I want to Run/Read Castle Greyhawk. Is This Possible?

[TerraDave]

2: The first appearance of anything called Castle Greyhawk in print was the joke-module, which I've actually played through. It was a lot of fun. Looking at the list of freelancers who worked on it, I do not subscribe to the hypothesis that it was a deliberate attempt to make Gary look stupid.

Whatever it was not a nice thing to do, and almost certainly was not meant to be.

 

[qstor]

IIRC there will probably not be any updates to Castle Zagyg because EGG's estate pulled the license from Troll Lord games and they haven't decided what to do with the material or make new products.

I think you should probably use the Troll Lord boxed set and move it to Greyhawk and convert on the fly to 3.5. That might be easiest.

Mike

 

[Jasperak]

Under no circumstance would Gary say anything of the sort to me. Because were he alive, I would only put the question to him after he'd gotten to know me, and understood the context in which I was asking.

He would understand, in other words, that I'm perfectly capable of constructing my own adventures and, indeed, have been doing so for nigh on 30 years. And that I am a professional designer with no shortage of outlets for my creativity.

And that my interest is primarily in the legacy and history of the game, and that the fun, in this endeavor, is derived from the exercise of trying to piece together the original content, as though it were describing an objectively real place.

Gary wasn't in the business of talking people out of having fun.

Woah there, I mistook your post in the same way friend. Especially with a title that says, "I want to Run/Read Castle Greyhawk..."

On the other hand I would love to see design notes on how the early guys created their dungeons and allowed them to evolve through play.

 

[mattcolville]

Woah there, I mistook your post in the same way friend. Especially with a title that says, "I want to Run/Read Castle Greyhawk..."

On the other hand I would love to see design notes on how the early guys created their dungeons and allowed them to evolve through play.

I do want to run it. Or the closest approximation therefore. I think I've got enough info here to get as close as reasonably possible.

As I get older, I get a lot more tolerant about most things. But I'm a lot less tolerant of people on the internet responding with "you should not want the thing you want."

 

[Jasperak]

I do want to run it. Or the closest approximation therefore. I think I've got enough info here to get as close as reasonably possible.

As I get older, I get a lot more tolerant about most things. But I'm a lot less tolerant of people on the internet responding with "you should not want the thing you want."

I get what you're saying and why you took the earlier response the way you did. I would be interested to know why or what you hope to gain from running or reading about EGG and Co's Castle Greyhawk. Just interested because I would love to see, read, or experience first-hand accounts of the really early games as well. I didn't start playing D&D until the mid-80's. Really just wondering if you are looking for the same thing I am from the early days of D&D.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

If your interest is mainly historical and focused on the dungeon as used in the Lake Geneva campaigns, ignore everything TSR or WotC published as Castle Greyhawk (or return to or expedition to).

Instead, look at:

• This Knights-n-Knaves Thread
• grodog's Castle Greyhawk site
• The Castle Zagyg Upper Works boxed set
• TSR modules EX1, EX2, and WG6 (all of which were sublevels and/or accessed through the castle dungeons)
• Pied Piper Publishing's Bottle City and Original Living Room, both of which were included in the Greyhawk dungeons. I'm not sure, but I think Garden of the Plantmaster may also have started life in the Greyhawk dungeons.

The dungeon level in the Upper Works is an expanded version of the original map, by all accounts. (However, I believe the upper works, themselves, are all new creation.) Yggsburgh is an intriguing setting (especially if you like the fantasy renaissance tone Gary seemed to like in his later works), but has little to do with the original campaign.

Grodog's site is one of the best sources for info about the authentic Greyhawk dungeons. The pictures and notes in that KnK thread should be interesting, too.

 

[Stormonu]

A couple of side notes: Several of the 3E era "Up on a Soapbox" articles have Gary mentioning bits from his Castle Greyhawk campaign. They are worth a look for historical interest and possibly placing a few encounters (my favorite story is about the black dragons and treasure hordes), as well as an overview of the Castle itself.

Also, the OP asked earlier, and as far as I can recall, Castle Maure/Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure is not part of Castle Greyhawk, though it is nearby. It was run by Rob Kuntz in the Greyhawk campaign world, for Gary's wizard character, Mordenkainen.

 

[Roland55]

What Ourph says is true.

I can understand the impulse to want to know more about the original campaign, though. I went through that phase (and still am going through it to some extent). What must be resisted indeed is an obsession with somehow playing an absolutely "true" or "canon" version of the Castle. It's not going to happen. And in fact, trying to do so would indeed be counterproductive to the campaign. If you want to experience the "feel" of the original campaign, getting obsessed about "canon" Greyhawk would get you going in pretty much the polar opposite direction from where you want to go.

However. Getting to know details about the original castle, how some things came into play, what the general campaign was like, or some of its most iconic features and areas, may inspire you to come up with your own stuff and create from there. I know that's what it did, and still does for me, to this day.

So don't feel like you have to give up on your desire to know more about the original campaign. Just don't get obsessed about stuff like "canon" up to the point where your campaign would be some sort of reenactment of stuff that never was. Just let this stuff impact your imagination, and roll from there. You'll have a blast.

So, so true. I went through that period, myself.

"Just let this stuff impact your imagination..." Words to live by.