Dragon Talk Interview with Kate Welch re Ghosts of Saltmarsh

[Paul Farquhar]

Interesting, although you have hit the nail on the head in one sense: Greyhawk was a great basic chassis upon which even a 12 year old could layer their own vision. My Greyhawk campaign will be 30 years old next year. I've even cobbled together 12" action figures of our long running PCs ready for the anniversary. No setting will suit everyone but that doesn't mean we should be opposed to those settings getting a new gloss of paint.

I think it's fair enough to point out that:

a) WotC have good reason to focus their limited resources elsewhere;

b) That fans of Greyhawk are looking through lenses with more than a tint of rose;

c) That any update is as likely to anger Greyhawk fans as it is to please them;

d) That the original setting is still available and "edition agnostic".

 

[Pauln6]

You want to post pictures of these.... /end Charm Person spell.

Curse my low wisdom. They are mostly works in progress.

 

[Pauln6]

I think it's fair enough to point out that:

a) WotC have good reason to focus their limited resources elsewhere;

b) That fans of Greyhawk are looking through lenses with more than a tint of rose;

c) That any update is as likely to anger Greyhawk fans as it is to please them;

d) That the original setting is still available and "edition agnostic".

I agree that re-releasing the setting is largely pointless as it is edition neutral and fans don't want monkeying with the overall setting. I agree that the modules are often Dungeons that can be adopted to any setting but then isn't that a plus rather than a minus? I'm not sure I agree that no resources whatsoever should be spent on 5e Greyhawk. I suppose people's reaction to 5e Saltmarsh may give them an idea how to bring in more Greyhawk stuff in a more setting neutral way. I admit, I thought the official 5e translation of sahuagin was poor in that they stripped out all the groovy idiosyncrasies and vulnerabilities from 2e that they left in with vampires.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Wow, those are not 'cobbled together'!

I'd just like them to open up Greyhawk on, and really every seeing, on the guild.

 

[Pauln6]

Wow, those are not 'cobbled together'!

I'd just like them to open up Greyhawk on, and really every seeing, on the guild.

The only classic character in amongst this lot is Black Jay, the grizzled shepherd from the Village of Hommlet, although he lost an arm to necrotic damage in the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun so I used Winter Soldier body to represent his Arm of Nyr.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I suppose people's reaction to 5e Saltmarsh may give them an idea how to bring in more Greyhawk stuff in a more setting neutral way.

I don't see how that would work - whilst Saltmarsh may have been located in Greyhawk, there was never anything of Greyhawk in Saltmarsh.

 

[Pauln6]

I don't see how that would work - whilst Saltmarsh may have been located in Greyhawk, there was never anything of Greyhawk in Saltmarsh.

Nobody will see how it works unless they try it. No reason not to if all it takes are a few paragraphs. I would think they will not do much more than what they did in the Yawning Portal though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Nobody will see how it works unless they try it. No reason not to if all it takes are a few paragraphs. I would think they will not do much more than what they did in the Yawning Portal though.

That's my point though - it doesn't take ANY paragraphs. The Saltmarsh series wasn't originally written for Greyhawk, it was written for Don Turnbull's homebrew setting, and as such it bares no resemblance to Keoland, the Greyhawk location where it was dumped, presumably on the basis of G. Gygax giving it a stretch of coastline with the swamp symbol.

Thus, unless they have put in something in that wasn't in the original modules, someone who plays Ghosts of Saltmarsh will learn nothing about Greyhawk.

 

[MerricB]

They should do a series of adventures set in the Baklunish West. That would at least be something new.

That *would* be cool. My current campaign contains a conflict between Veluna and Ket (and soon to be more Baklunish nations), with the Baklunish somewhat annoyed because the High Priestess of Xan Yae was killed while travelling through Veluna...

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

That's my point though - it doesn't take ANY paragraphs. The Saltmarsh series wasn't originally written for Greyhawk, it was written for Don Turnbull's homebrew setting, and as such it bares no resemblance to Keoland, the Greyhawk location where it was dumped, presumably on the basis of G. Gygax giving it a stretch of coastline with the swamp symbol.

I agree with this entirely. Saltmarsh might give a Greyhawk map location, but it's an adventure that is only Greyhawk because of that. Of course, that sort of thing can be made to work and integrated very well into the structure of the setting, but when you have a once-off adventure trilogy that never gets revisited, it doesn't become "core" Greyhawk. The one thing that makes Saltmarsh Greyhawkian is the conflict against the sahuagin, which evokes the giants and the drow; that type of conflict works well in Greyhawk. (And elsewhere, of course! But that "enemies of humanity and demi-humankind" feels more Greyhawkian in theme).

Compare to the Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. That's something that could be considered a one-off, but Tharizdun is referred to again in subsequent Greyhawk lore. (Even moreso if you read the Gord the Rogue books).

Cheers!