How much of the old setting(s) in the new setting?

[freyar]

Actually, this was explicitly set up at the end of Expedition/Greyhawk. Castle Greyhawk is explicitly in play for all settings at the end of that module.

Ooh, ooh, spoilers please!

I think Grimslade is right that a lot of the new cosmology stems from their desire to reduce the importance of alignment.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I don't object to the inclusion of Demogorgon

I don't know why you would, if you're objecting to Greyhawk-specific stuff. Demogorgon predates Greyhawk - and RPGs in general - by, oh, several centuries.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I don't know why you would, if you're objecting to Greyhawk-specific stuff. Demogorgon predates Greyhawk - and RPGs in general - by, oh, several centuries.

The name Demogorgon, yes. (Though arguments are that it was a mistranslation even at the time.)

But everything else about D&D's Demogorgon is original to D&D.

(Anyway, he wasn't my main point, so .)

 

[Baduin]

Demogorgon is a copyist error. In the original there was "Demiurge". Later his myth was developed by Milton and especially Shelley.

See CS Lewis' Discarded Mirror for particulars.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

But everything else about D&D's Demogorgon is original to D&D.

Well, rationalizing it that way, then just about every single critter that uses a real-world mythological name would be original to D&D.

 

[Gundark]

Anyway, I'm not sure I have a point to all this.

Yeah....I have nothing to say about this thread.


Wait...I just did...

Damn

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As a comic fan it would be like DC doing another Crisis on Infinite Earths and in the New Reboot Superman isnt from Krypton he's a metahuman. Thats not superman.

No, it's like Marvel giving us a Spider-Man with Uncle Ben who lives, where Gwen Stacy is a screwed up rebel, where the Green Goblin is a mutated freak instead of a guy in a mask and where Peter and MJ date as kids and where she knows his secret.

Sort of like the super-successful Ultimate Universe.

They took all the stuff that worked, shook loose the stuff that didn't, reinterpreted what could be salvaged and they repackaged it all for today's younger audience.

Sort of like what WotC is doing with 4E.

Now, the old stuff won't be available outside setting books coming later (if at all), but D&D is about what happens at your table, not at anyone else's. So if you want to stick with the Great Wheel and erinyes and all the rest, do it. WotC may well put out a supplement some day supporting that. Despite the gnashing of teeth by some, third party publishers ARE doing that (look for the old school succubus and erinyes in the 4E Tome of Horrors, for instance). And, of course, you are always able to grab the PDFs of OD&D, BD&D, 1E, 2E and 3E products and continue to use their metasetting indefinitely.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ooh, ooh, spoilers please!

[sblock=Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk, Esquire, LLC]After all the shenanigans of the adventure, Castle Greyhawk "comes loose" from Oerth and randomly moves through prime material planes. So it can now show up in Faerun or Eberron or Athas or Mystara or wherever.

Officially, it ain't never coming back home to Oerth, but the exile from Oerth was added after the authors turned in their draft and, frankly, it's too dumb for anyone to take seriously.

So, anyway, Castle Greyhawk now belongs to everyone who plays D&D, anywhere. It always did, of course, but now it's official. Frankly, I'm guessing that means we'll eventually see a 4E Castle Greyhawk product, although how tied it'll be to Oerth lore is anybody's guess, and probably depends on if they ever release a Greyhawk setting book and how well that sells.[/sblock]

 

[jeffh]

I am a bit of a purist regarding the sactity of a given setting, even one I don't much enjoy like Greyhawk. I have a real problem with Greyhawk gods as the "core" pantheon but also realize that these gods are only "Greyhawk" gods to those who even know Greyhawk exists or care one way or another. I bet that group is getting smaller every year.

Part of the problem for some people, I think, is that as a whole, the new pantheon isn't just the GH pantheon; it's got Greyhawk gods, Realms gods and entirely new gods all mashed together (some of which have varying degrees of prior, non-D&D sources, but again, not all from any one place). That's not going to please anyone who's even remotely close to a purist about any of those sources.