D&D General How To Reconcile the Settings

[Son of the Serpent]

Greyhawk is the setting that had an alien spaceship crash in it.

Its not as kitchen-sinky as FR, sure, but there's space for pretty much anything your mind can come up with and unlike FR, its not over described so you can just put stuff where it makes sense

Yes. Indeed it did. For greyhawk its an exception. For faerun it would not be. Exceptions do not prove the will. Also the spaceship fits with the plot when you consider that greyhawk had a fair bit of time travel and i herited much from spelljammer and planescape type venues.

 

[Zardnaar]

As far as I can tell, it come from this table in the 1e PHB:
View attachment 116692

The table shows racial like/dislike of the seven main races* in AD&D. The letter code (P = Preference, G = Goodwill, T = Tollerance, N = Neutral, A = Antagonism, H = Hatred) shows most races only prefer their own kind, occasionally have races they don mind (gnomes and halflings mainly) and in classic LoTR style, elves and dwarves despise each other and nobody likes half-orcs. As far as I can tell, that's it. That's the whole basis for this belief that Oerth is full of races that get together like colleagues at the annual company Holiday party. And that got mythologized by Greyhawk Grognards as a reaction to Forgotten Realms far more inclusive** take on racial integration.


* Unearthed Arcana doubles down by making an even more complex variant that breaks it down by subrace. It doesn't add much more than you couldn't figure out already.
** Faerun gets painted with this thanks the myriad of supplements it got, but its also important to remember that prior to 3e, dwarves were dying race due to low birthrate and elves were all retreating to Evermeet in classic LoTR fashion. And UA had PC drow options LONG before Salvatore wrote The Crystal Shard. But don't let facts get in the way of a good FR attack.

Humans are tolerated by everyone, older D&D DMGs as late as 2E were also saying humans were the main race.

Throw in level limits as well.

You might not get killed on sight but the more monstrous the race the less chance you have of being treated as normal.

Humans are very much the default pre 3E. If half ircs have it rough what's going to happen to Tieflings and Dragborn.

Sure slavers and evil humans might be fine if the humans choose to work with them but an Orc in human lands won't be normal outside of Iuzs empire and similar places.

2E started to retcon stuff but I find if you start doing that to much whatever attract Ed you to the world in the first place tends to get list. See FR, Darksun, Krynn etc.

Also Sojourn. One of the best Drizzt books IMHO. See how he gets treated. And that's FR, GH it would be worse than that IMHO.

Drow UA everyone hates or dislikes you except other Drow, Duergar and Half Orcs which tolerate them.

 

[cbwjm]

All i know is, I'm playing Baldur's gate dragonspear and my reputation went down when I added Viconia and the goblin to my party. I need to find a priest so that the ranger will stop complaining about how we need to do better.

 

[Hussar]

As far as I can tell, it come from this table in the 1e PHB:
View attachment 116692

The table shows racial like/dislike of the seven main races* in AD&D. The letter code (P = Preference, G = Goodwill, T = Tollerance, N = Neutral, A = Antagonism, H = Hatred) shows most races only prefer their own kind, occasionally have races they don mind (gnomes and halflings mainly) and in classic LoTR style, elves and dwarves despise each other and nobody likes half-orcs. As far as I can tell, that's it. That's the whole basis for this belief that Oerth is full of races that get together like colleagues at the annual company Holiday party. And that got mythologized by Greyhawk Grognards as a reaction to Forgotten Realms far more inclusive** take on racial integration.


* Unearthed Arcana doubles down by making an even more complex variant that breaks it down by subrace. It doesn't add much more than you couldn't figure out already.
** Faerun gets painted with this thanks the myriad of supplements it got, but its also important to remember that prior to 3e, dwarves were dying race due to low birthrate and elves were all retreating to Evermeet in classic LoTR fashion. And UA had PC drow options LONG before Salvatore wrote The Crystal Shard. But don't let facts get in the way of a good FR attack.

Hey @Remathilis Long time no see.

Humans are tolerated by everyone, older D&D DMGs as late as 2E were also saying humans were the main race.

Throw in level limits as well.

You might not get killed on sight but the more monstrous the race the less chance you have of being treated as normal.

Humans are very much the default pre 3E. If half ircs have it rough what's going to happen to Tieflings and Dragborn.

Sure slavers and evil humans might be fine if the humans choose to work with them but an Orc in human lands won't be normal outside of Iuzs empire and similar places.

2E started to retcon stuff but I find if you start doing that to much whatever attract Ed you to the world in the first place tends to get list. See FR, Darksun, Krynn etc.

Also Sojourn. One of the best Drizzt books IMHO. See how he gets treated. And that's FR, GH it would be worse than that IMHO.

Drow UA everyone hates or dislikes you except other Drow, Duergar and Half Orcs which tolerate them.

And, again, I'd point to our new Greyhawk canon where the half orc gravedigger is the town archivist. And, again, painting with that broad of a brush seems like it lacks a certain degree of nuance. Being an orc might warrant some caution wandering the streets of Greyhawk city, but, other other hand, hanging out in the Wild Coast you probably wouldn't draw much of a second look.

So much of Greyhawk is undefined. THAT'S the point of Greyhawk. It's not a living setting like Forgotten Realms. It's a toolbox setting that you make your own. Anyone claiming that THEIR Greyhawk is the "intended" way of playing is just wrong. Well, with the possible exception of Gygax himself. More the shame that. But, by the same token, I'm fairly confident from the readings I've done, and the answers he's given on this site, that he'd likely agree with me. Greyhawk is a DM's playground. It is what you make it.

 

[Coroc]

...
So much of Greyhawk is undefined. THAT'S the point of Greyhawk. It's not a living setting like Forgotten Realms. It's a toolbox setting that you make your own. Anyone claiming that THEIR Greyhawk is the "intended" way of playing is just wrong. Well, with the possible exception of Gygax himself. More the shame that. But, by the same token, I'm fairly confident from the readings I've done, and the answers he's given on this site, that he'd likely agree with me. Greyhawk is a DM's playground. It is what you make it.

Yes I also liked that better about Greyhawk than about other settings. Especially if you are a heavy fluff modder like me, then you can of course do all these things in other official campaign settings also, but Greyhawk makes it so much easier.

If you want to run it as a living setting with prefabricated timeline, there is enough official lore material for a certain time period around Greyhawk wars also though.

 

[Weiley31]

Let's say you have every monstrous race in the book, along with every possible PC race. Where do they all get their food from? There's only so much arable land, they can't all live "in the mountains". Even if you assume magical food sources for underground (I do to a certain degree), there's a limit to population density of relatively large species.

Some of it may depend on how genetics works as well in your campaign. Can a race continue to exist if there are only a few dozen members of the species? Inbreeding will kill off a species after a few generations. I'm assuming we're all familiar with the whole "last of my species" trope, but how long does that last? One generation and they're gone.

I just find it hard to find room for a sustainable population of all the following humanoid races:

Aarakocra, Aasimar, Air genasi, Aquatic elf, Avariel, Bugbear, Bullywug, Deep gnome, Deep scion, Derro, Dragonborn, Drow, Duergar, Dwarf, Earth genasi, Elf, Firbolg, Fire genasi, Firenewt, Flind, Forest gnome, Genasi, Ghostwise halfling, Giff, Gith (race), Githyanki, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, Gold dwarf, Grimlock, Grung, Halfling, High elf, Hobgoblin, Human, Jackalwere, Kenku, Koalinth, Kobold, Kuo-toa, Lava child, Lightfoot halfling, Lizard king, Lizardfolk, Locathah, Meazel, Merfolk, Mongrelfolk, Moon elf, Nilbog, Orc, Orog, Quaggoth, Rock gnome, Sahuagin, Sea spawn, Shadar-kai, Shield dwarf, Skulk, Star elf, Strongheart halfling, Sun elf, Tabaxi, Thri-kreen, Tiefling, Tortle, Triton, Troglodyte, Urd, Verdan, Water genasi, Xvart, Yuan-ti pureblood, Zerth​

Which is not the only reason I limit races, as I posted above.

Well that's easy, the Shadar-Kai stay in the Shadowfell with the Raven Queen unless they make a quick grocery stop to the material plane.

 

[Oofta]

Well that's easy, the Shadar-Kai stay in the Shadowfell with the Raven Queen unless they make a quick grocery stop to the material plane.

Different races on different planes of existence is fine but since I'm not running a planescape campaign, they rarely enter the picture.

I am a bit conservative when it comes to adding new features/races into my game. It's easier to add them in later if I want to, it's harder to take them out. But having just a handful of a species has never really appealed to me unless there's a good reason. For example I justified Eladrin as Sidhe cast out or escaped from the feywild after a war when I ran my 4E campaign. It drove some of them crazy but explained why there was a subrace elves could suddenly teleport.

But as far as other races ... where do you draw the line? I run a high magic campaign, but I consider having more than a handful of races extremely high fantasy. Basically, no Star Wars Cantina scene for me.

I've run my campaign for a few decades now, consistency is more important to me than letting someone play a furry or a walking pile of rocks. Not that there's anything wrong with people that allow it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Hey @Remathilis Long time no see.



And, again, I'd point to our new Greyhawk canon where the half orc gravedigger is the town archivist. And, again, painting with that broad of a brush seems like it lacks a certain degree of nuance. Being an orc might warrant some caution wandering the streets of Greyhawk city, but, other other hand, hanging out in the Wild Coast you probably wouldn't draw much of a second look.

So much of Greyhawk is undefined. THAT'S the point of Greyhawk. It's not a living setting like Forgotten Realms. It's a toolbox setting that you make your own. Anyone claiming that THEIR Greyhawk is the "intended" way of playing is just wrong. Well, with the possible exception of Gygax himself. More the shame that. But, by the same token, I'm fairly confident from the readings I've done, and the answers he's given on this site, that he'd likely agree with me. Greyhawk is a DM's playground. It is what you make it.

I'm an originalist, new designers can do whatever they want doesn't been I think they know what they're doing in terms of capturing the settings niche (see 4E DS and FR for prime examples of lolwut efforts).

Gygax is on record here I believe about his opinions adding some things to GH. I think he was talking about half ogres.

Some things exist on GH, doesn't mean they should be normal.

Doesn't mean you get attacked on sight (although you might) but if I had a player wanting to play something "edgy" (Drow, Tieflings, Dragonborn) i would probably allow it but just don't be surprised if bad things happen. A high persuasion or deception score would be useful and/or the ability to disguise yourself or pass as something else like a Yuan Ti.

I wouldn't want a whole party of wth type races though.

Right now though I'm giving the players a choice

Eberron (anything goes)
Greyhawk a'la 1E
Pirates (phb+ aquatic type stuff+ some monstrous stuff).
Vikings (Midgard some restrictions, add bearfolk)

So they get to pick what to play, but I'll explain the differences during brainstorming and hash out the specifics session 1.
My GH will have 1E alignment and racial restrictions, not all the archetypes, and some missing classes and races.

Not going to force them to play anything, if they want anything goes pick Eberron or request FR.

I'll probably be more restrictive though on a theme if they pick it (Egyptian themed game, still ended up with a not Italian not Viking, Minotaur, Aasimar, and a half orc). FML and that was after they picked Midgard and Egyptian theme.

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, I TOTALLY get the frustration at having players be on completely different pages when you're trying to create a specific tone or feel to a game. It's a HUGE uphill battle, IMO, to get the players all facing in approximately the same direction.

If you want your players to be all humans, then you should insist that you want to play a rare-humans game where humans are almost extinct in the setting and everyone around them is monsters.

Then play in Greyhawk.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Isn’t it mostly a case of when you entered the hobby? Like, those who were there for the earliest D&D hold Greyhawk in some kind of awe. Those who got into gaming in the late 1e/ early 2e days might have a special spot for Krynn or the Realms. A few years later, Athas, Ravenloft, and Sigil are all big. Then 3e and Ebberon.

I personally use them all. In the same campaign. They all have appeal of some kind, or can be made to with a tiny bit of effort.

I don’t think any is all that much “better” than the others, or that we need to reconcile them, whatever that means.