Dungeons & Dragons May Not Come Back to Greyhawk After 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide

Wizards of the Coast does not appear to have future plans for the Greyhawk setting past the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. Speaking at a press event earlier this month, Dungeons & Dragons game architect Chris Perkins explained that the inclusion of Greyhawk campaign setting material in the upcoming rulebook was meant to stand on its own. "Basically, we're saying 'Hey DMs, we're giving you Greyhawk as a foundation on which you can build your own setting stuff,'" Perkins said when asked about future Greyhawk setting material. "Whether we get back to Greyhawk or not in some capacity I cannot say, but that's our intention for now. This is the sandbox, it's Greyhawk. Go off and run Greyhawk or Greyhawk-like campaigns with this if you wish. We may not come to this version of Greyhawk for a while because we DMs to own it and play with it. This is not a campaign setting where I think we need to go in and start defining large sections of the world and adding more weight of content that DMs have to sit through in order to feel like they're running a proper Greyhawk campaign."

The 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide includes a campaign setting gazetteer focused on the Greyhawk setting, one of D&D's earliest campaign settings. The use of Greyhawk is intended to be an example for DMs on how to build a full-fledged campaign setting, with an overview of major conflicts and places to explore within the world. New maps of both Oerth and the city of Greyhawk are also included in the rulebook.

However, while it seems like Wizards isn't committing to future Greyhawk campaign setting material, Perkins admitted that the fans still have a say in the matter. "We're not so immutable with our plans that if the fans rose up and said 'Give us something Greyhawk,' that we would say 'No, never,'" Perkins said. "That won't happen."

Perkins also teased the appearance of more campaign settings in the future. "We absolutely will be exploring new D&D worlds and that door is always open," Perkins said.

 

[Parmandur]

I get the ‘It's a highly playable FRPGing setting’ and ‘So at least for a fairly mainstream approach to FRPGing, it has everything one needs to start playing!’ parts, but why does GH get treated as the default every other setting needs to set itself apart from?

50 years ago that might have made sense by virtue of it being the first D&D setting, but today that is not really something to get people interested.

On the other hand I am not even sure about WotC wants to create interest in it, they are not likely to do much with the setting going forward

The issue is thst what was distinctly Greyhawk made it into the PHB, DMG and MM as default D&D-isms.

But that is precisely the selling point: Greyhawk is a big blank canvas of standard D&D-isms thst can be fully detailed in a subcategory without needing to worry about decades of Forgotten Realms Wiki to research, just a fresh tablet for creativity and freedom for the DM and players. Just enough details to get going, not enough to be limiting. The selling point is that there is no selling point: it's simply D&D.

 

[dave2008]

And that's an argument for why WotC isn't reprinting it and probably shouldn't have taken up DMG space to put it in. It is so weird to see actual fans essentially putting forward that there's nothing uniquely of value in their apparent favorite setting.

Especially since from other people that's clearly not true.

Guys, @Stuart Kerrigan is trying to hard, putting in good work and the rest of the GH fandom seems to be dead set on undoing that.

I'm not really sure what you are getting at. I'm not making any argument for WotC or any one else. I am just pointing out that it was first, so others need to distinguish themselves from it, not the other way around. I am not trying to suggest that is a sales pitch or anything.

 

[Stuart Kerrigan]

Thank you again for actually providing nice things about the setting when people keep insisting on... like not for some reason.

I've got stories for years... like... Marge becomes a robot.

 

[dave2008]

I get the ‘It's a highly playable FRPGing setting’ and ‘So at least for a fairly mainstream approach to FRPGing, it has everything one needs to start playing!’ parts, but why does GH get treated as the default every other setting needs to set itself apart from?

50 years ago that might have made sense by virtue of it being the first D&D setting, but today that is not really something to get people interested.

On the other hand I am not even sure that WotC wants to create interest in it, they are not likely to do much with the setting going forward

The bolded part is the only thing I was suggesting. I am not trying to suggest that is a reason to jump into it now or a good marketing approach.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not really sure what you are getting at. I'm not making any argument for WotC or any one else. I am just pointing out that it was first, so others need to distinguish themselves from it, not the other way around. I am not trying to suggest that is a sales pitch or anything.

Wasn't Blackmoor first?

 

[Stuart Kerrigan]

Wasn't Blackmoor first?

That's a sore point. I guess Greyhawk is the "first official published D&D setting". Blackmoor definitely precedes it.

And FWIW I think Gygax did not treat Arneson fairly from reading the book whose name escapes me that came out a while back. There's even recollections of Gary "trying to understand how to play this game Arneson wrote" at one point that I think makes it reasonably clear Arneson did a lot of the groundwork. Gary unfortunately reaped what he sewed later on. But that's a whole different thread...

 

[dave2008]

Wasn't Blackmoor first?

I am not sure if it was published first or not, but IIRC most of the original adventures were set in GH and most of the original lore (in the 1e MM, DMG, D&D, eetc.) came from GH or GH adjacent. However, I am not a D&D historian by any stretch of the imagination. WotC had definitely presented GH as be the reintroduced original D&D setting.

 

[Parmandur]

I am not sure if it was published first or not, but IIRC most of the original adventures were set in GH and most of the original lore (in the 1e MM, DMG, D&D, eetc.) came from GH or GH adjacent. However, I am not a D&D historian by any stretch of the imagination. WotC had definitely presented GH as be the reintroduced original D&D setting.

Yeah, basically everything thst said AD&D prior to DL1 was assumed to be Greyhawk: the 1983 box set has precise map coordinates for every Advebture published to thst point for AD&D.

 

[mamba]

But that is precisely the selling point: Greyhawk is a big blank canvas of standard D&D-isms

so it is about a week ahead of me creating my own setting…

I understand not wanting to be beholden to every bit of history and detail of the FR, but as a DM I am only as beholden as I want to be. The difference seems to be that FR has the details filled in and I can choose to ignore them while GH is a blank canvas with a rough sketch of the intended painting that I am ‘required’ to fill in myself.

Not sure one or the other is better for me personally, I am more looking for inspiration than to precisely follow the FR story, but inspiration can come from different places

At least this seems to be the main difference between GH and FR, they are otherwise pretty vanilla, the difference is one is pretty open while the other has tons of material if one wants it

 

[mamba]

Wasn't Blackmoor first?

as a D&D setting, no, as something played as a TTRPG, probably