Greyhawk Setting Question

[Gargauth]

Are there significant differences between the 1980 folio and the 1983 boxed set? I have the latter but not the former and am working on running Gary's best-known work in the context for which they were designed. Is there any reason at all to pay $25 or so for the 1980 folio? Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

[Jupp]

The boxed set is the fleshed out and enhanced version of the folio. It is by the same author and has been created after the initial first success of the folio. You have more content in the boxed set than in the folio so, except for a collector, there is no real sense in buying the folio when you already own the boxed set.

 

[Gargauth]

That's what I suspected but just wasn't sure... thanks for the verification.

 

[Voadam]

I owned and played in Greyhawk from the boxed set in the 80s. My brother in law gave me the folio a year or so ago and I'm currently reading it cover to cover.

It seems a little more easily digestible version for detailing the kingdoms of the setting. It does not detail any gods except for references to Zagyg and Iuz in Greyhawk and Iuz entries and does not even define some terms used like olvenfolk or euroz. The migrations of racial groups and history of disintegration of the Great Kingdom seemed much clearer to me reading this than it did in the 83 boxed set or the 3e Living Greyhawk Gazeteer. The conciseness of the country descriptions helps.

It has some small art pieces that I don't remember in the boxed set.

I found the map runes are as irrelevant an inclusion here as they are in the boxed set.

I have not compared the country and city populations to see if there are differences.

 

[grodog]

If you plan to play ToEE, the map runes from the folio are needed to read the runes at the Temple (the runes in the box set differ substantially from the folio).

From a physical production stand-point, the maps in the folio are superior, being both larger and on better-quality paper. Otherwise, no big difference there.

Otherwise, the box set offers more information (names of rulers, random encounter charts, gods info as already mentioned) and expands upon materials from the folio. There are some subtle differences in individual entries in the folio vs. the box set, but they're pretty meaningless to anyone but a GH researcher and have little-to-no impact on game play