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.

 

[Hussar]

Respectfully disagree. I'd hardly call the Circle of Eight minor myself and they changed their races and classes in a chapter meant to summarise, not rewrite, 50 years of D&D lore. Sure I'm willing to admit Duke Owen of Geoff and his imaginatively named new female counterpart Owena are "minor" though.

Stuart/Stuwena on the bizarro universe

See, that's the thing. No, it isn't meant to summarize 50 years of D&D lore. Like, not at all.

For one, they're ejecting about 40 (ish) years of that lore. Pretty much anything after about 1985 isn't part of Greyhawk anymore. At least, not as canon.

They are presenting a new version of an older IP. They are leveraging the fact that many of these names and places are sorta known by lots of people. But this is, in no way, meant to be a summary of the last 50 years of Greyhawk material.

 

[mamba]

the shrunken version is 9.5 million square miles, as opposed to the Flannes 6 million square miles

neither one is a low number, that is roughly twice / tripple the US

 

[Voadam]

These FR all in one maps are great. My sense of FR geography is terrible. I was not aware Thay is north of Chessenta and Unther and Mulhorand, I just thought Stygian sorcerers in the hot unapproachable East.

 

[Hussar]

neither one is a low number, that is roughly twice / tripple the US

Honestly? This is an issue I've always had with D&D settings. They're so freaking big. And usually there's so little detail about all this MASSIVE space.

I gotta admit, I do love the way Paizo presents it's setting. Small, bite sized areas (ok, some of those are big bites ) with tons of details about that space.

I would have no real problems if you took the Darlene map and shrunk it about 1/5. From 30 mile hexes to 6 mile hexes would still give you TONS of space.

 

[Parmandur]

neither one is a low number, that is roughly twice / tripple the US

Yup. The full Faerûn is bigger than Asia.

 

[Voadam]

Honestly? This is an issue I've always had with D&D settings. They're so freaking big. And usually there's so little detail about all this MASSIVE space.

I gotta admit, I do love the way Paizo presents it's setting. Small, bite sized areas (ok, some of those are big bites ) with tons of details about that space.

I would have no real problems if you took the Darlene map and shrunk it about 1/5. From 30 mile hexes to 6 mile hexes would still give you TONS of space.

Paizo gave lots of options for Golarion, small gazetteer for the entire inner sea region giving paragraph overviews for each kingdom area, or big hardcover setting book giving multiple pages to each area, or 32 or 64 page sourcebooks for individual areas with details on subareas and specifics.

I find all three approaches useful.

 

[pemerton]

I would have no real problems if you took the Darlene map and shrunk it about 1/5. From 30 mile hexes to 6 mile hexes would still give you TONS of space.

Although it would also give a small planetary radius!

 

[Demetrios1453]

Although it would also give a small planetary radius!

"OK, so you've rolled your characters up for this Greyhawk campaign. Unfortunately, the planet is too tiny to maintain an atmosphere, so all your characters suffocate and die within a minute or so."

 

[pemerton]

"OK, so you've rolled your characters up for this Greyhawk campaign. Unfortunately, the planet is too tiny to maintain an atmosphere, so all your characters suffocate and die within a minute or so."

Well, to be fair, Gygax did not assume that the "physics" of an atmosphere in a fantasy world is the same as it is in reality. (As per his discussion in his DMG of flying a pegasus to the moon.)

 

[QuentinGeorge]

See, that's the thing. No, it isn't meant to summarize 50 years of D&D lore. Like, not at all.

For one, they're ejecting about 40 (ish) years of that lore. Pretty much anything after about 1985 isn't part of Greyhawk anymore. At least, not as canon.

They are presenting a new version of an older IP. They are leveraging the fact that many of these names and places are sorta known by lots of people. But this is, in no way, meant to be a summary of the last 50 years of Greyhawk material.

They've also rejected a fair bit of pre 1985 Greyhawk as well. Might as well call it Fauxhawk.