D&D 5E (2024) WotC Should Make 5.5E Specific Setting

[Hussar]

Greyhawk as a setting doesn't fully commit enough of itself to individual aspects to incorporate 5.5e specific aspects to it.

You can make an area include 5.5e elements but it doesn't include deeply because that is not the draw of Greyhawk.

Just to add to this.

Any later element, particularly 2024 D&D elements you add to Greyhawk typically don't have enough depth in the setting because you've got forty or fifty years of the setting already. It's a very thin veneer to add, say, Warlocks to Greyhawk since none of the NPC's in the history of Greyhawk are warlocks. Going forward, you could add more about warlocks (or whatever element you care about) to the setting and perhaps, after some time, it would stick. But, it's a very uphill battle.

And, even when it's done more extensively, like in Ghosts of Saltmarsh adding in a Tiefling representative of Iuz in the trader's house, now you have the rather strong push back from fans that insist that you must never change lore. Iuz never had tieflings, so, it must never have tieflings, goes the argument.

In a setting based on what D&D looks like right now, based on the PHB, and Monster Manual of 2024, things would look considerably different from these older settings. The lore surrounding so many monsters has been completely rewritten. Dragons, as a good example, have completely changed from the early days. Early days, dragons were basically Smaug - sitting around on big piles of treasure and not really doing anything. Now? Dragons are political creatures, shaping species, keeping slaves, altering the environment, getting involved for good or for ill.

And this is true for just about every single species in the Monster Manual. Greyhawk predates anything about the Blood War, for example. Drow were just another monster with about five pages of actual lore in the setting. On and on. And trying to square that circle of respecting canon while incorporating change is a Herculean task that very often fails.

 

[Parmandur]

Warlocks to Greyhawk since none of the NPC's in the history of Greyhawk are warlocks.

They changed some to Warlocks in the new Core books.

And trying to square that circle of respecting canon while incorporating change is a Herculean task that very often fails.

The key is to not be precious about "respecting canon". WotC simply ignored the people who complained about the Tieflong, and went further in thst direction. And there were certainly Tieflings in 3E Greyhawk.

 

[Minigiant]

The Greyhawk Dragons tend to be solitary, and fly to build a nest anywhere with their favored terrain. The Dragonborn can be dropped anywhere.

Again.

The issues isn't that you can drop Dargonborn anywhere.

Its that you can drop Dragonborn anywhere

Because Dragonborn won't matter. You'd have to drop the PCs in an empty space where Dragonborn exist and at which point choosing Greyhawk as a setting won't matter.

 

[Hussar]

They changed some to Warlocks in the new Core books.

The key is to not be precious about "respecting canon". WotC simply ignored the people who complained about the Tieflong, and went further in thst direction. And there were certainly Tieflings in 3E Greyhawk.

I think your first point is spot on. Not being too precious about "respecting canon".

I mean, in this thread there's been repeated points about tieflings not being a "species" in the sense that they have tiefling families and such. But, that ignores things like Baldur's Gate 3 where tieflings very much are a species unto themselves. There's a whole sort of story/plotline about tiefling refugees in Decent into Avernus.

There have been some attempts to carve out space for the newer elements in older settings, but, it's been pretty spotty.