D&D 5E Greyhawk: Pitching the Reboot

[werecorpse]

For years nations pursued their personal and myopic agendas of power. Rel Mord politics was more about who would be sovereign while the Theocracy and the Urnst entities undermined Nyronds power. The silent ones of Keoland supported their nation against their rival nations only rarely focussing on the darkness beneath the Hellfurnaces. Yes Greyhawk battled against orcs from the Pomarj but always with an eye on it’s mercantile rivalry with Dyvers. When the Scarlet Brotherhood or Iuz rose in power or The Monstosity took the Malachite Throne these were too often other people’s problems.

Heroes seemed to arise from out of nowhere to battle these great evils, they defeated the plans of arch liches, destroyed demon queens as they broke loose from their bindings, recovered Raosih artifacts to allow fiendish armies to be decimated, kept fast the gates holding back Tharizdun, thwarted the plans of spider gods, ended the reigns of nascent elder evils before they had begun. The kings and queens of the Flanaess had begun to subconsciously rely on the rising up of heroes as if such thing were a natural law of opposition to the great evils that might plague the world.

Such was not the case. There was no “natural law”. It took a great and magical mind to see the fallow ground wherein the seeds of evil would grow. To, from the shadows, nurture and test the mettle of adventurers. To ruthlessly allow some to break against lesser foes so that they would not be those called upon to battle against the dangers most vile. Then to step out of the shadows to provide the advice that would hurl the surviving shining gems into the furnaces of evil knowing they would snuff out the evil while cracking and crumbling themselves. One who saw the utter ruin of truly good heroes as a worthwhile necessity to keep the world in balance.

But now Mordenkainen is truly dead. Some say he is no more yet others declare he exists in another realm one where the future of Oerth is no longer his concern. Either way he is gone. His hand rested lightly on the tiller of fate for decades if not centuries. Now the path is unclear.

 

[Helldritch]

I tend to concur with the GoT mixed with the Witcher's approach. Greyhawk tends to be a grim and unforgiving place where d'espoir is aplenty and hope is scarce. The few nations that are on the side of goodness ate few and their ressources are stretched to their limits with barely enough to keep the evil empires at bay.

Evil is everywhere but even its evil empires are fighting each others or are locked in an uneasy truce that no sides believe that it will last.

Except for the halflings which have always been working closely with the humans, most other demi-humans stay in their countries. Elves of Celene are notoriously isolationist and those of the Vesve are too caught up in their skirmishes with the Ancient (Iuz) to be seen anywhere else. Other elven kingdoms are too few in number or even more xenophobic to interact with humans Valley elves, which are closely related to the gray elves or the Lendor elves, or the few tribe's of aquatic elves comes to mind here).

The dwarves are few and far between with most of their kingdom hidden from men in mountains. They mostly rely on trusted traders and a few years might pass before the word that a Dwarven kingdom has fallen because contacts are fat between. Only Ironwall break this pattern and even then, dwarves are not often seen.

Gnomes are even rarer than the rest. The only known gnome enclave in in the Kronn hills and even then, to find them is a feat in itself...

So Greyhawk is human centric and it's greatest empire have fallen to evil and shattered as a result. The Great Kingdom is no more, many of its cities in ruins and many citadels are now defended by Animus, a perverted form of undead that keeps a semblance of life but lacks emotion save the negative ones. Undead and demons are their servants but at least, none of these undead, so far, has shown an interests in the humans surrounding their fortresses...

Although there are powerful individuals in Greyhawk, they are not as active (or do not appear to be) as powerful individuals in other settings. The players are left to themselves. Contrary to the FR and some other settings, their actions matters and they are vital for the side they will be working for, even if it is just for themselves...

 

[fearsomepirate]

I think one critical aspect of the Greyhawk setting is that characters 10th level and above are extremely rare, and quite powerful. If you meet a Fighter of 10th level, he's a lord regent, not a hired sword. This isn't scalable. You can't just use 20th level instead of 10th. Because in Greyhawk, clerics who can raise dead and wizards who can make wishes just aren't around. If you don't capture this, the setting doesn't make sense.

So, if I were rebooting the setting, it would be with an adventure to emphasize this. Instead of the traditional FR-style romp through dungeons of escalating difficulty before defeating the big boss, chapters 1-10 would be establishing the players as warlords, archmages, and the like, and chapters 11-15 would be about dealing with problems as leaders of kingdoms or holy orders or whatever, rather than increasingly powerful murderhobos.

 

[TwoSix]

Grimdark is already like, targeting an old people audience, frankly, grogs and aging edgelords. D&D is absolutely terrible at grimdark. There's no reason to engage with the politics of any of the Greyhawk nations as they're all pretty lame. This is a recipe for selling like hundreds of copies instead of thousands, let alone tens of thousands or millions. It would probably sell worse like this than catering to the ancient fans, even, though I admit not a huge amount worse.

I strongly agree with your general suggestions, but the world you outline doesn't seem one likely to attract players now, in 2021. In 2003 or something? Sure.

Gotta disagree. I don't think younger millennials and Gen Z are only drawn to brightly-drawn, escapist fantasy. I mean, we're talking about a generation where probably the biggest anime of the past five years is Attack on Titan. There's absolutely still an audience for bleaker stuff among the younger crowd.

But that's not what D&D is about or like, even slightly. D&D is inherently high-magic, and the only way around it would be to literally cut every single full-caster class from a setting, at which point, it's not really D&D.

I don't think that's necessary. I mean, the last episode of the Witcher had like 10 wizards destroy half an invading army. That's some D&D type stuff if I've ever seen it.

Likewise, Castlevania on Netflix feels very alt-Greyhawk to me (not Ravenloft-y, as one might think) despite being fairly high-magic. Supernatural evil warlords march armies of darkness against benighted human kingdoms who are led by corrupt theocrats, and only reluctantly altruistic adventurers can defeat the source of evil. Every Richter and Sypha fight scene feels like a D&D fight to me.

The setting just needs to play up that the adventurers are special, a cut above the beaten down (but still worth saving) rabble they normally encounter. Low-magic and gritty doesn't mean it has to succumb to the OSR notion that the adventurers are some random sampling of the general population who happen to walk into haunted ruins.

 

[Older Beholder]

My question would be, what does Greyhawk add?
Most of the new setting based books so far for 5E aren't just a bunch of people and places, but instead add something new that can be used in any home brew campaign.
Examples:

Ravnica = Guilds
Theros = Gods/Piety
Eberron = New races/Artificer/etc
Wildemount = Dunamancy

Ravenloft = Demiplanes

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Likewise, Castlevania on Netflix feels very alt-Greyhawk to me (not Ravenloft-y, as one might think) despite being fairly high-magic.

That seems like a very serious case of seeing what you want to see lol.

Gotta disagree. I don't think younger millennials and Gen Z are only drawn to brightly-drawn, escapist fantasy. I mean, we're talking about a generation where probably the biggest anime of the past five years is Attack on Titan. There's absolutely still an audience for bleaker stuff among the younger crowd.

Attack on Titan was a flash-in-the-pan and is definitely not the "biggest" anime of the last five years in any sense, because it's from 2013, and the flash was in what, 2014? 2015? Whenever it was that S1 hit Netflix. When S2 arrived years later, it barely even made a splash. No-one really cared.

Also, the idea that Attack on Titan isn't escapist is pretty bloody wild mate. It's extremely escapist - it doesn't deal with any emotional realities or make people think about their own lives - ironically unlike a lot of more "brightly drawn" anime. Grimdark often is extremely escapist. 40K certainly is. There's zero real or relevant or meaningful or relatable about it.

And you're talking anime? You think like, most kids today watch stuff like Attack on Titan, because mate, they don't. Attack on Titan was big with people in their 30s and 40s particularly, that's why you've heard of it. The stuff younger viewers are watching is a lot more interesting than that.

 

[Minigiant]

One idea is to have Greyhawk with optional rules to make it specifically a low-magic setting.

In other words, a section for "de-magicking" the various classes.

That might be an interesting twist, and provide more GOT vibes.

I don't think classes need to change or be demagicked to do Greyhawk. Greyhawk is more low level than low magic. The key is that most of the magic users/havers are in the crazy petty political game of nations, the crazy petty political game of nations, or avoiding both. That's the other reason (the other being fear of death and trauma), people cash out the adventuring game. So it's less that your PCs don't have magic as much as access to it puts tons of hooks in you. Playing a nonmagical PC lets you be more free in this declining world (until you reach high level).

To spice up Greyhawk, I'd instead add an Attention mechanic where the weirder and rarer the aspects of the party are, the more they get roped into "overworld" craziness that inhibits their freedom. And you'll be too low level to do anything about it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

To spice up Greyhawk, I'd instead add an Attention mechanic where the weirder and rarer the aspects of the party are, the more they get roped into "overworld" craziness that inhibits their freedom. And you'll be too low level to do anything about it.

This seems like it would be a good idea, but bloody hard to do right.

I think you'd need a really in-depth setting with a ton of hooks, and you'd need a bunch of tables to roll on to help the DM decide what form the attention took (assuming you're really trying to sell this).

 

[TwoSix]

That seems like a very serious case of seeing what you want to see lol.

It makes sense to me. The world is too sprawling to fit neatly into the trope sinkholes that define Ravenloft. The setting is VERY D&D like in its magic use. But it's too grim to fit into the Realms or Eberron. Thematically, it fits for me into a GoT/Witcher themed Greyhawk.

Attack on Titan was a flash-in-the-pan and is definitely not the "biggest" anime of the last five years in any sense, because it's from 2013, and the flash was in what, 2014? 2015? Whenever it was that S1 hit Netflix. When S2 arrived years later, it barely even made a splash. No-one really cared.

Attack on Titan Is Currently the Most Popular Show in the United States

According to a new data report, Attack on Titan is currently the most popular show in the United States.

www.cbr.com

Also, the idea that Attack on Titan isn't escapist is pretty bloody wild mate. It's extremely escapist - it doesn't deal with any emotional realities or make people think about their own lives - ironically unlike a lot of more "brightly drawn" anime. Grimdark often is extremely escapist. 40K certainly is. There's zero real or relevant or meaningful or relatable about it.

Yes, my number one choice for escapism is the world where my mom gets eaten by a 50 foot tall toddler. I think we're using different meanings for escapism. I don't see escapism and "emotional relevance" as opposite sides of a spectrum.

And you're talking anime? You think like, most kids today watch stuff like Attack on Titan, because mate, they don't. Attack on Titan was big with people in their 30s and 40s particularly, that's why you've heard of it. The stuff younger viewers are watching is a lot more interesting than that.

I'm basing this on having a 14 year old son with a group of friends who are all into anime, and all of them devoured (npi) the new seasons of AoT when they started watching it 2 years ago. Most of what I watch nowadays is based on my son's recommendations, rather than my own. I've seen too much isekai for my own good.

Purely anecdotal, but that's all any of us can offer. None of us are subject matter experts on this.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I gotta say man, I think approximately 0-10 D&D players are interested in a setting like this. Grimdark pre-war? For D&D? Are you even slightly serious?

Grimdark is already like, targeting an old people audience, frankly, grogs and aging edgelords. D&D is absolutely terrible at grimdark. There's no reason to engage with the politics of any of the Greyhawk nations as they're all pretty lame. This is a recipe for selling like hundreds of copies instead of thousands, let alone tens of thousands or millions. It would probably sell worse like this than catering to the ancient fans, even, though I admit not a huge amount worse.

The Warhammer updates/reboots by Cubicle 7 are doing really well, and those are mostly grimdark, but they are doing well because they are not D&D, though I doubt it is all men who are middle-aged or older giving them all those sales.