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.

 

[Kronius]

I am good with this. I have my original Greyhawk box sets. I have the PDFs from DMsGuild and what I have left from my 3e stuff. If I am going to mess with the setting, which I might, I really dont want them adding things to mess up the world like they constantly did with The Forgotten Realms.

 

[Rils]

Makes sense to me. For people who only need a skeleton and want to fill in the blanks themselves, there's GH now. For people who want an overly detailed world with no blanks on the map, there's FR. Two different settings for two different types of DMs / world builders.

 

[practicalsnow]

Surely I'm not the only one seeing the irony here and how out of touch Perkins is. Literally the last module they released was grayhawk content. Vecna is greyhawk. Kas the bloody-handed is greyhawk. I know they tried to shove it into other worlds where it didn't fit but it's grayhawk content. So it's very weird for them to be declaring. They aren't giving us any more after just releasing a massive one. Even if they were clueless enough to start it in forgotten realms, it's essentially a finish to the biggest greyhawk story

The fact that the creators don't even realize that tells you how far they've strayed from the storytelling world building game that this used to be

 

[Hussar]

If I was a new DM and I finished the starter adventure, how do I go about continuing it by either writing my own adventure or adapt pieces of the campaign setting into a usable one, that's what I mean by "now what"?

I'm not saying that a new DM has to create a new world but even if they are taking a small portion of the example campaign setting and using it for an adventure, aren't they at least doing minimal world building? At 30 pages I'm going to assume there is still going to be a bit of fleshing out that needs to be done.

Yes, but, there's an entire chapter on writing adventures and answer that question. I'm not sure they really need to tell DM that, "Ok, now that you've got your initial adventure out of the way, let's spend the next several hours of your free time building stuff that your players will likely not care about in the slightest."

 

[Nikosandros]

Well, Mystara has a whole chapter in that new srbook coming out in a couple weeks...so not impossible.

Let's hope that WotC can finally redress this absurd situation: almost no one among new players knows about the Known World, but everyone remembers the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Older Beholder]

Surely I'm not the only one seeing the irony here and how out of touch Perkins is. Literally the last module they released was grayhawk content. Vecna is greyhawk. Kas the bloody-handed is greyhawk. I know they tried to shove it into other worlds where it didn't fit but it's grayhawk content. So it's very weird for them to be declaring. They aren't giving us any more after just releasing a massive one. Even if they were clueless enough to start it in forgotten realms, it's essentially a finish to the biggest greyhawk story

The fact that the creators don't even realize that tells you how far they've strayed from the storytelling world building game that this used to be

I can't seem to see what you're referring to?
They say that they don't have plans to make more Greyhawk content in the future (unless there's a huge call for it from the community), what does that have to do with past products, such as Vecna: Eve of Ruin?

 

[R_J_K75]

Yes, but, there's an entire chapter on writing adventures and answer that question.

Perhaps that will solve the problem of guiding new DMs on writing adventures. I'd assume it will.

I'm not sure they really need to tell DM that, "Ok, now that you've got your initial adventure out of the way, let's spend the next several hours of your free time building stuff that your players will likely not care about in the slightest."

For the sake of argument, let's assume the DM and the players want something less generic or a different genre from what's provided in the example Greyhawk setting. Based on some posts in a few of the recent threads on the new DMG and Greyhawk some people do want to create their own setting/world build. I think it's also a safe bet that some new DMs/players may want to convert their favorite IP into a D&D setting as well. So, I think that saying, "Ok, now that you've got your initial adventure out of the way, let's spend the next several hours of your free time building stuff that your players will likely not care about in the slightest.", is somewhat dismissive and assumes that there is no value added by including some world building advice in the DMG. I recall reading the series of "Dungeoncraft" articles when they came out and found a lot of the advice very useful, even for myself who did quite a bit of adventure writing and fleshing out of existing campaign settings before those articles were written.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is FR is more popular thanks videogames Baldurs Gate and Newerwinter Nights. For the current standars Greyhawk is too generic, maybe with a little vintage or retro touch but Wotc doesn't want it as IP lost brand power.

The last AD&D sourcebook I bought I bought was the Scarlett Brotherhood. After I didn't buy almost nothing ultil the arrival of 3.5 ed. And the default setting of 3rd ed was Greyhawk.

Maybe I am not finding the right words to explain it but Greyhawk is like the return of the age when I was a little child reading my gamebooks "Endless Quest" and discovering the TTRPGs for the 2nd Ed. Do you remember those videogames with a pixal-art look imitating the titles from the "old-school"?

Greyhawk is the right setting of players who miss the old-school style.

A part of me misses the iconic class characters from 3rd Ed.

 

[pemerton]

Because forcing a new DM to actually create a campaign setting from the ground up is far too daunting for new DM's. Instead, here's a canned setting, ready to go, but with lots of free spaces for the DM's to fill in without having to spend hours and hours doing all the high altitude stuff.

What do you mean by "now what"? They have a setting - albeit a skeleton one. They will have an adventure in the DMG (I think) to start the ball rolling.

World building is the absolute last thing that a new DM should have to think about. Not the first.

My only point of disagreement with these posts is that the reference to "new DMs" is redundant!

GH is a map, some solid FRPGing setting history/backstory, and a geography that works well in play. I've been using it exactly as you describe for about 40 years now!

 

[pemerton]

Let's hope that WotC can finally redress this absurd situation: almost no one among new players knows about the Known World, but everyone remembers the Forgotten Realms.

Where is the groan emoji when I need it?