D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Coroc]

And again people @Remathilis intermingle fluff with rules. Dragonborn are fluff, they are not fixed 5e mechanical rules, there is nowhere in the PHB or DMG that they have to be part of a standard (vanilla) D&D setting. On contraire, like @lowkey13 pointed out, it is stated they are purely optional.

And people @Hussar intermingle profit interests, modern mindset and old grognards wishes about how to handle their favourite classic setting. When I read all the posts in this and other threads and count the posts pro modern approach aka make greyhawk another generic kitchen sink like FR and the posts that counter it, then I roughly guess it is 50:50 .
But the people who are contra to the kitchen sink option are mostly the people who actually use this setting and playing their campaigns in it. That is at least my impression. So why would you cater to the others who are not the people who use this setting? From an economical point of view, that is as stupid as it can be:

The people who do not use the setting yet will either not buy any new material on it no matter if it contains dragonborn - which seems to be a major coax to acquire new material - except for magic (Ravnica) where for some reason (unknown to me) all the inclusive / no fantasy racism etc yadda does not apply. OR those potential customers will buy it because they are interested in it, because it is something new (like Ravnica) no matter what races are in it.

The people who do use the setting will eventually not buy the new stuff because they hate that their setting is altered in a way they do not like. Eventually they will buy it and mod it to their needs but chances are slim.

IMHO wizards should rather not opt to bring out anything greyhawk other than in the form of some adventures, like GoS. Because of the reasons I gave above, the number of customers would be slim, compared to some other stuff, aka eberron or some new FR stuff.

 

[Coroc]

The thing is, in 5E, it seems the intention is to reskin PHB races to fit the worlds, not ban them entirely.

A 5E Dragonlance would have reskinned halflings (kender) and dragonborn (draconians), half-orcs (some variety of ogres), aasimar (irda, most likely). Mystara, tabaxi (rakasta), Dark Sun, dragonborn (dray), goliath (half-giant) etc.

Then what about Ravnica? What is so special that all these principles do not apply here?

You can reskin Halforcs to Muls for Darksun.

Playing a draconian in DL is like playing an orc in Lord of the Rings.

If the reskin dragonborn as Dray, making them a bit like lizardmen, and leave out anything referring to a dragon for DS that would be acceptable.

A halfgiant is a real problem in 5e because of the bound accuracy and attribute range.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Playing a draconian in DL is like playing an orc in Lord of the Rings.

Something tells me you are out of touch with Dragonlance since the 80s. The 4E Dragonborn are very heavily influenced by the depictions of Draconians in Dragonlance from at least the late 90s onwards.

 

[Coroc]

Something tells me you are out of touch with Dragonlance since the 80s. The 4E Dragonborn are very heavily influenced by the depictions of Draconians in Dragonlance from at least the late 90s onwards.

Yep you are right I am out of touch with DL and I did never play 4th ed.

Do you know council of wyrms? They had halfdragons, a something similar approach. But you also could play dragons, whereas it was always a combo of a dragon and some demihuman who is a kind of "familiar" to the dragon and who could dungeoncrawl the spaces to confined for a dragon w/o humanoid shapechange.

 

[Hussar]

LOL, well, what WotC does really doesn't affect my games or my interest in Greyhawk in general, so from that POV I'm fine: I learned that lesson long ago with WG7's version of Castle Greyhawk I did pick up the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book a couple of weeks ago from my FLGS, and while I haven't read it in depht yet, it does look like it adds some worthwhile info/details to that region of Greyhawk.



Despite my love for the work done by Gary and Rob, I'm not in that camp: I like good, new, worthwhile material that treats the setting's history with respect, and builds out Greyhawk with new NPCs, foes, plots, magics, etc.---I need another rehash of the Giants/Drow or Slavers or Tomb of Horrors modules about as much as I need another version of the Death Star in the next Star Wars movie.

In my Greyhawk campaigns, I've used materials from all across its publishing eras---from Carl Sargent's From the Ashes to @Rob Kuntz 's Maze of Zayene and Bottle City adventures; I've lifted ideas and modules from the FR, the Known World, and many non-TSR publications as gaming needs and player interest dictate. If WotC can produce new content that's cool and grounded in the setting, I'm all for it; if they produce crap like much of the RPGA-rebranded dross from the 2e era, then I'll ignore it. (And I'd certainly love to see an expanded Maure Castle filled out in full, for example!).

Does that answer your Q @Hussar ?

Allan.

Pretty much. That's how I view the Greyhawk as well. Canon for canon's sake just never really appealed to me too much.

 

[Hussar]

Umm, @Coroc, I've been running games in Greyhawk, off and on, for about thirty years or so. I'm not sure why you seem to think that those of us who don't enshrine canon are not actually playing in Greyhawk. I mean, good grief, that's @grodog in this thread. He's forgotten more about Greyhawk than I'll ever know, and even he isn't having too much of a problem with the notion of adding dragonborn.

So, no, it's not about turning Greyhawk "generic". If adding a single PC race to the game breaks the setting for you, then there are other issues here than just a single race being added.

IMHO wizards should rather not opt to bring out anything greyhawk other than in the form of some adventures, like GoS. Because of the reasons I gave above, the number of customers would be slim, compared to some other stuff, aka eberron or some new FR stuff.

In other words, you'd rather see the setting get shelved and gather dust than actually be revitalized. Just keeping it in it's precious glass bottle so a couple of fans never have to deal with a new idea is better than actually having an updated setting.

Well, it's certainly worked up to now. Give it another couple of years or so and those of us who actually like the setting will die off and that will be the end of that.

 

[Coroc]

Umm, @Coroc, I've been running games in Greyhawk, off and on, for about thirty years or so. I'm not sure why you seem to think that those of us who don't enshrine canon are not actually playing in Greyhawk. I mean, good grief, that's @grodog in this thread. He's forgotten more about Greyhawk than I'll ever know, and even he isn't having too much of a problem with the notion of adding dragonborn.

So, no, it's not about turning Greyhawk "generic". If adding a single PC race to the game breaks the setting for you, then there are other issues here than just a single race being added.



In other words, you'd rather see the setting get shelved and gather dust than actually be revitalized. Just keeping it in it's precious glass bottle so a couple of fans never have to deal with a new idea is better than actually having an updated setting.

Well, it's certainly worked up to now. Give it another couple of years or so and those of us who actually like the setting will die off and that will be the end of that.

Sorry I did not want to generalize, and of course it does not break the setting to add some uncommon new race, but it does also break nothing to leave them out since these are optional per PHB anyway or did I overlook something?
And if it is such a must to have them in Greyhawk then why is it not the least problem to leave them out in Ravnica whith its odd races where it would fit much better fluffwise? Perhaps you @Hussar can give me an answer on that everybody else does not seem to have one.

And yes for my part I have got enough greyhawk material and I also love and use @grodog stuff so I really do not need a reshape or rebirth since I can convert to new issues quite well, which is tbh just a matter of mechanics and not fluff(aka classes races spells deities items). The fluff I do houserule rigorously if I have to, and my players did not object much to it.

And your last sentence does sound really depressing, I am quite already quite old also but I do not think about dying off so soon. I hope you are alright, see if you are 60 statistically you got better chances getting to 80 than a 20 year old. And the other thing people seem to miss out is that you only can live in the presence. You can have fond or not so fond memories of the past and plan a little for the future but you live in every moment and only that does count in the end.

Some people say "oh if I were still twenty then ... " but consider this you can be overrun by a bus whether you are 20 or 80 and having e.g. prostate cancer with 20 is a death sentence whereas at 70 it is most often just a nuisance (because of cell growth)

 

[Son of the Serpent]

@Hussar imo the trick with older settings is to add new things that seem like they have a natural way of popping up there (like gh adjacent things or things that were involved in events that had a tie in to gh) as that would revitalize it while maintaining its gh flavor. Its sort of something i wish they would do more on both ends when it comes to some settings. Its a balancing act, sure but it makes the setting new while robust and not just bloated.

 

[Hussar]

Sorry I did not want to generalize, and of course it does not break the setting to add some uncommon new race, but it does also break nothing to leave them out since these are optional per PHB anyway or did I overlook something?
And if it is such a must to have them in Greyhawk then why is it not the least problem to leave them out in Ravnica whith its odd races where it would fit much better fluffwise? Perhaps you @Hussar can give me an answer on that everybody else does not seem to have one.

Honestly, I know virtually nothing about Ravnika, nor do I care. AFAIC, it's a red herring and a total non sequitur. Whether some element fits or does not fit in one setting has zero bearing as to whether that exact same element does or does not fit in another setting. The only reason it keeps being brought up is to confuse and cloud the issue. It simply does not matter one whit.

Would it have broken Ravnica to add dragonborn? I dunno. Who cares? Is there some tie to Greyhawk from Ravnika that I'm unaware of? Some point of comparison?

Is Ravnika the second most popular D&D setting out there? Is it one of the most requested settings in the history of the game? Is it the baseline for an entire edition? No? Then why do you keep bringing it up? Who cares?

 

[Azzy]

No I'm saying one system crashed and burned and the game designers know it.

This is why we have 5E. I'm not expecting wonders from 5E Darksun but I bet it will be better recieved.

That's a goalpost shift if ever there was one.