D&D General Melf's Guide to Greyhawk Coming From Luke Gygax & WotC

[...m...]

I was just talking about the format. Until they say this is going to be a hardcover book published by WotC, I think it's safer to assume this will be a digital-only product.

...yeah, watching the entire panel does not at all leave me with a definitive impression that this will be a proper wizards-of-the-coast-produced campaign sourcebook akin to eberron rising from the last war or the explorer's guide to wildemount; that conclusion is ambiguous conjecture at best...

...my strongest takeaway impression is that greyhawk modules will be produced in support of adventurer's-league-style organised play, and that we can expect the core greyhawk campaign sourcebook to at least rise to the level of semi-official supplements like the wayfarer's guide to eberron or domains of delight...

...i certainly hope they lean into an official hardcover supplement, but at a minimum it sounds like luke's team were preparing an independently-published book for the DM's guild before wizards of the coast proposed joining forces for organised play...

 

[Maxperson]

The Cavalier Fighter, straight outta Unearthed Arcana by the Big G himself.

You could also do Knight of the Great Kingdom, Suel Arcanamach, Agent of (whatever the Scarlet Brotherhood is renamed), Pact of Iuz, Knave of the Bandit Kingdoms, and tons more.

 

[Maxperson]

I have no opinion on Luke, don’t know anything he did before this (not that there is all that much going by Wikipedia), but to me it feels like he got this gig because of his last name rather than because of qualifications. If so, I am no fan of that

Other than his last name, what gives you that impression? He has been designing products for many years and while I don't know how good they are, I certainly haven't heard anything bad about them. If WotC had announced that they were hiring Luke Cagney to create some Greyhawk products in that announcement, would you still feel the same way?

 

[Voadam]

I always thought it was both strange and a bit sad that neither Castle Blackmoor nor Castle Greyhawk ever got described properly in official published form. If a DM ever wanted to run their own home versions of the first two iconic D&D settings, or a group of players wanted to explore the original dungeons where it all got started... well, good luck with that.

You could glean a few details here and there from the 0E booklets and some early Dragon magazine articles, but it was not much to go on. There was some detail about Blackmoor in Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign supplement from Judges Guild, but I don’t know if it was enough to actually run it for real. Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax both had trouble organizing their thoughts and finishing projects they started. Gygax was always leery about revealing too much about his home game, which I guess I can understand, although it reminds me of those stories about famous bar owners who took their signature cocktail recipes with them to the grave rather than share them with anyone.

I do not expect an actual Castle Greyhawk adventure to emerge from this project, but it sure would be interesting if it did.

There were the 1e modules that explored demiplane side levels from Castle Greyhawk, Gygax's EX1 Dungeonland and Ex2 Beyond the Magic Mirror.

3e era you got Arneson's 300-page long Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor, with his name as author. So you can get a version of Castle Blackmoor now and fully run it.

Unfortunately for Gygax's Castle Greyhawk all that is available is the Castles & Crusades era Yggsburgh which is the upper environs around Castle Zagyg and I think there was a first couple of levels product for the dungeons that were fairly low level and on the more mundane end while the majority of the dungeon was never completed for publication before his death.

Otherwise there was the 1e parody post-Gygax WG7 Castle Greyhawk which is a version but it takes some pointed potshots at Mordenkainen/Gygax in California and then there was the not parody 2e Greyhawk Ruins which has a decent Non-Gygaxian fleshing out of a ruined Castle Greyhawk but is mostly its own thing based on the scant prior published tidbits, and then there was 3e's Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk by three huge WotC Greyhawk fans with a decent basis in deep Greyhawk lore.

Another option is the 3rd party Castle of the Mad Archmage by Joseph Block/BRW games with 5e, Pathfinder 1e, and OSR versions. Non-Gygaxian but a huge Greyhawk fan trying to do out what he would do with Castle Greyhawk.

 

[Zaukrie]

Do people even do massive dungeon crawls anymore? Modern (non OSR) systems aren't really built for that, are they?

 

[Morrus]

We covered this in today’s podcast.

 

[Desdichado]

Just a couple of months ago, people were saying that the guys breaking the rumor of Luke Gygax working with WotC were untrustworthy. Maybe the rest of their rumors should be paid a little more attention to.

 

[Scribe]

Just a couple of months ago, people were saying that the guys breaking the rumor of Luke Gygax working with WotC were untrustworthy. Maybe the rest of their rumors should be paid a little more attention to.

What are the rumors?

 

[Stormonu]

Do people even do massive dungeon crawls anymore? Modern (non OSR) systems aren't really built for that, are they?

Someone is doing it, I'm sure. But I couldn't tell you who. There's no reason I can think of you couldn't use 5E to do it, OSR style editions just might be a bit faster to resolve certain things.

Though I'd certainly like to try - my original 6th-8th grade campaign would definitely fall under the guise of a megadungeon and its something I've been trying to rebuild as I get older and before the remaining details of those days get fuzzier.

 

[mamba]

Other than his last name, what gives you that impression?

that Wikipedia only lists 4 publications, all of which he co-authored, plus a mention of the Troll Lord’s Castle Zagyg.

No idea if that list is complete, but it is not much. Without knowing any details about the products themselves, to me it looks like he is getting by on his name more than on his abilities