Why no WOTC support for Greyhawk?

[diaglo]

We talking about a world where beholders, liches and drow "live" three doors down from each other,...

huh?

i live 10 miles from work. does that mean i live only 1 door down from it by your standard?

 

[Feanor Starym]

They *do* live next door to each other if you go into Castle Greyhawk itself

And don't knock it, i recall a game i played in Living Greyhawk where there *were* Drow, a lich, and a whole mass of beholders living around the corner from each other. Damn those anti-magic cones are a pain.

 

[The_Universe]

Forgive me if this has been discussed to death (feel free to point me to a thread archive), but why is Greyhawk "dead"? Why no WOTC ongoing support?

Because they always gotta be wastin' your flava'.

 

[EricNoah]

Ultimately it must have to do with whether WotC thinks they can make money off of Greyhawk supplements. Evidently they don't think such material would sell very well.

 

[Gez]

There's Telchur and Vatun in Frostburn. And I think there's one or two GH gods in Sandstorm, too.

 

[loki44]

The new campaign, Age of Worms, that just got started in the most recent Dungeon is set in Greyhawk, albeit "dumbed down" as someone else mentioned. Looks pretty decent so far.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

So a sentence or two, MM3-style, is what you're looking for?

 

[Rugger]

The new campaign, Age of Worms, that just got started in the most recent Dungeon is set in Greyhawk, albeit "dumbed down" as someone else mentioned. Looks pretty decent so far.

Don't know that I'd call it 'dumbed down'...

The adventure/location is in the Cairn Hills, Grossengrottel (sp?) is nearby, as is "the Free City", and there are lotsa little references to the rest of Greyhawk (including a war against humanoids in the far SW)...

Heck, just reading it got me all Greyhawk fired up again

- Rugger

 

[Jupp]

The argument that WotC has Greyhawk as their "core setting" in their core rulebooks is no more than an excuse to silence those that argue that WotC doesnt support Greyhawk anymore. You know, those folks are right. WotC doesnt really support GH anymore. GH material in their released books is near non-existant. The only reference that has some hands and feet is the list of deities, then perhaps some magical items. But that's about it. The last Greyhawk release was the LG Gaz from back in 2000 AFAIK.
The only realy source to find new or updated Greyhawk content is either through the Living Greyhawk campaign and through Dungeon magazine because Erik Mona holds the Greyhawk flag there. If it were not for him we would not see a single bit of Greyhawk for quite a long time in that magazine. IMO we should get used to the fact that those two sources will be the only ones for quite some time to come when it comes to Greyhawk. As sad as it is

 

[rogueattorney]

I would answer the "why no support?" question with the "What support do you want to see that isn't already out there?" question. Or as I put it on the WotC board:

There's something I don't understand. What kind of product support are people looking for? The 1983 boxed set is cheaply available for download, and the fact that it's nearly system neutral means that it can be used for pretty much any version of D&D. The 2001 books, although out of print, are still quite available. Dungeon just put out a big new map. That's all the basics, still easily available. Enough to get a newbie started.

So what else do you want? Sourcebooks? Adventures? There are tons of these being published by WotC and others. Why would it make you feel better to have WotC stamp "Greyhawk" on it? It's not like the authors WotC would be using would have had any previous association with the setting. It's not like the new products would necessarily be exactly what you need for your game. Why do you need WotC's 'Greyhawk seal of approval' on it? It's not like Greyhawk Supplement by author X is going to be anything better than Generic Supplement by author Y.

I guess what it comes down to is, why are some begging to be customers to a company that has said quite plainly that they have no intention of producing the products you want to see? At least two of the previous creative forces behind Greyhawk (Gygax and Kuntz) are still out there making stuff that's quite compatable with Greyhawk, even if it doesn't have the offical 'Greyhawk' stamp from WotC. If you liked their previous stuff, pick it up. (I don't think Jim Ward, Sean Reynolds, Roger Moore, Carl Sargeant, et al. are still doing much in that vein, but if I'm wrong and you like their work, check them out, too.)

Many adventures from Necromancer, Goodman, etc. are just as generic as many of the officially Greyhawk adventures of the past. They just don't have the one sentence in them that tells you that 'this adventure takes place in the Bone March'.

Since writing that, Dungeon has announced it's Worms series and another Maure Castle level. (They might be out by now... I don't pay a heck of a lot of attention.)

R.A.