D&D (2024) How Does Greyhawk Fit In To The New Edition?

According to Game Informer — “the surprising importance and inclusions of what is arguably the oldest D&D campaign setting of them all – Greyhawk.”

So how does Greyhawk fit in? According to GI, the new 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk. Not only that, but the book will come with a double-sided poster map with the City of Greyhawk on one side and the Flannaes on the other—the eastern part of one of Oerth’s four continents.

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Even as the multiverse of D&D worlds sees increased attention, the Dungeon Master's Guide also offers a more discrete setting to get gaming groups started. After very few official releases in the last couple of decades, the world of Greyhawk takes center stage. The book fleshes out Greyhawk to illustrate how to create campaign settings of your own. Greyhawk was the original D&D game world crafted by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and a worthy setting to revisit on the occassion of D&D's golden anniversary. It's a world bristling with classic sword and sorcery concepts, from an intrigue-laden central city to wide tracts of uncharted wilderness. Compared to many D&D campaign settings, it's smaller and less fleshed out, and that's sort of the point; it begs for DMs to make it their own. The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed. For those eager to take the plunge, an included poster map of the Greyhawk setting sets the tone, and its reverse reveals a map of the city of the same name. "A big draw to Greyhawk is it's the origin place for such heroes as Mordenkainen, Tasha, and others," Perkins says. "There's this idea that the players in your campaign can be the next great world-hopping, spell-crafting heroes of D&D. It is the campaign where heroes are born."

- Game Informer​

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[Parmandur]

Fair enough, I guess we shall see if my confidence is misplaced! It often is!

I honestly expect the focus to be on supporting homebrew, with Gteyhawk info as an example of how to follow the process. That can be fun.

 

[Parmandur]

So now people are more motivated to buy the revised DMG because of Greyhawk?

Well, it was kind of a foregone conclusion that art and other stuff like fold out maps would perk the interests of folks who weren't excited by the playtest. As the art rolls on the next few months, lots of buyers will be persuaded. Nature of the game.

I think the original mistake is wanting a sample setting at all. You don't need an underdeveloped sample in 2024 in the DMG, when you can find many well developed sample settings with Google if you're interested in creating your own. They could use DMG space for more useful matters, or quit making a DMG that people buy just to have the whole set, read once, and then use it only for the magic items.

The poi t if the chapter is tools to build a Setting: Greyhawk is there to demonstrate the process.

 

[MNblockhead]

So now people are more motivated to buy the revised DMG because of Greyhawk?

How much did it matter to the 2014 DMG that Forgotten Realms was more or less the default setting? The last time Greyhawk was default (3e), it impacted the core books by... listing the Greyhawk deities, and pretty much nothing else. This round, at least there's gonna be two maps, and then "The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed."

There isn't usually enough room in a DMG to offer real material to create adventures that distinctively belong to a specific setting. That usually requires more than maps and lists or short descriptions: I think you need to know something about what is going on in the world, such as powers that be, organizations and key figures with their motives and relationships, maybe a bit of history.

Cleverly they choose a setting that "by design" is "much undetailed" so you pay to be told you need to do it yourself.

I think the original mistake is wanting a sample setting at all. You don't need an underdeveloped sample in 2024 in the DMG, when you can find many well developed sample settings with Google if you're interested in creating your own. They could use DMG space for more useful matters, or quit making a DMG that people buy just to have the whole set, read once, and then use it only for the magic items.

Really, it it not just that it is Greyhawk that has me interested. It is a nice nostalgia hit and an appropriate nod to the games history in the 50th Anniversary edition. But I'm mostly interested in that it gives me hope that this DMG will be a much better throughout toolbox for DM world building. Having a world sketched out at a highlevel with advice on world-building, hopefully cross-referenced with other parts of the DMG, and containing tools that can be useful to DMs building and running their campaigns, regardless of the setting could be very useful, especially to new DMs.

The purpose, from what I've read about it so far, is NOT to provide a well-developed setting, but rather to give you tools and examples for building your own.

I've got hundreds of pages of Eberron material. I have an entire shelf literally bowed with the weight of my Lost Lands books (plus more material in PDF form). The Midgard Setting from Kobold press is another very fleshed out setting for 5e. You have the Critical Role setting books for 5e. WotC has published fairly highlevel, but still hundreds of pages of setting material for Ravnica, Raven Loft, Theros. Forgotten Realms kinda got poorly treated in terms of an actual setting book, but you still have hundreds of pages of 5e content if you include some of the adventures books in addition to the Sword Coast book. And there are many more third-party publisher settings for 5e. And you can get PDFs for older setting books.

What 5e has been missing is tools for building your own world. Those hoping for a "well developed" Greyhawk are setting themselves up for disappointment if they think a chapter in the DMG is going to deliver that. They'll need to wait for third-parties to develop their take on Greyhawk in the DMs Guild, if and when WotC opens Greyhawk to the DMs Guild.

If they do it right, it will have well designed and useful tools with some nice Greyhawk flavor. A cool map and very high-level descriptions of areas and politics, that DMs can use as a jumping off point.

 

[Remathilis]

Did they? I did that in my homebrew campaign's lore (I also lumped 3e's catfolk in there), but I didn't think Wizards had officially made the connection.

Back when Dragon+ was a thing, there was an article where they talked about the tabaxi. They were supposed to be rakasta but opted for the tabaxi name because it had a toehold in Faerun already and the name wouldn't be confused with the fiend cats in the MM. So to me, that means they are the heir apparent to rakasta.

On a side note, I laugh whenever someone complains about the animal races in 5e like tabaxi and tortles because those people clearly have never played Basic on Mystara and don't realize those races have been playable since the early 90s.

 

[Remathilis]

So much this!

If they spent that space on dungeon, wilderness, and settlement generators in the vein of Shadowdark and other books that do it concisely, and actually threw the weight of their design team (and the cash they have for art, diagrams, etc.) into it, that would be something.

I legit wonder if people feel the same about Paizo stuffing Golarion into their Core books...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Really, it it not just that it is Greyhawk that has me interested. It is a nice nostalgia hit and an appropriate nod to the games history in the 50th Anniversary edition. But I'm mostly interested in that it gives me hope that this DMG will be a much better throughout toolbox for DM world building. Having a world sketched out at a highlevel with advice on world-building, hopefully cross-referenced with other parts of the DMG, and containing tools that can be useful to DMs building and running their campaigns, regardless of the setting could be very useful, especially to new DMs.

The purpose, from what I've read about it so far, is NOT to provide a well-developed setting, but rather to give you tools and examples for building your own.

I've got hundreds of pages of Eberron material. I have an entire shelf literally bowed with the weight of my Lost Lands books (plus more material in PDF form). The Midgard Setting from Kobold press is another very fleshed out setting for 5e. You have the Critical Role setting books for 5e. WotC has published fairly highlevel, but still hundreds of pages of setting material for Ravnica, Raven Loft, Theros. Forgotten Realms kinda got poorly treated in terms of an actual setting book, but you still have hundreds of pages of 5e content if you include some of the adventures books in addition to the Sword Coast book. And there are many more third-party publisher settings for 5e. And you can get PDFs for older setting books.

What 5e has been missing is tools for building your own world. Those hoping for a "well developed" Greyhawk are setting themselves up for disappointment if they think a chapter in the DMG is going to deliver that. They'll need to wait for third-parties to develop their take on Greyhawk in the DMs Guild, if and when WotC opens Greyhawk to the DMs Guild.

If they do it right, it will have well designed and useful tools with some nice Greyhawk flavor. A cool map and very high-level descriptions of areas and politics, that DMs can use as a jumping off point.

Interesting. According to some posters here, Greyhawk has no flavor. It just tastes like D&D of whatever edition is currently being sold.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I legit wonder if people feel the same about Paizo stuffing Golarion into their Core books...

Lots of setting material available over the years for Golarion. And worth noting it wasn't one Pathfinder setting among many. It was the Pathfinder setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Back when Dragon+ was a thing, there was an article where they talked about the tabaxi. They were supposed to be rakasta but opted for the tabaxi name because it had a toehold in Faerun already and the name wouldn't be confused with the fiend cats in the MM. So to me, that means they are the heir apparent to rakasta.

On a side note, I laugh whenever someone complains about the animal races in 5e like tabaxi and tortles because those people clearly have never played Basic on Mystara and don't realize those races have been playable since the early 90s.

Has anyone on this thread complained about animal races in D&D? If not, why are you bringing this in?

 

[Remathilis]

Has anyone on this thread complained about animal races in D&D? If not, why are you bringing this in?

Greyhawk is very Human centric and also very much based on Medieval Fantasy. I don't think this is going to fly well with the current player base that prefers Tieflings, Tortles, and Top hats.

I don't think Greyhawk could survive the new player base and still keep the flavor people want from Greyhawk.

That's why.

 

[JEB]

Back when Dragon+ was a thing, there was an article where they talked about the tabaxi. They were supposed to be rakasta but opted for the tabaxi name because it had a toehold in Faerun already and the name wouldn't be confused with the fiend cats in the MM. So to me, that means they are the heir apparent to rakasta.

Thanks! With some difficulty, found the actual article: Lore You Should Know: Tabaxi vs. tabaxi (Sure is a damn shame Wizards decided to wipe it all in favor of redirecting to DDB. Hate seeing history vanish.)