D&D General Greyhawk: Snarf's Guide to Ready-Made Campaign Themes!

[Zeromaru X]

I suppose the Good alignment could also include “be nice”, and being mean makes you no longer Good aligned, and if everyone could just sit down and talk things through everyone who is Good would be polite and have no disagreements?

Human spectrum in the real life is way more complex than that. Our reality is not fixed by absolute cosmic forces that determine what is good and what is not.

Using real life as an example is not accurate, therefore. Alignments are more like computer commands: it's either a 1 or a 0. You are either good or neutral or evil. Each has three flavors, but good and evil don't blend (there is no "Evil Good" alignment).

Or at least, that's how I understand it works. Otherwise, it makes no sense to have alignments as cosmic forces if you can cherry pick between shades of gray.

So, in your example, that people isn't good. At best, they would be neutral. Or evil claiming to be good (did they pick the fight because they were unable to agree, or because they wanted to piss of the others?)

They are all themes that are strongly present in the 1e boxed set though.

Well, since you were selling it as one of the main highlights of the setting, I thought it had something unique.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The big uniques of Greyhawk are things like:

Scarlet Brotherhood political behind the scenes manipulator evil monks.

Iuz - evil demonic demigod open ruler of an expanding empire.

Wastri - demigod of a human ethnic racial purity and hatred of demihumanoids but also a swamp and frog aspect and lives in the world.

Zagyg - ascended mage demigod of chaos magic.

First, I will quote myself as to Why Greyhawk?

Greyhawk is D&D before people thought they needed to color within the lines. Greyhawk is D&D your way. It's the infinite multiverse and crashed spaceships, it's ninja nazi monks and demon-possessed emperors, it's endless black ice and dead civilizations blasted by colorless fire.

It's a mechanical bejeweled songbird from two millennia ago with powers that amaze and terrify, and an ancient computer designed by a long-ago Baron driven insane by his creation. It's a dark nameless god dreaming within a crystalline cyst, and demi-gods raised from the ranks of mere mortal adventurers.

It's a land that contains both the hospitable and brave free people of the Yeomanry who regularly elect their leaders from amongst their ranks, as well as the infamy of Vlek, the Stonefist, who acquired power through the slaughter of the Coltens Feodality under cover of negotiation.

I would add to your comment the following- in addition to the themes I outlined in the original post, and your excellent additions, I would say that the true strengths of Greyhawk are as follows:

1. If run as the Boxed Set/Folio/DMG (from what we understand) version, it truly is a setting that provides scaffolding and some hooks, but otherwise is canvas that every table will paint differently.

2. It has a lot of different "genre options" (you've mentioned many of them, such as fantasy Pirates and fantasy Vikings). It also has a middle-eastern tinged area, which may be a plus for some, in addition to the standard more "Western" tropes.

3. The politics and political systems are truly diverse! Greyhawk is notable not for the monarchies, but for the wild diversity of government types- rule by clergy (e.g., Almor), anarchic chiefs (e.g., Bandit Kingdoms), hereditary principalities (e.g., Bissel), an individual elected from the gentry (e.g., Dyvers), an individual elected by the people from the nobility (e.g., Gran March), an individual chosen by the oligarchs (e.g., City of Greyhawk), a freely elected individual (Highfolk- free town), a Magocracy of multiple wizards (Spindrift Isles) or a single wizard (Valley of the Mage), or a ... kind of Republican form of government formed of free citizens (Yeomanry), autocrats who seize power and rule with terror (VLEK!), Demigods (Iuz) ... etc. It's not just your standard, "Let's go meet the King" kinda place.

4. The gods are unique to Greyhawk. Whether you use the long prior list, or the shortened DMG list, you are getting some new gods. Plus, as I already wrote, the barriers between mortals and deities seems more porous in Greyhawk.

5. Greyhawk truly emphasizes that the present is not as advanced as the past. The artifacts and relics include machines and giant robots and mechanical songbirds, and, of course, the magical powers seem lesser than they were (RAIN OF COLORLESS FIRE!!!!). There is something fascinating about a fantasy setting where it's not just stasis, but actual decline.

6. Greyhawk is just the Flaeness, which is one part of the continent of Oerik. There is an entire rest of the world for tables to make their own.

 

[fuindordm]

I felt like putting down a few musimgs on the flavors of active neutrality.

1. Cosmic neutrality. Some over-deity like Ao in the FR wants a balanced pantheon and might take steps to adjust the balance.
2. Humanist neutrality. Moorcock's law vs chaos dichotomy, and civilization only flourishes when neither dominates.
3. Selfish neutrality. Mordenkainen et al. aren't interested in cosmic balance. They want there to be just enough conflict so that kings and emperors stay out of their way. The same could be said of Vance's Ioconnu and Rhialto.
4. Primal neutrality. We will worship like the druids, drinking strange fermented fluids, and it's good enough for me! The greater good is when nature is dominant and civilization.struggles.

Greyhawk clearly has #3 and #4. I'm not sure about #1 or #2. Any loremasters want to step in?

 

[fuindordm]

From Snarf:

Greyhawk truly emphasizes that the present is not as advanced as the past. The artifacts and relics include machines and giant robots and mechanical songbirds, and, of course, the magical powers seem lesser than they were (RAIN OF COLORLESS FIRE!!!!). There is something fascinating about a fantasy setting where it's not just stasis, but actual decline.

A corollary of this assumption that I like a lot in AD&D is that wizards are essentially greedy scavengers of secrets they don't fully understand. Even the ones who manage to invent their own spells or enchant items are just piecing together makeshift solutions, not exploiting first principles.

It's a very Dying Earth vibe, if you lean into it.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

2. Humanist neutrality. Moorcock's law vs chaos dichotomy, and civilization only flourishes when neither dominates.
3. Selfish neutrality. Mordenkainen et al. aren't interested in cosmic balance. They want there to be just enough conflict so that kings and emperors stay out of their way. The same could be said of Vance's Ioconnu and Rhialto.


Greyhawk clearly has #3 and #4. I'm not sure about #1 or #2. Any loremasters want to step in?

Well, I would say first that the actual "lore" isn't that extensive, and is mostly for the table to fill in.

But I would argue that Gygax was influenced both by 2 and 3 (and 4 is definitely inferred from the Druids).

The trouble, of course, is that AD&D expanded from the Law/Chaos to the nine alignment system. But I think if you view it not just in the Moorcockian (ahem) way, but also similar to the way it was presented in Babylon 5 with the Vorlons and the Shadows...

Where law can resemble good, and chaos has the destructive element of evil, but you don't want either to dominate because neither should. You need both law and chaos. And arguably, from a Manichean point of view, good without evil isn't great either.

Evil will always be needed, because good is dumb.
-Abraham Lincoln.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Evil will always be needed, because good is dumb.
-Abraham Lincoln.

I highly disagree with this. Good can be competent as well. In fact, I think that "dumb good" is actually incompetent Evil in disguise.

But well, this is one of the many reasons I dislike Planescape.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I highly disagree with this. Good can be competent as well. In fact, I think that "dumb good" is actually incompetent Evil in disguise.

But well, this is one of the many reasons I dislike Planescape.

....uh....

 

[Zeromaru X]

....uh....
View attachment 382829

Says the guy who got defeated by the good guys...

 

[payn]

Says the guy who got defeated by the good guys...

 

[TwiceBorn2]

How the Greyhawk isolationist elves are different from the Forgotten Realms isolationist elves and from the Dragonlance isolationist elves? I mean, you are saying this is one of the highlights of Greyhawk, but in my PoV this an already used to boringness trope.

To be fair though, both the 1980 Greyhawk Folio and 1983 boxed set were published before any Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance product. If isolationist elves are a boring trope, it may be because they were replicated in many other D&D settings that came after (and were more detailed than) Greyhawk. And, let's face it, the trope has its roots in Tolkien.

How different are isolationist elves from setting to setting? However different the DM decides to make them...

Truth is, they really don't need to be all that different. They just need to be sufficiently interesting for a DM and players to want to do something with them, regardless of setting. That said, I can fully appreciate why you might want to leave that trope behind in your campaign. It's been the "classic fantasy default" for quite some time, and there's nothing wrong with shaking things up a bit.

If Greyhawk doesn't appeal to you, the good news is you have the liberty to make your own setting and elvish nations from scratch (or to strip your setting of elves altogether), or to use or borrow from the hundreds of other settings in existence.

But you already knew that...