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

[Micah Sweet]

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.

You're right. Clearly I and a tiny number of pre-5e Ravenloft fans are the only people who didn't love VRG. Really, expressing such opinions at all is a cultural faux pas for which we should be harshly judged.

 

[gban007]

The majority of 5e playerbase are under 45.

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



The majority of 5e fans never played another edition



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.

For me though, if this is for new DMs who have never played other than 5e, then they don't need an explanation for why Dragonborn / Tieflings suddenly there, as new players have no concept of them not being there. The opportunity is just to present a Greyhawk that aligns with 5e, and doesn't need explanation for changes a reader has no concept of.
This approach may upset some of those who are fans of Greyhawk, as effectively retconning the setting, but it won't upset all, and WoTC has made call that on balance it will work for their intended audience as well or better than any other setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

I wouldn't say no one, and if those elements outside of the PC themselves are going to be relevant in play, I see no issue with getting the DMs "thumbs up" before altering the setting for one player's personal purposes in a classic or traditional game. Other types of games? Sure, it might be right there in the rules. But for most versions of D&D the DM comes first for all worldbuilding beyond, "this is my character". You can do it differently, and that's great, but you as a group are choosing to do so.

 

[Minigiant]

For me though, if this is for new DMs who have never played other than 5e, then they don't need an explanation for why Dragonborn / Tieflings suddenly there, as new players have no concept of them not being there. The opportunity is just to present a Greyhawk that aligns with 5e, and doesn't need explanation for changes a reader has no concept of.
This approach may upset some of those who are fans of Greyhawk, as effectively retconning the setting, but it won't upset all, and WoTC has made call that on balance it will work for their intended audience as well or better than any other setting.

It's just up to WOTC to do it.

Something they notoriously never do or half-ass when they attempt.

I mean if Wizards in 5E actually had a good track worker of supporting new DMs I wouldn't be so disagreeable in this thread at all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They can be.

Group worldbuilding is a thing. IIRC, it's the only form of worldbuilding in games like DungeonWorld and similar games.
It should be more important in D&D, so we don't have threads like this where people say that too much worldbuilding is a chore for DMs.

Quite frankly, I'm not interested in changing the assumptions of D&D, which do not include group worldbuilding. As I told @pemerton , you can do that if you want to, but as an assumption of play it belongs in other, non-D&D games. There is no need to change older games to fit the ever-changing leading edge of the cultural zeitgeist. That's what new games are for.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Of course they aren't. But if a handful of random gamers on the internet can come up with an explanation that doesn't destroy the setting, including gamers like myself who have never played in the setting, then why should I believe that game designers who have played it, have researched it, and potentially have a deep love for it, are incapable of doing so?

IF you want to make the argument "It is possible WoTC could screw this up"... well you are correct. IT is also possible a new disaster strikes the global market and the bookd doesn't get published at all, or that WoTC does an amazing job that everyone loves and praises for being a work of genius. All of our crystal balls are showing the same smoke, despite what we may say.



Have you read the PHB entry on Goliaths? Here is the version from the playtest.

Towering over most folk, Goliaths are distant descendants of giants. Each Goliath bears the blessings of the first giants—blessings that manifest in various supernatural boons, including the ability to quickly grow and temporarily approach the height of the Goliaths’ gigantic kin. Goliaths have physical characteristics that are reminiscent of the giants in their family lines. For example, some Goliaths look like stone giants, while others resemble fire giants. Whatever giants they count as kin, Goliaths have forged their own path in the multiverse— unencumbered by the internecine conflicts that have ravaged giant-kind for ages—and seek heights above those reached by their ancestors

Now, this does state that Goliaths go their own way, but it also makes it clear giants and goliaths are kin. They bear the blessings of the first giants (the giant gods) and they have giants in their family lines.

Now, when I go look up "giant" in Greyhawk wikis...
Giants are found throughout the Flanaess, though the vast majority of giant populations are concentrated in and near the Yatil-Hellfurnaces and Corusk-Rakers mountain chains. A Giant's environment generally depends on which race or subrace it belongs to.

And that is it for the majority of them. Though Canonfire goes into more detail, and ALSO points out that Goliaths were added to Greyhawk in 3.5. So, if the setting rarely decided to go beyond "Frost, Fire, Storm, Cloud and Hill giants live that direction" then it isn't hard to also add "Goliath" to that list, because they've already mashed and mixed the giants up, so one more to the mix doesn't change anything. I am giving them EXACTLY as much detail as the other giants got previously.



Or the Horned Society, the ones who worshiped Devils? So, you have Iuz's Evil Kingdom of Demon worshipers for Demon-blooded Tieflings, the Horned Society Devil worshipers for Devil-blooded Tielflings... and gosh it is so hard to figure out how Societies that worship devils and demons might end up yugoloths, the evil mercenaries that play both sides and have no allegiance, added to the mix. I mean, we all know for a fact that if you summon and work with Devils you would never never summon and work with the mercenaries devils use to fight with them, right?

And again, who is this long-time fan, needing a lesson in basic world-building, who cannot accept that people touched by the Lower PLanes can come from this area of the map where people worship and make deals with the lower planes, and is ruled by a half-demon?



We are talking about the world building. It is all tell. You can't "show" in world-building. So this doesn't matter. They said it before, they can say it again.



And that is entirely possible to do. As mentioned, you don't exactly need to sit down, hold someone's hand and explain "so, in the 80's, we did things differently, so this is what it used to say, then in 2000 we did this, and now, we are changing it again, okay? And we are changing it to this" Especially when the person has never played or read any old Greyhawk material.

They can update it trivially as part of the lesson in world-building. It can be done. It isn't some sisyphean task that WotC is doomed to fail. Most of the changes aren't even actually changes, and are only being proposed to make pendantic fans of the 80's who hated what was done in the 2000's happy. ANd they aren't going to be happy regardless.

Your argument seems to be that the setting is so generic that there's really no way WotC could screw it up. Note that I'm not saying you're wrong, just theorizing on your perspective.

 

[Remathilis]

Why should a newbie player have to look up a wiki in order to play the game?

Because we grognards demand them to.

Ideally, the onus on explaining where the various elements of the D&D rules connect to the D&D setting is in the Players Handbook. The PHB should explain where goliaths come from, what an elves' religion is, or what a sorcerer's role in society is. But we have this unhelpful notion that D&D is a toolbox and not a RPG with a fleshed out setting like Pathfinder, so D&D has surrendered its world building to a variety of different settings books and supplements, each with contradictory info on this stuff. The information on elves in Greyhawk has no bearing on Realms, Dragonlance or Eberron elves. So instead D&D crams important PC facing lore into setting books and wikis.

 

[Hussar]

It's just up to WOTC to do it.

Something they notoriously never do or half-ass when they attempt.

I mean if Wizards in 5E actually had a good track worker of supporting new DMs I wouldn't be so disagreeable in this thread at all.

Yes the 5e DMG is bad. We know it. WotC knows it. Everyone knows it.

Presuming that WotC is incapable of learning from mistakes seems a bit harsh. After all, the beginner box sets are generally held in very high regard. Phandelver is generally seen as an excellent example of how to make an adventure.

It’s not like WotC has abandoned DMs in 5e.

 

[pemerton]

I wouldn't say no one, and if those elements outside of the PC themselves are going to be relevant in play, I see no issue with getting the DMs "thumbs up" before altering the setting for one player's personal purposes in a classic or traditional game. Other types of games? Sure, it might be right there in the rules. But for most versions of D&D the DM comes first for all worldbuilding beyond, "this is my character". You can do it differently, and that's great, but you as a group are choosing to do so.

OK? I don't see how this contradicts anything that I posted.

No one thinks that the character having brown eyes is a result of an action taken by the character, but players write that sort of thing down. No one thinks that being born in Greyhawk City is an action taken by the character, but players often write that sort of thing down. No one thinks that Dwarves around here often enjoy <such-and-such an activity> is a result of an action taken by the character, but in my experience players often write that sort of thing down too. All this stuff is part of the player imagining their PC in the course of setting up the game.

Quite frankly, I'm not interested in changing the assumptions of D&D, which do not include group worldbuilding.

The book What is Dungeons & Dragons, published in 1982, showed the players helping establish backstory and setting context for their PCs. I realise that book was better known in the UK and Australia than the US, but I find it hard to believe that the whole notion was never known in the US at all.

To me, it seems that the idea of GM iron-hand authority over the setting in the context of PC backstory is a cultural practice, not an assumption in the game as such, that became particularly strong in the second half of the 80s (and is associated with other assumptions about GMs and setting that consolidated at the same time).

I mean, who do you think came up with the names of the Greyhawk countries? The players in the C&C Society, who in RPG terms were coming up with the homelands for their PCs.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes the 5e DMG is bad. We know it. WotC knows it. Everyone knows it.

Presuming that WotC is incapable of learning from mistakes seems a bit harsh. After all, the beginner box sets are generally held in very high regard. Phandelver is generally seen as an excellent example of how to make an adventure.

It’s not like WotC has abandoned DMs in 5e.

It's not me thinking WOTC are incapable.

It's a mindset. WOTC doesn't want to tell DMs what to do and offers a little advice on DMing to this day.

Since no one answered my question..

The sole advice that WOTC gives on running a noncaster in Strixhaven is "an ancestral guardian barbarian might study there".

Not how a noncaster can pass magic classes. Not the value of fighters and barbarians to a wizards school. No creation of a magical military police or having army in official partnership with the school. "You're the DM. Figure it out