D&D 5E Which Greyhawk?

[Demetrios1453]

So it's a giant city with a massive -- and possibly magical -- infrastructure designed to support an absurdly large population... is in the middle of the wilderness because it says it is.

Rome was also the center of civilization in the west for hundreds of years. It was the seat of the Emperor and the Senate before that. Waterdeep is like 1850s San Francisco or Chicago, except randomly 10 times the size.

Sorry, no, it completely and totally breaks my suspension of disbelief.

But seriously, now that I'm home and can look at the maps and do the calculations...

Both SCAG and SKT give some insight to the area around Waterdeep. From the descriptions, it appears the area between the Dessarin River, the Sword Mountains, and Amphail - Goldenfields axis is pretty much the agricultural hinterland for Waterdeep; Amphail in SCAG and Goldenfields in SKT are both explicitly described as agricultural centers dedicated to funneling food towards the city. That area is a rough square, 40 to 50 miles to each side, given the scale in SKT. Even going for the smaller dimensions, a square 40 miles to the side is 2000 square miles, and with 640 acres to the square mile, that's 1.28 million acres of land. Even if only a third of that is arable and in production, that's more than enough acreage (given even your estimate of 1 person fed per 1 acre of land) to feed Waterdeep, its small satellite towns (the two mentioned and Rassalantar village) and still even have leftovers for export! And that's not even bringing magic, fishing, or imports into the equation. And once you leave that zone...

Looking at the map - that's an incredibly small area compared to the vastness of the northern Sword Coast region!. And after Waterdeep, only Neverwinter, Luskan, Mirabar, Silverymoon, and Everlund are likely to be in the 10,000+ zone; they were the settlements in that vicinity in 3e, with the largest being Silverymoon at 37,000 or so, but who knows how population growth and a century of catastrophes have affected their populations since then (which is why I didn't include Sundabar, which also had 10,000+ in 3e, but is basically a smoking ruin now). Even if Silverymoon is as large as it once was, even using your estimate of 1 person fed per 1 acre, the city would need at maximum 57 square miles of cropland to feed it; even accounting for nonarable land and no magic help, that could easily be contained in a square 10 to 15 miles per side (100 to 225 square miles), which yet again is pretty negligible given the size of the North. Basically, discounting the intensively farmed area around Waterdeep described above, even in its most densely populated areas (the coast, the lower Dessarin valley, and the old Silver Marches), you're basically going to have a few square miles of farmland around settlements, then 20 - 50 miles of wilderness between the various settlements, even along well-traveled roads and rivers, let alone the vast unsettled areas such as the High Forest and the Evermoors. Even in Waterdeep's case, once you're more than two days ride outside the city, you're in wilderness. So there's plenty of room for wilderness in the setting...

 

[Caliburn101]

The Greyhawk they go with should be a reboot of the post Emridy-Meadows period of the Red Box.

This fits in with the dungeons in Yawning Portal don't forget, and extricates the setting from the conflated and complex FtA onwards.

The 2nd Edition material could be mined for all the fluff one would need to do this, and if the history section was more inclusive (include such lesser-treatise elements as Ashardalon, Vecna's Empire, Sulm, The Rhenee and Aerdy for instance) all put in one book (or Red Boxed Set!!) would create a great campaign launch point.

Greyhawk IS more morally ambiguous than FR - I know some people think that's not right, but take it from an old hand, it is. In essence it is 'Chronicles of the Black Company+Lord of the Rings+Game of Thrones' rather than the 'Willow+Guardians of the Galaxy+The Belgariad' of Forgotten Realms.

In Forgotten Realms, you are thrown into a series of fantasy pulp fiction events with little integration except for location and setting. It's episodic by nature, and threats pop up almost in a whack-a-mole fashion. Your character is a player in the production, but not the lead - most frequently only having a reactive hand in getting history back on the course the real power-brokers of the world want to see it on; there are too many in-your-face Gods and overarching mega-power NPCs to do otherwise unless you want to run your game deep into Epic Levels. Forgotten Realms fits in with a style of game where you don't have to think too hard about what you are going to take on, where the next adventure comes to you in a linear fashion, and which faction you are going to hitch your horse to is a simple choice. The threat from the Giants is to do with the Giants. The threat from the Cult of the Dragon is from Tiamat, etc. All of these threats, though powerful, are parochial-scale campaign arcs, which will only ever threaten significant change over a part of the Realms. The Realms are in effect, 'Too Big To Fail'. It is no coincidence that potentially the most world-impacting threat (if not dealt with by the PCs that is...) in 5th Edition to the FR is Elemental Evil - stolen in spirit at least from Greyhawk.

In contrast, with Greyhawk many challenges come from the deeper history of the setting and the repeated failure over time to eradicate it's various evils decisively. You may thwart an evil, but you rarely if ever defeat it. Even the most storied NPCs of the world are not invulnerable, and in power terms they are more accessible to a normal campaign power range - from Kings to Archmagi. Challenges can come from the various shades of grey all around you, from the haughty non-interventionist Celene to the grimy influence peddling of Greyhawk City. In navigating this, the world is set up to let your characters change history entirely in any way they can envisage and then make happen. In Greyhawk, like Call of Cthulhu, you need to pick and choose both your enemies and your friends more carefully, and both can turn on you in unexpected ways. Classically for instance the threat from the Giants is the Giants, isn't it? Oh no, it's the Kua Toa or something to do with the Underdark, ahhhh, not quite, it's the Drow.... who are being driven by Lloth, who, WTF, is into extending her vast fascist web of slavery over countless worlds... The Tomb of Horrors is just a nasty dungeon isn't it... oh no it's a soul sucking facility that will eventually allow Acererak to become one with the Negative Energy Plane and dominate the Multiverse as an unkillable undead overgod... oh and let's not forget that his boss Vecna nearly unmade the entire universe from a building in Sigil... THESE story arcs are a Bablyon 5 Shadows level of game-changer.

Forgotten Realms is comfortable, and it's 'inside the box'. A TPK, if it happens ends one story and starts another no matter what. Many of the most recognisable names from FR are the powerful NPCs who you will likely never do more than influence somewhat.

Greyhawk may have originally come out of a box, but it doesn't not stay safely inside it... a TPK can end the universe. Many of the most recognisable names from GH are most of the artefacts in the DMG - and YOUR character can end up wielding any of them.

FR is 'do this task and everything will be well, hero of the hour...'.

GH is 'take the world by the throat and make it give you what you desire'.

 

[Aldarc]

So it's a giant city with a massive -- and possibly magical -- infrastructure designed to support an absurdly large population... is in the middle of the wilderness because it says it is.

Yeah, let's put this into some perspective. Eberron's super fantastical, multi-layered, floating-skyscraper metropolitan city of Sharn, the largest city on all of Khorvaire? It has a population around 200,000. And this is a setting that goes above and beyond in providing magical infrastructure to its denizens.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Yeah, let's put this into some perspective. Eberron's super fantastical, multi-layered, floating-skyscraper metropolitan city of Sharn, the largest city on all of Khorvaire? It has a population around 200,000. And this is a setting that goes above and beyond in providing magical infrastructure to its denizens.

In which case.... it's not an untamed wilderness!

 

[Aldarc]

In which case.... it's not an untamed wilderness!

I'm not arguing against you. My point was an addendum to yours.

 

[Davelozzi]

The issue is that the population of FR is far too high, including the Sword Coast. Waterdeep has a population of 380,000. That would put it in the top 50 largest cities in the US today.

FYI, I think that in the 3e FRCS they retconned most of the city population sizes to make them a lot more reasonable. I want to say Waterdeep was only about 130K. I do believe it was described as being a lot larger in 1e/2e materials though, so you're right there.



Sent from my iPhone using EN World mobile app

 

[Brandegoris]

Yeah, let's put this into some perspective. Eberron's super fantastical, multi-layered, floating-skyscraper metropolitan city of Sharn, the largest city on all of Khorvaire? It has a population around 200,000. And this is a setting that goes above and beyond in providing magical infrastructure to its denizens.

Maybe In Eberron they were advanced enough to have concocted the Birth control pill?
Also Warforged are prevalent and with additions like that there isn't as much of a need for Human labor maybe?

Also There is an Entire nation of Vampires and Halflings riding dinosaurs so Yeah.. Eberron shouldn't be the Hallmark of realism.

 

[Aldarc]

Maybe In Eberron they were advanced enough to have concocted the Birth control pill?
Also Warforged are prevalent and with additions like that there isn't as much of a need for Human labor maybe?

There are better candidates for the population patterns that we see in Khorvaire: i.e. the Last War.

Also There is an Entire nation of Vampires and Halflings riding dinosaurs so Yeah.. Eberron shouldn't be the Hallmark of realism.

Karrnath is not mostly vampires - not by a long shot - and Talenta halflings riding dinosaurs does not somehow debunk verisimilitude of a fantasy setting.

 

[Brandegoris]

There are better candidates for the population patterns that we see in Khorvaire: i.e. the Last War.

Karrnath is not mostly vampires - not by a long shot - and Talenta halflings riding dinosaurs does not somehow debunk verisimilitude of a fantasy setting.

Not saying it does. Its just funny that we can all suspend disbelief when it comes to Dino Riding midgets but the city being too big ( which is actually arguable), is too much
But as usual it comes down to what different people like/Don't like so it is what it is at the end of the day

 

[Davelozzi]

FYI, I think that in the 3e FRCS they retconned most of the city population sizes to make them a lot more reasonable. I want to say Waterdeep was only about 130K.

Yep, the city itself is 132K but the greater lands of Waterdeep are 1.3M, so apparently it is a fairly settled area in the immediate environs.

Again this is all 3e here. I don't have any 4e materials and as far as I can see, the SCAG doesn't give a 5e population count.