Sales of upcoming Greyhawk Ruins will determine it's future

[EyeontheMountain]

I think, more than any other setting, Greyhawk is defined by its adventures, not its supplements.

Cheers!

I totally agree. That is my impression of Greyhaowk also. With FR, nothing EVER goes away, and villians are NEVER defeated. You can kick the Cult of the Dragon to the curb from 1st to 40th level and there is always someone a bit bigger who has the same boring reason for existance. And the same boring plotline to boot.

But not Greyhawk. It is a place where adventures are set, not a place that holds itself to such a standard as FR. Room to move, and do what you want.

I don't run FR, and never will becasue I've got better things to do with my time that memorize 300 sourcebooks and novels printed as early as 1980. You jsut don't need to do that in Greyhawk, which is why I am buying only one of the Expedition series, and it's the one in August.

 

[qstor]

I think republishing the LGG in hardcover, with the timeline advanced to account for the canon changes by Living Greyhawk, would be sufficient for a lot of folks. LGG is long out of print, after all.

Good idea, I think it would be cool to add in some crunch too.

Mike

 

[Faraer]

But what your saying is that you want the original walkman not an ipod, you want vcr's instead of dvd's you want 70's Hi Karate instead of Drakkar. It's been done already. 30 years is was a good run. Let it go man.

If you tried applying this to Vance's Dying Earth, Averoigne, Glorantha, Tékumel, Middle-earth, the Hyborian Age, the Star Wars galaxy, Wolfe's Commonwealth, etc., you might see what nonsense it is.

All I am saying is I don't want it to be brought back as the default setting

Who does? Having to accommodate the whims of the core D&D designers would shatter any chance a revived World of Greyhawk would have to keep its own nature.

I think republishing the LGG in hardcover, with the timeline advanced to account for the canon changes by Living Greyhawk, would be sufficient for a lot of folks.

The events of Living Greyhawk aren't intended to be part of the 'canonical' setting (in so far as one currently exists).

 

[GVDammerung]

Greyhawk lacks the potential of an Eberron or Realms. Both of these are worlds. Greyhawk is really just the Flanaess, a small part of one continent and the fringes of little more. It could be expanded but such expansion would fall outside all experience with "Greyhawk" as it is known - ie the Flanaess. The question would then be whether the expansion was "true" Greyhawk or just generic fantasy tacked onto the Flanaess and using its familiar names in increasingly tangental and strained manners. Que the factions of Greyhawk fandom at this point to generate large, vocal and unruly reactions, easily as many negative as positive. Talk about splitting your market.

IMO, if Greyhawk is ever to be viable there are only two ways to go. 1) See it as a micro or niche setting - the Flanaess - and manage it as a limited run "setting," much like Al-Qadim was handled. 2) Reconceptualize the setting from the ground up as an organic world, not as a world added to the preexisting Flanaess, necessarily understanding that the difference would be akin to the difference between Vampire The Masquerade and Vampire The Requim -similar but more different than similar. The second approach IMO holds more potential from a business standpoint but not for fans of Greyhawk to this point in all likelihood.

 

[Ranger REG]

I wouldn't. Not if WotC handed him a nice, fat paycheck for the work.

And you wonder why WotC prefer new writers (and artists).

 

[Thulcondar]

Greyhawk lacks the potential of an Eberron or Realms. Both of these are worlds. Greyhawk is really just the Flanaess, a small part of one continent and the fringes of little more. It could be expanded but such expansion would fall outside all experience with "Greyhawk" as it is known - ie the Flanaess. The question would then be whether the expansion was "true" Greyhawk or just generic fantasy tacked onto the Flanaess and using its familiar names in increasingly tangental and strained manners. Que the factions of Greyhawk fandom at this point to generate large, vocal and unruly reactions, easily as many negative as positive. Talk about splitting your market.

And, on cue, here I am.

I take issue with your notion that Greyhawk, as it is currently constituted, lacks potential. Did Dragonlance lack potential when it was just limited to a single continent? Were the Forgotten Realms pre-Maztica somehow lacking? Of course not. The potential within the Flanaess is boundless; any single gaming group under a competent DM could play for decades and not even come close to exhausting its potential. Indeed, EGG and company managed to base a campaign of decades around a single city, and a single dungeon, with suitable side-trips, and managed to maintain their interest. Plus, bear in mind that Greyhawk is somewhat unique in its position as a nexus of other planes. The lands around the Nyr Dyv are too limiting? Welcome to the demi-plane of shadow...

To say the Flanaess is unsuitable as a gaming environment because it is limited geographically is simply unfounded. Sheer land-mass does not equate to potential.

IMO, if Greyhawk is ever to be viable there are only two ways to go. 1) See it as a micro or niche setting - the Flanaess - and manage it as a limited run "setting," much like Al-Qadim was handled. 2) Reconceptualize the setting from the ground up as an organic world, not as a world added to the preexisting Flanaess, necessarily understanding that the difference would be akin to the difference between Vampire The Masquerade and Vampire The Requim -similar but more different than similar. The second approach IMO holds more potential from a business standpoint but not for fans of Greyhawk to this point in all likelihood.

Bah to both approaches, I say. Greyhawk, centered around the Flanaess, is perfectly fine as a campaign setting. Any DM worth his salt could run a campaign for years on the borders of Perrenland, or in and amongst the machinations of the Great Kingdom, or in the Yeomanry alone. The intentional vagueness of the Flanaess (and Greyhawk as a whole) is not a limiting factor; it is the framework upon which a good DM can hang his or her work for years to come.

 

[hong]

Apropos of nothing, I just want to say that I am appalled, simply appalled at how everyone has misspelled Grayhawk. I mean, next you'll be saying colour instead of color, armour instead of armor, ninji instead of ninjae, etc. OH, THE HORROR, THE HORROR.

 

[broghammerj]

Does it have to be trained to bite off the penis of Scott Tenorman?

As a urologist, your statement intriques me?

 

[Ranger REG]

Greyhawk lacks the potential of an Eberron or Realms. Both of these are worlds. Greyhawk is really just the Flanaess, a small part of one continent and the fringes of little more.

So? Last I checked, WotC isn't spotlighiting regions beyond the Forgotten Realms's Faerun

OBTW, the world of Greyhawk is called Oerth.

 

[Ranger REG]

Apropos of nothing, I just want to say that I am appalled, simply appalled at how everyone has misspelled Grayhawk. I mean, next you'll be saying colour instead of color, armour instead of armor, ninji instead of ninjae, etc. OH, THE HORROR, THE HORROR.

Jerry Seinfeld ... you're not.

[Even I hate that comedian.]