Agamon
Adventurer
It's the 2nd edition base set.
D&D 5E Greyhawk?
- Thread starter fjw70
- Start date
It's the 2nd edition base set.
werecorpse
Adventurer
If you google "grey in the hawk" you find a note by a greyhawk fan that I agree with about 70% ( it's a bit anti forgotten realms, just ignore that bit) - mostly I like his ideas of what should happen next.
My opinion the most appealing things about Greyhawk are:
1. Nostalgia: not just that I played there but that classic modules are set there, classic spells come from there etc
2. Room to move: not just that the countries are painted in broad strokes, there are lots of countries and power bases in close proximity to explore, some of them have detail, some of them have none. There are not a plethora of novels or supplements clogging up the landscape.
3. No active powerful forces of good: they are either evil or neutral, the PC's really have to do the heavy lifting. The reason they have to defeat the slave lords is because there is no-one else.
4. Some awesome supplements: not all of Greyhawk material is good, some stinks (castle greyhawk, puppets) but some of the stuff is awesome. Plus IMO anytime they kinda made a mess, they fixed it up.
I also like the three ages of published greyhawk:
A: before the war which is an era of adventuring, putting out spot fires, dealing with troubles at the borderlands of civilisation
B: the war and the ashes of the war which is when the lands get plunged into chaos and despair - not by some weird curse but by nations going to war
C: post war recovery when the evil has suffered pushback and the world is trying to figure out a new world order
I could happily play in or run a campaign set in any of these eras.
A long time ambition of mine has been to run a greyhawk campaign starting before the war, running through the war and ending in the new era.
Ahh Greyhawk, I await your return with anticipation
Warunsun
First Post
I would love to see the Elemental Evil adventure path set on the World of Greyhawk. It would also be nice to see another adventure set on Eberron. I thought they did establish that all these adventurers were all going to be shoehorned into the Forgotten Realms however. Since they have more or less scrambled the D&D website it is difficult to find things now.
Thaumaturge
Wandering. Not lost. (He/they)
More love for GREYHAWK!!!
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And Mystara!
You need to warn us before you post spit-take material. My screen was almost covered in adult beverage.
Thauma-hic-turge.
For me, Greyhawk is a set of maps with geography that is at least superficially plausible, some fairly generic nations/kingdoms stradding the feudal (Furyondy etc) and quasi-Byaznatine (Great Kingdom etc) and west/central-Asian (Baklun and Ket), and a relatively light but nevertheless interesting historical backstory. Plus Iuz and the Horned Society make for pretty straightforward antagonists. And the Scarlet Brotherhood gives you myseterious, sinister martial artists.
Maybe FR has most of that too, but it's not a setting that I'm very familiar with. (And it wasn't published when I got my Greyhawk Gazetteer around 1984.)
Personally I prefer Greyhawk for non-D&D fantasy RPGing - I think its set-up supports political/historical intrigue fairly well, which I think can be better handled using a system with richer skill mechanics and less of an emphasis on combat as the core of confict resolution.
EtherealWatcher
First Post
I would support Greyhawk if they made it but I prefer Forgotten Realms. I also second Ravenloft.
AntiStateQuixote
Enemy of the State
That would be perfect. I would love to see a Greyhawk sourcebook. I'd pick up Ravenloft too. Others . . . not so much, I think. I like my generic quasi-European fantasy.
Ron
Explorer
If this was any other company than WotC, I would assume Perkins is hinting a new product specifically tied to Greyhawk. Either a setting book or an adventure path. However, considering how the company have treated the setting in the last ten years, I wouldn't be surprised if he was just researching for some minor thing, such as an online article or a nod in a rule book.
That said, Mike Mearls seems to like Greyhawk and Just after the release of a new edition is the perfect time to revamp a product line in hibernation.
That said, Mike Mearls seems to like Greyhawk and Just after the release of a new edition is the perfect time to revamp a product line in hibernation.
aramis erak
Legend
Specifically, the revised boxed set for 2E. (There was an earlier black one for 2E)
thalmin
Retired game store owner
But...but...The Monster Manual disclaimer says mind flayers DON'T run the D&D design team, and that comes straight from Illithids of the Coast, I mean Wizards of the Coast.
Mad Zagyg
Explorer
Greyhawk is where the roots of the game can be found.
It's hard to explain why people like myself feel so strongly about it. I think part of it was the experience of coming to know the setting, and loving the way you slowly learned many of its secrets. For many of us, names and places that are commonly heard in D&D are practically synonymous with Greyhawk. Names like Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tenser, Rary, Robilar, Serten, Nystul, Pelor, Acererak, Vecna, Iuz, Tharizdun, Elemental Evil, Lolth, Drow, Keraptis, Iggwilv, Heironeous, Murlynd, Heward, Nerull, Zagyg etc. The list could really just go on and on and on. For Greyhawk fans, the game itself is often inseparable from this old, beleaguered campaign setting.
The fans have also been put through a very volatile history due to petty disputes and rifts in the company over the years. This is something for which Forgotten Realms fans have rarely suffered. Perhaps the poorly conceived Spell Plague is the only real upheaval they needed to endure. I appreciate the Realms and why it has its fan base , though I have no interest in running my game therein. I take great pride in the fact that the hundreds and hundreds of D&D games I've run over the past 30+ years have all been a part of an ongoing campaign set in the World of Greyhawk. At this point I have mountains of details packed into file cabinets and folders. Copious notes on the well over 100 characters that have trodden through the most classic adventurers ever produced by TSR/WotC, and a large number of my own adventures.
Furthermore, most Greyhawk fans have a sense of melancholy about where their beloved setting may have gone if various events had played out differently from the copyright holders. Some of us still yet have some hope that a brighter future lies ahead for a gorgeous, thick, hardcover filled with maps and details about Oerth.
We all realize that many of the hardcore fans of the Realms, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, and the rest don't care overmuch about Greyhawk. But there's plenty of room for everyone, and it looks like Greyhawk might finally get its long overdo full treatment.
Adventures are another part of what make Greyhawk so special. The bulk of the most famous adventures of all time have all been set there. The Temple of Elemental Evil, Scourge of the Slavelords, Queen of Spiders, White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and a host of other classics. If you are the type of person who remembers looking for Hex 113/K5 to determine where the village of Orlane was located, than you and I speak the same language.
Seeing that worn Greyhawk folio sitting on the edge of Perkins' desk has made this grizzled old 'Hawker very happy indeed.
pming
Legend
Hiya.
As others have said, Greyhawk has a "broad-stroke" feel to it. The World of Greyhawk Folio was my foray into it. I remember reading it was going to be released 'soon' (in a Dragon magazine I think). I then saw an advertisement for it and I wanted it so-o bad! Of course, I had to save up my weekly allowance (this was the early early 80's)...and then wait for it to get waaaay up here. When it came to "Jims Toy and Gift" (FLGS...sorta...only one corner had a half-shelf of D&D stuff about 5' wide). Anyway...since that day I've been running GH campaigns.
Greyhawks strongest point is it's solid foundation, with nigh-infinite ways to build on it. There is the Circle of Eight...unless you say they all died. It's not going to 'wreck' the setting and any stuff they may have done can easily be fixed. The focus isn't on them. The focus isn't on "high-level shenanigans". The settings focus is on common folk trying to survive in a pseudo-medieval fantasy world, with court intrigue, political maneuvering, armies going to battle...all with the backdrop of dragons, demons, monsters, and evil demigods. That is not to say "high-level" stuff doesn't go on. It does. But it is somewhat "contained". The power level in GH is low enough that you don't ever have world-shattering events happening every other month. The last world-shattering event was the Baklune/Suloise war that almost obliterated both races. And that was a long, long time ago by current GH reckoning.
What this does is allow each DM running a GH campaign to bring it to life in his/her own image, so to speak. When talking to GH DM's, you will often hear each DM recount how something happened in his/her Greyhawk. Each DM knows the base foundation of the subject, but each gets to hear and tell of a unique interpretation of it. This makes every GH campaign rather unique. I think this personalization of the setting is what really gives it it's staying power.
I for one would love to see another "Folio" put out by them. A big, two-poster sized map (with hex overlay!), a booklet for the DM and another for a player. Toss it into a boxed set and add some other goodies into it as well. Yumm!
^_^
Paul L. Ming
As others have said, Greyhawk has a "broad-stroke" feel to it. The World of Greyhawk Folio was my foray into it. I remember reading it was going to be released 'soon' (in a Dragon magazine I think). I then saw an advertisement for it and I wanted it so-o bad! Of course, I had to save up my weekly allowance (this was the early early 80's)...and then wait for it to get waaaay up here. When it came to "Jims Toy and Gift" (FLGS...sorta...only one corner had a half-shelf of D&D stuff about 5' wide). Anyway...since that day I've been running GH campaigns.
Greyhawks strongest point is it's solid foundation, with nigh-infinite ways to build on it. There is the Circle of Eight...unless you say they all died. It's not going to 'wreck' the setting and any stuff they may have done can easily be fixed. The focus isn't on them. The focus isn't on "high-level shenanigans". The settings focus is on common folk trying to survive in a pseudo-medieval fantasy world, with court intrigue, political maneuvering, armies going to battle...all with the backdrop of dragons, demons, monsters, and evil demigods. That is not to say "high-level" stuff doesn't go on. It does. But it is somewhat "contained". The power level in GH is low enough that you don't ever have world-shattering events happening every other month. The last world-shattering event was the Baklune/Suloise war that almost obliterated both races. And that was a long, long time ago by current GH reckoning.
What this does is allow each DM running a GH campaign to bring it to life in his/her own image, so to speak. When talking to GH DM's, you will often hear each DM recount how something happened in his/her Greyhawk. Each DM knows the base foundation of the subject, but each gets to hear and tell of a unique interpretation of it. This makes every GH campaign rather unique. I think this personalization of the setting is what really gives it it's staying power.
I for one would love to see another "Folio" put out by them. A big, two-poster sized map (with hex overlay!), a booklet for the DM and another for a player. Toss it into a boxed set and add some other goodies into it as well. Yumm!
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Sword of Spirit
Legend
Greyhawk is (0,0) on the D&D coordinates grid. Rather than being generic D&D, it sets the standard by which we judge D&D. Every other setting is measured by its direction and degree of departure from Greyhawk. Greyhawk looks generic because coming from other settings you see the shared baseline from which they derive, without the influence of the other settings.
It's also worth noting that an enormous amount of the fantasy genre as known today in fiction and games is derived from Greyhawk, since it is the baseline of D&D. It looks somewhat generic coming from non-D&D fantasy because that fantasy is based on D&D (ie, Greyhawk).
Its continued representation in D&D is important, because it is like the sun around which the other settings orbit as planets. If Greyhawk fades to obscurity, there is no more (0,0) on the coordinate system, and it becomes a phantom presence (or black hole).
Bullseye.
I never liked settings that were overpopulated, overdeveloped, or had source material that said what was everywhere.
Nostalgia. Not saying that is the only reason, but many many gamers first adventures were in Greyhawk or something that included it's bits and most people look on things from their youth fondly.
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