D&D 5E PoTA Greyhawk?

[Zardnaar]

The back of Princes of the Apocalypse has some suggestions for running it on Greyhawk.

How would you make it even more Greyhawk so to speak? Using the Pantheon us an obvious one. I'm also thinking of only allowing in races from the 1E PHB or 1E UA being generous.

Also thinking if 1E alignment restrictions and even class and tace restrictions for that GH flavour.

I have The Village of Hommlet in dead tree format along with ToEE pdf and the 1983 GH boxed set and the Paizo Dungeon maps from 3.5. Most of the group also wants to play 1E or OD&D at some point (by the book as well).

 

[The_Gunslinger658]

If your going to run a Greyhawk campaign using 5E, than it is best to dump the munchkin races like Dragonborne and Tiefling. Might also want to dump Sorcerer and Warlock since it does not really fit in with the Greyhawk backround.

Scott

 

[Mecheon]

I mean if you were going to dump races for being 'munchkin', wouldn't you dump variant human first?

 

[Jester David]

How would you make it even more Greyhawk so to speak? Using the Pantheon us an obvious one. I'm also thinking of only allowing in races from the 1E PHB or 1E UA being generous.

Making it human centric would be one way. Maybe a subtle incentive to encourage humans, such as being able to have two inspirations or always starting a session inspired.

Also thinking if 1E alignment restrictions and even class and tace restrictions for that GH flavour.

Limiting the nonhuman races to certain classes might be one way of encouraging people to play humans. Ditto alignments.

I have The Village of Hommlet in dead tree format along with ToEE pdf and the 1983 GH boxed set and the Paizo Dungeon maps from 3.5. Most of the group also wants to play 1E or OD&D at some point (by the book as well).

Greyhawk as a world tends to defined by its grey morality and ancient empires of humans. Making sure the various NPC humans are Suel or Baklunish might help. As will setting it in a familiar location in Greyhawk and using the familiar gods.

Other than that, you don't really need to do much. Greyhawk is pretty generic and hits most of the same tropes as D&D.

 

[Zardnaar]

Making it human centric would be one way. Maybe a subtle incentive to encourage humans, such as being able to have two inspirations or always starting a session inspired.


Limiting the nonhuman races to certain classes might be one way of encouraging people to play humans. Ditto alignments.


Greyhawk as a world tends to defined by its grey morality and ancient empires of humans. Making sure the various NPC humans are Suel or Baklunish might help. As will setting it in a familiar location in Greyhawk and using the familiar gods.

Other than that, you don't really need to do much. Greyhawk is pretty generic and hits most of the same tropes as D&D.

PoTA recommends the Kron hills and Hommlet. I think a side trek to the ToEE may be in order. Just the surface section I can backstory it as looted and the tunnels collapsed?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'm dont know much about Greyhawk, but could you just change Red Larch for Hommlet in PotA? The elders could be having their little mystic party in the ruins of the old castle instead of being in the tunnels under the village.

You can also have a look at the document someone here on Enworld posted to make a more Classic D&D with 5e: Max lvl 10, class-as-race etc, could be interesting.

 

[Satyrn]

PoTA recommends the Kron hills and Hommlet. I think a side trek to the ToEE may be in order. Just the surface section I can backstory it as looted and the tunnels collapsed?

I had assumed that PotA was already set in the ToEE. I mean, isn't it 5e's version of the adventure?

 

[Demetrios1453]

I had assumed that PotA was already set in the ToEE. I mean, isn't it 5e's version of the adventure?

Same cults (which are pretty much multiverse-wide from the 2e days at least), significantly different temple complex.

 

[hastur_nz]

I once ran A1, and maybe a bit of A2, using AD&D rules. It was a real eye-opener, in terms of showing us how what we remembered with fond nostalgia, was actually a real mess and required a lot of house-ruling to actually have anything coherent in terms of how you were meant to actually run combat, etc. (DMG was a great read for ideas, but terribly incoherent).

Anyway, if you want to play Princes of the Apocalypse on Greyhawk, I think you really don't need much change, and the core answers are already listed here.
But while removing some races and classes might be more 'true' to the AD&D world, keep in mind a lot of players may not like it, and resent it. Same if you restrict alignments, and combos of races with classes (next step - the dreaded level restrictions!) Those rules are a thing of the past i.e. 1st edition, not really a thing of Greyhawk per se. Remember, back in the day AD&D was Greyhawk, or visa versa, and 3.x brought it back as the core world; the world of Greyhawk, is pretty much the world of D&D, apart from the Gods, there's not really anything explicitly required to change. So my point is simply this - ask yourself, "will this fix a 'not Greyhawk' problem, and will it make the game more fun for my players", and the answer will probably be, most of the time, that you don't need that change after all.

For example, if you have someone who really wants to play a Dragonborn Warlock, it's an opportunity for the player to help describe exactly where the Dragonborn comes from, as well as how their Patron fits into the world; it's also an opportunity for you as DM to create some future plot-hooks based on that. If everyone wants to play Humans, it's an opportunity to explore their lineage, how that might relate to the locals as well as the cultists, and so on. If people want to play Dwarves, Gnomes, Elves etc, well what's in the PHB is all fine for Greyhawk, and if you're in or around the Kron Hills all the traditional Demi-Humans exist somewhere thereabouts, so it's a chance to actually feature a home village or two, at some point.

 

[Zardnaar]

I once ran A1, and maybe a bit of A2, using AD&D rules. It was a real eye-opener, in terms of showing us how what we remembered with fond nostalgia, was actually a real mess and required a lot of house-ruling to actually have anything coherent in terms of how you were meant to actually run combat, etc. (DMG was a great read for ideas, but terribly incoherent).

Anyway, if you want to play Princes of the Apocalypse on Greyhawk, I think you really don't need much change, and the core answers are already listed here.
But while removing some races and classes might be more 'true' to the AD&D world, keep in mind a lot of players may not like it, and resent it. Same if you restrict alignments, and combos of races with classes (next step - the dreaded level restrictions!) Those rules are a thing of the past i.e. 1st edition, not really a thing of Greyhawk per se. Remember, back in the day AD&D was Greyhawk, or visa versa, and 3.x brought it back as the core world; the world of Greyhawk, is pretty much the world of D&D, apart from the Gods, there's not really anything explicitly required to change. So my point is simply this - ask yourself, "will this fix a 'not Greyhawk' problem, and will it make the game more fun for my players", and the answer will probably be, most of the time, that you don't need that change after all.

For example, if you have someone who really wants to play a Dragonborn Warlock, it's an opportunity for the player to help describe exactly where the Dragonborn comes from, as well as how their Patron fits into the world; it's also an opportunity for you as DM to create some future plot-hooks based on that. If everyone wants to play Humans, it's an opportunity to explore their lineage, how that might relate to the locals as well as the cultists, and so on. If people want to play Dwarves, Gnomes, Elves etc, well what's in the PHB is all fine for Greyhawk, and if you're in or around the Kron Hills all the traditional Demi-Humans exist somewhere thereabouts, so it's a chance to actually feature a home village or two, at some point.

I would not allow Dragonborn on Greyhawk (or Krynn or Athas). I do allow them in FR and Eberron.

I don't believe in shoehorning in modern things just because.

Right now PoTA GH qith my laziness at converting it as we are going earliercthan I planned so might run it as is.

I might use alignment restrictions level limits not a great fan of them (design a better human) racial restrictions I do not mind depending on the edition or what the DM is trying to achieve.