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.

 

[Werthead]

Wasn't Blackmoor first?

Blackmoor was certainly created first, but then you could argue Forgotten Realms predates either (created 1966) and then get into a discussion about Lankhmar (created 1939) because it was later a D&D campaign setting (though so was Conan, for two adventures only), though obviously not the original intent.

Blackmoor was never published by TSR, apart from the single booklet of the same name for the original D&D line, but both that supplement and the Greyhawk one that followed it were extra rules and information; neither had much, if any, world information (only a brief bit on Loch Gloomen as part of the included adventure). You could not really run Blackmoor with any info ever published by TSR (and the presence of Blackmoor on the Greyhawk maps was more of an Easter Egg), you needed the material Arneson published himself separately, outside TSR, for that, starting with The First Fantasy Campaign in 1977, from Judges Guild.

Greyhawk was the officially first-published D&D campaign setting with the 1980 Gazetteer and then the 1983 boxed set, and the claim that all AD&D 1E material was set in Greyhawk, with Tomb of Horrors the first 1E material that specifically mentioned Greyhawk locations in 1978. The OG D&D adventure Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth (1976) has some allusions to Greyhawk as well, but that was before Gygax had 100% committed to putting Greyhawk out as a product line so at that point it was more of an Easter Egg.

I think Gygax didn't see much point in including a campaign setting as he expected players to either borrow a famous fantasy world from literature (hence the original "sources" section talking about Howard and Vance and Tolkien) or make their own, and setting information would take up space he'd rather spend on rules. I think it was a combination of people incessantly asking him about his home campaign in Dragon, and the success of the other early RPGs with setting information (including the first version of Empire of the Petal Throne, published by TSR, and then the first versions of Traveller and RuneQuest from other parties, and clearly Stafford's worldbuilding for Glorantha in RuneQuest was incredibly detailed) that convinced him to bring Greyhawk to the masses. There was also a lot of third-party people bringing out setting material for use with D&D (if not spelled out like that), including Midkemia Press with their various supplements that would shortly be mined by one of their players, Ray Feist, for his Riftwar Saga, which sold millions of copies.

Also the success of Quag Keep, a novel set in Greyhawk, though that might have been more down to the author, Andre Norton, being an SFF superstar at the time.

 

[Stuart Kerrigan]

Next, the Boxed Set, which included Pholtus, made it abundantly clear that it was Pholtus. Unless, you know, it was some other Greyhawk Deity that LG, but was also the god of Inflexibility, and who happened to have his two symbols on the Pale's Coat of Arms.

Are you sure? I'm pretty certain, heraldry aside, the 1983 Boxed Set doesn't mention it either. WG8 is the first mention of the Pale and Pholtus together, though I'm happy to be proved wrong.

 

[Vaalingrade]

This thread is chock a block with people singing praises of setting elements.

Yes. I repeatedly am citing @Stuart Kerrigan on that point, but also mentioning how this thread is a rare occurrence where that happens where the praises aren't 'you have half an excuse to ban the non-Tolkien stuff', which is happening all the time otherwise.

Like I'm actively pointing out that I'm happy to see this stuff and wondering why it doesn't happen more and you're acting like I'm not engaging the same people you're pointing out to me. The thing I have a problem with is how people keep jumping in to try to reinforce that the best thing about the setting is how generic it is despite it inherently not being the case.

that's the discussion I was having with @Stuart Kerrigan before getting a 'it was the first, so it shouldn't be expected to have interesting parts' from the top rope into this.

I'm trying to learn about the setting, someone is trying to show me and everyone else seems to be diving bodily into the way of that.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Blackmoor was certainly created first, but then you could argue Forgotten Realms predates either (created 1966) and then get into a discussion about Lankhmar (created 1939) because it was later a D&D campaign setting (though so was Conan, for two adventures only), though obviously not the original intent.

So far and away, people were making and aware of other campaign settings, so 'it was the first' wouldn't be an excuse then if the setting was considered the originator of all the tropes and nothing that remained unique, yeah?

 

[pemerton]

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?

Speaking only for myself, there are two reasons I default to GH.

I own a large amount of material for four settings: Greyhawk, OA/Kara-Tur, Shadow World, and Middle Earth.

Because of the way most FRPGs are designed, OA is comparatively specialised. I ran a long Rolemaster game using that setting, but haven't returned to it.

The only time I've used Middle Earth as a setting was when I expressly wanted a MERP-ish experience.

Shadow World has some interesting ideas, but in my view is not especially playable even in its native Rolemaster. When I used Shadow World modules, I adapted them into Greyhawk (eg The Sky Giants of the Brass Stair fitted easily into the Crystalmist Mountains).

So that's the first reason.

The second reason is that everything I know about FR makes it seem silly in comparison.

But you can see how this pitch just tells me that it's like all the other settings and nothing about what makes GH cool or unique, right?

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.

Well, it doesn't really worry me whether people are interested in GH or not: all I can do is explain why it is still my go-to for FRPGing after 40 years.

Of the FRPG settings that I know, I think of two as "cool and unique". One is Shadow World; and as I've posted I don't find it very playable, and even the Shadow World modules don't generally lean into what makes it cool and unique (ie the Navigators, Lore Masters and Unlife).

The other is Dark Sun, which I've played in a bit. I'm not sure that Dark Sun has the same "replay" value as Greyhawk, given it is (i) a bit narrower in its tropes, and (ii) much, much, much more focused in its themes.

I don't know DL very well, but I would think my description of Dark Sun fits it too. I don't know Eberron very well either, and so can't comment on its playability and replay value.

 

[pemerton]

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

I'm not insisting on "like not".

But the sort of story-telling that @Stuart Kerrigan posted isn't what I look to a FRPG setting for. I want it to serve as a backdrop for game-play, not a work of fiction in its own right.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Are you sure? I'm pretty certain, heraldry aside, the 1983 Boxed Set doesn't mention it either. WG8 is the first mention of the Pale and Pholtus together, though I'm happy to be proved wrong.

Well, it's kind of like this.

The Pale is LG(N).
The Pale has a coat of arms with two symbols- a sun and a crescent moon.
The Pale is a theocracy that is religiously intolerant.
The Pale is located where Oerdians are located (they are Oerdian/Flan).

Pholtus is the god of Light, Resolution, Law, Order, Inflexibility, Sun, and Moon.
Pholtus is going to show all the "One True Way" which allows no deviation.
Pholtus's robes are embroidered with the sun and moon, his symbols.
His clerics are inflexible and brook no argument.
Pholtus is LG(N).
Pholtus is Oerdian.

(the other gods that could fit are Fortub and Allitur, and Fortubo is obviously not it... )


I mean, it was obvious to me, and to everyone I knew at the time. It's not like it came from nowhere. Pholtus was one of the very first Gygax deities, and one of the few that predates the creation of the "Official" Greyhawk campaign.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not insisting on "like not".

But the sort of story-telling that @Stuart Kerrigan posted isn't what I look to a FRPG setting for. I want it to serve as a backdrop for game-play, not a work of fiction in its own right.

If you aren't looking for a story, what kind of backdrop are you looking for then?

From where I stand, the story, the locations, the ideas present in the setting is the backdrop. Without the story, I don't even know what is left of a setting.

 

[Parmandur]

A quibble.

First, the original version in the Folio couldn't have had any god mentioned. Because famously, the Folio predated the Greyhawk pantheon.

Next, the Boxed Set, which included Pholtus, made it abundantly clear that it was Pholtus. Unless, you know, it was some other Greyhawk Deity that LG, but was also the god of Inflexibility, and who happened to have his two symbols on the Pale's Coat of Arms.

It doesn't state that in the text itself, however: so of you missed the holy symbol in the coat of arms, there is no explicit connection. Still eat open to a lotnof DM interpretation.

 

[Stuart Kerrigan]

I mean, it was obvious to me, and to everyone I knew at the time. It's not like it came from nowhere. Pholtus was one of the very first Gygax deities, and one of the few that predates the creation of the "Official" Greyhawk campaign.

I agree it's obvious and it's probably what Gary meant, but my sole point was by today's RPG Gazetteer standards its a bit strange to have a writeup on a religious country and not mention what religion it follows (but to tell us about standing armies in detail down to their equipment). However, it was the first D&D setting folio and boxed set, so I cut it some slack.