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

[haakon1]

If FtA had been a brand new setting, it might've done better; certainly would've had more of a chance, at any rate. Greyhawk Wars, IMHO, doesn't really have much upside potential.

I agree with that. Greyhawk Wars entering into FTA as a metaplot was really the problem with FTA. FTA wasn't necessarily a bad setting (and I, for one, like Ivid the Undying), but it didn't have a lot to do with original flavor Greyhawk. TSR learned nothing from New Coke.

 

[haakon1]

Or is the Gazetteer sufficient? I have been eying the older supplements, but don't know if the are worth it (not monetarily wise, since I can get the pdfs cheap). I also ask this because I was thinking of running at an earlier time (prior, during or just after the Greyhawk Wars).

I think the Gazetteer is actually pretty darn good. I use it all the time in my "old schooler" Greyhawk campaign, proving I think that we're not against new products. What I appreciate it about is the loving care and knowledge of the setting that obviously went into it.

My other frequently referenced sources are the World of Greyhawk boxed set (1983 copyright) and The Adventure Begins (the Greyhawk city book from 1998. I like it better than the City of Greyhawk boxed set from 1989. I also like Ivid the Undying, but my campaign is set in western Greyhawk, so it doesn't much matter.

My campaign is set at a similar time. It's spring 588 CY for me. The big local news is the continuing war between Ket (with Uli and Perrenlander mercenaries, and secret monetary and military help from Iuz) and Bissel (with backing from Gran March, the Knights of the Watch, and to a lesser extent Veluna).

On the sidelines are:
- Iuzian threats. Pressure on the Vesve Forest, where he conflicts with Highfolk. Rumors in the Sepia Uplands and lands of the Tiger Nomads (allied with Iuz) and Wolf Nomads (more independent). Watch fires on the Veng River, as Iuz and the Horned Society threaten Furyondy.

- Great Kingdom civil war. Ahlissa and the North Kingdom are separate and Rauxes and Medegia are devastated and overrun with humanoids, but it's the result of a 30 Years War-type letting out of the Four Horsemen, not supernatural bogeymen.

The result is to make a "traditional" Greyhawk campaign that has some compatibility with the modern materials, while ignoring the worst of Wars/FTA, like the elimination of the Wild Coast and Hardby as independent states, "demons stalked the land" being repeated ad nausem, and the all the good powers generally acting Lawful Stupid, like warlike marcher state Bissel sending off its army so it was defenseless. Um, no.

 

[Krolik]

The problem with (some) non-Greyhawkers is they get mad at Greyhawkers for wanting Greyhawk to be Greyhawk. Is that so wrong? :\

The problem is two-fold:

The first problem is economics. For Greyhawk material to get produced on a regular basis it needs to sell enough copies to justify the expense and manpower being put into it rather then it being used in a Realms or Eberron product. To sell the needed volume Greyhawk products need to be broad enough to be attractive to non-Greyhawkers but there aren't enough Greyhawkers to support the line on their own.

The second problem is that Greyhawkers are divided into at least three groups: The 'I've been using it since 1980 and Gary is the only canon' group. The 'I like Greyhawk and I can make anything fit into it' group. And the 'From the Ashes ruled!' group. Greyhawk has been around so long that the sub-groups are now more important than the idea of the world itself.

 

[Shroomy]

The problem is two-fold:

The first problem is economics. For Greyhawk material to get produced on a regular basis it needs to sell enough copies to justify the expense and manpower being put into it rather then it being used in a Realms or Eberron product. To sell the needed volume Greyhawk products need to be broad enough to be attractive to non-Greyhawkers but there aren't enough Greyhawkers to support the line on their own.

The second problem is that Greyhawkers are divided into at least three groups: The 'I've been using it since 1980 and Gary is the only canon' group. The 'I like Greyhawk and I can make anything fit into it' group. And the 'From the Ashes ruled!' group. Greyhawk has been around so long that the sub-groups are now more important than the idea of the world itself.

Krolik, you also forgot the "I Love Living Greyhawk," "I Hate the Living Greyhawk," "I Love What Paizo is Doing to Greyhawk," and "I Hate What Paizo is Doing to Greyhawk" sub-groups.

 

[howandwhy99]

...I just uploaded a zipped file containing the above folder logs here. Let me know if there are problems downloading it.

Downloaded. Only it comes out as "corrupted" when I try and open it. Could be my machine.

 

[Ghendar]

It was a reaction to the success of the Forgotten Realms products, where everthing was set up and presented in nauseating detail, 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.

Or maybe DM's who don't have the time to devote to fleshing out an entire campaign world.
I've been accused of being elitist from time to time, but WOW.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Actually, Sargent's Dragon articles were excerpted from Ivid the Undying after it was killed as a published product---chunks of it were salvaged as articles in Dragons 204, 206, and 208.

Sorry, I should have clarified. Those weren't the excerpts I was talking about (though they do deserve mention). I meant a series of Campaign Journal articles where he described rumors, events, etc taking place in Greyhawk post-FtA. I'm not sure if Campaign Journal was the right name or not, but it was something like that.

 

[XO]

Truth & Reality

Was it deliberately left vague, or was that simply driven by the typical supplement length at the time? These days we have 200+ page setting books like FR and Eberron, and similar lengths from other publishers. Back then, books were like 64 pages or 96 pages. I'm open to the idea that details were not filled in by design, but personally I'd guess that it was a combination of the newness of setting material as an idea, and the amount of space they had to work with. Are there any quotes from Gary about the intent behind the level of detail?

We've been appraised of the fact that the author (Gygax) had slight tendencies to inflate what was available, ready and consolidated. And I use the word "inflate" lightly. Greyhawk, city and world, was a wonderful foundation for adventuring. It will always be a classic. Anything that draws away from that classic is a bad thing. In fact, as a parallel to From The Ashes, with the Times of Trouble, the Realms knew a similar episode (trouble indeed: the passage from one edition to the next in D&D is pure hell).

A larger book may not have changed much to the initial GH. It was a setting, whereas we now want a setting to be a gigantic module. I myself have been guilty of that concept: for a bried moment (before sanity returned), I needed to know what was in each Hex of that map, in as much detail as possible. In the end, it is neither useful, nor desirable.... Just make it up, and have a laugh...

 

[Nellisir]

Downloaded. Only it comes out as "corrupted" when I try and open it. Could be my machine.

<sigh> They're like twenty tiny albatrosses around my neck; I can't give them away!

If anyone else had problems opening them, I'll see about redoing the file and/or uploading them in a different format. I could just put the individual text files online, I guess....

 

[McBard]

I'm an old enough fart to have bought for myself at my FLGS the folio set of Greyhawk back in 1066...er...1980, and I didn't like it then for its lack of detail. Heck, Gygax's own simple introduction to T1 The Village of Hommlet provided more brilliant campaign background than the entire folio.

I loved From The Ashes, and thought Sargent a great writer..but anyhoo...I'd rather have too much "official" information to sift through for my homebrew Greyhawk campaign, than less or no information at all. The "don't-offend-my-take-on-Greyhawk-with-published-Greyhawk-material" complaint is silly.