Why no FR-style campaign books for the World of Greyhawk

[trancejeremy]

I believe Kenzer is going to put out a version of Greyhawk for Hackmaster.

Not really Greyhawk, it will no doubt be 'kewler' and full of lame jokes.

And now that I look it up, yes, it's called "Greyhack".

Sigh. I usually really don't wish any company ill, but in this case, I have to make an exception - I really wish Kenzer would just go out of business and stop ruining people's memories like this and their version of Mystara...

 

[Erekose]

Originally posted by Alaric_Prympax
WotC has been very vocal that there will be no such books and that they will not license GH out to anybody.

I hadn't heard this before . . . anyone know why WotC would take such a position?

 

[talinthas]

it has something to do with the way that the RPGA is managing living greyhawk, as i understand..

 

[bloodymage]

I believe Kenzer is going to put out a version of Greyhawk for Hackmaster.

Not really Greyhawk, it will no doubt be 'kewler' and full of lame jokes.

And now that I look it up, yes, it's called "Greyhack".

Sigh. I usually really don't wish any company ill, but in this case, I have to make an exception - I really wish Kenzer would just go out of business and stop ruining people's memories like this and their version of Mystara...

Wow do you ever have it wrong! Take a good gander at the testimonials sometime on the Kenzer boards from people thanking the company for bringing back their cherished memories. Wishing a small, customer oriented company like Kenzer to go belly up is just plain mean-spirited. A lot of people would be very disappointed at losing support for their chosen game system. Do you want everyone in the RPG world to play your game and your game alone? I didn't think so. If you bothered to actually look at some of the products or, heaven forbid, play the game, you might be surprised at how narrow and petty your current view is.

[edit] PS: And btw, it's not their version of Mystara, it's Mishler's version written for the game system. You know, the original author?

 

[JTolman]

Yes kenzerco Does have licnese

And they have iot for ALL the Old Porducts....

Even the Forgoten Realms... Only in hackmaster it will be called The "Fading Realms"

You really do nned to take a look at the Quality of The Kenzerco products... not just for Hackmaster either.. Check out thier Kingdoms of Kalamar for D20....
They do a Par-Excelance Job on everything they do.... Very Detailed and very Well thought out

Yes In hackmaster products they do put in some "in jokes" at times... But if you check out the 1st Ed Printings of OAD&D... this is not going against anything that EGG didn't do Himself.

The jokes cane be ignored... the jokes don't have to be played and aren't really part of the rules in the first place.. thier just "Flavour"
But tell me truthfully.... For you even medium Core gamers out there.... How many times you don't make "In Game jokes" Out of game as your just going through Real Life.... Or how many of you Don't make Jokes and Luagh as your actually playing the game... Come On!!!
gaming jokes Have been Part of the game from the begining...
"Flaming" Arrows and All....
Lossen up guys... and Check out the Hackmaster products.. I am positive you will be surprised and pleased with what you find

 

[The Blue Elf]

Greyhawk seting didn't sell that well for WOTC, I remember they released a series of Greyhawk books it turns out the books didn't sell that well for them. The problem was WOTC/Hasbro wanted something that would go mainstream, but Greyhawk fail to capture mainstream fandom, they don't know some of us do like Grayhawk, because you don't always have Harpers spying on you all the time, or Elimister appearing in the game trying to talk to you about the greater balance.

You have yourself and your friends trying to battle for their lives with no help from anyone except some minor NPC's you meet in the game sometimes your able to fight gods in the game depending on what adventure your in.

 

[teitan]

There is a reason the relaunch in 98 failed. To put it simply, reliance on out of print and pricey materials. The relaunch books failed to give you ANY details on the deities of the setting outside of the list they provide and a few scant passages on Iuz.

Don't get me wrong, the books were well written aside from this and other smaller problems, like references to the PHBR series as if all readers possessed these books.

I will say this about the relaunch material though, it was all pretty good outside of the problems. The adventures were fun and the writing was great when not referencing older OOP books. I didn't get the Scarlet Brotherhood book, but would loved to have gotten it, I just quit in disgust at how unfriendly the material was to people who didn't have at least From the Ashes.

Now that we have the 3E versions of the gods and stuff, the 98 material is very nice with some minor conversions.

Jason

 

[qstor]

Erik Mona worked VERY hard to get a FR style book published for Greyhawk. But the powers that be wanted everything concentrated in Living Greyhawk.

Gary Holian and Grodog are putting out great stuff on Canonfire. That and the stalled Living Greyhawk Journal are all that we can wish for now.

Mike

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Re: Re: Why no FR-style campaign books for the World of Greyhawk

Greyhawk seting didn't sell that well for WOTC, I remember they released a series of Greyhawk books it turns out the books didn't sell that well for them. The problem was WOTC/Hasbro wanted something that would go mainstream, but Greyhawk fail to capture mainstream fandom, they don't know some of us do like Grayhawk, because you don't always have Harpers spying on you all the time, or Elimister appearing in the game trying to talk to you about the greater balance.

You have yourself and your friends trying to battle for their lives with no help from anyone except some minor NPC's you meet in the game sometimes your able to fight gods in the game depending on what adventure your in.

Not to turn this into FR vs. GH or nuthin, but who said you gotta have Elminster or Harpers in your game? My players have never met Elminster (probably never will, but not because I don't like him), and have met one guy who MIGHT be a Harper agent.

Frankly, I find Mordenkainen to be much more obtrusive and needlessly inscrutable than Elminster. That whole "active neutrality" thing is the kind of fuzzy-headed idea you only see in RPGs .

I'll still never understand why they made GH the default setting for 3E and not FR. I don't begrudge GH fans their fix, I want them to get material they can use without having to deal with an organizational nightmare like the LG. If WOTC only wanted to half-heartedly support it at best, they should have just farmed it out to a third-party publisher who could do it justice. WOTC would have made money off the setting book, GH fans would have real source material and lots of supplements by now, and people who play D&D just for Forgotten Realms (a lot of people IME) could sleep happy knowing their setting is default. They'd probably even have picked up a few people who only know D&D from the Forgotten Realms computer games. Who is the loser in that scenario?

 

[grodog]

There's a lot of GH fan support out there, which---along with LGJ as Mike pointed out---is probably as good as it's going to get.

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