D&D 5E Give Me Three Reasons To Play Greyhawk

[Greyson]

1. There are vast lands east of Nyrond that are largely unexplored and untouched by published adventures. These former Great Kingdom lands are ripe for the enterprising DM and eager player characters. There is almost limitless possibility in the east forge a character's destiny. Or die.

2. There are some amazing classic D&D adventures from every previous edition of the game set in the Flanaess. The list is too long to be recounted here, but every single one of them can be easily adopted to any edition of D&D to be played again (and again).

3. The "Living Greyhawk Gazetteer" from 2001 offers hundreds of great adventures ideas in each nation's Conflicts and Intrigues section. Plenty of fodder to explore and develop in your home campaign.

I could go on, but I'll stop at the requested three. Those are my personal top three reasons. There is a spirit or feeling to Greyhawk that is so unique, too. It's intangible and hard to articulate. There is a gritty, old school feel to the World of Greyhawk setting. It's unpolished and has many, many unanswered questions and mysteries.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

1. There are vast lands east of Nyrond that are largely unexplored and untouched by published adventures. These former Great Kingdom lands are ripe for the enterprising DM and eager player characters. There is almost limitless possibility in the east forge a character's destiny. Or die.

2. There are some amazing classic D&D adventures from every previous edition of the game set in the Flanaess. The list is too long to be recounted here, but every single one of them can be easily adopted to any edition of D&D to be played again (and again).

3. The "Living Greyhawk Gazetteer" from 2001 offers hundreds of great adventures ideas in each nation's Conflicts and Intrigues section. Plenty of fodder to explore and develop in your home campaign.

I could go on, but I'll stop at the requested three. Those are my personal top three reasons. There is a spirit or feeling to Greyhawk that is so unique, too. It's intangible and hard to articulate. There is a gritty, old school feel to the World of Greyhawk setting. It's unpolished and has many, many unanswered questions and mysteries.

A full list of Greyhawk adventures (and everything else) can be found here if such things interest you.

 

[SirAntoine]

How's this: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/17392/World-of-Greyhawk-Fantasy-Game-Setting-1e?it=1

Great link! I'd buy a lot, but I own most of that stuff already. I was thinking I'd like to see Wizards of the Coast maintain the continuity of the setting in whatever new publications they want to release. When I adventure in Greyhawk, I want that feel and to be able to share stories with other players. The future products should preserve all the special qualities of the setting, from its being human-centric to the alignment of nations, and even bringing back the D&D Open to run tournaments in Greyhawk again.

 

[Mercule]

Great link! I'd buy a lot, but I own most of that stuff already. I was thinking I'd like to see Wizards of the Coast maintain the continuity of the setting in whatever new publications they want to release. When I adventure in Greyhawk, I want that feel and to be able to share stories with other players. The future products should preserve all the special qualities of the setting, from its being human-centric to the alignment of nations, and even bringing back the D&D Open to run tournaments in Greyhawk again.

My experience is that each redo loses something of the magic. I don't know whether that's because the setting invites each author to view it through their own lens, general artistic ego (not used in a bad way), or because no one does Gygax like Gygax. Regardless, as much as I love Greyhawk (and hate the Realms) I've resigned myself to the idea that the best thing they can do for the setting is to let it be and just keep the original material available.

 

[Bupp]

My experience is that each redo loses something of the magic. I don't know whether that's because the setting invites each author to view it through their own lens, general artistic ego (not used in a bad way), or because no one does Gygax like Gygax. Regardless, as much as I love Greyhawk (and hate the Realms) I've resigned myself to the idea that the best thing they can do for the setting is to let it be and just keep the original material available.

I wholeheartedly agree.

I'm re-reading the 1983 Guide for the first time in years, and that's really all you need. Just enough information that you can fill in the blanks in so many different ways.

I will say, that I am a fan of the Carl Sargent Greyhawk Wars and From the Ashes box sets. After running GH for years it's a great way to mix things up and open up some new blank spaces, or to revisit old haunts with new problems.

 

[Uchawi]

1. Greyhawk is canon light, just like 5E is rules light. There are just enough teasers via the world book to expand ideas or create plot hooks but not lock you down or run the risk of going against canon. With FR there is just too much material, heroes, etc. to avoid going down that path.

2. Greyhawk has plenty of terrain features to handle a standard fantasy setting, but does not go overboard like FR, Darksun, or Eberron, with some of the over the top land features, high magic or lack thereof. It strikes a nice medium to go low magic or high to suit your tastes. There are not too many gods interfering with stuff.

3. Greyhawk offers all the material for resources management, kingdom building, racial populations, political factions, and migration of different races of humans; which is not present in other worlds. And you don't have to dig through 50 books to figure it out.

 

[Bupp]

The Twin Cataclysms: The Invoked Devastation and the Rain of Colorless Fire.

Those phrases always got my imagination going.

 

[airwalkrr]

1) The setting is generic enough to allow any idea you desire. The original World of Greyhawk boxed set is not too hard to get your hands on and contains just enough details for the skeleton of a world without fleshing out the details for you. It can be easily molded to fit the vision for your campaign, and it was originally written up as a DM resource with this flexibility in mind.

2) Some of the spells in the Player's Handbook are named after famous wizards in Greyhawk. Mordenkainen, Otiluke, Melf? They all came from Greyhawk. Whether these NPCs actually play a role in your world or not, it is a great tie-in to the setting when something in the Player's Handbook is named after characters from the setting.

3) If you DO want a fleshed out world, there are resources out there beyond the original boxed set, and they vary from the low-key Tolkienesque Middle-Earth style world (many of the early adventures and resources) to the grandiose, world-bending, and bizarre (Carl Sargent 2nd edition era stuff). I've found for 5e, the old adventure modules in particular are easily adaptable.

Bonus point) A lot of grognards started playing D&D in Greyhawk, even if they didn't know it. All of the early adventure modules were set in Greyhawk. Greyhawk is brownie points for them because of nostalgia.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

This brings up an interesting question...

Can someone take the basic Greyhawk info and use it as just a loose basis for creating a heavily customized version of Greyhawk? I have a few setting details and mechanics I want to test out, and using a variation of an existing campaign is a lot easier than creating one entirely new.

This is exactly what you are describing:

http://www.amazon.com/Gazetteer-Dungeons-Dragons-Gary-Holian/dp/0786917423/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424036167&sr=1-1&keywords=d%26d+gazetteer

 

[airwalkrr]

This is exactly what you are describing:

http://www.amazon.com/Gazetteer-Dungeons-Dragons-Gary-Holian/dp/0786917423/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424036167&sr=1-1&keywords=d%26d+gazetteer

Or the original World of Greyhawk Folio. (pdf versions are all over the place so I'm not sure if WotC simply is not enforcing the IP or is unable to issue enough C&D letters to all the people making it available so do not take that as a recommendation to download what may be an illegal pdf.) Even the first boxed set was pretty basic in its descriptions of places and didn't stat up or even give classes, levels or races to any characters besides a handful of gods. (Why the gods were the only things that needed stats only Gygax can say.)