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

[Faolyn]

My view is that most FRPG worldbuilding is so unrealistic that it would make no difference to just make this stuff up on the spot.

While I agree, some people aren't good at that--especially newbies.

See, us older gamers have undoubtedly read dozens of worldbuilding guides already. We've seen "random government tables" and lists of fantasy government types in other games already. We've read the blogs and newsletters of gaming tips that go into politics and government. But the newbies haven't, so they need the help.

That's why I'm suggesting coming up with a simple idea of what the government is like, or at least having a table or list of sample governments available.

Like, what does "the city is ruled by a Court of Lords" even mean? Who pays for paving the plaza - the "city" (whatever that means) from a public fund? Or one of the Lords, from their private wealth? Are contracts binding if unexecuted on both sides? And what happen is someone doesn't, or can't, keep a promise to pay - does one of the Lords decide? All of them.

And what is a lobbyist, in the context of systems of government that lack lobbies? I mean, what would it even mean to talk about a "lobbyist" in 11th century England? There is no system of public regulation of private wealth-generating activities, and hence nothing to "lobby" about.

This is stuff that can be addressed in an adventure and probably isn't important until then.

OK, so the Court of Lords and lobbies bit is from my own upcoming game--and yes, I have a rough answer for all of your above questions, since my game is going to have political themes to it--but replace the idea of "lobbies" with "bribes." Even an ignorant peasant would be able to tell the difference between "government that tries to be fair" and "government that demands bribes."

These issues are nothing to do with what the PCs are or are not going to do. REH didn't know what Conan was going to do until he sat down at his typewriter, and Conan did lots of violent, theft-oriented stuff, but REH had no need to give us a theory of the government of any of the lands he wrote about.

And again, this is a book. Howard may "not have known" what Conan was going to do, but he did know he wasn't writing a story about politics or police, and thus he did know that Conant wasn't going to be put in a situation where he couldn't escape or slaughter his way out.

You, as a GM, have no idea what the PCs are going to do, no matter what sort of story you're trying to write--and it's considered bad form to be a GM who comes up with a story ahead of time and then force the players to play along.

An example: I was in a game (Pathfinder setting, Greyhawk gods, GURPS system) where we needed get an artifact that was being held in a magical bank vault. The book assumed that we would effectively treat it like a dungeon or a heist--sneak in, disarm the traps and alarms, defeat the golem guardians, steal the artifact, sneak out. Instead, we found the long-dead original owner's gravesite (he had been a local hero, IIRC), got a lawyer, then cast the GURPS equivalent of speak with dead to ask the original owner's permission to use the artifact for the duration of the crisis.

 

[Hussar]

Aaaaaand we’re back to the perennial discussion of top down or bottom up world building.

 

[Faolyn]

Aaaaaand we’re back to the perennial discussion of top down or bottom up world building.

That's why I prefer "from the middle, doing as much detail as needed where it's needed."

 

[Minigiant]

But both aasimar and eladrin are defined in the 2014 DMG. They don’t require referencing a book the new dm may not have.

The point was that they weren't in the 2014 PHB. They were in the 2014 DMG.

So the 2024 DMG can refer to species in another chapter of the 2024 DMG.

 

[Minigiant]

Aaaaaand we’re back to the perennial discussion of top down or bottom up world building.

How about either.

How about determining world info that you will commonly and uncommonly need and teaching people to make the version that works for them best.

 

[Maxperson]

The Eyrie would be in my DMG

If I were to write the DMG,I would not just use the the Feywild and Shadowfell as my echoplanes
I would have many echoplanes

Jotunhiem (The DMG describes the 9 planes of Norse myth but explains none of them)
Xibalba/Frightlants
Dinoworld/Pangea/Beastlplane
Eyrie/Dragonplane

If you are going to teach worldbuilding, tech it. Give them options.

Pick 2 Echo planes
Pick a Inner Plane setup (Elemental Planes, Paraelemental Planes, Elemental Chaos, Fire/Ice World)
Pick a Outer Plane setup (Great Wheel, Astral Planes, Heaven/Hell)

Why force echo planes? Why force inner planes? Why force outer planes? Teaching is letting them know that they can do whatever they want and teaching them how to go about it. Not simply providing options to select from.

What you show above is less about teaching than what the 5e DMG already does. You need to teach them how to write their own program, not run a program someone else wrote that gives them selections to choose.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why force echo planes? Why force inner planes? Why force outer planes? Teaching is letting them know that they can do whatever they want and teaching them how to go about it. Not simply providing options to select from.

What you show above is less about teaching than what the 5e DMG already does. You need to teach them how to write their own program, not run a program someone else wrote that gives them selections to choose.

But if they do as you suggest, in what way are they reinforcing the brand and pushing present and future products featuring those options?

 

[Minigiant]

Why force echo planes? Why force inner planes? Why force outer planes? Teaching is letting them know that they can do whatever they want and teaching them how to go about it. Not simply providing options to select from.

What you show above is less about teaching than what the 5e DMG already does. You need to teach them how to write their own program, not run a program someone else wrote that gives them selections to choose.

Who is forcing anything.

There are just examples

Simple:
1 Echo
1 Inner Plane
1 Outer Plane

Classic D&D
2 Echos
0-4 Inner Planes
0-9 Outer Planes

Many Worlds:
7-10 of any plane

This is core problem. A vocal part of the community sees advice as "being forced". So everyone is against advice.They just suggest new content and as little advice as possible on it.

 

[pemerton]

I was in a game (Pathfinder setting, Greyhawk gods, GURPS system) where we needed get an artifact that was being held in a magical bank vault. The book assumed that we would effectively treat it like a dungeon or a heist--sneak in, disarm the traps and alarms, defeat the golem guardians, steal the artifact, sneak out. Instead, we found the long-dead original owner's gravesite (he had been a local hero, IIRC), got a lawyer, then cast the GURPS equivalent of speak with dead to ask the original owner's permission to use the artifact for the duration of the crisis.

In one of my 4e campaigns, the players had their PCs argue over title to a particular bit of real estate:

To renovate their temple, the PCs first had to repossess it from the wererats currently occupying it. I had statted up the wererats who had taken it over, but he players decided to have their PCs bring a legal action rather than exercising self-help. I resolved this as a quick complexity 1 (4/3) skill challenge.

It was pretty clear that the PCs would win the court case - they'd already undertaken legal research, and the wizard/invoker had rolled 44 for the History check to draft the pleadings - but resolving the challenge was still quite interesting. The players had to make some choices about how their PCs argued the matter, and there was one failure (maybe 2? I can't remember) resulting in an interesting complication - the Patriach of Bahamut who was hearing the matter decided to set aside the transfer of title to the wererats on the grounds that the Baronial advisor who had authorised it was a traitor at the time, and therefore his administrative actions were legal nullities. This was what the players and their PCs wanted - but the Patriarch also explained his reasoning in these terms, that he was sure the Baron would not have agreed to the transfer, had he known that his advisor was duping him, and was in fact a traitor building up a subversive nest of wererats.

Given that there was already an undercurrent of power struggle between Baron and Patriarch in which the PCs have been caught up, and give that the Baron is currently in a state of collapse from nervous exhaustion, and given that at least until now the PCs have been more closely associated with the Baron than the Patriarch, this way of framing the resolution of the legal matter had political implications that they didn't like.

But this did not require me having world-built a legal system. I don't need to know in advance if title to a temple is argued in a temporal or spiritual court - I can just make this up. I don't need to know what the details of the legal arguments are - this is a History check as part of a skill challenge.

replace the idea of "lobbies" with "bribes." Even an ignorant peasant would be able to tell the difference between "government that tries to be fair" and "government that demands bribes."

I don't agree with this. It's completely reasonable, in a mediaeval-style form of government, for a lord to expect a person coming to visit them to bring them a worthy gift. This is not going to be seen as bribery in the contemporary sense. The contrast between public and private interest that is central to contemporary concepts of government did not apply.

A peasant's sense of the government will typically not be about whether or not it is fair, but about whether or not it is appropriately generous or merciful.

 

[Maxperson]

Who is forcing anything.

There are just examples

Simple:
1 Echo
1 Inner Plane
1 Outer Plane

Classic D&D
2 Echos
0-4 Inner Planes
0-9 Outer Planes

Many Worlds:
7-10 of any plane

This is core problem. A vocal part of the community sees advice as "being forced". So everyone is against advice.They just suggest new content and as little advice as possible on it.

How is this different from...

Planar Categories:
1) The material and its echoes
2) The transitive planes
3) The inner planes
4) The outer planes
5) the positive and negative planes
6) inventing your own planes

Cosmologies
1) The Great Wheel
2) The World Tree
3) The World Axis
4) The Orrery
5) The Winding Road
6) Mount Olympus
7) Solar Barge
8) One World
9) Otherword
10) The Omniverse
11) Myriad Planes

...with explanations on all of those, including the inventing your own planes and cosmologies?

The latter seems better than your examples and teacher better in my opinion.