Greyhawk & Forgotten Realms: Basic Similarities?

[Desdichado]

IMO, D&D is really much more like a Leiber-esque tale in most respects, with just a Tolkien-esque veneer over the top of it. For what that's worth.

That doesn't really discuss the details per se, but the tone and feel of the genre, at least.

 

[Voadam]

Both have lots of drow as bad guys.

 

[Magic Slim]

How does Dragonlance fit into that comparison?

Slim

 

[Enkhidu]

How does Dragonlance fit into that comparison?

Slim

It really doesn't, because Krynn was a world that was designed specifically to be the backdrop of its own stories. In the Dragonlance case, the world was created specifically as an afterthought to the modules/books that TSR produced.

On the other hand, Greyhawk was a hodgepodge of ideas that expanded as EGG created more gaming material - and Gary has said in the past that his idea of fantasy was much more influenced by the likes of Leiber and Vance than Tolkein. Meanwhile, Ed Greenwood (IIRC) has said that the Realams were actually the collected backdrop of short stories he'd been writing even before he got into gaming, and was later heavily affected by gaming.

 

[billd91]

Both have lots of drow as bad guys.

Both have Drow, yes, but there's a difference in frequency. Largely through the popularity of the Drizz't books, Drow seem to be a dime a dozen in FR. In GH, they're considerably less prevalent in the source material and modules.

There may be superficial similarities between the settings, but after you scratch the surface, you begin to see how they differ pretty quickly. For example, Waterdeep is a true metopolis of enormous size (I can't even remember how big it is). Greyhawk is a more medival-style metropolis of 69,000, swollen by war refugees (that's how it got bigger in 3E compared to earlier editions, it absorbed refugees from the Greyhawk Wars). Wizards generally rule Waterdeep, Greyhawk is ruled by thieves. And so on.
FR may have the Harpers as a secretive cabal of do-gooders. GH has the Circle of Eight as a major secret society, but dedicated more to neutrality and stability than to specifically countering evil.
They may both have pantheons that are hodge-podges of overlapping gods, but in GH, overlapping gods may be from different human cultures and have subtle differences with each other. FR doesn't seem to have much of that.
Zagyg may be a nutball wizard (now demigod) who created a strange dungeon like the Undermountain thing, but as far as most players are concerned, that dungeon might as well by mythical. Aside from Gygax's writings about it as an early testing ground for the game, nobody except him and Rob Kuntz has anything on it. It's almost an urban legend of gaming. Everyone knows about it, knows stories about it, has never experienced it. As such, I really don't consider it a significant correlate with FR any more than any other individual DM's dungeons within GH.

The way I see it, there may be these superficial similarities, but it's the distinctions in the details that have us preferring one setting over the other.

 

[jester47]

Both have an organisation of evil bad guys that are human based and wear red and live far away: The Red Wizards of Thay, and the Scarlet Brotherhood (that is to say, I am not sure if the Scarlet Brotherhood actually wears scarlet, but they both are bad and reference the same color in the name)

Iuz is more equivalent to Velarshoon (or however you pronounce it). Both are demigods with undead connections.

Anarouch and the Bright Desert- While both are thier own thing, bot are essentially "created" by some sort of magical catastrophy or agency. The bright desert was either created by Vecna or by one of the magic using civs in the area messing up.

I think the Zhentarim really stands on its own. I cannot think of another large trading power group in Greyhawk that really fits them structurally. I am sure there is one but I cannot think of it now.

But I think the tropes of swords and sorcery are:

Evil wizards wear red.
A pantheistic system of religion.
A big deep dungeon.
A big(or at least really important) city.
A really big and powerful wizard that meddles.
The insane mage tied to the really big dungeon.
A Mysterious Desert created by magic.

All of which can be found in Vance, Moorcock and Leiber.

Aaron.

 

[Wombat]

Both are Very High Magic.

Both are Very Multi-racial.

Both have Nations That Border On Each Other That Have No Influence On The Society Next Door.

Both have Very Odd Geography.

Both have Very Long Histories That Everyone Seems To Remember.

Okay, okay, I'm not a fan of either, but the same can be said for 95% of prepackaged settings -- I just hate playing in someone else's world.

But for those of you who do like them, I am also very happy for you.

The idea is to have fun, not to prove that Setting A or Setting B is superior.

 

[grodog]

Greyhawk is darn huge, according to the city of greyhawk boxed set. There wasn't any scale on the poster map that I can remember. There was a typo in the description section of the book that referred to the main road as being a mile WIDE. They meant long, probably, because it stretched across most of the map, but it was only about a centimeter wide. If the map was to-scale, and you take that description literally (being 8 or 9 at the time, I was wont to do so), whoa.

Actually, the original Darlene maps from the 1980 folio, 1983 box set, and 1992 From the Ashes box sets were 10 leagues/30 miles to the hex.