Currently I have 4 Forgotten Realms boxed sets. The Campaign Setting, Ruins of Undermountain II, Spellbound, and City of Splendors. I like Undermountain and Waterdeep as large places to explore with a lot of things to do, but recently I've become very interested in Greyhawk. What are some good Box sets for this setting? Also accessories and modules/splatbooks. Also I'm not a fan of 3.x and later, but I don't mind stealing things from later versions if it interests me. What are some good trade offs if I get rid of my Forgotten Realms stuff. I may keep them anyway as my only real collecting these days is D&D related and it's hard for me to let stuff go. I have a good many older modules, and since they are all technically supposed to be in the Greyhawk setting I'd like to run some games there. FR just seems bland to me nowadays. The only thing I'll miss will be using the FR Atlas for quick easy maps.
Leaving The Forgotten Realms for Greyhawk. Any suggestions?
- Thread starter DeadHorse
- Start date
Li Shenron
Legend
I'm not sure, but I think there is almost nothing published about Greyhawk for 3ed, despite the fact that it's supposed to be the default setting. Presumably, the generic adventures are set in Greyhawk, but I don't think they have really much to do with setting's regions, characters and organizations.
But on the other thing... don't sell your FR books! At best, you'd make ~100$ for them, but you may regret later in the future, as books become old and harder to find. After all, what's 100$ in the course of a lifetime?
But on the other thing... don't sell your FR books! At best, you'd make ~100$ for them, but you may regret later in the future, as books become old and harder to find. After all, what's 100$ in the course of a lifetime?
Jacob Marley
Adventurer
Here is a link to the Greyhawk Collector's Guide. It was compiled here on ENWorld.org by [MENTION=9849]Echohawk[/MENTION] and contains all (?) the material released over the years for Greyhawk. I'll comment on a few of them.
Modules: Many of these are pretty iconic. In fact, in the list of top adventures of all time -- according to Dungeon magazine -- 7 of the top 10 were Greyhawk modules (#1 Queen of the Spiders, #3 Tomb of Horrors, #4 The Temple of Elemental Evil, #5 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, #8 Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, #9 White Plume Mountain, and #10 Return to the Tomb of Horrors). I would definately recommend Queen of the Spiders and The Temple of Elemental Evil.
Boxed Sets: Coming from the Realms you may find the World of Greyhawk boxed set pretty sparse in content - which it is. It provides a good outline of the Oerth without going into too much detail.
The City of Greyhawk is my personal favorite. It focuses on the city and domain of Greyhawk; it includes a good amount of information including lots of NPCs (though, depending on your persuasions you may find the existence of a talking goat a little off-putting - I know I did).
From the Ashes puts Greyhawk into a darker post-war setting. It expands upon the information provided in The City of Greyhawk. If that is a style of game you like then this would also be a great boxed set to pick up. Also look into picking up the Marklands, another excellent sourcebook for post-wars Greyhawk.
I never owned Greyhawk Wars so I cannot comment on it.
Avoid Castle Greyhawk. It was a joke module.
[MENTION=1465]Li Shenron[/MENTION] There was a ton of information on Greyhawk produced during the 3rd Edition years if you include what was produced in Dragon magazine, Dungeon magazine, and Living Greyhawk. Though, admittedly, the Living Greyhawk information can be difficult to acquire.
Modules: Many of these are pretty iconic. In fact, in the list of top adventures of all time -- according to Dungeon magazine -- 7 of the top 10 were Greyhawk modules (#1 Queen of the Spiders, #3 Tomb of Horrors, #4 The Temple of Elemental Evil, #5 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, #8 Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, #9 White Plume Mountain, and #10 Return to the Tomb of Horrors). I would definately recommend Queen of the Spiders and The Temple of Elemental Evil.
Boxed Sets: Coming from the Realms you may find the World of Greyhawk boxed set pretty sparse in content - which it is. It provides a good outline of the Oerth without going into too much detail.
The City of Greyhawk is my personal favorite. It focuses on the city and domain of Greyhawk; it includes a good amount of information including lots of NPCs (though, depending on your persuasions you may find the existence of a talking goat a little off-putting - I know I did).
From the Ashes puts Greyhawk into a darker post-war setting. It expands upon the information provided in The City of Greyhawk. If that is a style of game you like then this would also be a great boxed set to pick up. Also look into picking up the Marklands, another excellent sourcebook for post-wars Greyhawk.
I never owned Greyhawk Wars so I cannot comment on it.
Avoid Castle Greyhawk. It was a joke module.
[MENTION=1465]Li Shenron[/MENTION] There was a ton of information on Greyhawk produced during the 3rd Edition years if you include what was produced in Dragon magazine, Dungeon magazine, and Living Greyhawk. Though, admittedly, the Living Greyhawk information can be difficult to acquire.
Thanks very much. I already have Against the giants, white plume mountain, Ghost tower of inverness, curse of xanathon, descent into the depths, keep on the borderlands, Tomb of horrors, and a couple more that are already in the Greyhawk setting. What is living greyhawk? Would love to be able to find more copies of Dungeon and also dragon magazine too. I will definitely be on the lookout for the ones you suggested. As far as the sparseness of the box set im all for that. One of my problems with FR is that it is so well known and there is so much for it out there that it has gotten boring to me. What I know of greyhawk seems to fit better with the type of games i want to run more so than FR.
El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
I used to have quite a few Greyhawk publications, but I downsized a few years ago. The things I absolutely kept though were:
The Adventure Begins - 2E (591 CY)
Player's Guide - 2E (591 CY)
But I also kept a couple of 3E products that were extremely good references, which are also written for the same time period as the above products (591 CY):
Gazetteer - A small 32 page overview of Greyhawk (great for players), with an awesome poster map of the Flaneass, and the continents and oceans of Oerth.
Living Greyhawk Gazetteer - A 192 page overview of Greyhawk (great for DM's), with the same poster map of the Flaneass, and the continents and oceans of Oerth (just with a different border and a bit bigger). It was printed for those playing in the Living Greyhawk RPGA games, but it's really just an incredibly thorough Campaign Setting book. It was just printed to be the "official" setting for Living Greyhawk.
I also have an awesome little bi-fold cardstock poster map 11"x17" (two 8.5"x11" pages) that I kept from a book or boxset also, but I can't for the life of me remember which product it came from. It has the Flanaess on one side, and the Domains of Greyhawk on the other. It works really great as a map for the players. It might have come with either of the 2E books and just got shuffled into my 3E books, but I'm not sure.
The Adventure Begins - 2E (591 CY)
Player's Guide - 2E (591 CY)
But I also kept a couple of 3E products that were extremely good references, which are also written for the same time period as the above products (591 CY):
Gazetteer - A small 32 page overview of Greyhawk (great for players), with an awesome poster map of the Flaneass, and the continents and oceans of Oerth.
Living Greyhawk Gazetteer - A 192 page overview of Greyhawk (great for DM's), with the same poster map of the Flaneass, and the continents and oceans of Oerth (just with a different border and a bit bigger). It was printed for those playing in the Living Greyhawk RPGA games, but it's really just an incredibly thorough Campaign Setting book. It was just printed to be the "official" setting for Living Greyhawk.
I also have an awesome little bi-fold cardstock poster map 11"x17" (two 8.5"x11" pages) that I kept from a book or boxset also, but I can't for the life of me remember which product it came from. It has the Flanaess on one side, and the Domains of Greyhawk on the other. It works really great as a map for the players. It might have come with either of the 2E books and just got shuffled into my 3E books, but I'm not sure.
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Wyvernhand
First Post
Living Greyhawk was basically a world wide MMPPRPG (massively multiplayer pen and paper RPG). There were thousands of people playing it between about 2000 til 2008. Basically, a large group of people got together. The real world was subdivided into regions, and each region corresponded to a country or area in Greyhawk. Each region had a triad (3 people responsible for regional plots), and a group of writers. They would put out 15ish modules per year, each about 4-6 hours long. At the end of each module, you would get an adventure record (AR) that detailed the amount of gold and xp you got, along with the items you found access to. So while on an MMORPG, your character info is stored on a server, in LG, your character is recorded on these ARs.
Given what, about 15ish regions with 15 mods per year, plus 20 core mods, that's about 2205 modules worth of information (about 11025 hours) out there. Good luck getting ahold of them though. WotC owns all the rights to them and is adamant about not sharing them.
LG was run by the RPGA, aka WotC's book of the month club. They currently run Living Realms, the 4e version of Living Greyhawk.
Given what, about 15ish regions with 15 mods per year, plus 20 core mods, that's about 2205 modules worth of information (about 11025 hours) out there. Good luck getting ahold of them though. WotC owns all the rights to them and is adamant about not sharing them.
LG was run by the RPGA, aka WotC's book of the month club. They currently run Living Realms, the 4e version of Living Greyhawk.
Li Shenron
Legend
Check the Wikipedia page on Greyhawk, it looks quite a good resource:
Greyhawk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Janaxstrus
First Post
Peronsally, my thoughts on leaving FR for GH are...don't.
The amount of material on FR from novels, boxed sets etc etc is so much greater, in my opinion, that I wouldn't want to swap. That's, of course, a personal opinion
The amount of material on FR from novels, boxed sets etc etc is so much greater, in my opinion, that I wouldn't want to swap. That's, of course, a personal opinion
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