D&D General For the Love of Greyhawk: Why People Still Fight to Preserve Greyhawk

[Stormonu]

If you were to write a "big ten" list of features or conceits to introduce or set the tone for Greyhawk, what would they be? This was done in the 4E campaign books, and I think its a good idea to summarize what the campaign means to you.

I don't have ten, but what I'm thinking is something along the lines of this:

Spoiler

Kingdoms In Decline. Powerful kingdoms, like the Suel and Baklunish Empire ruled over most of the land in the past. Even the powerful Great Kingdom that holds most of the eastern Flaness together is disintegrating under its own corruption as petty kingdoms pop up and raiders move against the edges of civilization. For the common man, it feels like greatness is in the past and the best one can do is hold fast to keep such glory days from fading away.

Monsters Everywhere. Tied to the slow decline of powerful kingdoms, evil humanoids and powerful creatures creep into civilized areas or take up residence in abandoned ruins and remote areas. Most people are familiar with the sight of strange and deadly monsters seen in passing or gossiped to exist just outside of patrolled lands.

Humans Dominate. Though there are enclaves of elves, dwarves and even gnomes, most of the Flaness is populated by one or more human tribes. The Flan, Oeridians, Suel and Baklunish ancestries have spread humanity far and wide across the continent. Yet despite the distinctive appearance and culture of each ethnic group, intermingling is commonplace and humanity mostly thrives as an indifferent brotherhood - with the unfortunate exception of the xenophobic Suel-descended agents of the Scarlett Brotherhood.

War Looms. Each of the growing kingdoms marshals armies as it cautiously or enviously eyes it neighbor. Eyes turn to easy conquest of weaker realms or the assertion of might against invasion. Lawless frontiers spawn powerful bandit and slaver lords that test a nation's ability to respond in force to their swift hit-and-run raids.

Ruins Abound. Lost and forgotten ruins litter the continent, as do strange and powerful areas of wonder, ripe for the exploration and looting of bold adventures and dubious mercenaries. Even the kingdoms carefully watch with interest the looting of abandoned ruins, for one never knows when some powerful ancient artifact or great wealth may be unearthed that gives local leaders an edge over their neighbors.

Ancient Magic. While most rely on a strong arm and a steel blade, ancient secrets of magic and the gods abound, willing to give up their secrets to those daring enough to delve into their ancient mysteries and power. Powerful artifacts and long-forgotten relics surface from time to time, their strange powers wrecking havoc in their wake. Even lesser items of magic power - few of which can be reproduced in this age of iron and steel - abound in the lost places of the world, flowing through adventurer's hand as a mighty river of power.

The Gods Move. Powerful though they may be, the gods are not distant. Clerics can call upon strange and powerful miracles in battle and for the benefit of their believers. While some dieties lay trapped in ancient, forgotten ruins other secretly assume mortal forms to involve themselves in mortal affairs and sometimes even battles. Demigods openly roam the land, performing great deeds but also drawing dire threats to oppose them. It is not uncommon for these gods-in-secret to draw upon mortal protectors or to find themselves opposed by powerful heroes.

 

[Hussar]

What makes it different than Epic Fantasy or Heroic Fantasy then? Epic Fantasy is generally defined by having epic-scale stakes, but S&S also has epic scale stakes sometimes. Heroic Fantasy is more focused on the characters, Mercenaries and soldiers struggling with their flaws and sometimes being heroes and sometimes not being heroes.... it is even something S&S is compared to in some of the articles I read, which is how I learned about it.

This is a mistaken definition of Epic Fantasy. Epic fantasy is epic, not because of big stakes, but, because it is epic in scale - cast of thousands, tons of characters, big, massive battles with thousands of combatants - in other words - epic in the sense the The Illiad is epic - it's not the fate of the world, and, really, we're talking about the battle for one poncy little city over the stakes of a girl. But, it's epic because you have all these different characters and stories woven into the plot.

Sword and Sorcery is not epic in scale. Conan rarely leads an army and battles, if they appear at all, are almost always small scale. You could list the number of named characters in a Conan story on a single piece of paper, and often a really small piece of paper at that.

The problem here @Chaosmancer, is you are working from some mistaken ideas of genre. Epic Fantasy has nothing to do with stakes. Granted, often Epic Fantasy does have very high stakes, simply because there are so many characters in the story, the stakes get higher. But, "save teh world" stories work in many genres and "save the world" doesn't make a story epic fantasy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you are looking at Howard a Lieber, something those stories all have in common is they are short, episodic, and are only connected by the protagonists and settings.

They are like Star Trek TOS "planet of the week" episodes.

In D&D this is best reflected with stand alone dungeon modules, rather than epic adventure paths. Perhaps why GoS was set in Greyhawk.

 

[pemerton]

The more you talk about S&S, the less sense it seems to make. You are saying that Sword and Sorcerery can be low stakes, personal vendettas, or high stake save the world quests. The heroes can be entirely ammoral, or have secret hearts of gold.

What makes it different than Epic Fantasy or Heroic Fantasy then? Epic Fantasy is generally defined by having epic-scale stakes, but S&S also has epic scale stakes sometimes. Heroic Fantasy is more focused on the characters, Mercenaries and soldiers struggling with their flaws and sometimes being heroes and sometimes not being heroes.... it is even something S&S is compared to in some of the articles I read, which is how I learned about it.

At this point it seems like S&S is less of a useful definition of a genre and more of a shorthand for "Conan and some other very specific stories written around the same time as Conan." it seems more like a transitional period, where the genre was in the middle of evolving and now it is something else entirely.

I can't claim to know the whole S&S or fantasy oeuvre, by any stretch of the imagination. I know REH's Conan, and JRRT and Le Guin's Earthsea, well; I know Vance a bit; I know Leiber and Moorcock's works by reputation and by the RPG works built around them.

S&S - whether the stakes are quite low (eg The God in the Bowl, a REH Conan story) or high (eg The Hour of the Dragon, another REH Conan story) - involves protagonists who drive the action, and who impose their own moral vision on the world.

The epic fantasy I know - JRRT, Earthsea, lower quality stuff like Dragonlance - posits a world which brings its morality with it. The heroes - if they are to remain and to succeed as heroes - have to come to terms with that, and give effect to it.

D&D defaults to S&S in feel (even if not in tropes) if it is player-driven, and to epic fantasy if it is GM-driven. There are ways to do RPGing which are player-driven yet involve epic fantasy, but those approaches are not all that common in the D&D-playing community.

This is part of the difference between GH and FR: the latter is presented as heavy with metaplot and hence GM control over much of the fiction; whereas GH is not. Thus while GH has many non-S&S tropes (elves, dwarves, Iuz, St Cuthbert, etc) it still supports a broadly S&S=protagonist-driven feel.

 

[pemerton]

Conan rarely leads an army and battles, if they appear at all, are almost always small scale.

But this isn't really accurate.

The Scarlet Citadel, Black Colossus, The Hour of the Dragon - these are as representative of REH's Conan as The Tower of the Elephant, The Phoneix on the Sword, The People of the Black Circle (and even in that he is the leader of a warband).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But this isn't really accurate.

The Scarlet Citadel, Black Colossus, The Hour of the Dragon - these are as representative of REH's Conan as The Tower of the Elephant, The Phoneix on the Sword, The People of the Black Circle (and even in that he is the leader of a warband).

True, and it is implied that whilst king of Aquilonia Conan leads the nation's army in battle.

That happens off stage of course.

I would argue that the reason we don't see more epic battles in S&S is the stories are short. There isn't room. And the stories are short because they were written to be published in magazines.

NB, I miss that. Whilst Tolkien is great, I am rather bored of the bloated tomes that pass for modern fantasy novels.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This is a mistaken definition of Epic Fantasy. Epic fantasy is epic, not because of big stakes, but, because it is epic in scale - cast of thousands, tons of characters, big, massive battles with thousands of combatants - in other words - epic in the sense the The Illiad is epic - it's not the fate of the world, and, really, we're talking about the battle for one poncy little city over the stakes of a girl. But, it's epic because you have all these different characters and stories woven into the plot.

Sword and Sorcery is not epic in scale. Conan rarely leads an army and battles, if they appear at all, are almost always small scale. You could list the number of named characters in a Conan story on a single piece of paper, and often a really small piece of paper at that.

The problem here @Chaosmancer, is you are working from some mistaken ideas of genre. Epic Fantasy has nothing to do with stakes. Granted, often Epic Fantasy does have very high stakes, simply because there are so many characters in the story, the stakes get higher. But, "save teh world" stories work in many genres and "save the world" doesn't make a story epic fantasy.

Okay, let us assume I am wrong (though this is a definition I have come across mutltiple times online, not one I made up), where then do we have a cut off point?

The Hobbit is the story of a single man, most of the other characters are not explored. It has a huge army fight, but it is something that is skipped.

The Hobbit therefore isn't epic, and it isn't sword and Sorcerery right?

Would we take a story with three main characters, like Netflix's Castlevania and call it Epic? We have three main characters, the main villain, and at least five fleshed out minor villains. That is nine characters, fairly close to what we have with The Lord of the Rings, since the Fellowship is Nine individuals, and we don't really have a lot of screen time most of the time for other characters. I'd say roughly each book has about a dozen characters it cares about.

But I don't think that works. I think simply counting the number of characters cannot tell you is a story is epic or not. Heck, the Odyssey is the counter-part to the Illiad as one of the two best known epics, and it is the story of one man. While it has other characters, most of them aren't actually that important. Sure, they have names, but is that actually a good measure of their impact on the story? I don't think so.

I can't claim to know the whole S&S or fantasy oeuvre, by any stretch of the imagination. I know REH's Conan, and JRRT and Le Guin's Earthsea, well; I know Vance a bit; I know Leiber and Moorcock's works by reputation and by the RPG works built around them.

S&S - whether the stakes are quite low (eg The God in the Bowl, a REH Conan story) or high (eg The Hour of the Dragon, another REH Conan story) - involves protagonists who drive the action, and who impose their own moral vision on the world.

The epic fantasy I know - JRRT, Earthsea, lower quality stuff like Dragonlance - posits a world which brings its morality with it. The heroes - if they are to remain and to succeed as heroes - have to come to terms with that, and give effect to it.

D&D defaults to S&S in feel (even if not in tropes) if it is player-driven, and to epic fantasy if it is GM-driven. There are ways to do RPGing which are player-driven yet involve epic fantasy, but those approaches are not all that common in the D&D-playing community.

This is part of the difference between GH and FR: the latter is presented as heavy with metaplot and hence GM control over much of the fiction; whereas GH is not. Thus while GH has many non-S&S tropes (elves, dwarves, Iuz, St Cuthbert, etc) it still supports a broadly S&S=protagonist-driven feel.

I have to reject that thesis, because you cannot define a genre of literature by putting forth that the action is not driven by the main characters.

All good stories are character driven. Take Hussar's example of The Illiad as being an Epic Fantasy. It starts with Paris kidnapping Helen of Troy, the plot is driven by the men who want to fight, or do not want to fight, by the actions of the Greek Gods (who are all characters).

At no point is there a "morality of the world" that comes into play to force people to come to terms with some absolute.

 

[Bacon Bits]

If you were to write a "big ten" list of features or conceits to introduce or set the tone for Greyhawk, what would they be? This was done in the 4E campaign books, and I think its a good idea to summarize what the campaign means to you.

I don't have ten, but what I'm thinking is something along the lines of this:

Spoiler

Kingdoms In Decline. Powerful kingdoms, like the Suel and Baklunish Empire ruled over most of the land in the past. Even the powerful Great Kingdom that holds most of the eastern Flaness together is disintegrating under its own corruption as petty kingdoms pop up and raiders move against the edges of civilization. For the common man, it feels like greatness is in the past and the best one can do is hold fast to keep such glory days from fading away.

Monsters Everywhere. Tied to the slow decline of powerful kingdoms, evil humanoids and powerful creatures creep into civilized areas or take up residence in abandoned ruins and remote areas. Most people are familiar with the sight of strange and deadly monsters seen in passing or gossiped to exist just outside of patrolled lands.

Humans Dominate. Though there are enclaves of elves, dwarves and even gnomes, most of the Flaness is populated by one or more human tribes. The Flan, Oeridians, Suel and Baklunish ancestries have spread humanity far and wide across the continent. Yet despite the distinctive appearance and culture of each ethnic group, intermingling is commonplace and humanity mostly thrives as an indifferent brotherhood - with the unfortunate exception of the xenophobic Suel-descended agents of the Scarlett Brotherhood.

War Looms. Each of the growing kingdoms marshals armies as it cautiously or enviously eyes it neighbor. Eyes turn to easy conquest of weaker realms or the assertion of might against invasion. Lawless frontiers spawn powerful bandit and slaver lords that test a nation's ability to respond in force to their swift hit-and-run raids.

Ruins Abound. Lost and forgotten ruins litter the continent, as do strange and powerful areas of wonder, ripe for the exploration and looting of bold adventures and dubious mercenaries. Even the kingdoms carefully watch with interest the looting of abandoned ruins, for one never knows when some powerful ancient artifact or great wealth may be unearthed that gives local leaders an edge over their neighbors.

Ancient Magic. While most rely on a strong arm and a steel blade, ancient secrets of magic and the gods abound, willing to give up their secrets to those daring enough to delve into their ancient mysteries and power. Powerful artifacts and long-forgotten relics surface from time to time, their strange powers wrecking havoc in their wake. Even lesser items of magic power - few of which can be reproduced in this age of iron and steel - abound in the lost places of the world, flowing through adventurer's hand as a mighty river of power.

The Gods Move. Powerful though they may be, the gods are not distant. Clerics can call upon strange and powerful miracles in battle and for the benefit of their believers. While some dieties lay trapped in ancient, forgotten ruins other secretly assume mortal forms to involve themselves in mortal affairs and sometimes even battles. Demigods openly roam the land, performing great deeds but also drawing dire threats to oppose them. It is not uncommon for these gods-in-secret to draw upon mortal protectors or to find themselves opposed by powerful heroes.

I think this list is a great start.

I would add:

Spoiler

Magic is Strange and Rare. The average NPC will know magic exists, but never see it. Magical effects are in-and-of-themselves strange and mysterious to the people in the world. That makes magic feel more interesting, more dangerous, and more potent.

Vast Unknown Wilderness. While there is civilization and safety, the world is still dominated by wildernesses that are largely unexplored and unknown. Once the PCs leave the relative safety of the Nyr Dyv and it's surroundings, the world is largely wilderness that goes on for hundreds and hundreds of miles. The PCs can truly get lost in wilderness of Greyhawk and can easily be weeks or even months away from a safe haven. This means you can have an entire campaign, from level 1 to level 20, where the PCs never set foot in anything larger than a village. This means you can hide the extraordinary, the wonderful, and the strange in the wilderness because it's unlikely that you'd ever find your way back. Want a city of gold? A labyrinthine cavern containing a machine that grants wishes, a la Forbidden Planet? Here you can get so lost that you might find yourself in a new world and never even know it.

Chaos vs Law is as important as Good vs Evil. That is to say, the nature and form of future civilization is in the balance. While human kingdoms squabble and undermine themselves and each other and the demi-human races withdraw to their own sanctuaries, the closest thing to a shining city upon a hill is Greyhawk... and Greyhawk is under assault constantly within and without. It feels like there's a very good chance that the future of the world will return to tribal lifestyles rather than kingdoms, city-states, or other more complex or larger systems of cultural or societal organization. The "good" and "lawful" nations and peoples are at a crossroads of continued unity or further balkanization. What this means to the PCs is that, often, nobody is strong enough or willing to help them even when it's clearly in their best interest to do so.

To me, Greyhawk feels like a mix of cliche Generic High Fantasy that every modern fantasy novel and video game uses, the Hyborian Age of Howard, and the Middle Earth of Tolkien. That makes it feel like I can include many types of stories more naturally.

 

[MichaelSomething]

How come no one here is talking about Living Greyhawk? Wasn't it the RPGA setting for 3E?

 

[Aldarc]

I have to reject that thesis, because you cannot define a genre of literature by putting forth that the action is not driven by the main characters.

All good stories are character driven. Take Hussar's example of The Illiad as being an Epic Fantasy. It starts with Paris kidnapping Helen of Troy, the plot is driven by the men who want to fight, or do not want to fight, by the actions of the Greek Gods (who are all characters).

I don't think that this is charitable or accurate reading of what pemerton is saying. My reading of @permeton's argument is that the difference is not about whether one set of stories are character driven or not, but, rather, it amounts to the relationship of the protagonists to external moral codes. In S&S the protagonists are imposing their own sense of morality on the world. Conan, for example, is not dancing to the beat of anyone's drum but his own. Even Elric is more or less refusing to follow the moral codes or expectations of a Melnibonéan Emperor, which is precisely why his cousin opposes him.

In epic fantasy, the characters are primarily acting in accordance with some form of moral or societal expectations. We do see this, for example, in The Illiad, The Odyssey, and Beowulf. The characters are partially measured by the degree to which they conform to social norms of moral codes. It's even often when they break those moral expectations that we see them fall or stumble (e.g., Boromir, Achilles, Odysseus, King Arthur, etc.). Aragorn is being measured against and acting in accordance to the expectations of his royal bloodline. Many of the main villains of Middle Earth (e.g., Morgoth, Sauron, Saruman) are fundamentally those that turned their back on Eru (God).

At no point is there a "morality of the world" that comes into play to force people to come to terms with some absolute.

Considering the Taoism behind Earthsea or the Roman Catholicism behind LotR, I would not be so sure about that. A Wizard of Earthsea is basically a Bildungsroman in which the protagonist is only able to confront the evil of their own creation once they understand the underlying Taoist "morality of the world".

And do the moral codes and morality of the world not come into play when Odysseus angers Poseidon? Does the morality of the world not come into play when Agammenon's army spurred the wrath of Artemis, forcing him to sacrifice his daughter to appease his goddess? Or when Achilles desecrates the corpse of Hector? There are so many instances where the "morality of the world" comes into play for characters in these historical epics that it's almost fruitless to try listing them all.