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'.

 

[pemerton]

But halflings have a place. Sure, there is not The Shire™, but we know they live in which and which city, and how they get with humans. They are not up in the air for the DM to decide.

Out of curiosity, just to understand what's going on: does the DMG chapter on GH expressly talk about where (say) Halflings and Gnomes are found, but not (say) Dragonborn?

 

[Parmandur]

Out of curiosity, just to understand what's going on: does the DMG chapter on GH expressly talk about where (say) Halflings and Gnomes are found, but not (say) Dragonborn?

Nope, it does not: per the description on the Reddit AMA, the only mentions of Species at all come in NPC descriptions, and each country does get at least their head of state mentioned and briefly descrived. So, no Halflings or Gnomes there, maybe in the Greyhawk City NPCs (and we know the head librarian now a Dragonborn).

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Out of curiosity, just to understand what's going on: does the DMG chapter on GH expressly talk about where (say) Halflings and Gnomes are found, but not (say) Dragonborn?

Not that I am aware of.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

But halflings have a place. Sure, there is not The Shire™, but we know they live in which and which city, and how they get with humans. They are not up in the air for the DM to decide.

Other than mention of halfling NPCs I can’t think of a single Greyhawk thing in the main books that talks about where they are.

 

[Parmandur]

Out of curiosity, just to understand what's going on: does the DMG chapter on GH expressly talk about where (say) Halflings and Gnomes are found, but not (say) Dragonborn?

Specifically:

"however, each region has a paragraph on culture with a list of important locations, the ruler of those locations and a short description of the place, and the rulers have their species in brackets attached. That is the only reference to species in the Greyhawk chapter."

"E.g."

"Location: Bissel, the March of"

"Ruler: Margrave Imran Rendulkar (human)"

"Description: Bone of contention between Keoland, Veluna, and Ket."

 

[Parmandur]

Other than mention of halfling NPCs I can’t think of a single Greyhawk thing in the main books that talks about where they are.

Weeell,, ackshullay, in the 1983 Box Set, the Glossography does have random encounter tables for different regions, and Halflings and Gnomes do come up there, and there is this random table for "demi-human" player characters to determine their birthplace (strong chance for Halflings to come from Urnst or the Ulek states, particularly):

But that will not be in the DMG, you can take that to the bank.

 

[MGibster]

Tell that to Generic Greybeard DM with the "gatekeepingisgood" hashtag on Twitter...

Gate keeping is when you make it difficult for someone to participate in an activity. Limiting what species are available in Greyhawk is not gate keeping. I get mixed messages on this forum. On one hand D&D is flexible enough for you to do what you want at the table. Your D&D isn't necesarily my D&D. But as soon as someone does something, like limit species, suddenly your D&D is wrong.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with limiting what species a player can choose for a campaign. This applies not only to Greyhawk but every other campaign setting as well.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I don’t think limiting species really makes sense in Greyhawk given that it is the generic.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Out of curiosity, just to understand what's going on: does the DMG chapter on GH expressly talk about where (say) Halflings and Gnomes are found, but not (say) Dragonborn?

It says nothing. But, Greyhawk has a lot of resources talking about the old school races, so they don't need info about their place in the setting. The new gen races, on the other hand, need at least one paragraph about their placement in the setting (they did it with the Nentir Vale, there was a small paragraph for each race in the 4e PHB, so I wasn't asking something farfetched).

And this is a big difference. I know my Old School DMs™. They are going to use this as an excuse to ban the new gen races and allow only the "One True Way of playing Greyhawk".

 

[MonsterEnvy]

It says nothing. But, Greyhawk has a lot of resources talking about the old school races, so they don't need info about their place in the setting. The new gen races, on the other hand, need at least one paragraph about their placement in the setting (they did it with the Nentir Vale, there was a small paragraph for each race in the 4e PHB, so I wasn't asking something farfetched).

And this is a big difference. I know my Old School DMs™. They are going to use this as an excuse to ban the new gen races and allow only the "One True Way of playing Greyhawk".

I don’t really care what those OS DM’s do. Most monsters and species need no justification for showing up in D&D, they are just there.