D&D General Greyhawk setting material

[Greg K]

Out of the box suggestion: check out the 3E Deities & Demigods, where the Greyhawk pantheon and cosmology gets detailed pretty heavily. 1E Deities & Demigods might be good for that, too, bit I like James Wyatt's take.

The Greyhawk Deities were not in the 1e Deities & Demi-Gods. Gary's Greyhawk Deites were, originally, in Dragon Magazine issues 64, 68-71 and later collected in the Box set as I recall.

In addition, there were the Roger E Moore Articles on demi-human deities (Dragon Magazine 58-63) and Lenard Lakofka's Suel Pantheon (Dragon Magazine issues 86-90) if one wants to include them.

 

[David Howery]

seems like it would depend some on whether the players are experienced with GH or not too. If they've been in older versions of GH, then suddenly adding in all the new stuff might be jarring. If they are all new to it, then no one's the wiser....

 

[Coroc]

If you're going to run a 5E campaign set in GH.... it's going to be a labor of love, because ATM, there's nothing much official set there. It can't be ignored that most everything official about GH comes from 1E and 2E days, particularly the first boxed set and the From the Ashes one too. The DM is going to have to adjust the world as is written to the 5E standards (losing all the restrictions that used to be in place). The classes have changed, the races have changed... hell, even the magic has changed. that said, there's really no reason you can't just take the world as written and make it 5E. Tieflings and dragonborn? You can just say they've always been there. That's one thing about GH, it's bare bones description is actually useful for something like this... imagine if they hadn't continually updated the FR through all the editions, and you had to drag it from 2E to 5E....

No the DM has to do nothing of it. Yes he could do it the way you describe, but I always restrict races and classes and even combos and alignments no matter what campaign and I still call it 5e. It is stated in the DMG that you can kick out things you do not like for 5e, and that even implies rules so it certainly should go for pure fluff e.g. for your individual take on some setting . Therefore it is absolutely possible to convert Greyhawk to 5e with the fluff true to the letter with its 1e or 2e format. I did not do it that way for my campaign but I certainly not took 5 e fluff as being the new baseline.

5e is not defined by its fluff but by its mechanics

 

[Coroc]

To clarify the above and to point out why we seem to have loads of discussion on these topics:

Bound accuracy by proficiency bonus, saving throws, skills, hitpoints these are examples of 5e mechanics.

Races, classes, deities, spells, items etc. these are pure fluff.

Of course if you got a race / class/ spell / item you get additional mechanics like +2 to wis or base hd is d8 or damage of the spell or magical plus, but it does not make it a baseline rule or a core mechanic which absolutely has to apply and is essential part of the rule set for each and every game (apart from AL and even they seem to have some restrictions afaik).

 

[Hussar]

Well, the races outaide of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings are not neccesarily assumed in every setting per the PHB, and Ravnica has already set a precedent for even not includingludong Dwarves and Halflings. Greyhawk is not a place where I expect to see that emphasized more than in GoS, though, particularly given the "default Greyhawk" of 3.x getting pretty wild.

The PHB depiction of Dragonborn already has them as rare, nomadic warriors without a set place in the world. Seems pretty perfect for adventeruring in Greyhawk as a rare and special sight.

Oh, totally fair. Totally buy that as a way to add Dragonborn into the setting.

I'd point out that none of the GoS adventures have Dragonborn because all of the adventures in GoS were written before 4e, so, none of the adventures have dragonborn, of course.

It's the additional parts of GoS, that weren't detailed previously, that add more material, like tieflings.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

seems like it would depend some on whether the players are experienced with GH or not too. If they've been in older versions of GH, then suddenly adding in all the new stuff might be jarring. If they are all new to it, then no one's the wiser....

The world is vast, strange and mysterious. One could wander for a thousand years without uncovering all of it's secrets.

 

[Coroc]

The world is vast, strange and mysterious. One could wander for a thousand years without uncovering all of it's secrets.

Lol
Oh please now, that is a bit pathetic, do your players buy something like that?
P.S. do you got some evil-villain-last-speech-before-the-end-fight in that style?

Haha no offense, but you asked for it

 

[Parmandur]

Oh, totally fair. Totally buy that as a way to add Dragonborn into the setting.

I'd point out that none of the GoS adventures have Dragonborn because all of the adventures in GoS were written before 4e, so, none of the adventures have dragonborn, of course.

It's the additional parts of GoS, that weren't detailed previously, that add more material, like tieflings.

Especially the Appendix: Dragonborn sailors are just as likely as Dwarves according to the random charts.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Especially the Appendix: Dragonborn sailors are just as likely as Dwarves according to the random charts.

Dwarves are far more common, but far more averse to water travel.

 

[Parmandur]

Dwarves are far more common, but far more averse to water travel.

Maybe the Dragonborn come from over the sea.