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For the Love of Greyhawk: Why People Still Fight to Preserve Greyhawk
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<blockquote data-quote="grodog" data-source="post: 8074421" data-attributes="member: 1613"><p>A very interesting conversation, thanks for starting it up, [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] !</p><p></p><p>While I am a long-time Greyhawk fan, I too would be interested to see what interesting and new material could be published for Greyhawk. Unless and until WotC releases older editions for publishing via DM's Guild, that means new official Greyhawk material will be written for 5e and 6e, ad not for 1e/OSRIC or the other clones. So, if WotC publishes a Greyhawk book that I like, I'll pick it up. Adapting new material Greyhawk is a natural process that every Greyhawk DM has to do who's not playing with the current rules set; it's not a big deal, and it works forward as well as backward (all of those 1e adventures are also easy to bring forward into 5e too). I do the exact same thing with material from FR, Necromancer Games, Call of Cthulhu, and whatever else feels right to use in my Greyhawk campaigns.</p><p></p><p>One of the core strengths of Greyhawk (in addition to its resilient and enthusiastic fanbase, who provide support for the setting through many ways, including the <a href="https://greyhawkonline.com/oerthjournal/" target="_blank">Oerth Journal</a>---a freely downloadable professional quality zine---to name just one example among multitudes*) is its <strong><em>flexibilty</em></strong>. When I run a Greyhawk campaign, it may be related to others that I've run before from a story/continuity POV, but it's just as likely that I'll use that game as a fresh start: to play in a region of the setting that I've not explored before (I've not yet run a campaign set in Land of Black Ice or in the era of the Migrations, for example), or to play with new classes/races/rules to try them out (an all-thieves game set in Dyvers, where the PCs are undermining the guilds of Greyhawk City, for example), or to explore multi-planar play among several inter-related Primes (Greyhawk sort of meet's MCU's Nine Realms, as in <a href="https://grodog.blogspot.com/2020/05/planar-architecture-for-grodog-greyhawk-campaigns.html" target="_blank">my two concurrent campaigns</a>). Greyhawk can handle all of these options and more, and deliver a setting that drives gameplay that brings me and the other players to the table each week, excited about the next session.</p><p></p><p>Greyhawk's core <em>flexibility</em> is grounded in and builds upon both the setting's <strong>patchwork publishing history</strong>, and the <strong>design ethos</strong> that Gary and Rob baselined Greyhawk to support:</p><p></p><p>1. <strong>Greyhawk's spotty product support</strong>---both in quantity and quality---can be leveraged to your advantage as a DM: because Greyhawk canon is so filled with contradictions, mutually-incompatible evolutions, and alternate takes on the same people, places, and things, it demands that the DM define their take on the setting, to decide what's in and what's out from the options palette during each game. You want an undead-focused globe-trotting save-the-world campaign?---grab the Vecna modules or "Age of Worms" and have at it. You want urban high intrigue among sparring noble families?---use the CIty of Greyhawk boxed set during the signing of the Treaty of Greyhawk, or use Ivid the Undying set during the Turmoil Between Crowns. You want swashbuckling piracy?---build out Feelta's Slave Lord fleet raiding the shores of the Wooly and Relmor Bays, or fight the Scarlet Brotherhood as an Iron League privateer in the Azure Sea. You don't like how the Greyhawk Wars played out?---play the boardgame to a different conclusion, and change history by preventing the assassination of Tenser and Otiluke.</p><p></p><p>2. <strong>Greyhawk's design ethos </strong>is built upon the foundations of DIY modular campaigning. Both the 1980 Folio and the 1983 Box, Greyhawk offer a loose framework within which any DM can build and create any campaign they desire. Because it's defined in a light-weight manner---the broad sketching high points of history, geography, and the political topography---that open framework frees the DM to pick and choose among canons, to rewrite history to serve the needs of the game**, but still doesn't force a DM to fill the whole blank-slate work on their own.</p><p></p><p>I'm <a href="http://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2011/11/ring-of-five-questions-allan-grohe.html" target="_blank">on the record about what I think has been done wrong with Greyhawk over the decades</a>, but I don't think any of that would prevent Greyhawk from thriving with the proper attention and support.</p><p></p><p>Allan.</p><p></p><p>* For my favorites, see my Greyhawk Links page at <a href="https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_links.html" target="_blank">grodog's Favorite Greyhawk Links</a></p><p></p><p>** A great example of how one DM (Montand on Greytalk but reposted from <a href="mailto:Greyhawk-l@oracle.wizards.com">Greyhawk-l@oracle.wizards.com</a>) proposed changing Greyhawk nearly 20 years ago:</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="grodog, post: 8074421, member: 1613"] A very interesting conversation, thanks for starting it up, [USER=7023840]@Snarf Zagyg[/USER] ! While I am a long-time Greyhawk fan, I too would be interested to see what interesting and new material could be published for Greyhawk. Unless and until WotC releases older editions for publishing via DM's Guild, that means new official Greyhawk material will be written for 5e and 6e, ad not for 1e/OSRIC or the other clones. So, if WotC publishes a Greyhawk book that I like, I'll pick it up. Adapting new material Greyhawk is a natural process that every Greyhawk DM has to do who's not playing with the current rules set; it's not a big deal, and it works forward as well as backward (all of those 1e adventures are also easy to bring forward into 5e too). I do the exact same thing with material from FR, Necromancer Games, Call of Cthulhu, and whatever else feels right to use in my Greyhawk campaigns. One of the core strengths of Greyhawk (in addition to its resilient and enthusiastic fanbase, who provide support for the setting through many ways, including the [URL='https://greyhawkonline.com/oerthjournal/']Oerth Journal[/URL]---a freely downloadable professional quality zine---to name just one example among multitudes*) is its [B][I]flexibilty[/I][/B]. When I run a Greyhawk campaign, it may be related to others that I've run before from a story/continuity POV, but it's just as likely that I'll use that game as a fresh start: to play in a region of the setting that I've not explored before (I've not yet run a campaign set in Land of Black Ice or in the era of the Migrations, for example), or to play with new classes/races/rules to try them out (an all-thieves game set in Dyvers, where the PCs are undermining the guilds of Greyhawk City, for example), or to explore multi-planar play among several inter-related Primes (Greyhawk sort of meet's MCU's Nine Realms, as in [URL='https://grodog.blogspot.com/2020/05/planar-architecture-for-grodog-greyhawk-campaigns.html']my two concurrent campaigns[/URL]). Greyhawk can handle all of these options and more, and deliver a setting that drives gameplay that brings me and the other players to the table each week, excited about the next session. Greyhawk's core [I]flexibility[/I] is grounded in and builds upon both the setting's [B]patchwork publishing history[/B], and the [B]design ethos[/B] that Gary and Rob baselined Greyhawk to support: 1. [B]Greyhawk's spotty product support[/B]---both in quantity and quality---can be leveraged to your advantage as a DM: because Greyhawk canon is so filled with contradictions, mutually-incompatible evolutions, and alternate takes on the same people, places, and things, it demands that the DM define their take on the setting, to decide what's in and what's out from the options palette during each game. You want an undead-focused globe-trotting save-the-world campaign?---grab the Vecna modules or "Age of Worms" and have at it. You want urban high intrigue among sparring noble families?---use the CIty of Greyhawk boxed set during the signing of the Treaty of Greyhawk, or use Ivid the Undying set during the Turmoil Between Crowns. You want swashbuckling piracy?---build out Feelta's Slave Lord fleet raiding the shores of the Wooly and Relmor Bays, or fight the Scarlet Brotherhood as an Iron League privateer in the Azure Sea. You don't like how the Greyhawk Wars played out?---play the boardgame to a different conclusion, and change history by preventing the assassination of Tenser and Otiluke. 2. [B]Greyhawk's design ethos [/B]is built upon the foundations of DIY modular campaigning. Both the 1980 Folio and the 1983 Box, Greyhawk offer a loose framework within which any DM can build and create any campaign they desire. Because it's defined in a light-weight manner---the broad sketching high points of history, geography, and the political topography---that open framework frees the DM to pick and choose among canons, to rewrite history to serve the needs of the game**, but still doesn't force a DM to fill the whole blank-slate work on their own. I'm [URL='http://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2011/11/ring-of-five-questions-allan-grohe.html']on the record about what I think has been done wrong with Greyhawk over the decades[/URL], but I don't think any of that would prevent Greyhawk from thriving with the proper attention and support. Allan. * For my favorites, see my Greyhawk Links page at [URL="https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_links.html"]grodog's Favorite Greyhawk Links[/URL] ** A great example of how one DM (Montand on Greytalk but reposted from [email]Greyhawk-l@oracle.wizards.com[/email]) proposed changing Greyhawk nearly 20 years ago: [/QUOTE]
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