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For the Love of Greyhawk: Why People Still Fight to Preserve Greyhawk
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<blockquote data-quote="JiffyPopTart" data-source="post: 8074301" data-attributes="member: 4881"><p>I'm going to use this list to move the discussion forward in a more-practical less-theoretical way. Discuss or ignore as you choose.</p><p></p><p>1. Humanocentric:</p><p></p><p>This is saying that you want to pare back the allowable PC races to being limited to Human, and some of the variations of Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. You may or may not include Gnomes or Half-Orcs (they were in 1e). All the other PC race choices would be either off-limits or allowed by GM fiat only. The major and medium powers of the lands the PCs will be interacting with will be the same as this list, with all other humanoids either evil rampaging tribes or far-away cultures the players won't interact with on a regular basis. Correct?</p><p></p><p>2. Swords & Sorcery:</p><p></p><p>This is saying that you want magic to be "strange" and almost everyone the PCs encounter will be nonmagical. PCs may have some magic items at their disposal, and the PCs might be the very odd travelling mage, but even in a large city the number of LVL3+ NPCs who can cast spells could all fit in one large room. Magic encountered by the players can be pretty crazy, but the encounter would be very out of the ordinary. Correct?</p><p></p><p>3. Gritty:</p><p></p><p>You want there to be a beefier system for lingering wounds, disease, curses, and other items to have lasting penalties for characters. You want healing to be slower than the 5e standard. Correct?</p><p></p><p>4. Low Magic:</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure how this differs from #2 to dissect it.</p><p></p><p>5 & 6. Grey Morality + Last Points of Light:</p><p></p><p>You want there to be few to no societies that are "Good", "Free", or "Progressive". Politics is only painted in shades of grey and even the nicer civilizations exist in the sea of evil lesser civilized humanoids who are slowly chipping away at the "civilization" they offer. Correct?</p><p></p><p></p><p>Now that I have defined your categories (to the best I can guess what you are meaning), I will try to add my thoughts on their application to Dungeons and Dragons in 2020. I feel that I should add that I am 47 years old, started "playing" D&D in 3rd grade when I stole the B&E boxed sets from my older brother who threw them unused in the closet, and didn't know the difference between "Forgotten Realms", "Greyhawk", and "AD&D" until I started getting into the map when playing Pool of Radiance on my Commodore 64.</p><p></p><p>On points 1, 2, 4, and partially 5&6: The biggest hurdle you are facing when asking for an official Greyhawk with these aspects is, as I said before, you essentially wanting a campaign setting that asks the players to ignore 50%+ of the content of the books they already have and only use this small subset of races/classes/backgrounds/spells/equipment/etc. I am an old-school grognard of a player. I understand where you are coming from and get why you would be interested in a campaign setting that works this way. BUT....i'm also not the target market of 5e anymore. I am in the "and if that guy buys the book that's just a bonus" category of their marketing. Young players today want to be able to play what they want. They want to be a magical witch who rides around on a broomstick with a panda familiar. They want to be a robot from another world who crash landed their ship on the D&D planet. They want to be creative and they want to not be constrained by "needless" restrictions. Paladins no longer have to be good, or even lawful. Assassins don't have to be evil. As of 2020, pretty much no humanoid race is expected to be evil. The game is opening up. Points 1, 2, 4 and the evil outsider part of 5&6 are asking for there to be a setting where you ditch all the "anything goesness" of 5e and return to the restrictions of 30 years ago.</p><p></p><p>On point 3: I think you have a pretty good hook for what makes a setting a setting. Something more "gritty" where the players are in more danger and wounds become permanent could fit into the 5e design as an expectation. I would rather see this rules module released independent of a game setting, but if thats what you want to fill your setting book up with I think its a good starting spot that has legs in 5e.</p><p></p><p>On point 4: One thing I have found is that over time the hook of "magic items" being exciting because they are rare wears off. After the 400th +1 sword a character of mine has found over the years, the novelty and amazement just isn't there...even if the sword itself is rare in the universe. I think a much better way of making magic rare but exiciting is to make each and every magical item in your campaign unique but different. There are no "+2 longswords", but there is a Sword of Smith's Farm once used to defend the farm against goblins. Legend has it that the sword glows in the presence of the goblins and whenever it rang out when crashing against a goblins armor the others wince and held their heads in pain at the sound it gave out. I would like to see a setting that has ZERO universal magic items and instead had rules for creating new ones on the spot.</p><p></p><p>A separate topic related to 2&4 is the frequency of spellcasters. While I think you can run a game where the adventuring party is the aberration to the normal, I would hesitate to try to rip things out of the list of class choices/features just to try to shoehorn in something else. As other have said, 1e rangers and paladins had magic....so why try to reinvent the wheel in 5e?</p><p></p><p>On point 5: I think there is a huge gap in the 5e arsenal for a political intrigue setting (maybe Ravnica has this, I don't have this book). I, once again, think you have a pretty solid base here for "this is what makes my setting worth playing and different than others". There already is plenty of intrigue in the Realms, however, so I don't know how you would make this amped up, but it could become a focus.</p><p></p><p>On point 6: Mentioned somewhat in my first points.....with the new 2020 "nothing is always evil" design mantra....you are going to have a hard time doubling down and saying "except in this world EVERYTHING outside the human lands is sketchy or evil". This might be your biggest roadblock of them all, pushing for an exclusive setting when inclusiveness is the current trend.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JiffyPopTart, post: 8074301, member: 4881"] I'm going to use this list to move the discussion forward in a more-practical less-theoretical way. Discuss or ignore as you choose. 1. Humanocentric: This is saying that you want to pare back the allowable PC races to being limited to Human, and some of the variations of Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. You may or may not include Gnomes or Half-Orcs (they were in 1e). All the other PC race choices would be either off-limits or allowed by GM fiat only. The major and medium powers of the lands the PCs will be interacting with will be the same as this list, with all other humanoids either evil rampaging tribes or far-away cultures the players won't interact with on a regular basis. Correct? 2. Swords & Sorcery: This is saying that you want magic to be "strange" and almost everyone the PCs encounter will be nonmagical. PCs may have some magic items at their disposal, and the PCs might be the very odd travelling mage, but even in a large city the number of LVL3+ NPCs who can cast spells could all fit in one large room. Magic encountered by the players can be pretty crazy, but the encounter would be very out of the ordinary. Correct? 3. Gritty: You want there to be a beefier system for lingering wounds, disease, curses, and other items to have lasting penalties for characters. You want healing to be slower than the 5e standard. Correct? 4. Low Magic: I'm not sure how this differs from #2 to dissect it. 5 & 6. Grey Morality + Last Points of Light: You want there to be few to no societies that are "Good", "Free", or "Progressive". Politics is only painted in shades of grey and even the nicer civilizations exist in the sea of evil lesser civilized humanoids who are slowly chipping away at the "civilization" they offer. Correct? Now that I have defined your categories (to the best I can guess what you are meaning), I will try to add my thoughts on their application to Dungeons and Dragons in 2020. I feel that I should add that I am 47 years old, started "playing" D&D in 3rd grade when I stole the B&E boxed sets from my older brother who threw them unused in the closet, and didn't know the difference between "Forgotten Realms", "Greyhawk", and "AD&D" until I started getting into the map when playing Pool of Radiance on my Commodore 64. On points 1, 2, 4, and partially 5&6: The biggest hurdle you are facing when asking for an official Greyhawk with these aspects is, as I said before, you essentially wanting a campaign setting that asks the players to ignore 50%+ of the content of the books they already have and only use this small subset of races/classes/backgrounds/spells/equipment/etc. I am an old-school grognard of a player. I understand where you are coming from and get why you would be interested in a campaign setting that works this way. BUT....i'm also not the target market of 5e anymore. I am in the "and if that guy buys the book that's just a bonus" category of their marketing. Young players today want to be able to play what they want. They want to be a magical witch who rides around on a broomstick with a panda familiar. They want to be a robot from another world who crash landed their ship on the D&D planet. They want to be creative and they want to not be constrained by "needless" restrictions. Paladins no longer have to be good, or even lawful. Assassins don't have to be evil. As of 2020, pretty much no humanoid race is expected to be evil. The game is opening up. Points 1, 2, 4 and the evil outsider part of 5&6 are asking for there to be a setting where you ditch all the "anything goesness" of 5e and return to the restrictions of 30 years ago. On point 3: I think you have a pretty good hook for what makes a setting a setting. Something more "gritty" where the players are in more danger and wounds become permanent could fit into the 5e design as an expectation. I would rather see this rules module released independent of a game setting, but if thats what you want to fill your setting book up with I think its a good starting spot that has legs in 5e. On point 4: One thing I have found is that over time the hook of "magic items" being exciting because they are rare wears off. After the 400th +1 sword a character of mine has found over the years, the novelty and amazement just isn't there...even if the sword itself is rare in the universe. I think a much better way of making magic rare but exiciting is to make each and every magical item in your campaign unique but different. There are no "+2 longswords", but there is a Sword of Smith's Farm once used to defend the farm against goblins. Legend has it that the sword glows in the presence of the goblins and whenever it rang out when crashing against a goblins armor the others wince and held their heads in pain at the sound it gave out. I would like to see a setting that has ZERO universal magic items and instead had rules for creating new ones on the spot. A separate topic related to 2&4 is the frequency of spellcasters. While I think you can run a game where the adventuring party is the aberration to the normal, I would hesitate to try to rip things out of the list of class choices/features just to try to shoehorn in something else. As other have said, 1e rangers and paladins had magic....so why try to reinvent the wheel in 5e? On point 5: I think there is a huge gap in the 5e arsenal for a political intrigue setting (maybe Ravnica has this, I don't have this book). I, once again, think you have a pretty solid base here for "this is what makes my setting worth playing and different than others". There already is plenty of intrigue in the Realms, however, so I don't know how you would make this amped up, but it could become a focus. On point 6: Mentioned somewhat in my first points.....with the new 2020 "nothing is always evil" design mantra....you are going to have a hard time doubling down and saying "except in this world EVERYTHING outside the human lands is sketchy or evil". This might be your biggest roadblock of them all, pushing for an exclusive setting when inclusiveness is the current trend. [/QUOTE]
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