D&D General Melf's Guide to Greyhawk Coming From Luke Gygax & WotC

[Zaukrie]

Does anyone actually read what Morrus wrote, or listen to what WotC said before posting?

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

I'm hoping for an actual stat block for Iuz, so a DM doesn't have to use the CR 5 Cambion from the MM.

And this does sound exciting! I'm happy for Luke Gygax, to be able to take part in this!!

There is a 5E statblock for Iuz and St. Cuthbert in the 2-volume Temple of Elemental Evil if anyone was looking for one now.

Greyhawk doesn't particularly have "gritty" built in. Setting-wise there are fewer high-powered NPCs running around and most rulers of nations are in the single digits. 2E and 3E adjusted this a bit but it was still largely true.

Mechanics-wise there really isn't much GH-specific or GH-labelled in the rules - the rules for OD&D and AD&D are the rules for Greyhawk because that's where they were developed. To me you could go two ways:
- Greyhawk in whatever edition of the game you are playing is core, basic D&D so whatever is in the main rulebooks is there. It's a little weird for some of us to see Dragonborn running around Hommlet but it's not completely apart from the origin of the game
- Go retro-Greyhawk and keep it to the PC character types and monsters that were present in the early editions of the game to retain that specific feel. It can certainly work but some players really dislike having their choices limited in this way. If you can get past that it can be a lot of fun. Of course in the AD&D days there were 3 types of halflings, 3-4 types of elves, a couple of types of dwarves, etc. so there was a little more nuance than you see in some later versions.

 

[Voadam]

Would it make sense for the Gritty Realism play style to make a comeback for Greyhawk? I do not recall it being in the 5.5 DMG. Am I misreading the vibe of the setting? What is the vibe exactly?

Greyhawk is all over the place in vibes.

It is grounded and gritty low level medieval fantasy. It is high level whimsy throw different things in high fantasy. It is default D&D (elves, orcs, demons, the original modules), but also its own distinctive thing (elves are olven, distinctive big bads are Tharizdun, Iuz, Scarlet Brotherhood, Great Kingdom). It is lightly described to fill in and make it your own but also heavy on details like history and ethnography that has shaped the setting. It is Gygax's home setting and creation, but lots of details were not developed until after he left (like what religions the explicitly theocratic religious kingdoms follow). There is both the materials in the book and stories about the actual Gygax campaign. It is a kitchen sink of different fantasy adventure trope stuff (fantasy Vikings, Arabs, Mongols, pirates, Elves, including multiples of most so there is no one viking land, but multiples), yet distinctly its own curated list of them (no East Asian stuff, no specified dwarven kingdoms or halfling homeland). The original 1e setting folio had no gods but did have religious kingdoms (and the PCs swore by Crom and Odin), the later 1e boxed set had multiple pantheons of original gods with really cool fleshing out of some individuals in the boxed set and in Dragon magazine, but still no explicit connections for kingdoms with names like the archclericy or the Caliphate, then those details filled in somewhat controversially in later post-Gygax editions. It has serious development of ethnic migration patterns and wars and civilizational expansions and contractions that are reflected in the setting and map and set up, and silly joke names for some stuff (Bigby, Digby, Rigby, various anagrams, the Grand Duchy of Geoff). It has huge expanses of low population and wilderness, plus Greyhawk city as a D&D Chicago style adaptation of Lankhmar, a Sword and Sorcery novel fantasy adaptation of New York. It has multiple eras of development and plot advancement with different vibes (though 5.5 goes with 1e era timeline and skips the metaplot of 2e Greyhawk Wars, dark fantasy From the Ashes era, and late 2e-3e soft setting reset over time).

 

[Voadam]

Greyhawk doesn't particularly have "gritty" built in. Setting-wise there are fewer high-powered NPCs running around and most rulers of nations are in the single digits. 2E and 3E adjusted this a bit but it was still largely true.

In 1e there were a few single digit level rulers, but most listed ones were double digits.

From the World of Greyhawk Campaign Setting 1e boxed set:

 

[Flying Toaster]

I always thought it was both strange and a bit sad that neither Castle Blackmoor nor Castle Greyhawk ever got described properly in official published form. If a DM ever wanted to run their own home versions of the first two iconic D&D settings, or a group of players wanted to explore the original dungeons where it all got started... well, good luck with that.

You could glean a few details here and there from the 0E booklets and some early Dragon magazine articles, but it was not much to go on. There was some detail about Blackmoor in Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign supplement from Judges Guild, but I don’t know if it was enough to actually run it for real. Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax both had trouble organizing their thoughts and finishing projects they started. Gygax was always leery about revealing too much about his home game, which I guess I can understand, although it reminds me of those stories about famous bar owners who took their signature cocktail recipes with them to the grave rather than share them with anyone.

I do not expect an actual Castle Greyhawk adventure to emerge from this project, but it sure would be interesting if it did.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'll wait for reviews.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why? He says it's official. I'm inclined to take him at his word, especially since Dan Ayoub was sitting right next to him!

I was just talking about the format. Until they say this is going to be a hardcover book published by WotC, I think it's safer to assume this will be a digital-only product.

Which isn't bad, by any means -- I think Eberron fans generally love Baker's DMs Guild stuff and a bunch of the digital-only stuff on D&D Beyond is really good as well.

If what Luke produces is Greyhawk canon, that's cool, although that matters less to me than it does to many others. (I prefer the original folio canon -- the first setting I ever owned -- with lots of blank space for DMs to do their thing.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Am I misreading the vibe of the setting? What is the vibe exactly?

"All the stuff that Gygax liked in fantasy novels, and a few bones tossed to Dave Arneson."

The setting originally was centered around the Great Kingdom, which is kind of a post-Arthur Arthurian knights setting, if Mordred was a demon-worshiper. But there's also weird science, evil demigods, goblin/orc raiders, whole kingdoms of bandits, whole kingdoms of knights, Lankhmar masquerading as Greyhawk City, etc. It's the OG kitchen sink setting.

 

[bedir than]

Luke is doing a round of conversations with bloggers, vloggers and the like today too

 

[PurpleHazy]

I listened to and spoke briefly with Luke at GenghisCon in Denver last month and it was apparent, not that anyone would doubt, that he has a deep knowledge and love of both the lore and the persons surrounding the World of Greyhawk. I for one am excited for Luke to be working as a consultant on this effort.