D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Hussar]

Every single DM has their own canon. Then there's what is officially published. Thus when Gary and I DMed Greyhawk and created all its many elements for our shared campaign, published to date or not, is that not our canon? There was no "Official" at that point as you could not count our Supplement #1, Greyhawk, as it really did not detail any part of the world or its inhabitants. Consonant with "DM as Canon" is the folio release of WoGreyhawk itself which as much as channeled you to make your own canon. Greyhawk is not a canonical religion just as the original rules were not. It is an instrument for individual creative expression.

I completely agree with this.

Which, if I'm understanding rightly, means that canon arguments about "this doesn't belong in Greyhawk" really don't amount to much. Only your canon matters at your table, same as only my canon applies at my table. If WotC wants to add this or change that, it's up to the DM to decide whether to incorporate it or not.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

I completely agree with this.

Which, if I'm understanding rightly, means that canon arguments about "this doesn't belong in Greyhawk" really don't amount to much. Only your canon matters at your table, same as only my canon applies at my table. If WotC wants to add this or change that, it's up to the DM to decide whether to incorporate it or not.

Pretty much. Published works have always been optional starting with the Supplements to OD&D and never official. That was at least equal to the DIY ethic which, in turn, was forwarded with the release of WoG. Official came later with redirection to doing the creating for DMs. This allowed for picking and choosing content, just as had been done via the earlier Dragon (and later, Dungeon) magazines. Gary and I had no such choice--there were no books other than what we were creating for others to choose from, so we had to create everything, you know.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[DEFCON 1]

You all are giving wonderful examples of exactly why WotC won't actually DO a new Greyhawk setting book. Because they don't want to have to deal with all this crap about what should or shouldn't be in it.

That's why they stick with the Realms and Eberron, because both of them explicitly DO accept anything and everything and can find a place for it, without folks saying "X shouldn't be here!". So it doesn't matter what the new D&D edition has introduced that is different from the previous ones... new players and old players alike can use what they have and find a place for it.

But if older Greyhawk players can't accept the idea of the current 5E races all having a place in the setting and will fight tooth and nail over it... then why should WotC even bother? Those that want to play in Greyhawk can buy the older setting material off of DMs Guild and then bring in whatever 5E rules and mechanics they want, leaving out the rest.

 

[Coroc]

This observation is so obvious it's banal; I don't mean to be offensive, but it's a truism in the same way that, "If you don't like an edition of D&D, you don't have to play it," or "If you think the latest AP is terrible, don't buy it" is accurate.

Yes, of course the only thing that matters is what happens at your table. WoTC can pump out every Paladin in the world, and that's not going to matter to me. That's not really what most of us are discussing, however.

There are two different issues-

1. What is Greyhawk? On other words, why bother? For example, if someone said, "Hey, I love Dark Sun." And you said, "Great, they are going to publish a Dark Sun 5e. Except ... it's just going to use all the base rules. It will just have a few place names and stuff. Oh, and it will take place on a giant ocean filled with vampiric squid...." I'm guessing you'd question that, right? Or if the Eberron book was published, and they decided to make Eberron a world of low- to no-magic?

So, yes, of course people can do whatever they want in their home campaign. But there has to be some reason to publish Greyhawk. It's not like people are clamoring for another generic, flavor-less setting. We already have the FR.

2. The "home campaign" argument cuts both ways. If they release the Swords & Sorcery, humanocentric, 1983 reset Greyhawk without Dragonborn (for instance) ... guess what? No one is stopping you from putting them into your own home campaign. Because that's your canon.

See how it works? In fact, that's what made so many varieties of Greyhawk amazing! People would take that base skeleton of Greyhawk and add their OWN flourishes, instead of demanding that it be placed into the "canonical" Greyhawk.

Which, to be honest, is a much better way of doing it. I really don't want to see Greyhawk spellplaguesundered. Because that's the core of it- DIY. Give us the very basic stuff, and let a million Greyhawks flourish. But that doesn't happen when WoTC has to force-feed us all the changes just to keep up with whatever silly rules they want to introduce this year (and/or takeaway the next).

Would give you 10 upvotes for this if possible.

As I pointed out in this thread and in another about eberron people intermingle fluff with rules.

Many believe if you got new fluff e.g. dragonborn, that this makes a new rule.

And that simply is not the case. In 2e the game designers knew that. DS 2e altered some of the fluff e.g. halflings = cannibal. I wonder if these modern RP kids of today would like that if I bring a cannibal DS Halfling or thrikreen into their vanilla FR setting.

A settings feel comes mainly from its fluff, with the classic DS, Rloft, DL there were also some additional rules like psionics fear and horror checks or moon magic. But all of those add on rules were "downward compatible" to say not contradicting anything.

Where there would result contradictions the fluff was restricted. e.g. Necromancy spells working different in Ravenloft.

The goal to bring 5e into a old setting should be how to implement the rules best, e.g. bound accuracy, lesser number of high level spells for full casters etc. Not the fluff. 5e is not defined by its fluff.
And races, classes, items, spells, religions are all just fluff.

No one can argue that if I do not like longswords in my campaign, but I have instead arming swords which do 1d8 onehanded, and bastard swords which do 1d10 two handed, but are so versatile that they can be used 1 handed for 1d8 in some situations, e.g. from horseback, breaks 5e.
If I name my great sword longsword with the greatsword stats 2d6 two handed, to try to be historically accurate, no player will miss anything. Still all of this paragraph is just fluff, no rules mechanic only so far that if I add a e.g. a rubber club in my setting being a simple weapon or a baton, I have to add the mechanic stat that they do 1d4 bludgeon damage.

The same goes for all these things discussed. Adding 5e mechanics to greyhawk is not about adding dragonborn to the setting because dragonborn and (and all other races) are fluff which are totally independent of which edition you use.

 

[Parmandur]

You all are giving wonderful examples of exactly why WotC won't actually DO a new Greyhawk setting book. Because they don't want to have to deal with all this crap about what should or shouldn't be in it.

If that were true, they'd stop printing books immediately.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

See, the problem with this is, "what is canon" is a very, very slippery issue. You don't really get to pick and choose. Like it or hate it, From the Ashes IS canon. The Greyhawk Wars ARE canon. Canon simply can't be a dog whistle for "stuff I like". We shouldn't fall into the trap of picking and choosing canon based on our personal preferences because, well, there's no actual way to go forward from that. "Only the original boxed set is canon". Really? What about all the 1e modules, classes, races and whatnot added to the game after 1983? Considering the boxed set was written in 1982, would things like Forgotten Temple ofTharizdun be considered canon or not? Isle of the Ape comes out in 1985 and includes many iconic GH characters. Is it canon or not? Barbarian class? After all, that came out in Unearthed Arcana in 1985.

Well just two things about this.

1. For your homegame, you absolutely get to pick what is canon and what is not. It's your personal world after all, and the designers of D&D 5e have explicitly said that if you play a game in FR, your game is your version of FR, and doesn't need to reflect all the "canon material." So your canon (at least for D&D) can absolutely throw out what you don't like.

2. D&D (and other properties) absolutely throw out canon when it doesn't work anymore. How many times have Klingons changed how they looked? Three times? When Star Wars was sold, they literally said everything but the movies and the Clone Wars show were no longer canon.

Even D&D has "reset" it's settings. Dark Sun had a series of books that detail how four of the 11 living Sorceror Kings were killed, and a module that kills how a fifth. But in 4th edition, Dark Sun is reset to a timeline where only one (Kalak) is dead and the others are still ruling their cities, making those books and moule "un-canon."

So Wizards can absolutely throw out the Greyhawk Wars if they don't think it aligns with the "official Greyhawk" they would like to release for 5e. And therefore is perfectly legitimate to debate what material we would like to stay in Greyhawk, what we'd like thrown out, and what new elements we'd like introduced.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Don't forget there is still a open door to allow an official no-canon GH. With a right remake of the Chronomancer sourcerbook, the time spheres could show us different timelines of the D&D worlds, for example a uchrony of Dragonlance where lord Soth and (god) Raitslin are fighting each other with armies of walking dead.

Gary Gygax himself created his own reset of GH with the last novel of Gord the rogue.

I guess Hasbro's plans are to get ready the land for the settins, and later if the jump to the main media is a success then the best hired writters will suggest the changes of the metaplot.

 

[Hussar]

I'm not sure, and I could be totally wrong here, but, I'm thinking that adding an ocean with giant vampiric squid to Dark Sun is a slightly different level of change than adding Dragonborn to Greyhawk. Maybe I'm totally off base here, but, I really don't think that the change is quite that drastic.

But, yeah, @Defcon1 pretty much nails it. Why bother trying to thread the needle on a setting that's been out of print for decades? Just go with another setting and not have to deal with any of the crap.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Just make a HUGE post-setting source book for it and let people pick and choose. Make the setting material official and all the rest optional. Those who want to use the sandbox old GH can then at least use the SB material as well. Everyone gets to have their cake and eat it too.