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

[Cadence]

Because those aren't choices the PC makes in the world?

I've always been fine with Players making suggestions about things in the game world when they were in the process of making their PCs.

Maybe that's a product of having rotating DMs way back when?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure it’s fine for you not to like it. But, unless you are the only person on the planet, that’s not a reason not to do it. Plenty of people did like it, including some (like myself) who have been Ravenloft fans for longer than you.

Did what I like replace what you liked (as VRG did), or did it add more material without invalidating yours? Heck, Barovia was alone in the mists for many years before any other domains popped up, so I don't see how my preferences impinge on yours the way that VRG impinged on mine.

I've made the, "add, don't replace" argument many times here, and no one has engaged it. I can only assume that you don't have a counterargument to it.

 

[Parmandur]

Generally agreed.

My pedantic contributions are (i) it is Cook/Marsh Expert, and (ii) the presentation of the Known World is in X1 rather than the rulebook itself, and I reckon is closer to two pages (plus map) rather than ten. Though I've not pulled it off the shelf to double-check.

Yeah, it's like 2 pages of info. Given that Mystarra is going to be getting 24 pages in the upcoming Setting art and lore artbook, that might well have all of that information reprinted and expanded.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've always been fine with Players making suggestions about things in the game world when they were in the process of making their PCs.

Maybe that's a product of having rotating DMs way back when?

Suggestions are fine. I try to incorporate player input too. But it's my choice to do so, not theirs, and not the game's.

 

[Faolyn]

The very first published adventure for Ravenloft, Feast of Goblyns, was the first part of the series that ends in the Grand Conjunction. The metaplot of Ravenloft began as soon as there was a setting and more than one product. Early on in 2e in fact, not late.

Furthermore, all the setting products for Ravenloft, from the original module through 2e and Arthaus' 3.0/3.5 products, added material to the setting, as opposed to VRG, which changed and replaced it. Do you not see the difference?

You're missing the forest for the trees here.

I didn't buy some of the products or any of the adventures when they came out. I did, however, get the Book of S___ netbooks--and was absolutely stunned by the changes I saw. For example: WTF was Necropolis? Who are these Ezra and Hala goddesses? Where did Bleutspur go? Why is magic suddenly OK in Hazlan?

You may think it's OK because it "added" material, but that's a change that replaces the DM's own lore.

Finally, there is a difference between official material and an individual group's table game. I am not doing anything to a DM's personal campaign by preferring pre-VRG Ravenloft.

You're laying the irony on thick here. The presence of VRG doesn't do anything to your personal campaign either.

And as I mentioned in another post re: Valachan, the 2e and 3e books had a lot of racism, sexism, homophobia, and rapiness. And in some cases, like Valachan, Souragne, and Dementlieu, the only way to get rid of those issues was to rewrite those domains completely. You may not like those changes, but hey, a lot of us didn't like the racism, sexism, homophobia, and rapiness.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Did what I like replace what you liked (as VRG did), or did it add more material without invalidating yours? Heck, Barovia was alone in the mists for many years before any other domains popped up, so I don't see how my preferences impinge on yours the way that VRG impinged on mine.

I've made the, "add, don't replace" argument many times here, and no one has engaged it. I can only assume that you don't have a counterargument to it.

Yes you do keep repeating that argument. But the thing you can’t accept is that IT IS JUST YOU (pretty much). Most people don’t care about that stuff, so there is no reason WotC should care. If businesses worried about “we might upset a tiny number of people if we do this” they would never do anything.

 

[pemerton]

The majority of 5e playerbase are under 45.

<snip>

The majority of 5e fans never played another edition

<snip>

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

This is @Autumnal's point. These facts mean that all the things you seem to be saying are necessary - like explaining how GH has changed from previous iterations to include 5e stuff - are actually unnecessary. The only person who will wonder where the Dragonborn come from in some fashion that is different from wondering where the Kobolds come from is someone who (i) is familiar with past versions of GH in past editions of D&D and yet (ii) is not familiar with how settings are updated/revised from edition to edition.

And there are few if any such people.

 

[pemerton]

not anyone can make one up. Not everyone knows how to make up a religion and integrate it into the campaign in a way that feels realistic. In fact, based on the fact that the default D&D religion is "Greek pantheon with different names and fewer associated stories," I'd say that very few gamers actually know how to make a religion.

Sure. I would extend this to just about every RPG setting I've read, and most online posts/commentary I see on the topic. Most are not realistic in their religion, or their politics, or their economies.

Most D&D players are not skilled social and economic historians or anthropologists, and a DMG is not going to teach them to be.

I think broad brushstrokes cosmology (as found in 4e), or ad hoc pulp-ish-ness (as found in REH and emulated in Gygax's GH) are both reasonable ways to go.

 

[pemerton]

Because those aren't choices the PC makes in the world?

Nor is being born, or having brown eyes, or being strong but dull - but generally the player is the one to choose their PC's existence, eye colour and stats.

No one thinks that building a PC, and writing PC backstory including relevant elements of the setting, is the player declaring actions for their PC. It's part of set-up, not part of play in the strict sense.

 

[pemerton]

The very first published adventure for Ravenloft, Feast of Goblyns, was the first part of the series that ends in the Grand Conjunction. The metaplot of Ravenloft began as soon as there was a setting and more than one product. Early on in 2e in fact, not late.

Furthermore, all the setting products for Ravenloft, from the original module through 2e and Arthaus' 3.0/3.5 products, added material to the setting, as opposed to VRG, which changed and replaced it. Do you not see the difference?

Did what I like replace what you liked (as VRG did), or did it add more material without invalidating yours? Heck, Barovia was alone in the mists for many years before any other domains popped up, so I don't see how my preferences impinge on yours the way that VRG impinged on mine.

I've made the, "add, don't replace" argument many times here, and no one has engaged it. I can only assume that you don't have a counterargument to it.

I'll engage it and rebut it (as @Faolyn did not far upthread),

If I've played Folio GH, and then you publish From the Ashes which advances the timeline; or publish new info about the Gods (found in Dragon magazine, in the boxed set, in FtA, and in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer), that can easily contradict what I've been doing in my game. So then I have to either change what I'm doing, or ignore that new stuff.

Because we are talking about the authoring of fiction, it makes no difference whether you add stuff or revise stuff. Either can contradict - in content, in tone, in theme, etc - what I've been doing.

Finally, there is a difference between official material and an individual group's table game. I am not doing anything to a DM's personal campaign by preferring pre-VRG Ravenloft.

And presumably VRG is not doing anything to your personal play of Ravenloft.

Living GH Gazetteer significantly changes all the population numbers found in earlier GH products (presumably someone thought the earlier ones were unrealistically low). So if I cared about those populations, I'd need to decide which figures to use. That sort of thing happens. When I made some notes on settlements in my Torchbearer game, I reviewed both sources, plus took into account events that had happened in my own play 30 years ago (when Rookroost was devastated by a plague carried there by a PC), and made my own decisions.

That doesn't make me hate anything. It's my setting that I'm writing up.