the DM either. I hope you at least find some folks that can strike a balance and meet you in the middle!

 

[TiQuinn]

DMs are players too.

Sorry, it’s irrelevant. They’re not making any sense whatsoever to me, and I’m done trying to figure out what they’re saying.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You tell me. What is an acceptable to you way to express my dislike of quirky and unique as the top priority for character creation? How can I say that without you labeling me as a bad actor

“I’m not keen on quirky and unusual characters. I prefer more grounded fantasy.”

 

[Micah Sweet]

I really would enjoy a gritty pseudo dark age game. I think it would be fun and I like the aesthetic.

As you point out though, many players want options. No options generally mean no players.

I feel for you! Though I will say I have found fun in adding some new things and when others do so, it often does not detract from my fun as much as I once assumed.

Half orc paladins! Heresy! Later I played one. A dwarf wizard! No way! Later I played one in 3e…

But as to special…I always play something that is special and unique. I think making up unique things is the fun of characters for most of us. I don’t want to play Bob the fighter…but I never disrupt things of f with the DM either. I hope you at least find some folks that can strike a balance and meet you in the middle!

Yes, there is a spectrum, and I am not against new things. I just don't care for the philosophy that you have to be special and unique or it's not fun, as if those are synonyms.

 

[Micah Sweet]

“I’m not keen on quirky and unusual characters. I prefer more grounded fantasy.”

But that's not what I mean. I'm fine with new and different. I just don't want it to be the most important thing (which is literally what I said). Please stop trying to frame my opinion as either/or.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Just a brief summary of some key events, along a timeline. This has been done many times before.

Unless it is a sub-heading on how to feed chronological information to your players... what would be the point of this? The chapter is supposed to highlight how to make things, listing changes in Greyhawk lore as they move forward the timeline is not the purpose of the chapter.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But that's not what I mean. I'm fine with new and different. I just don't want it to be the most important thing

Being unhappy with what other people like isn’t really acceptable, even expressed more politely. Railing against the modern world isn’t a good look. Other people having fun differently to you does you no harm.

(which is literally what I said).

It literally isn’t.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That's a lot of words just to be condescending to people who disagree with you.

I'm not being condescending.

Minigiant keeps presenting this like, if the DMG doesn't do all this extra work, all these DMs will take the Greyhawk example from the DMG, and ban multiple classes and races from the PHB because the DMG didn't explain how these things now exist in Greyhawk when they didn't before.

Realistically... this isn't going to happen. GMs will assume that giant-folk are where the giants are at, that orc tribes are diverse, and that people can make deals for Warlock powers.

The DMs who do go around banning these things, are the DMs who are already banning them from their Greyhawk games, because the necessary "work" is basically a sentence of wiggle room in any particular place. And only people who insist that the setting must only have exactly what the text of the books declare it has are going to declare that things must be banned because they "don't fit". No DM who seriously wants to help their player play an Orc who isn't evil isn't going to have no choice but to ban the orc character instead of just... having a tribe of orcs who get along with their neighbors. As stated, Greyhawk ALREADY HAS good-aligned orcs, canonically in the setting. It's a red herring.

 

[Chaosmancer]

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.

Where in Greyhawk's flavor and integrity does having Warlocks hurt the setting? Because, remember, that was part of the series of questions Minigiant started this whole thing with: How does Primal Barbarians, Warlocks, and Sorcerers fit into Greyhawk?

So please, what flavor and integrity would be lost with the addition of Warlocks?

He also mentioned Goliaths, are we going to lose something with their inclusion? Actually... no, probably not. Because the Verbeeg or Human Behemoths are a race of giants who are about 9 ft tall on average. The only thing you really need to change to make Goliaths take the place of Verbeeg is to take away the occasional reference of eating people. They can still be intelligent giant-kin, smaller than the other giants, but more clever than their ogre and hill giant brethren.

So please, what flavor and integrity of the setting would we lose by, instead of erasing the Verbeeg entirely, shifting them to be Goliaths? The loss of a fourth type of man-eating giant? We still have ogres, hill giants, and Trolls.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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 one likes the existing things? Because ripping up everything that's come before every time is wasteful and cumbersome? Because it's fun to think about how to integrate things in ways that make sense?

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.

Building off the previous poster's questions....what "flavor and integrity"?

This is the world with Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. Where the creator himself threw in literal actual rayguns and space aliens because he felt like it.

You act like Greyhawk has some sort of deep, sacrosanct lore structure that must be carefully surveyed and scrupulously honored if one is going to make use of it. This is demonstrably untrue. Gygax did what felt fun. He didn't erase established events or the like, but if he felt like adding something, it got added, "flavor and integrity" be damned. I don't think an argument based on preserving the purity of the setting has a leg to stand on given what stuff was already perfectly acceptable for insertion into it with no context or connection to anything else.