Only the Lonely: Why We Demand Official Product

[Urriak Uruk]

Oh I agree about Greyhawk, I was more ranting about how goofy some people's understanding of the medieval period actually is (not you specifically).

Yeah I was finding it difficult to see who you were directing it at, so I just wanted to be clear.

 

[jmucchiello]

The only feudal about D&D is the common depiction of royalty and lands owned by barons and counts. There's the suggestion of guilds with apprentices and journeymen. But there's really no squires or pages.

More importantly, there's no serfs. There's not a single word about pledging fealty to anyone, about needing to runaway for a year and a day to escape serfdom.

People own property and there are shops that sell goods. Every edition of D&D has made most of these assumptions. D&D takes place in lands that vaguely resemble Western European earth in medieval times. That's about as medieval as it gets.

 

[TiwazTyrsfist]

Speaking personally, I want official supplements because I mostly only get to play Adventurer's League games.

So, for me, 3rd party products, OR EVEN 1st Party Products that AREN'T AL legal are, essentially, useless.

Now of course I know my experience isn't universal, or probably even fairly common, but that's why I always want new 1st party stuff including new settings.

 

[3catcircus]

SBEEEEEEEP Half my players can't even keep both d20 twenties on the table. Now you want 3 or more. How about you go create your own game. All this would do is add more rolling and SLOW down the game.

They can't do basic maths? In actual play, its extremely fast since you only have to roll to hit and not roll damage dice and add them up.

 

[3catcircus]

Plenty to someone who wants some crunch and doesn't have the time to create and playtest it. Or to the many thousands of D&D players who don't have the old books and want, you know, books.

Its not even just the crunch. It is a chance to adjudicate (whether we like their adjudication results or not) all of the inconsistencies across different published products (i.e. the canon) for the campaign setting.

Just as a very simple example:

1e Greyhawk Folio states that the Kingdom of Keoland's King Tavish III was killed in battle in 453CY. With Tavish IV succeeding him. They mention the king is a lvl 14 Ranger. Ok. Who is the current king since it is now 576CY? The subsequent boxed set identifies the king as Kimbertos Skotti, but no info on his class or level.

From the Ashes doesn't provide any of this info other than that Kimbertos Skotti is the king.

I don't have Greyhawk the Adventure Begins, so I'll skip to the 3e LGG (if anything I mention in 3e LGG is in GtAB, that's on me).

We get a lot more info in the 3e LGG - that a regent rules until 414CY. Ok that's new info - no mention of a regent until now. Now we also know Kimbertos Skotti ascended the throne in ~565CY. But, he is now listed as a lvl 15 Ranger. we also get info on the local barons in each of Keoland's provinces (with stats).

So - why is it important to adjudicate any discrepancies? Well - an AD&D Rgr14 gets 3/2 attacks per round and a Rgr15 gets 2/round. In 3e, a 15th level ranger gets access to 4th level spells beyond bonus spells for a high WIS score, an additional favored enemy, and bonuses against one of his favored enemies increases.

So - which do we convert to 5e? The AD&D 1e Rgr14 or the 3e Rgr15? Its the difference of one additional ranger archetype feature and one additional 4th level spell. That feature is actually pretty good - evasion, uncanny dodge or stand against the tide - something that a 14th level ranger doesn't have.

Does this difference matter? For some people, the difference between a Rgr14 and a Rgr15 may be, in their home campaign, of significance.

WotC's conversion document says that for 1e-3.5 stuff, class levels convert directly (up to 20th level). So - do we convert the 1e Rgr14 or the 3e Rgr15?

And - this is a simple example from a not-all-that-detailed set of 1e-3e info. Imagine a DM trying to sort out stats and lore for the far more complex Forgotten Realms... It can quickly become overwhelming.

It's that sense of being overwhelmed that, for me at least, means I'd prefer to have an adjudicated set of info.

 

[Azzy]

snip

This seriously such a non-issue. Use whichever works for you. Choose which era you want to play in and go from there. Choose 14th or 15th depending on your mood and treat it as a ranger as per whatever edition you're currently using. This is issue is so unimportant that it's not going to stop any reasonable DM in their tracks.

 

[jmucchiello]

This seriously such a non-issue. Use whichever works for you. Choose which era you want to play in and go from there. Choose 14th or 15th depending on your mood and treat it as a ranger as per whatever edition you're currently using. This is issue is so unimportant that it's not going to stop any reasonable DM in their tracks.

Except apparently it is stopping the OP. While I agree with Azzy, I think what he said could be said respectfully.

The simplest solution, IMO, is not the easiest solution. But the simply advance the timeline beyond the books you have. Maybe that new guy is dead and the new leader is a 12th level Druid. It is your world. It stops being canon Greyhawk as soon as the party does anything that alters the landscape.

 

[Maxperson]

Except apparently it is stopping the OP. While I agree with Azzy, I think what he said could be said respectfully.

The simplest solution, IMO, is not the easiest solution. But the simply advance the timeline beyond the books you have. Maybe that new guy is dead and the new leader is a 12th level Druid. It is your world. It stops being canon Greyhawk as soon as the party does anything that alters the landscape.

That works for a lot of DMs. It also fails to work for a lot of DMs. Not everyone wants to figure out all the missing pieces to an older campaign setting. Others don't have time.

 

[3catcircus]

That works for a lot of DMs. It also fails to work for a lot of DMs. Not everyone wants to figure out all the missing pieces to an older campaign setting. Others don't have time.

Yep.

Explain why Mysteries of the Moonsea and Sons of Gruumsh aren't consistent in describing who the city of Melvaunt's leaders are even though they were published lead than a year apart from each other. The only way to know which is closer to "authoritative" is to go back and read the 2e The Moonsea. A DM may not have time, access to the info to know which older products to look at, or the older products may also need to be adjudicated to get to ground truth.

If your players are casual, maybe not a problem. If your players are hard-core into the setting, it can lead (and has led) to disputes at the table.

 

[pemerton]

Couple reasons why I'd like a GH 5E book.

1. To collate or "reboot" the setting for an easy starting timepoint for new groups. There have been a handful of threads here of people asking "What GH books do I buy?" or "What time period is the best to use?" or "What is X nation like?" There's a lot of printed GH material, a lot not good. It needs a good "reboot" into something a little more stable, so people have the history but a good year to start, the current political map, the good base stuff.

If people have different views on what's good out of the current options, I'm not sure how introducing yet another option will change that. It just creates another thing that people might like or dislike compared to the other options.

2. Something tonally different. There hasn't been a lot of setting material printed that gives a more realistic medieval world.

I think "baseline" D&D is anti-medieval, especially in Forgotten Realms. They're are big cosmopolitan cities, no racism, the peasants are mostly treated nicely, adventurers in every pub, not even that much feudalism..

I personally don't see where this image of GH comes from. As I already posted I own nearly every pre-3E GH book (all the campaign guides, all or nearly all the modules). The first village published is Hommlet, and it does have adventurers in the pub. Greyhawk City is big and pretty cosmopolitan. There is no indication that peasants in places like Furyondy or Nyrond or Keoland aren't treated nicely. There is very little presentation of feudalism - rather there are a lot of Counts and Dukes Palatine, independent Princes, etc.

The rulers of the pseudo-vikings all have levels in illusionist as well as fighter. The king of Furyondy is a paladin. The ruler of the City of Greyhawk is a thief (in the D&D sense, ie a pickpocket and second-story man), and has a guildmaster thief and assassin on his town council. None of this is terribly realistic. It's pulp through-and-through.

Its not even just the crunch. It is a chance to adjudicate (whether we like their adjudication results or not) all of the inconsistencies across different published products (i.e. the canon) for the campaign setting.

<snip>

So - which do we convert to 5e? The AD&D 1e Rgr14 or the 3e Rgr15? Its the difference of one additional ranger archetype feature and one additional 4th level spell. That feature is actually pretty good - evasion, uncanny dodge or stand against the tide - something that a 14th level ranger doesn't have.

Does this difference matter? For some people, the difference between a Rgr14 and a Rgr15 may be, in their home campaign, of significance.

If your players are casual, maybe not a problem. If your players are hard-core into the setting, it can lead (and has led) to disputes at the table.

I was recently re-reading the Watchmen graphic novel. There is a continuity error in the final issues - at one point one of the clocks on Veidt's wall in his Antarctic base is labelled Paris, and then in a later panel in the next issue it is labelled Moscow.

This is one of the most renowned comics of all time, written and illustrated by great storytellers, with some of the best editing in the business. And within the space of two issues there is an inconsistency.

The idea that WotC would publish a book to resolve the question of whether the King of Keoland is a 14th or 15th level ranger is just too bizarre for words. Even if they were to publish a new GH book, this wouldn't be something they worried about. Maybe this time around he'll be 16th! Or 13th.

And the idea that it would affect play is also, to me at least, pretty unbelievable. If someone is really hardcore into the setting then they'll know the sources don't all agree, and so will recognise that the GM has to make a call! (Assuming play has even got to the point where it matters how many attacks per round the king of Keoland can make. How often has that come up in the history of GH play?)