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

[Faolyn]

Elves also have existed, have kingdoms and have large amounts of non-5e text dedicated to them. But in the post I was quoting you presented the challenges of Goliaths and Elves equally. After all, non-5e material doesn't count right?

Where did you pull that one from? I never said anything like that.

A paragraph is 4 to 5 sentences. IF you have three questions for each race, and each question takes one to two sentences...

If the question is "how do they get their food" (which is a big if of a question), the answer could be "farming" or "hunting/gathering," which are one to two words, not sentences.

If you recall, I gave this as an example: "goliath communities nearly always have a ruler with absolute authority, tend to be wary of outsiders, are prone to xenophobia, and grow their food." This is one sentence that answers three or four questions. This example could, perhaps, benefit from a second sentence that says, "most of their communities can be found in [this area of the world] or [climate/terrain], but certainly doesn't have to.

Also, world-building is not a media. It is an action.

There is an action verb there, "building".

It's also a convenient word. It's why the subreddit is called r/worldbuilding and not r/showofftheworldyoumadetoothers, even though that would be a far more accurate title based on what most of the posts there are like.

And why would you waste time and resources on a setting that is never going to become real?

Because the point of the chapter is to teach people how to make a world. Therefore, neither the time nor resources have been wasted.

As for no one saying it must be a new setting, sure, but you also refuse to acknowledge there is literally any benefit at all to using Greyhawk, which is what is keeping this conversation churning. You are convinced that this chapter, which is likely already written and being finalized, is going to be horrible and without purpose, solely because they picked Greyhawk and if they had just decided to make a new setting instead, it would be wonderful and perfect.

I'd estimate that three-quarters or more of your arguments are either strawmen, trivial objections, and stuff you make-up whole-cloth.

Please show me where I said anything like this chapter is going to be "horrible and without purpose, solely because they picked Greyhawk." Anything at all like that. Go on, show me.

If you're going to reply to me, reply to what I actually wrote. Stop making stuff up and stop lying about what I said.

 

[Minigiant]

The 5e DMG teaches world building.

Why would the 5.5e DMG not teach it?

Yeah...

The 5e DMG doesn't teach worldbuilding.

 

[Yaarel]

The 5e DMG doesn't teach worldbuilding.

Youre right.

The 2014 DMs Guide is more like mentioning the possibility of worldbuilding while aggressively discouraging.

It tries to force any setting to conform to the Forgotten Realms-like gods and planes.

 

[Cadence]

Yeah...

The 5e DMG doesn't teach worldbuilding.

It might have done what you think is a crappy job of it, but it kind of feels like the folks who put it together (Crawford, Perkins, Wyatt, etc...) thought at the time that it was teaching world building?

 

[Minigiant]

It might have done what you think is a crappy job of it, but it kind of feels like the folks who put it together (Crawford, Perkins, Wyatt, etc...) thought at the time that it was teaching world building?

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What is in the DMG isn't what I considered teaching worldbuilding.

It was more explanation of world elements with no advice to use them then telling DMs to run FR.

 

[Cadence]

It was more explanation of world elements with no advice to use them then telling DMs to run FR.

As far as I can tell there is nowhere in the DMG that it tells DMs to run FR - at least in my skimming through Chapter 1. Do you have a favorite spot in the book that actually says or implies that? To me it looks like it gives lots of options and doesn't settle on any of the, with most of the time in some sections going explicitly against the FR grain.

Do you have any particular quotes to back that up?

It starts with the core assumptions, but then...

The next page is on pantheons and it talks about Hieroneous in the Greyhawk setting, mentions Forgotten Realms for a sentence, and has a big example from the Dawn War Pantheon. And then jumps into other religious systems for a two pages, and then does humanoids, mentioning Moradin and FR in one paragraph.

The next section is on geography and mentions Great Britain and California to start. When describing cities it gives:

As usual for this chapter it tells folks to consider what the different pieces mean.

It then has a section on weather, government, currency, languages, and factions that seem 1e DMG reminiscent.

It then ships to magic and brings up Waterdeep and Dark Sun.

And then it shifts to Creating a Campaign, which seems to tie it all together.

In the styles of play it mentions Heroic Fantasy is the baseline and that most FR novels fit in that. It doesn't say anything else about it having to be FR though. S&S mentions Dark Sun. Epic Fantasy mentions Dragon Lance, Mythic Fantasy mentions greek myths, Dark Fantasy mentions Ravenloft, Intrigue mentions the FR novels Brimstone Angels, Mystery mentions both FR and DL examples, Shawshbuckling mentions FR's City of Ravens, War mentions DL, Wuxia doesn't bring up FR, and Crossing- the Streams mentions all kinds of things from Greyhawk before getting to Elminster.

The actual advice seems in the second half of the chapter (again, I don't think anyone is defending the 2014 DMG's organization)!

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah...

The 5e DMG doesn't teach worldbuilding.

You are objectively wrong. It may not teach it to your liking, but that it teaches it is fact.

 

[Parmandur]

You are objectively wrong. It may not teach it to your liking, but that it teaches it is fact.

I mean, to square both sides, it didn't teach worldbuildinf to the liking of the authors, that's why they are trying a totally different approach.

 

[Cadence]

I mean, to square both sides, it didn't teach worldbuildinf to the liking of the authors, that's why they are trying a totally different approach.

Did it do a better job of teaching world building than it did of teaching DMs to comfortably run a short adventure? ;-)

 

[Parmandur]

Oh, I completely agree. They are going to have an example adventure, and it will likely feature the Free City of Greyhawk, since they are providing a map for it.

Now, I'm not convinced it will be the sole place they draw NPCs or Magic Items from, because we know they are planning to have the PHB feature snippets and explanations of multiple settings for players to familiarize themselves with the various worlds of DnD, so I suspect the DMG will have a multiversal angle too, and just use Greyhawk for the specifics on world and adventure building.

One point to consider of how little we know ow about thw shape of the elephant here...the DMG won't have a single sample Asventure, but apparently multiple examples of some sort. James Wyatt chromed at the PAX East presentation that rhe DMG has a "lot of Adventures in it" so we might be looking at a rather curious organization inaction when all is said and told.