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

[pemerton]

None of that sounds great for anything except WotC's pocketbook. Of course, that's clearly the important thing.

I mean, it obviously is what WotC cares about. What else would you expect them to do?

 

[pemerton]

Because the book, instead of focusing on Greyhawk proper, tried in a bit more than a hundred pages, to give an overview of parts of Oerth that were completely irrelevant?

My experience with Greyhawk Adventures is completely different from this. It has monster, spell, and magic-item lists that are fairly standard fare in D&D books (though some of the magic item entries also have GH world lore in them).

More importantly as a campaign supplement, though, it has NPC entries for key personalities from the City of GH and the Valley of the Mage; it has info on the deities of GH (and for me, who owned this book before I owned the boxed set, this was the first place I learned about some of them - the Gazetteer, which I did own at that point, does not have deities info); and it as info on places of info like The Seat of Dust, Tovag Baragu, and the Pinnacles of Azor'alq that I mentioned before. None of these is apocrypha - they're core setting stuff.

Other "geographic" info is about the Pits of Azak-Zil (in the Abor-Alz), Skrellingshald (in the Griff Mts), the Sinking Isle (near the Sea Barons), the Twisted Forest (in the Drachensgrabs), the Burning Cliffs and the Rainbow Vale (in the far north), the Geysers of Death (in the Barrier Peaks), Esmerin (in the Lortmils) and Turucambi (off the coast of Hepmonaland). This is all similar to the material found in Adventures on the World of Greyhawk in the Glossography in the boxed set (especially the Lost Passage of the Suloise and the Jungle of Lost Ships).

Your description makes me think that you are talking about a different book altogether, though I'm not sure which one.

 

[Hussar]

My experience with Greyhawk Adventures is completely different from this. It has monster, spell, and magic-item lists that are fairly standard fare in D&D books (though some of the magic item entries also have GH world lore in them).

More importantly as a campaign supplement, though, it has NPC entries for key personalities from the City of GH and the Valley of the Mage; it has info on the deities of GH (and for me, who owned this book before I owned the boxed set, this was the first place I learned about some of them - the Gazetteer, which I did own at that point, does not have deities info); and it as info on places of info like The Seat of Dust, Tovag Baragu, and the Pinnacles of Azor'alq that I mentioned before. None of these is apocrypha - they're core setting stuff.

Other "geographic" info is about the Pits of Azak-Zil (in the Abor-Alz), Skrellingshald (in the Griff Mts), the Sinking Isle (near the Sea Barons), the Twisted Forest (in the Drachensgrabs), the Burning Cliffs and the Rainbow Vale (in the far north), the Geysers of Death (in the Barrier Peaks), Esmerin (in the Lortmils) and Turucambi (off the coast of Hepmonaland). This is all similar to the material found in Adventures on the World of Greyhawk in the Glossography in the boxed set (especially the Lost Passage of the Suloise and the Jungle of Lost Ships).

Your description makes me think that you are talking about a different book altogether, though I'm not sure which one.

Yes well, @pemerton, let’s be honest, have you met an ADND book you didn’t think was great?

 

[pemerton]

Yes well, @pemerton, let’s be honest, have you met an ADND book you didn’t think was great?

Wilderness Survival Guide was a bit weak!

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, it obviously is what WotC cares about. What else would you expect them to do?

Some nod to creativity and not just profit would be nice.

 

[SteveC]

Some nod to creativity and not just profit would be nice.

But that's the thing: to a certain point, they go hand in hand. A rote, by-the-numbers, straightforward dungeon crawl won't sell as well past initial purchases because the customer base knows it. An interesting background? Memorable villain? Great locations? People talk about those adventures years afterward!

Now it can go too far, where you lose your core audience in an attempt to do something truly different but beyond your skill, so I wouldn't want to see just anything thrown out there, you have to stay within some expected structure too. But you can do better. This just isn't WotC's thing.

 

[CapnZapp]

I mean, it obviously is what WotC cares about. What else would you expect them to do?

The "corporations should be able to only care about money!" argument just isn't interesting to discuss.

However, its close friend "we're better off with a corporate overlord that only panders to the majority and never takes any chances" is much more interesting to scrutiny.

Myself, I'm inclined to instead go with the argument "our hobby would benefit greatly from a more creatively daring overlord!"

 

[Chaosmancer]

The Light of Xarthyx adventure from the Spelljammer book involves flying a pirate ship through space and stopping a massive sun-powered doomsday device by blowing up a star. How many other DnD adventures have those elements?

Between the Tales of the Yawning Portal, Radiant Citadel, Golden Vault, and Infinite Staircase I haven't played all of them, but the Radiant Citadel was practically a new setting, with new creatures I'd never seen before, and likely involves adventures that are not your standard dungeon-crawl.

Descent to Avernus involved Mad Max style devils on Motorcycles and a quest to restore Zarathiel to her former angelic self, involving dealing with a massive moon-like construct that had been floating about a city.

Yet, for some reason, people keep insisting that WoTC has never, will never, and is uttery incapable of ever doing anything creative, interesting, traditional, familiar, or whatever else it is that the person wants them to do but WoTC clearly always does the opposite and in the worst way, and is incapable of doing it.

 

[Von Ether]

The "corporations should be able to only care about money!" argument just isn't interesting to discuss.

However, its close friend "we're better off with a corporate overlord that only panders to the majority and never takes any chances" is much more interesting to scrutiny.

Myself, I'm inclined to instead go with the argument "our hobby would benefit greatly from a more creatively daring overlord!"

Why? We have plenty of creatively daring companies and people in the industry. And honestly, many of those companies are not great at other things our industry needs more of. (Now a days, the phrase, "For gamers, from gamers." is a red flag for me.

The more interesting argument would be "how our hobby would benefit greatly from a company that sees itself as a steward of the hobby and industry:"

• As in not laying off employees at Xmas ...
• Better yet provide a career path that sustains average employee until retirement and not just a rare few
• Fighting the current trend thinking making "only" a profit is bad vs constant, unstainable grow as the only goal.
• More 3PP partnerships vs walled garden

You get the idea.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Some nod to creativity and not just profit would be nice.

A good number of their books already do this.