Why no WOTC support for Greyhawk?

[diaglo]

Hasbeen hats Greyhack.

 

[MerricB]

When it actually has some relation to the setting. If there was a paragraph, or even a sentence, saying "uldras could fit into Greyhawk here...", or "Frostburn could be used in the Land of Black Ice", I wouldn't say anything. But WotC's position nowadays is that each accessory book must have 1-2 new races, X number of new prestige classes, a few new gods, and how we shoehorn them into existing settings, Greyhawk included, is our own danged problem.

And no Greyhawk deities are mentioned in the prestige class names for Frostburn.

Against that, Greyhawk is hardly known for its frozen wastelands - or its deserts.

Cheers!

 

[diaglo]

Against that, Greyhawk is hardly known for its frozen wastelands - or its deserts.

huh?

i can name frozen wastelands and deserts from WoG.

 

[Jupp]

huh?

i can name frozen wastelands and deserts from WoG.

huh as well

with at least 3 deserts, a region completely covered with ice and another arctic region in the upper North-East I think GH has enough sand and snow

 

[Testament]

huh?

i can name frozen wastelands and deserts from WoG.

Frozen areas? There's the Land of Black Ice/Blackmoor, and the big peninsula where the Snow/Frost/Ice Barbarians hang out. Hardly the centre of the action in Greyhawk.

Deserts is a different matter, you've got the Bright Lands, Sea of Dust and Dry Steppes. Then again, the Bright Lands and Sea of Dust are more suicide runs than anything else.

 

[diaglo]

Frozen areas? There's the Land of Black Ice/Blackmoor, and the big peninsula where the Snow/Frost/Ice Barbarians hang out. Hardly the centre of the action in Greyhawk.

did you buy any of the 2edADnD adventures? or the Greyhack Wars boxed set?

 

[Jupp]

I think the barbarians have another opinion of their importance in the GH wars and in some of the adventures....just dont mention Vatun while they are around

 

[qstor]

If fact, there has been massive development of Greyhawk through Living Greyhawk as each Greyhawk region has been assigned to an earth region, and each region has spent multi-thousands of hours on it's region in the form of writing adventures and defining all of the cultural elements of their region. So, I would recommend checking out the various regional Living Greyhawk websites to see some development of the game world.

I'm getting my Greyhawk fix at a continuously high rate.

Some of the problems are, there's no consistent marketing of that material outside the regions. The material belongs to WOTC/RPGA and it never leaves the RPGA or LG regions apart from the free material the Triads put on the web. But most of the towns/maps/NPCs etc the Triads have developed remain "locked" from the public and even the regional players. WOTC is trying to push Greyhawk through the RPGA rather than giving the setting the official push it *deserves* for the *official* 3e setting.

Two, The Living Greyhawk Journal is dead so there's not official fluff or crunch material with the *Greyhawk* stamp on it. All of the material released in Dungeon and Dragon has to be *dummed* down to a generic level. There was plans for detailed descriptions of Core ie non Triad controlled towns in Greyhawk such as Enstad in Celene but that idea died because the WOTC brass didn't like it.

Three, there was never a well built hardback book like the 3e FRCS marketed for the setting, that would attract new players. As great as the LGG IS is doesn't have all the "bells and whistles" the FRCS sourcebook goes. As Charles Ryan's reply in a thread in the General D&D board on the WOTC boards makes clear, WOTC has no plans in the future for the hardback.

Gets off soapbox..

Mike

 

[seankreynolds]

Note also that originally with 3E the RPGA was going to have a budget for releasing (to stores) one sourcebook a year updating with the campaign world with regional info and other stuff specifically relating to the setting. Of course, RPGA suffered its regularly-scheduled budget cuts and that was one of the things dropped due to lack of funds. :/

 

[Von Ether]

This is what sort of confuses me about the issue.

Many people who like "old school" modules say it's because the adventures are bare bones, you can easily plop the adventure in your plot or game world without much change and a minimum of fluff (i.e. give me stats and cruch and don't tell me a backstory or where to put the monsters.) Greyhawk is "old school" as well and has some of the same open ended/bare bones approach. With that in mind and the default names set to Greyhawk, every WotC book is tool kit for a Greyhawk game.

We talking about a world where beholders, liches and drow "live" three doors down from each other, we aren't talking about a high level of "suspension for disbelief" on adding any other monsters or genericaly named PrCs from other books.

And no Greyhawk deities are mentioned in the prestige class names for Frostburn.

So that invalidates the name drops for the PrCs all of the other WotC books like Exalted?

If there was a paragraph, or even a sentence, saying "uldras could fit into Greyhawk here...", or "Frostburn could be used in the Land of Black Ice", I wouldn't say anything.

I found this technique cool in the MM III and I admit that Greyhawk could have been included in that, then again it sort of circles back to my original question. For GW GMs who love the bare bones approach, give them the goods but let them decide the best way to use it.