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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 8591515" data-attributes="member: 58172">I learned to play D&D from 1e die hards whose houserules include borrowings from other editions, but whose player options are 1e. It is a, ahem, "system", that I know and appreciate.1e is an oral tradition, not a written tradition. One learns it by observing a group that is already playing it. And it is an esoteric tradition, because each group is doing the tradition differently, improvising new rules that come up, ignoring old rules that get in the way, and sometimes comparing notes with other groups.The same thing that is true for its Do-It-Yourself mechanics, is also true for its Do-It-Yourself setting. There is no such thing as a setting in 1e. At least, no such thing as an official "canon" for a setting.There is especially no such thing as a Greyhawk canon in 1e. 1e gamers really do invent their own settings from scratch. Each adventure is like a different thought experiment. Eventually such experiments accumulate to form a defacto regional setting, or maybe even a world setting, if the thought experiments are sufficiently farflung. But every table ends up with their own unique setting. Players may or may not use an "official module", an adventure. They might plug in some and not others, or none at all. Even if in use, the adventure may or may not undergo heavy revision. The City of Greyhawk regional setting, and the World of Greyhawk continental setting did come out during the 1e era. But there was no concept that people would use these because they were "official". It was more like, here is some more stuff that you might want to riff off for you own table. You might want to compare your notes with the notes for the campaign that Gygax is in.The concept of a "setting canon" is a 2e development. Its 2e World of Greyhawk setting was itself a thought experiment: What if? What if everything published in 1e was somehow all simultaneously true? What would that look like? But that way of thinking is alien to 1e. Gygax himself was surprised when some people would rather play in his setting, rather than create their own settings.The 1e ethic is: Explore a world whose only limitation is your own imagination.This 1e-style freedom of DM world building and freedom of player character concept invention, are what I cherish most of all in all D&D.</blockquote>

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