D&D General Greyhawk Humanocentricism?

[TwoSix]

They also downscaled for later editions.

Yea, they've never quite nailed it to my satisfaction. It went from bigger than Asia in the original book to only being about Europe size; I tend to picture it as somewhere in-between.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yea, they don't really matter in play, exactly. But I'm a math guy, and numbers draw images and concepts for me just like words do. Contradictory numbers hinder my ability to imagine the world and create the fiction for play.

Sure, and I certainly noticed that Eberron numbers made no sense. I just think that no numbers is better than misleading numbers.

 

[TwoSix]

Sure, and I certainly noticed that Eberron numbers made no sense. I just think that no numbers is better than misleading numbers.

I would agree with that. If they never mentioned population numbers, it would be easy for me to make it up to my own satisfaction.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The premise for the plot in the FR wiki seems appealing. A pair of tieflings and a dragonborn and some fiendish pacts thrown in the mix, what could go wrong?!
Some light December reading and there are 5 sequels

Unfortunately, I think it is no longer on print. I tried to get it for my son and the cost was prohibitive.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Both are good stories. In my homebrew all dragonborn come from an underground community accidentally destroyed by a magical catastrophe (side effect of a past heroes actions), and now they have founded a new community in the surface as refugees.

That's pretty awesome! I love that idea.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Just saw your edit.
I liked the idea in some of the AP's I purchased where WotC offered locations/ideas for setting the AP on different D&D worlds, so I'm a fan of offering but funny enough I'm also a fan of excluding as it gives that setting a cute quirk.
It likely because I'm a forever DM, that if I get the chance to play (and the DM is committed), I can play anything, whatever the restrictions, and have fun. I also play with mates so my outlooked is maybe biased.

Excluding can be fine--done in moderation or with a clear, specific artistic vision.

"Imitate Tolkien because it's what everybody does" is neither of those things. Like, explicitly so. It's lamely borrowing the artistic vision of someone else without any of the effort that person did, and it's doing it without moderation in the first place, but for pretty blatantly immoderate reasons, following the crowd. (Note, here, I am speaking more of homebrew/custom campaigns rather than products per se, but new products have a very grating tendency to hew far too closely to tradition, especially with 5e and its tradition-above-all mantra.)

 

[MGibster]

Well, the math shows that there are 4.89 humans or demi-humans per square mile.

To put this in perspective, here in the United States we have a population density of 98 people per square freedom unit. In Canada the population density is 11 people per square freedom unit (I assume it's lower because of Yeti attacks). There's a lot of empty space in both the United States and Canada and apparently even more in Flanaess.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It should be noted that Tolkien didn't hew to tradition when he was tossing around tall, sexy fey daoine sidhe and calling them elves, inventing orcs and hobbits, dredging up the ancient myths of werebears that hadn't been used for decades, and making Old Man Angels.

Also, where are my playable Old Man Angels?

 

[Zeromaru X]

People like what they like, right?

Sorry I forgot to answer your quote.

And yes, people like what they like, and that is ok. However, Greyhawk is supposed to be something intended for everyone, and that includes people with different tastes than ours. And Greyhawk needs to accommodate for all of these tastes.

So, while it should remain faithful to its roots, it also needs to allow for the introduction of the new options that have appeared in the game for the last 50 years. It's a balance that is hard to get, specially with the current approach of WotC of not providing enough lore for the basic stuff.

And there is when we find our issue: there is people who doesn't want the setting to be adapted to the new lore of D&D. Part of the blame falls on WotC, they have been known for not caring about the inner consistency and continuity of their settings (see Forgotten Realms), and that may alienate some people. But in most cases, there is people opposed to the addition of modern elements just because they don't want them. Or, more to the point, they oppose to the addition of new, seemingly "original, unorthodox" elements (the dragonborn being the prime example of this), but won't object if an old-school element is added to the setting, despite if this element changes stuff in the process (my example of fruit elves replacing the Yeomanry).

And, well, Greyhawk is for everyone, not just for a few people who were lucky enough to have been born just in time to enjoy the early years of the hobby and feel entitled to some sort of exclusivity.

My own opinion is that both paradyms should coexist. New elements should be given the option to be added, without replacing old elements (unless there is a narrative reason for it).

 

[Demetrios1453]

Typical European middle ages would be 20 people square mile. If you only take Britain though it gets down to 5 or 6 per square mile.

That's really low, unless you're talking about the Dark Ages. The population of England in 1086, at the time of the Domesday Book, was 1.5 million. England is almost exactly 50,000 square miles, so that's 30 people per square mile at that point. By 1300 (after 200 years of a good, warm, stable climate that allowed populations to boom), the population had grown to 4 to 5 million, which amounts to 80 to 100 people per square mile, before the Little Ice Age and the Black Death dropped the population significantly (but not anywhere near the 1086 level). France is similar, with about 50 people per square mile in 1100, and 100 by 1300.