What didn't people like about Greyhawk From the Ashes?

[the Jester]

...we would have wanted more detail on 576 CY, like how Wilderlands and Harn do it. No timeline advancing - that's fine for comics and novels, IMHO it's consistently terrible for RPG settings. We GMs want a world we can bend to _our_ will, not have our campaigns bent to someone else's will!

Well said, and QFMFT!!!

 

[grodog]

The above thread/quote got me to wondering. I've seen a lot of people who didn't like the Greyhawk Wars and From the Ashes material, and I'm wondering why?

I didn't own much Sargent materials BITD, since I'd quit playing D&D for other rpgs for several years in the late '80s and through much of the '90s. So, while I haven't generally followed his vision for the setting, I've cherry picked a lot of great ideas and materials from his works to use in my own campaigns.

More like ten or more years ago for me, back on the good old AOL Greyhawk forum. Some really good discussions from back in the day on this very issue. I wonder if any of those threads were saved?

Yes, the Greyhawk folder AOL discussions are archived on Canonfire! @ http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=3

 

[grodog]

For the record, Carl Sargent had nothing to do with Greyhawk Wars (which was a lame attempt at a lame product). He -did- write just about all the accessories for FtA. I think Jim Ward was Greyhawk Wars.

IIRC, Greyhawk Wars was David Cook; Ward was the Greyhawk Adventures hardcover.

 

[Banshee16]

Hmm..From the Ashes was my introduction to the setting...other than Castle Greyhawk, which I detested. From the Ashes was serious, somewhat dark, and it felt more gritty than FR, because evil had a real presence, instead of being "hamburglars" or something.

I never had a complaint about that box.

Banshee

 

[Nathal]

From my perspective, FtA simply seemed... unnecessary.

...for the benefit of lazy DMs who either couldn't work up those details on their own or couldn't think them up on the fly as needed. There was no room for individual DM creativity any more.

Lazy? I'd rather make up my own stuff than memorize all of the detail. Call DMs who memorize campaign settings what you will, but lazy would not be the word I'd choose.

 

[Wraith Form]

it felt more gritty than FR, because evil had a real presence, instead of being "hamburglars" or something.

Oh, SNAP!

LOL

ROTFLMAO

Nice diss.

 

[James Heard]

I'd rather look it all up, but I admit that I'd like to actually like what I'm looking up and that's not exactly how I'd classify some of the minutia of Greyhawk Wars.

As much as I fully allow for the idea that Greyhawk fanboys would be seriously hating it, Greyhawk Wars and FtA are my justification for consistently wishing that Wizards would have revisited the setting with the "fast forward" button and a couple of hardcovers when 3E came out. Greyhawk's an interesting place. It can be interesting without filling in the blanks all the way. Someone could have taken some of the weird "huh" out of the wars and either retconned it into something awesome or rolled with it and turned it into a brilliant twist that made the previous author look like a genius. And then, after they recast history and revisited all the little locations that Greyhawkers loved, they could step back and not touch it for another ten years or more.

 

[T. Foster]

I was out of Official D&D by the time Sargent's FtA stuff came along so I never saw any of it, but I did see both Zeb Cook's Greyhawk Wars set (which was absolutely terrible, a complete travesty, and in fact one of the final straws that drove me away from Official D&D (along with Spelljammer and the "Complete" splatbooks)) and Roger Moore et al.'s late-90s "Greyhawk Revival" stuff, which I found (on some quick broswe-throughs at the game store, I never actually bought any of it) to be uniformly bland an uninspired (but, honestly, not really any worse than the equally bland and uninspired pre-GW 2E material (City of Greyhawk, Greyhawk Ruins, Falcon Trilogy, etc.) which I did buy, because I didn't know any better yet). The only thing I know about 3E-era Greyhawk is that they changed Mordenkainen's appearance to make him look like Sean Reynolds, but that fact alone is so ridiculous and distasteful to me that's it's kept me from having any further interest or curiosity in that version of the setting. Except for the Maure Castle installments in Dungeon (which really don't have much specific Greyhawk content anyway) there hasn't been a single Greyhawk product that's captured my interest since Gygax left the building, and I'm therefore more than happy to see the setting continue to lie fallow (except for the MC installments, of course, which I hope we get many more of). (Actually, Expedition to the Greyhawk Ruins (or whatever it's called) has also piqued my curiosity enough that I'll definitely check it out in the store when it's released, but at this point I'd say it's very unlikely I'll actually buy it...)

 

[Charles Oakley]

As an old timer, I think that whoever it was who said all the stuff about the generation gap had a point; throughout the 80s I played Greyhawk and it was entirely mine to do with as I pleased. Suddenly FtA comes out and tons of stuff I'd spent years constructing got undone overnight. For that reason--and for the fords across the Selintan River, don't get me started--I place no stock in FtA. If I'd first found Greyhawk in 1995 or 2005, I'd probably feel much differently. But I got the Greyhawk folio for Christmas in 1981 so, no, I don't want--and certainly don't need--someone else to advance Greyhawk's timeline. I've got a pretty good handle on that, thank you.

I do take exception to the Greyhawkers-hate-FtA-because-it's-not-Gygax angle though. Call me a heretic, but I never cared much for Gygax's stuff. Partly it was the authority that his name brought to whatever he wrote; like Moses and those stone tablets, there was no questioning anything Gygax wrote. Partly his idea of a fantasy setting is just more fantastical than I like; I prefer a little 20th century realism (still having trouble advancing timelines) to bolster my fantasy setting.

Much more to my liking were tidbits gleaned form other modules of the time. The Ghost Tower of Inverness in particular had much to offer in terms of local color for the Duchy of Urnst: the creepy Seer, the whole Dreidel legend, and the oppression of religion and magic that was alluded to in the tournament background provided enough of a foothold for all but the dullest DM to advance a timeline of his/her own, if they so chose.

 

[Numion]

The main strength of GH seems to be that it's not supported - a DMs setting if you will. This pretty much makes supporting it a catch-22, given that a setting without support will stagnate and die.