What is so special about Greyhawk?

[Dragonhelm]

For me, what made it special was the personalities. Mordenkainen and the Circle of Eight. Robilar. Vecna. Xagyg. And so on and so forth.

They weren't there to overshadow the characters. They just kind of nudged them along.

Something like that. *shrugs*

 

[Bumbles]

Is there supposed to be something special about Greyhawk? Well, obviously not in the Dark Sun, Birthright, Planescape or Ravenloft sense.

It's just a reasonably interesting campaign setting. It may not be to everybody's tastes, but if you like it, more power to you!

 

[Dykstrav]

The one thing that I haven't seen noted above is that (with the exception of the Sargeant (sp?) material from the 2e era) Greyhawk has pretty much been defined by published adventures, rather than by setting books...

You know, I never really thought about it until you pointed it out, but that's a very relevant observation. It's a very distinct method of expanding the setting that I haven't seen done in many other settings.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

On a more personal note, I like Greyhawk out of the original folio better than any other D&D setting because it is very broad in scope but simultaneously shallow in depth, allowing me (as a DM) to fill in the details as I see fit and make Greyhawk my own.

FWIW, I also like the FR 'grey box' quite a bit

I was pondering the 1e FR set. It came late for me (I was 18), and I liked it well enough, but it didn't snare me. Cliche' was too apparent; Greyhawk seemed to exercise much better archetypal rigor, and avoided cliche' pretty well, I think.

I've been musing about getting the folio; I've had the boxed set for years.

 

[pawsplay]

The idea of a knight facing off against a dragon in Greyhawk is credible. In FR the same image is lah-di-dah; the knight is probably some magically empowered glowing dude, and dragons are just not as credible as opponents in a world full of the wild stuff going on in FR. Magic is a little harder to come by; not unreasonably, but it's clearly magic, and not corner-store enchantments and pseudo-technology. The tropes cleave a little closer to swords-and-sorcery. It replaces the dualism of LOTR or FR or Dragonlance with a moral realism that is embodied in specific people, creatures, and acts, not in monolithic armies. Civilization is very civilized, but also geographically isolated. It's a little easier to believe in peasants carrying out their lives in Greyhawk than in other settings. Aesthetically, it resembles the middle, middle ages more, and an airbrush painting on a van a little less.

Probably the most striking thing about it was that it was born out of the tropes of AD&D and then fed back into them, but itself never seemed to be constrained by them. It introduced antipaladins, for instance, and gave us our first taste of the Drow. The elven races paralleled the PHB ones but were not precisely them. Iuz was a half-fiend, something not even statted in AD&D until he came along. It was very much a version of Gary's homebrew.

 

[grodog]

As I recently opined on DF, GH modules are laced with modular interconnections, so that you can easily shape them---as well as the campaign setting---in your own image.

Plus, as Riley says, since GH is defined by adventures, many of the early adventures are still great modules today: G1, G3, D1, D3, A1, S1, S4, WG5, B2, T1. With those as you "adventure path" any setting you place them into will grow in stature, but because they're tied to and original within Greyhawk, the good stuff in setting and the adventures stack---they're greater than the sum of their parts.

 

[Terramotus]

IMO, nostalgia only. Gygax created it, and lots of D&D lore originated there. Otherwise, it's generic fantasy. Much of the feel of the world relies on game mechanics that have been gone for multiple editions.

Honestly, I don't think WotC has anything to gain by revisiting it. There's little to distinguish it to someone who doesn't already have an emotional attachment, and the various fandom factions will never be happy with anything produced, and are probably playing 1E or OSRIC anyway.

 

[Monkey Boy]

Honestly, I don't think WotC has anything to gain by revisiting it. There's little to distinguish it to someone who doesn't already have an emotional attachment, and the various fandom factions will never be happy with anything produced, and are probably playing 1E or OSRIC anyway.

Perhaps the recent Village of Hommlet release can be seen as reaching out to what appears, on the internet at least, to be a fractured fan base? Perhaps it testing the waters to see if the disgruntled can be brought back into the fold?

A Greyhawk campaign setting wouldn't be too big an investment. A setting book, a player book and an adventure right? It would sell to existing 4e fans, so why not reach out and try and recapture a portion of the market. Perhaps they can convince 3e holdouts to purchase other 4e material?

Nostalgia is a powerful tool. Just look at all the retreads we are seeing movie wise. It would be interesting to see WOTC play the nostalgia card and revisit Greyhawk. I wonder what Erik would make of that?

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Much of the feel of the world relies on game mechanics that have been gone for multiple editions.

Explain please.

 

[Desdichado]

Honestly, I don't think WotC has anything to gain by revisiting it. There's little to distinguish it to someone who doesn't already have an emotional attachment, and the various fandom factions will never be happy with anything produced, and are probably playing 1E or OSRIC anyway.

I would have agreed with that a few years ago, but the phenomenal success Paizo had with the heavily steeped in Greyhawk mythos Adventure Paths and other articles they did make me question that agreement. In other words; Age of Worms, the Demonomicon, and the others demonstrate that there's a strong market for Greyhawk adventures and source material after all. Granted, they're also elements that can be easily ported into other settings, but Greyhawk is their implicit setting. Greyhawkiana was also bolstered by other late 3.5-era products, like the Fiendish Codices. Also written, largely, by Paizo guys freelancing.

Of course, that begs the question of whether or not the Paizo guys "get" iconic D&D better than the current crop of WotC designers, but there you have it. If WotC freelanced the writing of the Greyhawk setting to Mona, Jacobs and Co., I have no doubt that it would be a product that Greyhawk fans would almost certainly like.