D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Hussar]

Honestly, the big draw for Greyhawk for me is the fact that it isn't very well fleshed out. Even with all the material out there for Greyhawk, it's still very, very largely a blank slate. I mean, folks are talking about how dragonborn wouldn't fit into the setting. Why not? There are so many empty areas that you could plunk them down into that would be so easy. Pomarj works, for one. Amedio Jungle for another. Arrivals from other lands works. Or, heck, arrivals from other dimensions works as well - it's not like that's a new thing for Greyhawk. Good grief, crashed spaceship.

Adding in new races/elements to Greyhawk is just so easy. There's so much of it that no one knows anything about.

To me, that's the primary difference between GH and FR. FR is DETAILED. It is, without any hyperbole, probably the most described fantasy setting there is. Good grief, there was an old Greenwood article on the WotC site detailing the SHAPE of WINDOWS in some town in FR. That's how detailed the setting is.

GH is a much blanker slate. Even post GH Wars and whatnot, it's still largely a blank slate. I mean, here's my cut up map for Hold of the Sea Princes from the fantastic Anny M maps:


That's a HUGE area. Each of those hexes is 12 miles across. Look at the area labeled Scarlet Brotherhood. There are only 4 named settlements. In an area about 200 MILES in diameter. I live on an island in Japan that's about this size and has thousands of towns, villages and cities. A population of nearly 13 million people. That's a HUGE amount of empty canvas for an aspiring DM.

To me, it's not the "humanocentric" or "sword and sorcery" or whatever you like to call it. That's dependent on a lot of things, and, frankly can be done in a lot of other settings too. I mean, Dragonlance is Humanocentric. That's hardly unique. What is unique about GH is the fact that anyone who uses GH makes a very unique campaign because there is so little that is filled in for you. It's great.

 

[Zardnaar]

Never bought much 2E and 3E GH stuff. Just picked up bits and pieces from adventures, Dragon/Dungeon and other settings products such as Planescape/Spelljammer.

 

[Coroc]

I could not agree more than @grodnog s characterization further up it hits the spot.

dm of a ghk campaign based on the blue box year 579 I did alter the tech level a bit so you would have access to everything available in 17th century except gunpowder.

it works. I did restrict player race to human halforc halfelf gnome and tiefling but only descendants of lawful devils, because the overarching scenario is party vs iuz. The party already has acquired two parts of the ashen stuff and set off a small scale rain of the colorless fire killing some hundred orcs with that.


so what I try to point out greyhawk can be pretty epic even with the official material look up the ashen staff if you do not believe me and tell me that is sword and sorcery still.

otoh some not original races can be pretty well integrated without to much fiddling.

aka Halfords being the cliché results of rape by marauding orcs and tieflings of the lawful side the descendants of devils sent to the prime to hassle iuz

 

[Azzy]

Greyhawk Wars are 2E?

Yes, the Greyhawk Wars happened in 2e (with a board game, even). Then Carl Sergeant did his best with what he had to work with to make it palatable.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, the Greyhawk Wars happened in 2e (with a board game, even). Then Carl Sergeant did his best with what he had to work with to make it palatable.

Ah picked up the 83 boxed set a few years back in local auction site. Missed out on the FR Gray box though.

 

[Hussar]

Additionally, it's going to depend on where your campaign focuses. For example, the Greyhawk wars don't matter all that much if you are, like me, focusing more on the south - Sasserine, Saltmarsh, that sort of thing. Other than the addition of the Scarlet Brotherhood, it doesn't actually impact the setting all that much.

 

[Zardnaar]

Additionally, it's going to depend on where your campaign focuses. For example, the Greyhawk wars don't matter all that much if you are, like me, focusing more on the south - Sasserine, Saltmarsh, that sort of thing. Other than the addition of the Scarlet Brotherhood, it doesn't actually impact the setting all that much.

I liked the Paizo southern development near the Ameido jungles. Sasserine is great.

 

[David Howery]

Additionally, it's going to depend on where your campaign focuses. For example, the Greyhawk wars don't matter all that much if you are, like me, focusing more on the south - Sasserine, Saltmarsh, that sort of thing. Other than the addition of the Scarlet Brotherhood, it doesn't actually impact the setting all that much.

the last time I ran a GH campaign, it was set in the south, and I really didn't like what the Wars did to it... I didn't want the SB taking over damn near everything, I didn't want Hepmonaland to be their backwater conquest (I had it as a counterpart to Africa), I had the Amedio as an Amazon-ish place set with a lot of adventure hooks, and I didn't want the Great Kingdom all busted up, since it was the Big Bad Evil Focus for the campaign. Luckily, as has been noted previously, due to the bare bones sandbox nature of GH, it's easily possible to ignore the Wars (or, in your case, make use of it). GH has never been really dependent on tying in future releases to the extent that FR did...

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Mort]

Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

right?

My current campaign is focused on the Scarlet Brotherhood and their renewed bid for world domination.

It's pretty fun chewing the scenery as an avowed group of human supremacists (Suel first, other humans can be converted, non humans are fit for , at best, slavery). Particularly because of my 6 regular players, only one is playing a human.