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

[Parmandur]

let’s start with the obvious, the only way for Luke to do anything Greyhawk related is either through WotC or by publishing it on DMsGuild. Alternatively it can be Greyhawk ‘inspired’ but all the names will need to be filed off.

I doubt the plan is to go with the latter two options, and neither of them get you onto a panel with WotC, so WotC will be involved in some form. They won’t just publish whatever he creates, no questions asked

Well, I am more than willing to believe the possibility that this will be something like Exploring Eberron, or maybe even Explorers Guide to Widlemoint, that is mostly the work of outside freelancers. But "no internal WotC involvement" is just a weird way to phrase things.

 

[Lidgar]

They got handed around a lot back in the day...keep your eye out for one...

Wait, are you saying the hand is supposed to attach to your eye socket? And here I’ve been running around with this stump of an arm just waiting to find the hand for nothing!

#poorplanning

 

[GuyBoy]

Wait, are you saying the hand is supposed to attach to your eye socket? And here I’ve been running around with this stump of an arm just waiting to find the hand for nothing!

#poorplanning

The hand of Vecna…….peanuts!
The eye of Vecna…….huh!
It’s the head of Vecna that really matters.

 

[Remathilis]

Wait, are you saying the hand is supposed to attach to your eye socket? And here I’ve been running around with this stump of an arm just waiting to find the hand for nothing!

#poorplanning

Instructions unclear. Got hand stuck in eye socket

 

[Remathilis]

I'm hopeful this is a full on separate book (think like that Exodus sci-fi game WotC produced but didn't create) and not "just" a supplement, so it can adjust the 5.5e rules to be closer to old-school styles while using the current D&D "engine". No tieflings/aasimar/goliaths/dragonborn/orcs as playable races, for example, since that doesn't fit Greyhawk (no "weird" races, period, just standard things including Half-Elves and Half-Orcs). Maybe automatically use some of the optional rules like short rest being 1 day and long rest being 1 week, that kind of thing.

They won't really win back old-school fans who aren't happy with the current edition/tone unless they scale back some of the rules too IMHO. More than anything else, the issue is that most old-school players think the rules themselves don't lend themselves to a grittier style game, which is why they gravitate towards rules that emulate B/X or AD&D. If they don't fix that, this project is DOA.

I know one of the guys who said he's on Luke's team has been running a campaign in greyhawk for around 46 years, and he said there is no WotC internal personnel involved, so I'm hopeful they will be able to actually do things and not be forced to shoehorn in 5.5isms where they don't belong. He said they will absolutely be doing things like having inherently Chaotic Evil Orcs, and no fey Hobgoblins, stuff like that, so I'm hopeful about them removing a lot of the WotC changes that were pretty inexplicable.

This could be the reality of the "WotC is working on 6e and making it closer to old-school rules" rumor that's been floating around.

Nothing could kill any interest in this product more than this for me

OSR players have a new retro clone coming out every other day but it's never enough. Won't be happy until they AD&D 3rd edition is made with all the racial limits, class restrictions and level caps back in place.

 

[Calstaff]

What is his real name?

It's Jay Scott. His Greyhawk campaign of 46 years is regularly played on his Twitch channel, which also has talk shows that are Greyhawk related twice a week. Check him out here.

 

[darjr]

There was a non-official book Luke was working on. Prior to this. I imagine Jay Scott is talking about this book. I wouldn't be surprised if those plans have been changed a bit now. Projects can go through big changes during development.

 

[Parmandur]

There was a non-official book Luke was working on. Prior to this. I imagine Jay Scott is talking about this book. I wouldn't be surprised if those plans have been changed a bit now. Projects can go through big changes during development.

Could be they were making something, Gygax showed it to Ayoub and they decided to take it and punch it up for formal publishing, I agree. It's a likely possiblity that Charitavly explains everything said on all parts so far.

 

[WhatTheEyeSees]

If the product has already been in the works for a while and WoTC has agreed to be the publisher, maybe we see it soon. If this is a new book from the ground up my guess is 2028.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

OK, seems to be a Twitch streamer who has a Greyhawk campaign that has been going since before I was born...interesting.

Unclear what he means by "internal WotC" though. Does a part time remote work contracter like Shawn Merwin count as "internal" , if he were involved?

I’m fairly sure Jay (Lord Gosumba) has an account on EN World though it may be lightly used.