When did you start using Greyhawk?

[erc1971]

1980 for me.

As far as continued support for Greyhawk - I do not care either way. I still use the original 1st edition material written by Gygax.

I like the way the material was presented - as a basic frame to work from, allowing you to fill in the blanks, and no additional official material to cause players to get upset when you veer away from it.

I also love the Feudal European feel the setting had back then.

I laminated the maps and have them up on the wall of my gaming room. Using the setting in our current campaign in fact.

Eric

 

[slimykuotoan]

I actually never did get into Greyhawk until a fews years back, when I found the 83' boxed set at a used book store.

I still read it periodically, because of its rich human cultures: Baklunish, Sueloise, etc., its amazing variety of nations and empires, its open-ended plots and sub plots, the 'hugeness' of the world, the writing style which makes you feel 'there', and the shear coolness of its...well you get the picture.

(On a side note, I never did get into the later stuff much, just because it moved the setting in someone else's direction, when the setting has so much potential for my games to alter in their own ways.)

 

[Agamon]

Curse the age of this poll! My answer has changed in the last 3 years...(well, actually it changed a few months ago: 26 years and counting).

 

[Marshal Lucky]

Ha ha ha.

Your poll proves this: Most of the people who love Greyhawk fell in love with it when it was not treated like a piece of on a shoe by its publisher.

AT BEST Greyhawk has been treated with benign neglect since the departure of Gygax, so the "fact" that fewer people fell in love with it in the era of "Puppets" and "Childsplay" or in the modern era when there have been three Greyhawk products for the entire edition should hardly be surprising.

Kids don't like it, of course.

Except that most of the respondents fell in love with Greyhawk when they _were_ kids.

--Erik

If Hasbro wanted to please Greyhawk fans, they'd re-release the original version (576 CY), with the Dragon articles by Gygax, Kuntz and Lakofka, plus relevant material from the classic modules, plus maps. All the FtA, Puppet, Vecna Lives nonsense could then be dumped down the drain in Bobby Ewing's shower.

The funny thing is, if you look at the 83 boxed set you'll notice that most of the information has little or nothing to do with game mechanics (aside from stats for the gods), so it could easily be used with any edition -or any FRPG, for that matter.

 

[green slime]

Hmmm... So far the numbers seem to support my theory: Greyhawk seems to be mostly popular with gamers who started using it a long time ago.

And that's not encouraging for those who wish to see it released anew as one of WotC's flagship setting on par with the Forgotten Realms or Eberron - after all, if a setting cannot attract many new customers, it is unlikely to sell well enough to justify the expense. At least for a publisher on the scale of WotC, that is...

But we know the game as a whole is supported by a majority of grognards; that the 30-45 yrs old demographic dominates the game. Therefore, it is hardly a surprise that your poll reflects this fact.