D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[TiQuinn]

I suppose you're right. VRG just really disappointed me. I'd been waiting for WotC to provide more material for Ravenloft since they pulled the license from Arthaus back in 3.5, and VRG was basically the opposite of what I wanted.

Take a chance on some of the 3PP on DMSGuild. I got a 5e update of Masque of the Red Death by Jeremy Forbing that was excellent.

 

[Autumnal]

Those settings were not used for educational purposes.

Maybe I have a higher standard of education

Maybe you have a wildly inappropriate one in this case. I mean, seriously. Your intended audience is…let’s see.

* Probably almost entirely over 40 or so, to be throughly familiar with any previous version of Greyhawk. There’ll be some (relatively speaking) kids in the mix, because some of us nerds are always going deep dives into history of times before our own, but not a large fraction. Mostly they’ll be people with their own memories of reading and maybe playing or running Greyhawk before.

* And yet apparently unfamiliar with the process of moving from one edition to another, because they need everything explained as if it were their first time.

* Given to poring over the entire contents of the DMG, and who will reading anything that mentions their setting in any way and apparently won’t or can’t say “this is for newcomers, not me”. Also, they expect a 32-page chapter to lay out an entirely world, history, and cosmos, and will be shattered if anything is left out.

* Or, alternatively, they’ve been reading D&D for 20+ years but have never built a setting of their own and feel the need of a primer, but will be shattered at any suggestion that one might create a setting of their own about like this but not embed in it layers of multiple previous editions the way the creationist Crestor stuck in fossils to present a false history.

You really think there’s a large enough population of such people to warrant giving them, and in practical terms only them, ten percent of the DMG? I just can’t.

 

[Autumnal]

Take a chance on some of the 3PP on DMSGuild. I got a 5e update of Masque of the Red Death by Jeremy Forbing that was excellent.

Hey, cool! Thank you for pointing that out.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I will say it again.

I did not say Greyhawk is not compatible with 5e.

Okay, so these are not literally the lines from your logic train I just responded to?

"My belief is that a setting designed to teach world building in the DMG should either
-Have the same base assumptions as the PHB and MM without needing variant rules
IMHO, Greyhawk is not currently ready for either option.
Reprint the 40year old version and to the usually throw the DM in the wild and say "You're the DM you fix it"


Because, I am not sure how you can say that Greyhawk is compatible with 5e, then also state that Greyhawk is not in-line with the Player's Handbook of 5e, and that if they simply put the old version into the game, that it it would be telling the DMs to fix it.

I don't get how you can keep arguing that Greyhawk does not align with the most basic elements of 5e, yet also declare that you aren't saying that they are incompatible, Which is it? Does Greyhawk not align? Or does it align?

 

[Minigiant]

Maybe you have a wildly inappropriate one in this case. I mean, seriously. Your intended audience is…let’s see.

* Probably almost entirely over 40 or so, to be throughly familiar with any previous version of Greyhawk. There’ll be some (relatively speaking) kids in the mix, because some of us nerds are always going deep dives into history of times before our own, but not a large fraction. Mostly they’ll be people with their own memories of reading and maybe playing or running Greyhawk before.

The majority of 5e playerbase are under 45.

Making a DMG for 40+ year old is a mistake.

* And yet apparently unfamiliar with the process of moving from one edition to another, because they need everything explained as if it were their first time

The majority of 5e fans never played another edition

Given to poring over the entire contents of the DMG, and who will reading anything that mentions their setting in any way and apparently won’t or can’t say “this is for newcomers, not me”. Also, they expect a 32-page chapter to lay out an entirely world, history, and cosmos, and will be shattered if anything is left out.

* Or, alternatively, they’ve been reading D&D for 20+ years but have never built a setting of their own and feel the need of a primer, but will be shattered at any suggestion that one might create a setting of their own about like this but not embed in it layers of multiple previous editions the way the creationist Crestor stuck in fossils to present a false history.

Again

The majority of the 5e base is under 45 and never played another edition.

And most have never DMed a world of their own

And that's the crux. Are you designing the DMG to teach new DMs or to convert and get purchases from old DMs.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm not talking about the game. I'm talking about settings; you know, the places the game takes place in. My issue has nothing to do with the game succeeding. And as I've said before, I don't care about Greyhawk personally, and I agree with others that it is fundamentally another kitchen sink setting and it doesn't really matter what they do with it. The only reason I came back into this is because people starting talking about VRG again, and I have an opinion about it.

And yet, you still want to demand to know why should anyone bother creating something that won't please everyone?

Do you really need that explained? Why do people bother doing anything despite the fact that someone will dislike it? It is the same reason

 

[Faolyn]

@Not a Decepticon said:

"And now consider people who liked the Ravenloft in 1st and early 2e consider the Ravenloft you love a travesty, you guys just bullied them into silence."

What does that mean?

In mid/late 2e, there was that series of adventures re: that prophecy thing, that led to the Grand Conjunction, which caused the Core to be rewritten and literally reshaped, added tons of lore to the domains, and even went so far as to alter existing classes and add new classes. This meant that anyone who had made their own lore had TSR, and WotC just tell them that all that lore was pointless garbage. 3e/Swords & Sorcery continued with this altered lore rather than going back to the more bare-bones, pre-Conjunction state.

If you like Ravenloft primarily for the lore (as you have said repeatedly in the past), you are almost certainly liking it for this post-Conjunction lore, which means you're doing to the 1e/early 2e fans what you think 5e is doing to the later 2e/3e lore. And you have also said in the past that you feel bullied (or words to that extent) by people who accept or even prefer 5e lore.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Quick question: what about the 3.0/3.5 core books made them Greyhawk, as opposed to wholly generic? Are we really just talking about a pantheon and the names of some spells?

I have been told constantly that Greyhawk was the official default setting of 3.0/3.5. Living Greyhawk was a 3.5 thing.

So, why does it matter how exactly the DMG was laid out for 3.5, since Gryeyhawk was the default setting for ALL of the edition? Not just for the core books?

 

[Cadence]

And that's the crux. Are you designing the DMG to teach new DMs or to convert and get purchases from old DMs.

Why do one thing well when you can try to be all things to all people?

 

[Autumnal]

Okay, I’m done with this loop. I’ve got cyberdusty archives to look over for solo RPG potential.