D&D (2024) WotC Invites You To Explore the World of Greyhawk

This week a new D&D Dungeon Master's Guide preview video was released. This one features the sample setting chapter in the book, which showcases the World of Greyhawk.

One of the earliest campaign settings, and created by D&D co-founder Gary Gygax, Greyhawk dates back to the early 1970s in Gygax's home games, receiving a short official setting book in 1980. Gyeyhawk was selected as the example setting because it is able to hit all the key notes of D&D while being concise and short. The setting has been largely absent from D&D--aside from a few shorter adventures--since 2008. Some key points from the video--

• Greyhawk deliberately leaves a lot for the DM to fill in, with a 30-page chapter.
• Greyhawk created many of the tropes of D&D, and feels very 'straight down the fairway' D&D.
• This is the world where many iconic D&D magic items, NPCs, etc. came from--Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tasha, Otiluke and so on.
• The DMG starts with the City of Greyhawk and its surroundings in some detail, and gets more vague as you get farther away.
• The city is an example of a 'campaign hub'.
• The sample adventures in Chapter 4 of the DMG are set there or nearby.
• The map is an updated version, mainly faithful to the original with some tweaks.
• The map has some added locations key to D&D's history--such as White Plume Mountain, the Tomb of Horrors, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Ghost Tower of Inverness.
• There's a map of the city, descriptions of places characters might visit--magic item shop, library, 3 taverns, temples, etc.
• The setting takes 'a few liberties while remaining faithful to the spirit of the setting'--it has been contemporized to make it resonate in all D&D campaigns with a balance of NPCs who showcase the diversity of D&D worlds.
• The backgrounds in the Player's Handbook map to locations in the city.
• Most areas in the setting have a name and brief description.
• They focus on three 'iconic' D&D/Greyhawk conflicts such as the Elemental Evil, a classic faceless adversary; Iuz the evil cambion demigod; and dragons.
• There's a list of gods, rulers, and 'big bads'.

 

[Hussar]

But @pemerton, why would you consider Living Greyhawk canon but not the three Dungeon Adventure Paths all set in Greyhawk? Those are actually official and carry the official seal of approval.

Like a lot of canon discussions, I find that what people consider canon far more often than not lines up with their personal preferences.

Again, this is why I’m loving the reset. Nothing is canon anymore, outside of what is on the new DMG. Which opens the doors wide for everyone to get a hand in.

To me, that’s the best of all worlds.

Sure, you can try to follow older canon. Or, you can take one of the areas that may have been previously detailed but now isn’t and totally rewrite it. The Pomarj is now under the control of Dragonborn armies that crushed all resistance after arriving through a portal through the Demonweb.

And that’s fantastic.

 

[pemerton]

there’s a whole fandom of Greyhawk that digs deep into whatever source they can to try and suss out what was a Gygax idea present in his game versus something concocted for publication by others.

That seems to have little or nothing to do with playing RPGs. For me, the interest of Greyhawk is its utility for playing RPGs. I've been using it for that purpose - on-and-off, but with a fair bit of on - for about 40 years now.

 

[TiQuinn]

That seems to have little or nothing to do with playing RPGs. For me, the interest of Greyhawk is its utility for playing RPGs. I've been using it for that purpose - on-and-off, but with a fair bit of on - for about 40 years now.

Eh. Contrast that to Ed Greenwood, who has been effusive about the Forgotten Realms and what was in his original vision versus what came later or by others, and it’s understandable. Again, anything by Gygax has a certain cachet and there are people interested in playing his original vision of the setting as they can possibly find.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Like a lot of canon discussions, I find that what people consider canon far more often than not lines up with their personal preferences.

Certainly does for me! I mean, it's a game for funsies. I'm gonna make it something I and my players enjoy.

Am now working hard to resist going on about my own GH campaign...

 

[pemerton]

But @pemerton, why would you consider Living Greyhawk canon but not the three Dungeon Adventure Paths all set in Greyhawk? Those are actually official and carry the official seal of approval.

I'm not that interested in "official" - see this thread I started once: D&D 5E - Do you care about setting "canon"?

I'm interested in stuff that will help me play a RPG.

When I wanted to start a Burning Wheel campaign, I wanted a port and a town that might house a wizard's tower. I opened up my Folio maps, and - there we go - we're in Hardby.

When I wanted to start a Torchbearer campaign, I wanted it to be north (because TB2e defaults to a northern European climate) and so opened up my maps and pointed to the are NE of the Nyr Dyv. And within half-an-hour we have one PC from a Wizard's Tower in the Bluff Hills, another from a Forgotten Temple Complex on the edge of the Pale, and another from an Elfhome in the Fellreev Forest.

35 (or so) years ago, when I started a B2 KotB campaign, I could set the Keep in the Shield Lands - the "border" was an obvious one. And then when the action moved to a town, we had Critwall not that far away.

For this sort of thing, any of the core GH products will do the job.

The Adventure Paths seem to me to be completely different in their function - they're not there to give me a setting from which I can make my game go; they're there to give me a whole game as a package. The fact that they're GH rather than FR or a world of their own invention seems almost arbitrary. In that respect I would say the G-D-Q modules are the same: they're not GH in any interesting fashion - they don't use the maps, the politics or the history.

Like a lot of canon discussions, I find that what people consider canon far more often than not lines up with their personal preferences.

Well, as I've said I don't care about "canon". But I do want do to FRPGing, and I find that the core GH products help me do this. They are great for it.

 

[Hussar]

To be entirely fair, the AP’s came with a MOUNTAIN of GH setting lore. Say what you like about Paizo, but they adore world building. Between the modules themselves and the additional material in Dragon plus web enhancement, there’s a TON of GH material there.

 

[Zeromaru X]

But then at a point, he no longer owned it, so what really was “canon” at that point, if the original creator no longer owned it, and seemed uneasy at providing concrete details about it while he did own it?

I don't think that is how canon works in D&D. Ed Greenwood also sold his Forgotten Realms to TSR, and and TSR added stuff Ed Greenwood didn't approve of, like adding real life Earth analogues to the setting, like Maztica and Kara-Tur. Even when Ed Greenwood has said multiple times that these places don't exist in his original Realms, people still consider them canon -including WotC, regardless of what the original creator says.

So, it doesn't matter how Gygax felt about Greyhawk once he "lost it", it seems that canon is not determined that way in D&D.

 

[TiQuinn]

I don't think that is how canon works in D&D. Ed Greenwood also sold his Forgotten Realms to TSR, and and TSR added stuff Ed Greenwood didn't approve of, like adding real life Earth analogues to the setting, like Maztica and Kara-Tur. Even when Ed Greenwood has said multiple times that these places don't exist in his original Realms, people still consider them canon -including WotC, regardless of what the original creator says.

So, it doesn't matter how Gygax felt about Greyhawk once he "lost it", it seems that canon is not determined that way in D&D.

When the owner of the product and the author of the product are different, there will inevitably be fans who have completely different views of what is canon, and they’ll argue their view is right until the cows come home*.

* I’ve never understood this phrase. Why wouldn’t the cows be home?

 

[Hussar]

When the owner of the product and the author of the product are different, there will inevitably be fans who have completely different views of what is canon, and they’ll argue their view is right until the cows come home*.

* I’ve never understood this phrase. Why wouldn’t the cows be home?

And it gets considerably more complicated than that once you start adding in a bunch of different authors, publishers and media like video games, comic books, and novels, in addition to setting guides and whatnot.

Like I said earlier, what someone considers "canon" is often pretty tightly linked to their own personal preferences. Claims of this or that as canon likely shows more about the claimant than anything after you get beyond the really core stuff. I mean, sure, everyone is going to say that there is a Free City of Greyhawk in the setting. And that certain details about that city can be agreed upon - that Zagyg once had a dungeon there. That sort of thing.

 

[TiQuinn]

I mean, sure, everyone is going to say that there is a Free City of Greyhawk in the setting. And that certain details about that city can be agreed upon - that Zagyg once had a dungeon there. That sort of thing.

Snarf Zagyg, to be precise. CANON!