Does Wizards want Greyhawk to fail?

[an_idol_mind]

Erik Mona worked at WOTC during all of that, and the 2nd edition revival was pre-hasbro. LG was also set up under Adkison watch.

Neither Erik Mona nor Adkison were at WOTC when it was described as a legacy setting.

Even then, WotC could very easily have axed Greyhawk entirely, or at least not released the Expedition book, making no mention of the setting outside of what was in the core books. The fact that WotC still released the Expedition adventure tells me they were/are honestly evaluating it as a setting. I see no reason why 4e is synonymous with a conspiracy to kill Greyhawk. If anything, the rumored release of one setting book a year gives it a good shot to actually get some support a few years down the road.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Heck, if you want to talk conspiracies, I'd say it's more likely they chose Greyhawk's release because they knew they could sucker everyone into buying it based on nostalgia, in spite of the new edition a day later.

Course, I bought it and think it's a great "old school" feel, and don't believe that really, but still...


Living Greyhawk, the big book, was a great book. It was immersive on many levels and did not need the full FRCS treatment (which was a bit excessive I think). It should have been a full color hard cover, but the actual book was superb.

 

[Stefan]

My gut feeling is that WotC will never give GH the treatment it deserves. I think the only hope for the setting would be it getting licensed to a third party. I wonder if Paizo would even be interested anymore now that they are establishing thier own setting. The release timing for EttRoGH and 4E couldn't have been worse IMO.

I agree with many of the points here but especially this one. I'm sure some folks at WotC (Mona, Stevens, moore and whoever more recently) were into GH and wanted it to do well, and some efforts of varying quality were made in 2nd and perhaps in 3rd ed, but bottom line for me: we'll probably never see the shiny hardcover City of Greyhawk book or Wild Coast sourcebook or Bandit Kingdoms book or whatever. When I look at the FR books with their production values... sigh. But maybe that's a good thing.

I haven't seen Expedition... to Castle Greyhawk yet but looking forward to giving it a try. Cautiously optimistic given the design team's obvious affection for the setting...

 

[Gargauth]

Wasn't Forgotten Realms originally released to replace Greyhawk after Gygax left or was on his way out? I know people will disagree but I think the problem is that the settings are too similar in WotC's eyes. Sure one is grittier and the other more fanciful but they are still essentially both "standard" settings when compared with Planescape, Ravenloft, or Darksun (all of which have an angle that separates them) and even Eberron. I personally think Greyhawk would make a better bookend to the Eberron setting but I can see why they don't want to support the Realms AND Greyhawk... for marketing purposes, they are just too much alike. And since the Realms is good and established, well... there you go.

 

[morbiczer]

If anything, I think they tried hard to revive the setting, taking it back to basics by ditching the Carl Seargeant baggage and making Greyhawk the default 3.0 setting. To me, it simply seemed that the first big Greyhawk push (with the core rule integration and Living Greyhawk) simply failed to rake in the money like FR did.

What money? Were there even any Greyhawk products in 3e? I mean other than that Gazetteer or whatever that little booklet was called.

Isn't it difficult to make money off something if you don't even produce anything?

 

[the black knight]

Then I suspect the early Greyhawk products simply didn't sell like the FR products, or even the Eberron products, and they've had to quietly scale way back. Then when they read threads like this that accuse them of some conspiracy and trying to keep Greyhawk down, they probably laugh bitterly at the irony.

But that's all speculation. Still, it's what I believe.

What early products? Are you talking about 2e or 3e?

Before Expedition, there were only two Greyhawk products. The gazeteer and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

 

[jdrakeh]

What money? Were there even any Greyhawk products in 3e? I mean other than that Gazetteer or whatever that little booklet was called.

Isn't it difficult to make money off something if you don't even produce anything?

This bit of wild hyperbole has already been addressed. Scroll up a bit.

 

[whydirt]

What I think is funny is that if WotC started to release Greyhawk material on the same level as Eberron or Forgetten Realms, a lot of its fans would cry out in defiance of how their setting was being changed or developed in ways they didn't like. I was under the impression that part of the appeal of Greyhawk as a setting was that it just gave a framework where individual groups could fill things in on their own - at least relative to other settings.

 

[jdrakeh]

I was under the impression that part of the appeal of Greyhawk as a setting was that it just gave a framework where individual groups could fill things in on their own - at least relative to other settings.

This is a commonly cited reason for its popularity, yes. Many old-school fans laud it for this (as do I, because I intensely dislike the effect that "official canon" seems to have on many gamers).

[Edit: I'd kill for the original Greyhawk box set. What I won't do is pay $100+ dollars for damaged paperback books. Well, not game books, anyhow. I'd gladly pay that for some real collectible books in said condition (e.g., William Burrough's working draft of Naked Lunch, first printing Dickens, etc).]

 

[Thurbane]

Greyhawk: Where roleplaying began!

I like Greyhawk a lot, both as a "default" setting, and as a detailed setting in it's own right. If it's allowed to wither and die, it will be a genuine shame.

FR never grabbed me the way Greyhawk did, nor did Eberron etc. The only setting that came close was Dragonlance.

I think it's important for D&D to have a generic/default setting, and IMHO Greyhawk is better for this than FR or Eberron.