What Will Happen to Greyhawk?

[haakon1]

Well, as heretical as this may sound to some...

I think Greyhawk can survive if it's completely rebooted (like the Bond or Batman film franchises). Start fresh, throw away a lot of the old continuity, but throw in familiar names & pieces as a tip of the hat to past incarnations. Heck, even borrow liberally from other older now-defunct settings like Blackmoor and Mystara for the new incarnation.

OK

Have a more diverse Circle of Eight, rather than just adding the token elf character and the token woman character to the group. Perhaps go with a more grim-&-gritty feel for Greyhawk, away from the high magic fantasy of FR, or the high-magic pulp or noir approach used for Eberron.

Don't change the feel, or randomly change the major characters. Those were among the big flaws in FtA.

 

[Thanael]

OOC: is there anyway to acquire past printings of dungeon or the Greyhawk APS I wanna get my hands on them before they become impossible to find.

As Mortellan said you can get out-of-print Greyhawk material on ebay. Though some of the better stuff can get quite expensive. Another options is pdfs from paizo.com or rpgnow. There´s also lots of free stuff floating around. Do you know www.canonfire.com already?

Here is an interesting thread on Where to start? (including links to some free stuff.)

 

[Ranger REG]

Well, as heretical as this may sound to some...

I think Greyhawk can survive if it's completely rebooted (like the Bond or Batman film franchises).

It doesn't need to be rebooted. It just have to have its own big honkin' campaign setting book (like the FRCS) for use with the most recent D&D rules.

 

[funkysnunkulator]

What of Greyhawk is going away? How has Greyhawk gone downhill?
I've been using Greyhawk since the first boxed set, upgraded with the City boxed set and picked and chose what in the Wars edition I wanted.
It wasn't a meta-game themed, over-powered NPC with six class' and spanning varying genres (oriental to occidental) ala Forgotten Realms, and the others that went down in flames with TSR.
It was and is a base world with not too much detail so you could steer it anywhere you liked. I don't care where the author says his adventure takes place, when I run it, its in Greyhawk.



"Fools are made to suffer, not to be suffered"

gotta agree with you there. have been running game since the 70s. greyhawk is the world. huge fan of dark sun, but even athas was not a whole planet. athas was part of greyhawk (the idea behind it would absolutely rip your face off. it's cool).

the point though is this. everything has been put into greyhawk. all adventures go there. have actually gamed with gary. yes, that gary. his explaination was very similar. it (greyhawk) was never intended to be as detailed as a place like forgotton realms (though forgotton realms didn't exist at this time). his "vision" was to offer a framework in which gamers could "do thier own thing".

now, the idea of multiple worlds is also intriguing, sorta like planar travel. visit krynn, do your thing, then scoot. visit toril, do your thing, scoot.

over the years, conversions for just about every literary world have ended up in greyhawk.

if greyhawk has gone downhill, that is on the gamers, not the company. screw wotc and screw you if you think they (wotc) can eliminate greyhawk. every campaign setting is in the gamers hands.

the gamers play the game. wotc just offers material we are to lazy to come with.

let's be blunt right here right now. if wotc just closed it's doors and did nothing. no publication, no liscencing no nothing, would that actually stop us from playing?

yeah. didn't think so.

greyhawk lives because we say so. get creative people. get back to gaming instead of debating. you will all be better for it.

 

[Moggthegob]

Well, as heretical as this may sound to some...

I think Greyhawk can survive if it's completely rebooted (like the Bond or Batman film franchises). Start fresh, throw away a lot of the old continuity, but throw in familiar names & pieces as a tip of the hat to past incarnations. Heck, even borrow liberally from other older now-defunct settings like Blackmoor and Mystara for the new incarnation.

].

I don't know about that. On the one hand it would allow for the re-release of the classic modules( like Against the Giants, and the Slavelords series) and for the undoing of the ramifications of those actions. On the other hand I don't want to miss the changes made during LG which I feel got the setting back towards its settingness, except what they did to the Shield Lands. That was just wierd.

Oh yeah and BTW Blackmoor is not defunct. I saw Dave Arneson in a booth with New-looking Blackmoor stuff at GenCon and he has his own sort of Living Campaigns for said setting.

Just Saying.

 

[jokamachi]

They'll try to kill it, but many have tried before. The chorus of voices won't go away, especially now considering the lingering effect the Adventure Path will have on a new generation of fans.

Employees will leave Wotc in time, but fans won't leave the setting. That much has already been proven.

Greyhawk will have its day in the sun. Again.

 

[funkysnunkulator]

I don't know about that. On the one hand it would allow for the re-release of the classic modules( like Against the Giants, and the Slavelords series) and for the undoing of the ramifications of those actions. On the other hand I don't want to miss the changes made during LG which I feel got the setting back towards its settingness, except what they did to the Shield Lands. That was just wierd.

Oh yeah and BTW Blackmoor is not defunct. I saw Dave Arneson in a booth with New-looking Blackmoor stuff at GenCon and he has his own sort of Living Campaigns for said setting.

Just Saying.

gotta back you up here. keeping greyhawk just leaves the door open for more products and rerelease of old and popular products like the modules. living greyhawks is on wizards now, no it obviously isn't dead. oh yeah... blackmoor rocks. a living blackmoor rocks harder.

 

[GVDammerung]

As a published setting and as specifically Greyhawk, not merely grabbing some names, I think Greyhawk is dead for at least 3 years. And I think that is a very good thing because IMO Greyhawk can use a period to detox from being 1) the 3x default, 2) Paizoed (which is not the same as published as Greyhawk, though I laud the effort all the same), and 3) being RPGAed with Ether Threats and similar silliness. Everybody needs a time out to catch their breath and think about what's been done to Greyhawk and where it might go from there.

With respect to the D&D Insider, I have no doubt the Greyhawk "steal this name" game will continue for at least a little while. However, a) the mere invocation of a Greyhawk name, even if fleshed out, is not Greyhawk published as such and b) electronic ephemera is just that - ephemeral.

After a time, the question will be whether Greyhawk is better off resting in peace or revived. If Greyhawk is better off revived, then in what form becomes the question.

IMO, more of the same only different is a non-starter. IMO, there are but two options -

1) Restart the setting taking the best of what's been published but ignoring the rest, or

2) Advancing the timeline by 100 + years so that it is the same as starting over with the best stuff and ignoring the rest.

Both will sell if Wotc backs the release. In case it has escaped notice, hordes will blindly follow where Wotc leads. Getting Wotc to lead on GH will be the rub, which brings me back to maybe GH is better off if left in peace.

The wild card, IMO, is a GH license to a 3rd party. Possible, certainly. Likely? Not so far. Perhaps, not enough zeroes have been put into the license fee; if not, I don't see that being fixable - so no license, IMO. Still, one can daydream about the possibility.

 

[Ranger REG]

The wild card, IMO, is a GH license to a 3rd party. Possible, certainly. Likely? Not so far. Perhaps, not enough zeroes have been put into the license fee; if not, I don't see that being fixable - so no license, IMO. Still, one can daydream about the possibility.

Then they should lower the license fee and up their royalty take?

 

[GVDammerung]

Then they should lower the license fee and up their royalty take?

Totally postulating here, but I'm guessing Wotc would want money up front as a certainty, rather than rely on a bigger hypothetical back end.

We know that they have repeatedly turned down Paizo, who have proven themselves capable, so I think its fair to say Wotc is not inclined to grant the license. They must then be persuaded. A larger potential royalty I don't see as being persuasive, given that they are charry of the whole idea. Now, six zeros? I think one would have Wotc's attention. But I bet Paizo doesn't have that kind of cash to throw at any license, but I'm speculating again. Seven zeroes? Wotc could not refuse that kind of mad money, because that is what it would be - no chance of making that back reasonably. So absent someone or entity with money to burn, I don't see a license without something major happening to change Wotc's corporate thinking. I'd be pleased to be proven wrong, however.