Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Erik Mona" data-source="post: 3794768" data-attributes="member: 2174">Sounds like WotC is taking the names that "say D&D" to their design staff, divorcing them from some or all of their historical context, and rebuilding everything from the ground up in a way that incorporates what they want to incorporate and ignores what they want to ignore (which, in the case of Greyhawk, will be almost everything).It's actually a rather intelligent way of going about things, but it's going to look like a deformed mongoliod stillbirth to a lot of people for a while.I think the best way to cope is to just say: This isn't Greyhawk. It looks like Greyhawk in some ways, and some of the names are familiar, but they're not trying to make a new Greyhawk (yet). They're trying to make a new D&D, and they're cloaking it in familiarity by using names like Vecna or Tharizdun or Pelor or whatever, mostly to keep people interested in to keep some tangential ties to old stuff just for fun.The concept of a god so evil he must be locked away for eternity is COOL, and I can imagine lots of the people at WotC (none of whom are Greyhawk "scholars" in the same way some EN World posters are) think that's an idea worthy of including in their core setting. And they're right about that.Another good example is Vecna. Cool. Been a part of the game from the beginning. I have every reason to expect he'll be part of 4e. I strongly suspect that this will mean we'll get a Vecna who was a powerful lich in the past, who lost a hand and eye, and who (maybe) is a god of secrets.I strongly suspect we will NOT get a powerful Ur-Flannae mystic who, among other things, destroyed the town of Fleeth in ancient Keoland in the era of the Great Migrations.People who couldn't care less about Greyhawk (at least 80% of the D&D audience and probably something like 97% of the Wizards of the Coast staff) don't know anything about Fleeth, or the Ur-Flan, or Keoland, or the Great Migrations. And there's a valid argument that says they shouldn't have to, particularly if Greyhawk is not being seriously supported as a D&D setting (which it isn't, clearly).It does seem, however, that Greyhawk may be under consideration as a 4.0 "setting book," so the degree to which that book presents the "classic" feel of the world or a new version of the world more in line with fourth edition multiversal and rules-based assumptions will be, for me, one of the most interesting elements to watch in the developing story of fourth edition D&D.--Erik</blockquote>

Verification