What exactly makes the Greyhawk Campaign Setting
- Thread starter domino
- Start date
haakon1 said:
PCs as centre of game is right, but neutrality as strongest isn't right - I'd say neutrality as an active balancing force - Concordance, but it's not stronger than good & evil. "No war of good versus evil" seems 100% wrong to me, I can't think of any Greyhawk work by Gygax or others where good vs evil doesn't feature, if anything it's more important in Greyhawk than FR even.
DragonLancer
Hero
What I like about Greyhawk is that it is generic. I've reached a point where I'm fed up of campaign settings that all have hooks, modified rules, and the like. Simple and basic have become the watchwords for me these days. Greyhawk gives me that.
Quasqueton
First Post
It's not so much that Greyhawk is "generic". D&D is Greyhawk, and Greyhawk is D&D. In AD&D1, about 75% of everything published for AD&D was part of Greyhawk. All the wizard names in the PHB were GH magic-users. All the named magic items and artifacts and relics in the DMG were GH items. The MM, FF, and MMII were the monsters of GH. Most of the adventure modules published for AD&D were placed in GH. In essence, the whole of the game was resource material for GH.
With D&D3, the designers went back (after the AD&D2 departure) to making core/default D&D, Greyhawk. The gods, the wizards, the magic items, etc. were all again acknowledged as GH.
It is not that GH is generic, or bland, it is that GH is the core/default/baseline for D&D. All other settings are identified by how they differ from this baseline. When another setting introduces a new "item" (race, group, class, magic, etc.), the designers make new rules to govern it. So that new item becomes unique and stands out as an example of that setting. With GH, everything already fits the core rules because, well, the whole game was designed for GH.
Sort of like saying there's nothing interesting about Earth when compared to all the strangeness found on the other planets and moons in the Solar System.
Quasqueton
With D&D3, the designers went back (after the AD&D2 departure) to making core/default D&D, Greyhawk. The gods, the wizards, the magic items, etc. were all again acknowledged as GH.
It is not that GH is generic, or bland, it is that GH is the core/default/baseline for D&D. All other settings are identified by how they differ from this baseline. When another setting introduces a new "item" (race, group, class, magic, etc.), the designers make new rules to govern it. So that new item becomes unique and stands out as an example of that setting. With GH, everything already fits the core rules because, well, the whole game was designed for GH.
Sort of like saying there's nothing interesting about Earth when compared to all the strangeness found on the other planets and moons in the Solar System.
Quasqueton
What makes Greyhawk Greyhawk is the really cool map by Darlene. In the '83 TSR released the folio edition (like the box set w/o any stats other than the class and level of the country rulers) that had the two poster maps with the odd overlap where they connect. This was the coolest map any of us had ever seen, and it would be years before anyone else came out with any map nearly as cool. I and everyone I know dropped our poorly defined homebrews overnight to play on the world with the cool map.
As for the world itself, it appears that EGG took his existing Greyhawk campaign, tweaked it a bit, and then extrapolate the rest of the continent, using many element from other campaigns like Dave Arneson's. In those days, most of us just used the setting to get from the town to the dungeon (or maybe just know where the dungeon was for our own satisfaction). The world comes off as vaguely similar to R.E. Howards Conan-era setting, in that many of the locations are cribbed from real world cultures, which makes it a bit bland, but easy to use. It's the setting I use whenever I don't care about the setting (which is most of the time), 'cause its easy to use, easy to explain to newbies, and I still have lots of cool maps. They fact that there is no metaplot helps, but I have no trouble ignoring those in the settings that have them.
As for the world itself, it appears that EGG took his existing Greyhawk campaign, tweaked it a bit, and then extrapolate the rest of the continent, using many element from other campaigns like Dave Arneson's. In those days, most of us just used the setting to get from the town to the dungeon (or maybe just know where the dungeon was for our own satisfaction). The world comes off as vaguely similar to R.E. Howards Conan-era setting, in that many of the locations are cribbed from real world cultures, which makes it a bit bland, but easy to use. It's the setting I use whenever I don't care about the setting (which is most of the time), 'cause its easy to use, easy to explain to newbies, and I still have lots of cool maps. They fact that there is no metaplot helps, but I have no trouble ignoring those in the settings that have them.
VirgilCaine
First Post
Shadowslayer said:
Exactly.
I don't want everything else that comes with FR or Eberron.
I just want a setting compatible with the Core rules, nothing else, that has countries, populations, some history, all figured out so I don't have to. And with populations figured out semi-logically, so I don't have too many people for the land (FR) or too few (Eberron, specifically Sharn).
Having a mix of technologies and cultures across a world is fine, IMO--because in D&D, it doesn't matter whether you're using a sword or a pick to hit the guy in plate mail, you can kill him either way...and D&D is much less like the real world than Hyboria.
Last edited:
grodog
Hero
I would never state that GH is plain or bland or generic---it's a framework that lets you customize your game, just like any other campaign setting. Where GH falls flat is the lack of support and the glossing over of the setting that was implemented by making GH part of the 3e core rules. But that's nothing that GH folks haven't learned to ignore/fold/spindle/mutilate over the years anyway, so no big deal 
rogueattorney
Adventurer
In the 1e years, what made Greyhawk special was that it fit so seemlessly with the rules. It was the AD&D world. Dragonlance, Lankhmar, Kara Tur, and even the Forgotten Realms required tweaks, both major and minor to make fit.
Thus all the rule/setting assumptions fit - a vaguely pre-Renaissance European setting - alien and isolated demi-human communities - alignment as a tangible force - genocidal wars with evil humanoids - ancient artifacts and shattered ruins burried deep in the earth - space ships and sci-fi beasties popping up every once in a while - demons, evil godlings, and mischievous quasi-deities mucking up the world - evil and chaos ascendent in the face of a band of heroes that wants to kill them and take their stuff. In short, Dungeons & Freaking Dragons!!!
R.A.
Thus all the rule/setting assumptions fit - a vaguely pre-Renaissance European setting - alien and isolated demi-human communities - alignment as a tangible force - genocidal wars with evil humanoids - ancient artifacts and shattered ruins burried deep in the earth - space ships and sci-fi beasties popping up every once in a while - demons, evil godlings, and mischievous quasi-deities mucking up the world - evil and chaos ascendent in the face of a band of heroes that wants to kill them and take their stuff. In short, Dungeons & Freaking Dragons!!!
R.A.
Quasqueton
First Post
He said, "aside from a handful of NPCs".
Quasqueton
