D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Parmandur]

I have a (non spoilery) question about GoS: Is it a 5E retelling of the original 1E trilogy, a completely new adventure involving the same area, a retelling with more stuff added in, or what?

I have a (non spoilery) question about GoS: Is it a 5E retelling of the original 1E trilogy, a completely new adventure involving the same area, a retelling with more stuff added in, or what?

As was said above, the main body is exact reprints of the old modules transferred to 5E rules with a few minor edits. There is an added regional sandbox Gazeeter to provide context, and rules in an appendix for generating an extended seafaring campaign.

 

[Hussar]

Nope, they are just for Greyhawk, but the maps have non-standard orientations, to the great delight of @Hussar ...

ROTFLMAO.

I have to admit, that was, bar none, the most bizarre argument I have ever had on En World and I've had some really weird ones. Just mind blowing. Funny as hell now.

 

[Parmandur]

ROTFLMAO.

I have to admit, that was, bar none, the most bizarre argument I have ever had on En World and I've had some really weird ones. Just mind blowing. Funny as hell now.

I mean, I saw your point: there was something in the air at the time, and it just kept escalating.

 

[MockingBird]

There was a huge, protracted argument on the board about this:

The town map on page 15 it oriented with East on top, with North to the left.

The region map on page 23 is oriented with West on top, with North to the right.

This seems related to the maps originally provided with U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh being fleshed out, and page sizes

I vaguely remember that thread. I didnt follow it that closely since I wasnt familiar with Greyhawk or Saltmarsh at that time. Thing I may go dig through it now lol.

 

[MockingBird]

I promise I'm not trying to stoke the flames, but the orientation of the map shared up thread doesnt make sense with the world map I have form the GH box set. Am i missing something.

Couldn't find the original thread about the map issue and my attention was diverted by my daughter and her home work.

 

[Parmandur]

I promise I'm not trying to stoke the flames, but the orientation of the map shared up thread doesnt make sense with the world map I have form the GH box set. Am i missing something.

Couldn't find the original thread about the map issue and my attention was diverted by my daughter and her home work.

Any given map can have any orientation: they seem to have made this choice due to the West-East coastline, to maximize information in full page spreads, and the orientation of the hex map for expansion in the original module.

If you look at the regional map in Ghosts of Saltmarsh ,however, do note the hexes, and compare to Southwest Keoland in the box set map. It lines up.

 

[Azzy]

Any given map can have any orientation: they seem to have made this choice due to the West-East coastline, to maximize information in full page spreads, and the orientation of the hex map for expansion in the original module.

That's heresy, though. You can't have it any other way than North at the top. To do otherwise invites the inquisition.

 

[Hussar]

That's heresy, though. You can't have it any other way than North at the top. To do otherwise invites the inquisition.

Wow, getting spanked really bothers you huh? All I actually said in the other thread was that it was annoying when RPG publishers put out maps that weren't oriented north to the top. For some reason, folks took great offense to this and chose to spend pages telling me how wrong I was to have this opinion.

@MockingBird here's the location in Keoland:

You'll note that now the map lines up with Saltmarsh - the river runs north and the various locations are east and west.

 

[Coroc]

..... <snip>

* Today GH and Dragonlance are too "frozen", while FR is dinamic and with enough space for secondary characters who haven't to save the world. A "frozen" D&D world is nice to be visited, but the PCs can't "touch the furnitures", but in FR the players can "handle" all the stage. But a dynamic world also means the risk of a "jump the shark" effect, a change any players don't like.

* The "twin worlds" of Oerth could be used as spin-off and points of origin of new ideas.
...
<snip>

First, your ideas what to do with GH are nice, each for itself, except why do you want to make twin world of it? We had that with FR Abeir / Toril it only created a lot of confusion.

Second Luckily these are frozen and tbh I hope no new material is brought out for both of them because:

You cannot adapt the Greyhawk feel to modern FR expectations. Greyhawk is more grim and politically incorrect and has some pulp style humor.

There is more than enough 1e/2e/3e material to construct GH campaigns from. But even back then and the more with 5e GH absolutely requires a DM to do a lot of stuff himself. Practically none of the official material was anyhow fit to play as it is, you absolutely had to and have to tailor around a lot of stuff.

Otoh you can totally play a campaign in GH which goal is not save the world, whereas in DL it is like you say:

With DL the only interesting timeline is the war of the lance, you either play the heroes of the lance or some group replacing them that is imho THE topic, clou, crux, whatever of that campaign world. Everything else which comes after that is pretty boring. The difference between GH and DL is that in GH e.g. Iuz can serve as a Nemesis but will never be likely totally defeated (Not even the original circle of eight could do it so), whereas in DL Takishis aka Tiamat is supposed to be the end boss and, with the help of dragonlances and other high powered stuff to be defeted . After that nothing remains to be done in the DL world anymore.

 

[Coroc]

I am thinking... if the famous vampire Stran von Zarovich is from Barovia... what if the original Barovia in the material plane is in the planet Uerth? We could create a campaign about a second grand conjuction in the demiplane of dread, and lots of refugees arriving from the demiplane, with some "spoiled apples" among them. And with lots of supernatural factions (vampire clans, werebeast tribes, mage guilds, fey courts)..

* I don't want a "jump the shark" like the 5th age of Dragonlance, but if they are not changes in the metaplot of the D&D worlds, these will become "souvenir snow globes".

Strahd is from Barovia, prime Barovia is in the Forgotten realms somewhere in the center (You won't find it on many official FR maps though but there are some sources placing it there) I read about that on the Fraternity of Shadows page, which is the source for Ravenloft Lore and other things.

Some other vampire domain lord who was pretty much one of the first in RLoft is from GH though I cannot recall which one right now.

Azalin originates in GH too.