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

[Hussar]

/snip

Saltmarsh left a very bad taste in my mouth (a book that encourages the DM to bully you if you play a dragonborn or a tiefling don't qualify as fun in my experience).

If your DM did this, then that's on him or her, the book most certainly does NOT excourage the DM to bully you if you play a dragonborn or tiefling. Heck, there are dragonborn in the art, and there's a group of tiefling NPC's IN Saltmarsh that are treated perfectly acceptably.

That's on your DM, not on the book.

 

[Zeromaru X]

If your DM did this, then that's on him or her, the book most certainly does NOT excourage the DM to bully you if you play a dragonborn or tiefling. Heck, there are dragonborn in the art, and there's a group of tiefling NPC's IN Saltmarsh that are treated perfectly acceptably.

I wanted to believe in that, when I read in the book that "the residents react to other visitors, especially tieflings and dragonborn, with a mixture of curiosity and fear" (page 11).

Basically, the book encourages that kind of prejudice and bullying on any player that doesn't want to play a member of the Fellowship of the Ring...

However, I'm an outsider to Greyhawk, and I look to the setting from a prospective PoV. That stuff doesn't appeal to me, but perhaps it was all the rage back then. Or perhaps I'm just spoiled by the Nentir Vale's stance of "people learned to accept and even become fond of those different from themselves" (Worlds and Monsters, pp.18-19).

People can trash talk of 4e all what they want, but at least this edition encouraged inclusivity from the start...

Edit: grammar...

 

[Cadence]

It feels like a lot of interesting campagin settings have restrictions or cultural expectations - maybe based on real world historical, maybe one based on a literary setting, maybe one set in a country based on a particular non-European culture, maybe one based around dungeon crawls, maybe a world without active gods. I don't want those settings to not happen just because there'll always be that one player who, after agreeing to the idea, then wants to be the only dragonborn in real medieval europe, be a drow wizard in Cimmeria, be named Fred and not connected to the culture at all, be a druid who's useless indoors, be the first cleric for the returning gods. If they agreed that the world sounded interesting, then they should be able to happily play within the confines of that world's set up if the DM considers their proposal and decides that it really doesn't fit, or be able to live with the logical repurcussions if the DM says ok but explains what those might be. As such I find it odd to have something be objectionable just because it isn't some iteration of the entire kitchen sink.

 

[David Howery]

I wanted to believe in that, when I read in the book that "the residents react to other visitors, especially tieflings and dragonborn, with a mixture of curiosity and fear" (page 11).

to be fair, that's the reaction of the people of Saltmarsh, overwhelmingly human, somewhat isolated... it's not a description of 'everyone in the WoG'... if WOTC was going to do a sourcebook on the WoG, they'd undoubtedly make it a lot more inclusive, to better fit the tone of 5E. The WoG, being set mostly in 1E and 2E days, was a lot more along the lines of 'good aligned humans and demi-humans get along, evil humans and humanoids get along, the two sides are in opposition'. Of course, back then, just about every D&D world was like that...

 

[Helldritch]

Strange that the kitchen sink trope plagues Greyhawk but not: Darksun, Theros, Ravnica, Birthright, Dragonlance, Innistrad, Amonkhet, Ixalan, Kaladesh and others. The "Ho but they're MTG settings! They don't count!" is pure BS. Three of these are not, and you could add others that are in the DM guild or even Drive thru. A setting is a setting and so far, the printed ones were well received and the PDF of the others were not receiving the tropes' accusations either.

As for inclusivity. You'll get the suspicious/xenophobic tropes even Eberron depending on your race and the region you'll be in. The changelings hide and do not show their heritage for a reason. Even in the realm there will be suspicions/xenophobia involved depending on your race, culture, class or simply because you're not from the village. Some places are cosmopolitan others are backwater areas. Not everything is and should be Mos Eisley...

 

[Aldarc]

Strange indeed. It's almost as if Greyhawk was written by Gygax to be the original kitchen sink setting of D&D.

 

[pemerton]

It feels like a lot of interesting campagin settings have restrictions or cultural expectations - maybe based on real world historical, maybe one based on a literary setting, maybe one set in a country based on a particular non-European culture, maybe one based around dungeon crawls, maybe a world without active gods. I don't want those settings to not happen just because there'll always be that one player who, after agreeing to the idea, then wants to be the only dragonborn in real medieval europe, be a drow wizard in Cimmeria, be named Fred and not connected to the culture at all, be a druid who's useless indoors, be the first cleric for the returning gods. If they agreed that the world sounded interesting, then they should be able to happily play within the confines of that world's set up if the DM considers their proposal and decides that it really doesn't fit, or be able to live with the logical repurcussions if the DM says ok but explains what those might be. As such I find it odd to have something be objectionable just because it isn't some iteration of the entire kitchen sink.

The question is - is GH such a setting?

 

[Hussar]

I wanted to believe in that, when I read in the book that "the residents react to other visitors, especially tieflings and dragonborn, with a mixture of curiosity and fear" (page 11).

Basically, the book encourages that kind of prejudice and bullying on any player that doesn't want to play a member of the Fellowship of the Ring...

However, I'm an outsider to Greyhawk, and I look to the setting from a prospective PoV. That stuff doesn't appeal to me, but perhaps it was all the rage back then. Or perhaps I'm just spoiled by the Nentir Vale's stance of "people learned to accept and even become fond of those different from themselves" (Worlds and Monsters, pp.18-19).

People can trash talk of 4e all what they want, but at least this edition encouraged inclusivity from the start...

Edit: grammar...

Umm, "mixture of curiousity and fear" is hardly xenophobia. Nor is it license to bully the character either. Good grief, that's a pretty minor line to be taking as an excuse to go full on KKK on anything outside the acceptable baselines.

 

[Helldritch]

Strange indeed. It's almost as if Greyhawk was written by Gygax to be the original kitchen sink setting of D&D.

Of course it was! I think you missed out the irony of my comment. Re read my earlier posts...

 

[Chaosmancer]

Strange that the kitchen sink trope plagues Greyhawk but not: Darksun, Theros, Ravnica, Birthright, Dragonlance, Innistrad, Amonkhet, Ixalan, Kaladesh and others. The "Ho but they're MTG settings! They don't count!" is pure BS. Three of these are not, and you could add others that are in the DM guild or even Drive thru. A setting is a setting and so far, the printed ones were well received and the PDF of the others were not receiving the tropes' accusations either.

As for inclusivity. You'll get the suspicious/xenophobic tropes even Eberron depending on your race and the region you'll be in. The changelings hide and do not show their heritage for a reason. Even in the realm there will be suspicions/xenophobia involved depending on your race, culture, class or simply because you're not from the village. Some places are cosmopolitan others are backwater areas. Not everything is and should be Mos Eisley...

I think it is because those settings have a strong thematic presence that doesn't feel like "generic fantasy"

So much fantasy writing happens in not!England/not!France during the not!Medieval Period that it almost feels like a blank slate when you start off that way. Sort of like writing Sci-Fi stories in a space station. It is just the start, even if it should be interesting in and of itself.

But, Darksun, Ravnica and Theros have strong thematic settings that break that blank slate beginning. They are inherently different than the norm, so there is no desire to make them different than the norm.

Dragonlance and Birthright I feel like would run into the same problem (I've never played Birthright, but I've seen people talking about it on the forums) but they aren't being discussed or advocated for, so the debate doesn't come up.

And, while Greyhawk was alway a bit of a kitchen sink, the kitchen was smaller back when Greyhawk was conceived, so it feels limited compared to settings that have continued to evolve with 5e.