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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[UVAtom]

You do it like the piety system in Theros, or the Renown system.

 

[tsadkiel]

I have two out of the three Oz 5E settings. (Yes, obviously including the Andrew Kolb one.) If I get any more 5E Oz books, they will need to come with a marriage counselor.

(There are more than three.)

 

[Mournblade94]

The only reason Dragonborn and Tortles aren't in Greyhawk is that they didn't exist when Gary made the setting. If they had, you'd have seen something like the Isle of the Reptiles with Dragonborn on one side warring with the Tortle clans who dwell on the other side. Then you'd get a bit of lore like, "The Dragoborn tribes often raid Tortle villages, carrying off captives to be boiled alive to make tasty soup."

Greyhawk was a kitchen sink setting. The sink was just smaller back then and had fewer dishes in it.

Fortunately I have my Palladium copy of Teenage Mutant nInja Turtles and other strangeness. If my players want to play a Tortle I will instead suggest maybe they want to play that game.

 

[Maxperson]

Fortunately I have my Palladium copy of Teenage Mutant nInja Turtles and other strangeness. If my players want to play a Tortle I will instead suggest maybe they want to play that game.

Which is fine. You can exclude any race you want from your game. My point is that the new races(and classes/subclasses) do in fact fit into Greyhawk, because it was a kitchen sink setting that embraced the strange.

 

[Cadence]

My point is that then new races(and classes/subclasses) do in fact fit into Greyhawk, because it was a kitchen sink setting that embraced the strange.

If nothing else, maybe Barrier Peaks wasn't the only place on Oerth with a crashed space ship. Who knows what was being kept in stasis there or was cooked up in its lab.

 

[Von Ether]

If nothing else, maybe Barrier Peaks wasn't the only place on Oerth with a crashed space ship. Who knows what was being kept in stasis there or was cooked up in its lab.

Expedition from the Mysterious Peaks

Mystic fantasy meets heroic sci-fi in an epic adventure saga for 5E.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[Stormonu]

If nothing else, maybe Barrier Peaks wasn't the only place on Oerth with a crashed space ship. Who knows what was being kept in stasis there or was cooked up in its lab.

Depends on how much Blackmoor is pulled in (the name and Egg of Coot is there, at least); there is the Temple of the Frog and City of the Gods with it's advanced tech.

And how seriously you take the encounter in Gygax's Dragon article where some German Heer got zapped into the fantasy millennia (and had a run in with some wizards...).

 

[Nikosandros]

And how seriously you take the encounter in Gygax's Dragon article where some German Heer got zapped into the fantasy millennia (and had a run in with some wizards...).

Sturmgeschütz and Sorcery. Gygax could never resist making alliterative doublets.

 

[teitan]

I will never for the life of me understand Greyhawk fans.

You want the setting to come back, but you don't want ANY changes to the setting, NOTHING new. What do you want? Them to copy and paste the exact text from 2E books, same art of course since yall usually get mad over new art, and then put it into a new book with "5E" on the logo????????

I've never understood the inability to embrace change to an IP. Evolve the idea, play with it, and if you don't like it you have all the old stuff still remaining.

erm, from the Ashes, Living Greyhawk both made a lot of changes to the setting. The setting was originally static and a lot of us prefer it that way what happens can be focused on the PCs and not keeping up with what WOTC is going to do with the setting. My preferred era is From the Ashes, I also like the 1e version. I felt like LG was incredibly boring though.

 

[Mournblade94]

I will never for the life of me understand Greyhawk fans.

You want the setting to come back, but you don't want ANY changes to the setting, NOTHING new. What do you want? Them to copy and paste the exact text from 2E books, same art of course since yall usually get mad over new art, and then put it into a new book with "5E" on the logo????????

I've never understood the inability to embrace change to an IP. Evolve the idea, play with it, and if you don't like it you have all the old stuff still remaining.

Well people wanted Spelljammer back and that was done poorly. I would rather it remain shelved than an attempt made to modernize it. They even brought the Star Frontiers races but really really made a scandal out of Hadozee/Yazirians. That's why in hindsite, especially after seeing things like the Witcher show I am glad Moorcock said there will never be an Elric show. I would definitely rather see something not manifest than have it done poorly. I would love to go back in time and have them shelve the Forgotten Realms in 2008. I still use Forgotten Realms though. BUt the changes to Forgotten Realms was why I never adopted 4e. I've learned though that most updates are not going to be that good, so I was pleasantly surprised at Planescape 5e.

It was annoying that the Greyhawk villains became the BIG BADS of the Forgotten Realms when the FR have so many characters. Instead of Acererak you could use Larloch, or Szass Tam. Tharduin you could have used a Forgotten Realms Entity of which there are many Mad Gods. Cyric and Moander come to mind. Or maybe just set the Bloody things in Greyhawk to begin with.

I would prefer they make new material and leave the old material alone. But I admit I am definitely thrilled with the old D&D Cartoon and Toyline being used for the 5e Update. I'll probably buy the Wizkids 50th stuff too.