D&D 5E Whatever "lore" is, it isn't "rules."

[Imaro]

Right. "A rose by any other name . . ." and all that.

GH has a clear implied distinction between the central (primarily Oeridian, feudal, chivalric) regions (Furyondy, Veluna, Knights of the Hart, cities of Greyhawk, Dyvers and Verbobonc, Knights of Holy Shielding, etc) and the Oeridian/Suel east (the Great Kingdom and it satellites of current and former provinces), which I have tended to present as having a roughly Roman/Byzantine complexion.

Having a distinct order of wizards from the east that contrasts with GH's wizard's guild - and in respect of which Nyrond forms something of a cultural buffer or region of overlaps - seems to me to be consistent with that, not at odds with it. And if one wants a mysterious order of wizards with an ancient past, why make something up when I can borrow a clever idea already worked out, with a superficially neat (although, I can testify from bitter experience, painful in actual play) power-cycle mechanic?

How would it preserve the integrity of GH in any fashion to not use the moons - which are one of the more distinctive GHisms - and to instead use something like pillars? How would changing their name from WoHS make any difference to this? What is anti-GH abour having WoHS? What does that contradict in setting tone or content?

Well I do believe you are leaving out some major (arguably defining) characteristics of the WoHS, at least as they are presented in DL and those are...

1. The fact that they are the oldest of all orders
2. Any other type of wizard is considered a renegade and hunted by the order.

These being true (even if the order were named something else) would have all kinds of repercussions in Greyhawk... especially on certain members of the council of eight... but also on how magic is presented in the setting as a whole. Suddenly now in Greyhawk any wizard outside these orders is a fugitive.

 

[SkidAce]

Yes... but you readily admit it's a setting mashup (Unless of course you're running a Planescape game). So let me ask you this would you consider it a GH game... a DL game... a homebrew or something else?

Since we imported other things into our old Greyhawk game...we called it our Greyhawk game.

Whether it fits the legal description of a GH game, I will leave to others to decide.

 

[Shasarak]

Well, WotC thinks you can have Purple Dragon Knights in Krynn. You just have to relabel them Knights of Solamnia! So on this occasion I'll trust WotC over you.

Wait, is this true? Or is Chris Perkins just running his mouth again?

 

[Imaro]

Since we imported other things into our old Greyhawk game...we called it our Greyhawk game.

Whether it fits the legal description of a GH game, I will leave to others to decide.

I wasn't trying to get a legal description I was just curious as to what you considered it. Once we mixed enough stuff into a setting my group and I would consider it a homebrew game... especially if there is an open policy on that type of stuff.

 

[Shasarak]

Whose game did this disrupt? Not mine, and by [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s testimony not his - and presumably not [MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]'s either, given that he didn't learn how Hussar felt until it came out in a 100 page thread.

I cant answer for either Hussar or Banana. I am just pointing out this thing, this "phantasm" which apparently does not disrupt their game blows up to a 100 page thread. I am sure Banana feels better knowing he came up with a fake DL character.

 

[Lanefan]

... crossed the impure canon ocean ...

In honour of all this, if I ever run a Greyhawk game one of the seas will be renamed as the Impure Canon Ocean.

Lan-"but it'll still be Greyhawk"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

Those "details" comprise the vast, vast majority of canon. Keeping just the maps and a very broad detail or two about those maps is a trivial amount of lore.

And that "trivial amount of lore" is, I think, all most people care about. It's enough to set the general tone, and really - what more do you need?

What you could do is invent all new subclasses that use the DL knights and Wizard of High Sorcery mechanics, but tie them to something that simply doesn't exist in Greyhawk. For example, create three pillars buried in the sea of dust that three sects of wizards draw from. White, red and black. Then you aren't bringing in something specifically from another setting, but are truly ADDING to the Greyhawk setting.

But why go to all that effort when the designing's already been done for me? And in this case in particular it would in fact all be addition: you're adding a third moon (and by sounds of things it's black anyway and therefore mostly invisible; very few people on the ground will ever notice any difference*) and then adding some mechanics for a specific class to use those moons as a magic source. (and, if it really bothers you, it's easy enough to reskin it such that those wizards only think that's where their magic comes from...). You're also adding a knightly order - if your game already has Cavaliers or Knights as a class anyway, so what?

* - with one notable exception: anyone who's gone to the effort (why?) of figuring out the minutae of Greyhawk's tides will be in for a rude surprise.

Lan-"'knights charging at the dark moon' - there's a song in there somewhere"-efan

 

[SkidAce]

I wasn't trying to get a legal description I was just curious as to what you considered it. Once we mixed enough stuff into a setting my group and I would consider it a homebrew game... especially if there is an open policy on that type of stuff.

I understand. We considered it GH, just like we considered the other DM's game a GH game. His game diverged in that the GH Wars never occurred.

So you could consider either of them to be homebrew I suppose.

I feel everyone/group draws the line somewhere different, just like when we discuss verisimilitude or realism. Or high magic or low magic.

They are more like guidelines. And after a few moments of discussion with a friend or a new acquaintance/player, although the terms may be different in our heads, we would each have a grasp of what the setting was like.

Thanks for the discussion.../thumbs up!

 

[Sadras]

In a recent thread, @Corpsetaker was taken to task for suggesting that Bigby was not part of FR canon.

Missed that one.

Given the "multiverse hypothesis" that is being defended in these lore thread, why shouldn't Drizzt have made his way to Mystara (perhaps catching the return planar bus that took Mordenkainen to hang out with Elminster)? If he takes a brief stop at the GH platform he could even pick up some six-shooters from Murlynd.

Multiverse has its perks
I am merely stating that injecting obvious insertions of other settings within an already established setting will likely raise eyebrows especially if one is claiming to be playing X setting and in fact it is just a mash-up of ABC settings.
However, having said that, your description of how you have reskinned the ideas taken from the DL setting for your GH campaign seem reasonable.

EDIT: by obvious insertions I mean calling the moons of you GH campaign Lunitari, Nuitari and Solinari and using the name Knights of Solamnia...etc

I feel everyone/group draws the line somewhere different, just like when we discuss verisimilitude or realism. Or high magic or low magic.

This.

 

[pemerton]

Well I do believe you are leaving out some major (arguably defining) characteristics of the WoHS, at least as they are presented in DL and those are...

1. The fact that they are the oldest of all orders
2. Any other type of wizard is considered a renegade and hunted by the order.

The parts of the WoHS that I used are (i) a moon-governed cycle of power, (ii) powers dictated by order, and (iii) a conclave of wizards centered on towers.

Well, as I used them in my GH game they are an ancient Suloise order. Whether they're "the oldest of all orders" never came up. I also used Baklun fire mages (maybe inspired originally by someting in DDG? I can't remember) - they're also pretty ancient.

The hunting down of all renegades was not a thing either, given that GH is full of non-WoHS wizards (eg the guild in the CoGH). It's been a while, so I can't remember the details, but one of our PCs was a firemage, born in GH and trained by an exiled Baklun firemage living there, who spent some time in Rel Astra without being hunted down. So the pressure for membership was normative rather than strictly cooercive.

Does it make my GH game more or less of one that my adapted WoHS don't carry all the baggage from DL?