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

[MGibster]

I wonder if Shakespeare and Tolkien have withstood the test of time in part because they are finite things.

On the other hand, the Arthurian tales have have been adapted for contemporary audiences for many, many centuries now. When the Arthurian legends started as Welsh poems in the 6th/7th centuries there was no Round Table, Lancelot du Lac, and Camelot didn't come around until the 15th century. Heck, Guy Ritchie did a great job adapting it to a 21st century audience by having Uther Pendragon kill Mordrid and his son Arthur is raised by prostitutes in a brothel and grows up a street saavy criminal. Oh, wait. That was #%#%#% horrible.

Point is, sometimes even great culturally relevant works change over the years. But don't watch Guy Ritchie's version of King Arthur.

 

[EthanSental]

I’m on page 10 reading through…but for those 3e players, how was that editions Living Greyhawk stuff? Any good, mix bag, more good than meh? Curious if it’s a good read(s) for a new Greyhawk campaign. Thanks in advance!

 

[MGibster]

I’m on page 10 reading through…but for those 3e players, how was that editions Living Greyhawk stuff? Any good, mix bag, more good than meh? Curious if it’s a good read(s) for a new Greyhawk campaign. Thanks in advance!

I ran a lot of Living Greyhawk games back in the early 2000s. The adventures were pretty fun but I don't remember a darn thing about the setting. To be honest, I couldn't really tell you the difference between Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms other than one has Elminster. (I bet some monocles just popped out.)

 

[EthanSental]

I may check out some of the adventures then, thanks @MGibster

 

[Demetrios1453]

I’m on page 10 reading through…but for those 3e players, how was that editions Living Greyhawk stuff? Any good, mix bag, more good than meh? Curious if it’s a good read(s) for a new Greyhawk campaign. Thanks in advance!

I liked the Living Greyhawk Gazateer, other than the particularly hideous art. I'm not one to be snobby about art, but the black-and-white literal scribbles they had for illustrations were definitely not up to par. But beyond that, the book was very informative and filled with useful facts and figures, as well as adventure hooks.

 

[Parmandur]

This advice is that shouldn't run Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Dark Sun if the players have consumed media set there? That would really kill off settings. We can not assume that is a generally accepted piece of advice, otherwise WotC would have stopped publishing novels set it their worlds, but instead do the opposite and build up the brand with novels, movies, and computer games set in them.

Again, with the brand build up, it is expected that at least some people around the table are familiar with a setting. Which goes back to my original point that a known setting is a shorthand between the DM and players, and making major changes misaligns those understandings and at that point it's better to just homebrew.

BTW, I take this to heart - I homebrew setting (and adventures, etc) for the campaigns I run.

My friends and family don't consume FR media, and I mean the ones who play D&D

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think they are going to do much with Greyhawk post release. It will be the DM's Guide barebones example of how you can build your own setting on top of Greyhawk.

They WotC can tell the grognards to shut up because "we support Greyhawk now".

I mean, if they unleash Greyhawk in the DMsGuild, that will make most Greyhawk die hards happy enough.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Here's their blurb from Saltmarsh:

That makes them sound way more interesting than most of what I normally hear about them.

 

[Parmandur]

Again, this will be totally bare-bones. There's going to be very little outside of basic information, and very little flavor of any sort will show up.

Good,that's how Greyhawk should be.

 

[Kurotowa]

I don't want to derail this thread by continuing the psionics discussion too much, but I find it really amusing to say "it was always there." I was there playing the game at the time, and psionics was a great example of "be careful of what you wish for." Once a player started talking about psionics and getting it for their character, the DM would often ask "Are you sure about that?" The reason for that is that DMs could use psionics in the game to run tons of nasty psionic monsters against the group. I did play one psionic character, and it arguably made the game harder and not easier. Especially when we broke out the psionic combat rules. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

That's why I have no objection to the implementation of psionics that 5e settled on. It's a little distinctive, but mechanically it's completely interoperable with the rest of the ruleset. No weird subsystems or special interactions or alternative resolution methods. They fit into a group just as easily as anyone else.

Which I know is antithetical to the people who want psionics to be disruptive. But I don't, so I'm happy with what we got.