{Settings Tournament} Round 5 - Finals! Greyhawk vs. Planescape

[Argyle King]

For what it's worth, I voted Greyhawk despite having zero connection to the tabletop gaming of the 70s or 80s. I never played D&D until 2000. It still tends to be one of the settings I enjoy the most. I'm currently a player in a non-D&D game set in the world of Greyhawk, and it's one of the most enjoyable campaigns I've ever been in.


Also, for what it's worth, I prefer the basic ideas behind the 4E cosmology (Shadowfell and Feywild being echoes of the prime; elementals vs gods) over the Great Wheel. Though, I tend to favor most (but certainly not all) of the 3E gods.

 

[howandwhy99]

Greyhawk of the early modules and gazetteer and boxed set era is undeniably awesome. It's really the myths of a larger world we never quite see that sold it for me. There were secrets known only to those who actually played in it down in Lake Geneva. Of course the published work was largely different, but so much of the design feel of the setting is at once the place of epic narratives with a big dose of historical allusions mixed with countless instances of humor in puns, inside jokes, and personal feel. The feel could put one off, but it is one of very few D&D settings which actually feel like they were built through play of a fantasy wargame and not just brainstorming without playing. There's no tie to an underlying theme in Greyhawk, no addressing of particular moral quandaries, nothing which our contemporary culture holds to make "good art", and yet it feels aged. Lived in. A real place. One with a history capable of being discovered because not only does what you do now matter, but also what everyone else has done before. The world was shaped, not dreamt.

I have high hopes Wizards will bring Greyhawk back, but it's original designer has passed on. There is no original voice for the setting now, much like Howard's endless imitators for Conan can never match his voice. It is not Conan without him and I fear it will not be Greyhawk without Gygax. But so much material exists even that hurdle may be overcome. The hard part is post-Gygax Greyhawk which has its own feel, its own highs and lows as well. Add in the LGG of 3e tying all original and 90s material together and Greyhawk now as a living work becomes harder to recognize as the earlier one. I don't know what we'll see of the setting next, but I'm actually rooting for small, game supporting, and focused. Something perhaps even very, very general on the big scale, and then with small pieces in regions setting down greater detail, yet still requiring DMs to fill in the proverbial map and make it their own.

I like the latest Wandering Monsters article for bringing up Silver Marches, possibly the best 3.x Forgotten Realms book published as a usable campaign setting. (of course that map is hideously outsized, but then I see Greyhawk as the original source of that trouble. I could see the 1:30 mile gaping hexes in Greyhawk cut down to 1:10, 1:12, or 1:15. Furyondy may as well be, I don't know, half of Europe otherwise.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But why does there have to be a "truth" at all? One of the major themes of Planescape is that nobody really knows much about how the multiverse works, and it's all up to interpretation.

This has always been my approach for my 4e PS games.

It's also what helped me not sweat the lore. It doesn't matter if I don't know some obscure reference in some manual, because relativity of reality is one of PS's canonical, interesting elements. There's no reason anything HAS to be true. The Blood War could just be one big consipiracy of the fiends to make it look like there's in-fighting so that they can cooperate to overthrow the angels and not really happening at all. Why not?

PS always gave me the impression of being whatever you wanted to make of it. Which is why it gets my vote above Greyhawk. Standard D&D is great, but Weird D&D is more fun for me.

 

[interfactor]

Welcome, Joe!

It should hopefully be no surprise that I voted for Greyhawk.

Honestly, Planescape always felt a little weird to me. I like the wheel, and prefer the focus of the game be on the material plane. But hey, personal taste and all that. I certainly don't begrudge anyone else who wants to play in Sigil (or Waterdeep, or Tyr, or wherever).

Joe / GG

I think that weird was one of the goals of the setting. Tony DiTerlizzi's incredible art set that tone from the get go. Beautiful and otherworldly. Besides, if dimensional travel isn't weird, you're not doing it right.

Joe, you should include a link to your excellent blog in your sig. And thanks for ADD, it is a great game!

 

[Hussar]

Obviously Greyhawk got my vote. And, here's why: Greyhawk, to me, always seemed like a campaign world where the players were expected to make lasting impacts on the setting. It was someone's home setting and, if you looked at it, it wasn't too hard to see that my character could, with a bit of patience, take up a place among the movers and shakers of the world. Most of the NPC's were low double digit levels (with a couple of exceptions). If you had a 12th level party in Greyhawk, you were among the highest of the high.

It was something to easily aspire to. "My character is going to impact this setting just like Tenser or Murylind". It gave the players a built in hook right from the get go.

Looking back on it, I realise that it's the lack of deus ex machina NPC's in Greyhawk is probably my biggest draw.

 

[btmcrae]

I have never really considered PLANESCAPE to even be a real setting. The Planes are tacked on to ALL setting worlds, but even in the PLANESCAPE format the Planes never felt much like a setting of their own. Okay, it seems like a Monty Haul setting, if anything. The only reason I think that PLANESCPE is even in the running is because so many people identify with portions of it for the very reason that the Planes are in present on the periphery of every world setting to begin with. And because planar gates are a less lame way to get about than SPELLJAMMER.

 

[grodog]

I have high hopes Wizards will bring Greyhawk back, but it's original designer has passed on. There is no original voice for the setting now, much like Howard's endless imitators for Conan can never match his voice. It is not Conan without him and I fear it will not be Greyhawk without Gygax.

While Gary is gone, there are other Greyhawk co-creators still living, thankfully. Rob Kuntz is still around, as are a number of the players in the original campaign, and Gary's children Luke and Ernie who were among the primary participants in the game. No one can replace Gary, of course, but the rest of the Lake Geneva gang still has some good life left in their veins!

 

[howandwhy99]

While Gary is gone, there are other Greyhawk co-creators still living, thankfully. Rob Kuntz is still around, as are a number of the players in the original campaign, and Gary's children Luke and Ernie who were among the primary participants in the game. No one can replace Gary, of course, but the rest of the Lake Geneva gang still has some good life left in their veins!

Maybe you could find those two CAS modules for cost for me somewhere? To fill out my collection.

It would be awesome if Kuntz came out of retirement, but the rest of the crowd is already publishing again, no? Still, it would be awesome if they published for Greyhawk openly. And I assume their monetary compensation would be a great deal more, if they published through Wizards.

You are right there is great material from great authors still to be had.

 

[grodog]

Maybe you could find those two CAS modules for cost for me somewhere? To fill out my collection.

Perhaps you missed this update?: http://lakegenevaoriginalrpg.blogspot.com/2013/11/updates-on-run.html

It would be awesome if Kuntz came out of retirement, but the rest of the crowd is already publishing again, no?

IIRC, the Hobby Shop Dungeon from Ernie Gygax and Benoist Poire is appearing in Gygax Magazine #3, too.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I consider myself a Forgotten Realms/Planescape DM; that's where I did the vast majority of my DM'ing. But given the fact that Greyhawk is winning, doesn't it make sense to have WotC (or Paizo!) put out some new Greyhawk material?

I would think there is enough demonstrated interest here and elsewhere that we should get something "new" in the original D&D world.