D&D 5E Greyhawk: Pitching the Reboot

[Parmandur]

This.

Vampire hit a niche market. It sold probably 1/10000 of D&D. D&D is a general audience game, built for friends and families of almost all ages. And, like I said earlier, House of Dragons is a Hollywood production. Those, for whatever reason, seem to remain outside of the TTRPG social norms.

It is worth noting that House of the Drafon is more niche than D&D: the Seaspn 2 premiere had 7.8 million viewers, which is quite nice (NCIS averages 12.9 million viewers per episode), it more people than that play D&D: I would posit the Venm diagram overlap between HotD viewers and people already playing D&D is rather high.

 

[Parmandur]

Adult as in mature. Dark Sun, Planescape and Ravenloft are some of the best written settings for the game and deal with some pretty heavy topics.

They aren't going to put out a product they cannot market to middle schoolers.

 

[Parmandur]

The World of Darkness line was outselling AD&D for a bit there, actually. Vampire hit the zeitgeist of the 90's just right and did very well commercially for a ttrpg.

Nowadays it just wouldn't - pop culture isn't into vampires in a big way anymore - but it did well in its day.

Based on the current pop culture landscape... I have no idea what, if anything, would be able to pull that off now. 10-15 years ago I would have said "a superheroes game" but that trend did not survive the pandemic.

That was more "AD&D crashing" than it was Vpire being mainstream.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The World of Darkness line was outselling AD&D for a bit there, actually. Vampire hit the zeitgeist of the 90's just right and did very well commercially for a ttrpg.

Nowadays it just wouldn't - pop culture isn't into vampires in a big way anymore - but it did well in its day.

Based on the current pop culture landscape... I have no idea what, if anything, would be able to pull that off now. 10-15 years ago I would have said "a superheroes game" but that trend did not survive the pandemic.

we are likely waiting on the next big thing to happen

 

[TiQuinn]

It depends on how you define "low magic". Low in overall power? Low in general frequency for adventurer support? Low in pervasiveness in contemporary society at large? I think it's definitely lower than some other D&D settings. Just compare some of the Volo's guides for the Forgotten Realms (particularly Waterdeep), and you'll see a difference.

I don't know if that's a fair comparison since the vast majority of material created for Greyhawk were 1e adventures, and it received increasingly less support as time went on. For its time, however, Greyhawk was pretty high fantasy. Just look at material like Dungeonland, Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Isle of the Ape, White Plume Mountain.

 

[jmartkdr2]

That was more "AD&D crashing" than it was Vpire being mainstream.

Vampires were, in general, dominating the fantasy space at the time. So I'd say it was both.

 

[Voadam]

I don't know if that's a fair comparison since the vast majority of material created for Greyhawk were 1e adventures, and it received increasingly less support as time went on. For its time, however, Greyhawk was pretty high fantasy. Just look at material like Dungeonland, Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Isle of the Ape, White Plume Mountain.

I think it is fair to say that the dungeons of Castle Greyhawk, the demiplane layers created by the demigod of chaos magic, are fairly high magic. That covers Dungeonland, Beyond the Magic Mirror, and I believe Isle of the Ape. The archmage Keraptis' dungeon in White Plume is high fantasy as well. The D series drow cities seem decently high magic high fantasy as well.

In 1e Greyhawk mostly we have adventures with strong magic loot, often spellcasting NPC adversaries, and some sample PCs in the modules starting off with some magical items. These are adventure sites though and it is tough to say how high fantasy or high magic most of the setting is in say a village in the Shield Lands or the Prelacy of Almor.

We never got Gygax's version of Greyhawk City beyond the few paragraphs in the folio and boxed set which makes it look like a version of Lankhmar. The 2e box set for the city gives a fairly high magic D&D mages guild with a bunch of individual mages as well.

 

[TiQuinn]

In 1e Greyhawk mostly we have adventures with strong magic loot, often spellcasting NPC adversaries, and some sample PCs in the modules starting off with some magical items. These are adventure sites though and it is tough to say how high fantasy or high magic most of the setting is in say a village in the Shield Lands or the Prelacy of Almor.

But that’s my point - settings were not a big thing until 2e, and by that time Greyhawk was largely an afterthought. So it’s thought of as low magic because TSR management had moved onto Forgotten Realms, leaving a Greyhawk that people call low magic due only to the lack of content.

 

[Voadam]

But that’s my point - settings were not a big thing until 2e, and by that time Greyhawk was largely an afterthought. So it’s thought of as low magic because TSR management had moved onto Forgotten Realms, leaving a Greyhawk that people call low magic due only to the lack of content.

I'd say regional setting supplements were a thing that took off with Forgotten Realms in 1e and continued strong through 2e, FR 1 Waterdeep and the North through FR 6 Dreams of the Red Wizards is all still 1e era.

I also had the 1e WoG boxed set campaign setting, the 1e Lankhmar setting book, and the 1e Dragonlance Adventures hardcovers for big settings, and even the Conan modules for a little bit of official Hyborian setting material.

Greenwood developed lots of setting details in Dragon for the FR setting in a way that Gygax had not really for Greyhawk. Greenwood presented a lot of high magic in his articles and stories and published novels and this led into fleshing out the FR regional setting books in 1e and 2e which then caught on and we got regional setting books in the Basic Gazetteer line and in the new 2e settings with things like the various Birthright players guides to X and even circling back to Greyhawk with the various post Gygax revival periods with the City of Greyhawk boxed set and the Marklands and the Vale of the Mage and Rary the Traitor describing the Bright Lands and others but there was a split among the fans about the Greyhawk Wars metaplot and the new From the Ashes period and so whether the setting details represented a continuation of classic Greyhawk or were contrary to them.

 

[TiQuinn]

I'd say regional setting supplements were a thing that took off with Forgotten Realms in 1e and continued strong through 2e, FR 1 Waterdeep and the North through FR 6 Dreams of the Red Wizards is all still 1e era.

The very tail end of the 1e era and all after Gygax left TSR.

Greenwood developed lots of setting details in Dragon for the FR setting in a way that Gygax had not really for Greyhawk. Greenwood presented a lot of high magic in his articles and stories and published novels and this led into fleshing out the FR regional setting books in 1e and 2e which then caught on and we got regional setting books in the Basic Gazetteer line and in the new 2e settings with things like the various Birthright players guides to X and even circling back to Greyhawk with the various post Gygax revival periods with the City of Greyhawk boxed set and the Marklands and the Vale of the Mage and Rary the Traitor describing the Bright Lands and others but there was a split among the fans about the Greyhawk Wars metaplot and the new From the Ashes period and so whether the setting details represented a continuation of classic Greyhawk or were contrary to them.

Still, if Greyhawk had been given the same focus as other settings, it would seem just as magical as FR is.