D&D General Suggestions for Greyhawk resources?

[Parmandur]

The 2e From the Ashes boxed set has lots of info and tons of evocative stuff and hints at sites. It is set in the 2e metaplot of the Greyhawk Wars and is more Dark Fantasy with more demons and active evil ascendant.

Later 2e and 3e WotC soft reset the tone by advancing the timeline a little and undoing a lot of the changes.

And now they are setting the timeline back, so it might be an awkward fit with the 5E iteration.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hard to say how redundant this will be with what is in the new DMG, but the go-to would be the 1983 World of Greyhawk box set, which is $9.99 on the DMsGuild: it includes all the material from the original 1980 Folio including the classic map, with a lot of expansion material. It is the only Setting product Gygax was involved with, other than Adventure modules, which the box set locates on the map in the booklet (note: there is a lot of...Gygax...stuff in here that I expect the new DMg to fix).

TSR would make other stuff later, but usually their heart wasn't in it, and the DMG seems to be a timeline reset to the box set (as Ghosts of Saltmarsh was) so even most of the latter metaplot tinged stuff would be of mixed usability and very...2E:

World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1e) - Wizards of the Coast | AD&D 1st Ed. | Greyhawk | AD&D 1st Ed. | Dungeon Masters Guild

World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting (1e) - Enter the WORLD OF GREYHAWK... ...A world where bandit kings raid from their remote stronghold; ...A world where noble

www.dmsguild.com

Yeah, if the 5e version is going back to something more like what’s in this boxed set, that sounds like the perfect place to start. Thank you very much!

 

[ilgatto]

(...)I’m particularly interested in the idea of a highly site-based (as opposed to event-based) sandbox game featuring a many dungeons from classic modules as adventure sites the PCs might be able to visit.

Well, I suppose one of the major site-based classics campaign-wise would be the so-called G-D-Q series, which is more or less ready to go without much preparation.

G-series (Wikipedia).

D-series (Wikipedia).

Q1 (Wikipedia).

However, the whole thing starts at a fairly high level:

Still, there's ways to get there:

Wikipedia: Although initially written as a stand-alone series, T1-4 was made to dovetail into A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords when these two campaigns were revised in 1986 as supermodules. The combined campaign then culminates with the GDQ series, incorporating modules G1-G3 Against the Giants; D1-D3, which introduced D&D fans to drow elves for the first time; and finally Q1, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, in which the heroes fight against the spider demon Lolth herself. These last adventures were also combined and republished as a supermodule bearing the code GDQ1-7, Queen of the Spiders.

Not a fan of this route myself, but there you go.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, if the 5e version is going back to something more like what’s in this boxed set, that sounds like the perfect place to start. Thank you very much!

Enjoy! I was literally reading this for my own entertainment earlier today.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, I suppose one of the major site-based classics campaign-wise would be the so-called G-D-Q series, which is more or less ready to go without much preparation.

G-series (Wikipedia).

D-series (Wikipedia).

Q1 (Wikipedia).

However, the whole thing starts at a fairly high level:

View attachment 381098

Still, there's ways to get there:



Not a fan of this route myself, but there you go.

High level is fine! I like sandboxes with content for a wide level range.

 

[Voadam]

 

[Pauln6]

The Adventure Begins contained a bite-sized introduction.

 

[Demetrios1453]

The 3e Gazetteer is a good 32 page overview of the setting but has very spotty info on gods.

The 3e Living Gazetteer is more in depth but fairly dry.

I was going to mention the later myself. It's chock full of lots of in-depth information on the setting, but, conversely, it's hardly an exciting page-turner. And the art is... unfortunate. But if you're just looking for just information and numbers, it can't be beat. And even though it's set a few years past the original setting (which it looks like what we'll be getting in the DMG), it does have history sections for each nation, so you'll be able to reverse-engineer the info back to the original setting date (or just adopt them and play in the year it was set in - you do you!)

 

[Parmandur]

View attachment 381100

Worth noting that a number of these are available in Tales from the Yawning Portal and Quests from the Infinite Staircase.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

There's the Canonfire website.

Canonfire!

www.canonfire.com

Loads of stuff there. Some really, really deep dives.