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'.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is where you are wrong, because it's not their game. Is the game of their gaming group. That's the thing. All should enjoy the game, not just the DM. So, the banning of elements from the game should be a decision taken by consensus, not by the bias of an specific individual.

If that person is so determined to make a setting that only appeals to themself, then that time and energy is better expend learning to write a novel.

Not this bollocks again. The DM’s job is to create the world, including what exists in it. The players don’t even know what is in the world - it contains surprises for them to discover during play.

The DM’s job is to make a setting that will appeal to the players, but it is still THE DM’s JOB.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Not this bollocks again. The DM’s job is to create the world, including what exists in it. The players don’t even know what is in the world - it contains surprises for them to discover during play.

The DM’s job is to make a setting that will appeal to the players, but it is still THE DM’s JOB.

You said it yourself: the job of the DM is to create a world to appeal to the players, not to impose their preferences to the players. Appealing to all in the table requires consensus and compromises on both sides.

And I'm going to leave it at that. No point in continuing to argue about this.

 

[pemerton]

The players don’t even know what is in the world - it contains surprises for them to discover during play.

I don't think this describes any D&D game, or FRPG, that I've GMed ever. Unless you count dungeon-crawling as "discovering surprises during play".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't think this describes any D&D game, or FRPG, that I've GMed ever. Unless you count dungeon-crawling as "discovering surprises during play".

Your loss. D&D without surprises for the players would be pretty boring. Strange New Worlds without anything strange or new.

 

[pemerton]

Your loss. D&D without surprises for the players would be pretty boring. Strange New Worlds without anything strange or new.

I didn't say there were no surprises. I said that "the world contains surprises for the players to discover during play" doesn't describe my play experiences.

You can have surprises without discovery, and a fortiori without discovery of "the world". This is how most dramatic fiction works, for instance: the protagonists are familiar with their world, and yet experience surprises and revelations.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I didn't say there were no surprises. I said that "the world contains surprises for the players to discover during play" doesn't describe my play experiences.

You can have surprises without discovery, and a fortiori without discovery of "the world". This is how most dramatic fiction works, for instance: the protagonists are familiar with their world, and yet experience surprises and revelations.

Most fantasy and science fiction the protagonists are unfamiliar with the world(s), and much of the drama stems from the discovery.

Last time I checked D&D was a fantasy game.

 

[TiQuinn]

Most fantasy and science fiction the protagonists are unfamiliar with the world(s), and much of the drama stems from the discovery.

Last time I checked D&D was a fantasy game.

It can be played either way.

I can run two different Planescape campaigns, one where the characters are new to Sigil and discover the “rules” of the city and the planes, and one where they are natives to the city and already know the “rules”.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It can be played either way.

I can run two different Planescape campaigns, one where the characters are new to Sigil and discover the “rules” of the city and the planes, and one where they are natives to the city and already know the “rules”.

Sure you don’t have to make exploration a discovery a big theme, but if you do you need to have stuff the players do not know (and the players can’t know what they don’t know). My current campaign included Matrix level revelations everything you thought you knew about the world is wrong, and I don’t think I’ve ever run a campaign that hasn’t involved the PCs travelling thousands of miles to lands they know nothing about, not to mention visits to other planes.

Come to think, every 5e game I’ve been a player in has begun with “you arrive in a strange land/city about which you know very little”.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sure you don’t have to make exploration a discovery a big theme, but if you do you need to have stuff the players do not know (and the players can’t know what they don’t know). My current campaign included Matrix level revelations everything you thought you knew about the world is wrong, and I don’t think I’ve ever run a campaign that hasn’t involved the PCs travelling thousands of miles to lands they know nothing about, not to mention visits to other planes.

Come to think, every 5e game I’ve been a player in has begun with “you arrive in a strange land/city about which you know very little”.

I've been doing that in one of my campaigns

 

[MGibster]

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

There's a lot of reasons to limit species that have nothing to do with whether someone can figure out a way to fit them into the setting. Maybe the DM or some players just absolutely hate a species. I. Hate. Kender. I will not allow a kender to be played at any game I'm running because I've never seen one played in any manner that wasn't annoying as hell. Maybe the DM has special plans for how a particular species is going to be used in the campaign. For example maybe the PCs are going be the first people from Flanaess to encounter Tortles. It wouldn't make sense for a PC to start out as a Tortle.
You might not think there's any good reason to limit species in a Greyhawk game. That's okay. I'm certainly not going to argue my preferences are superior to yours. But it makes perfect sense to me that species might be limited for a variety of reasons.

It's not wrong per see, it's just not my style. I prefer more open minded settings. Because, there is nothing wrong with players wanting to use races not from among the Tolkien 4, specially if these races are in the PHB.

You're right, there's nothing wrong with that, but you're spending a lot of time complaining about old school DMs who might ban anything other than the original species from their Greyhawk campaign. I'll be honest with you, it's not my preference either, but it's no skin off my nose how another group plays their game.