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[Swordsage]

How can we argue with logic like that.

You don't have to argue with it. Just look at most every campaign setting ever published under the D&D umbrella (and I'm guessing that others under different gaming systems also went the same way) - as soon as the original world creator's input became diluted by other designers/writers, the world was seen to be "not as good". Unless Keith Baker has input into every single creative decision re Eberron, its bound to diverge from his original concept and thoughts on a multitude of aspects. Come back to this thread in 10 years and see what kind of an argument you can put up. That's why people pine for Gygax re Greyhawk.

The Swordsage

 

[Swordsage]

Mmmm hmmm.

Ah, c'mon Erik. You're not really saying that Gygax had a vision for Greyhawk and had all its details, history and bits and pieces sorted out before it was published, are you?! Gygax is the most ad-hoc designer ever. And given that the Gs & Ds were tournament adventures, there is no way that Gygax had a grand plan for Lolth, the drow or just about anything. Remember, the comment was about the Realms predating the Demonweb Pits, not necessarily Greyhawk. I'd believe the 'grand plan' thing more so for Greenwood, who's a world builder first and foremost. World building for Gygax was incidental.

The Swordsage

 

[Vocenoctum]

Ah, c'mon Erik. You're not really saying that Gygax had a vision for Greyhawk and had all its details, history and bits and pieces sorted out before it was published, are you?! Gygax is the most ad-hoc designer ever. And given that the Gs & Ds were tournament adventures, there is no way that Gygax had a grand plan for Lolth, the drow or just about anything. Remember, the comment was about the Realms predating the Demonweb Pits, not necessarily Greyhawk. I'd believe the 'grand plan' thing more so for Greenwood, who's a world builder first and foremost. World building for Gygax was incidental.

The Swordsage

Well, the comment was about assigning Demonweb Pits to FR, which it obviously isn't because the publication of Queen predates the publication of FR.

I took Erik's "mmhmm" as "see, toldja Voce", but that's just me. I'm sure GH predated the first time it was printed as a Greyhawk product, but in a book trade, I generally consider publication to be when the product exists in the grand timeline of which products tie togethor.

 

[Rassilon]

And, frankly, I think anyone betting that Elminster is going to eat it in this trilogy or that Shadowdale won't be on the road to recovery by the time the third adventure wraps up better get some pretty favorable odds, because they're likely to lose their shirt, IMO.

Oh no. I'll be DMing. I can pretty much guarantee that Elminster is going to "eat it".


Rassilon.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And given that the Gs & Ds were tournament adventures, there is no way that Gygax had a grand plan for Lolth, the drow or just about anything.

Nothing about the nature of tournament modules suggests anything of the sort.

 

[Swordsage]

Nothing about the nature of tournament modules suggests anything of the sort.

Riiiiight. So the fact that they were created for tourneys months, likely years, apart makes you think that Gygax had an over-arching plan for Lolth and the drow in GH. That theory doesn't gel with the reality of a DM style of furiously writing dungeon levels one step ahead of his players. In all the myriad bits of information written on or about GH through the decades, I've never yet seen the statement made that the G & D series were taken out of Gary's own GH campaign. If they weren't, then it's clear that there was never any unifying vision or plan regarding their place in the setting. Like all the tournament modules, they were shoehorned into the setting after they were produced and left for individual DMs to incorporate and provide background info. GH was never anything but a skeleton of a campaign setting anyway - in comparison to FR, that is.

The Swordsage

 

[Faraer]

We know a good deal about the development of various D&D and Greyhawk elements, and almost always Gary would come up with things as needed, whether for his campaign or for tournaments or publication. That's a fine method of worldbuilding.

History of publication is one thing, history of creation and ideas is another. I don't know what Erik meant by his 'Mmmm hmmm.' If he has reason to doubt the known genesis of the Realms, as mentioned among other places in his own magazine, he should tell us.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Riiiiight. So the fact that they were created for tourneys months, likely years, apart makes you think that Gygax had an over-arching plan for Lolth and the drow in GH.

I guess you weren't playing when these modules were released. EVERYTHING came out months and years apart, even if it had already been used in his game or in a tournament. Good lord, the Temple of Elemental Evil came out YEARS after the Village of Hommlett; we were all climbing the walls waiting for "T2" to come out, for instance.

That theory doesn't gel with the reality of a DM style of furiously writing dungeon levels one step ahead of his players. In all the myriad bits of information written on or about GH through the decades, I've never yet seen the statement made that the G & D series were taken out of Gary's own GH campaign. If they weren't, then it's clear that there was never any unifying vision or plan regarding their place in the setting.

The 1E Monster Manual serves as a pretty big hint in that regard, actually.

Like all the tournament modules, they were shoehorned into the setting after they were produced and left for individual DMs to incorporate and provide background info.

You seriously are putting way too much weight on "all tournament modules," as though they were all created under the same circumstances under some sort of strict guidelines.

 

[Brakkart]

Oh no. I'll be DMing. I can pretty much guarantee that Elminster is going to "eat it".


Rassilon.

Ahh not me. I'll likely run this trilogy too cos it sounds really cool, and I'll see if theres a way to toss in Sons of Grumsh and a few sites from Mysteries of the Moonsea as well. I like Elminster though, he and Khelben are the only Chosen I'm any good at roleplaying as a DM, and ol Khelben is gone now (circa 1374DR). Just cos El's tower is in ruins, doesn't mean El was in it at the time (and in fact considering how powerful Elminster is, is pretty certain that he wasn't).

As for the earlier comment about the Realms suffering years of "ill-conceived RSE's", I add that I'm a huge fan of the Realms, I don't run campaigns in any other world, I buy all the rpg books and most of the novels and I LOVE RSE's. They advance the timeline, providing for a dymanic and constantly evolving and changing world. That to me is one of the Realms greatest strengths. I would like to see more support in sourcebooks for the events that occur in the novels though, that is my only gripe about them.

I don't love the Realms for small stories, its a big world, with big characters and big things happen. The idea of epic characters doing nothing is to my mind absurd. Characters of epic power change the world by their very presence, and so they should. The Realms as published may bear little relation to Greenwoods original design for the world, but then I rate Greenwood as a great writer when it comes to writing sourcebooks, and a frankly terrible writer of stories anyway. I wouldn't want to play in Greenwoods version of the Realms, but I always have a dozen ideas for campaigns set in the TSR/WotC Realms kicking around in my head.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Riiiiight. So the fact that they were created for tourneys months, likely years, apart makes you think that Gygax had an over-arching plan for Lolth and the drow in GH. That theory doesn't gel with the reality of a DM style of furiously writing dungeon levels one step ahead of his players. In all the myriad bits of information written on or about GH through the decades, I've never yet seen the statement made that the G & D series were taken out of Gary's own GH campaign. If they weren't, then it's clear that there was never any unifying vision or plan regarding their place in the setting. Like all the tournament modules, they were shoehorned into the setting after they were produced and left for individual DMs to incorporate and provide background info. GH was never anything but a skeleton of a campaign setting anyway - in comparison to FR, that is.

The Swordsage

I'm just unclear on one point. What exactly are you debating? I mean, you're attacking Gygax on many levels, but are you hoping to prove that the Demonweb Pits were indeed originally crafted as part of FR? I couldn't care less when Greenwood dreamed up this country or that NPC, what does that have to do with a module that was published years before he was part of the company?

Maybe the Demonweb Pits were not imagined until 2 minutes before the module was written, that still leaves years before Greenwood's influence at TSR, doesn't it?

I consider books to be created when they're published, the FR may have existed in some fashion before that but it's meaningless to the discussion of whether the Demonweb Pits, Drow, or Lolth/ Lloth are part of the FR cosmos first.