Why no WOTC support for Greyhawk?

[Phaedrus]

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?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

According to recent statements by Ryan Dancey, apparently it's a strategy to have a super bare bones campaign setting out there for DMs who find assembling the maps and gods to not be something they want to do, but want the freedom to fill in most of the rest on their own.

And, it should be noted, it's not that there's NO support -- all the generic supplements tend to have Oerth-based content in them. Not as much as 3.0E had, but it's still present.

But I wouldn't think that, say, one good Greyhawk product a year (even if it just picks the best of the RPGA stuff from the previous year and maybe cleans it up a bit) would mess with their strategy too much.

 

[Nellisir]

There's a thread or two over on the WotC Greyhawk boards. In a nutshell, because all the "generic" accessories are supposed to use Greyhawk as a "generic" setting.

They don't, of course -- I'm pretty certain there's no* Greyhawk material in Frostburn, for instances -- but that's the line.

Cheers
Nell.

*Deity names aside.

 

[Lhorgrim]

Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine both have fairly regular Greyhawk themed adventures and articles.

Erik is keeping the Greyhawk dream alive.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

They don't, of course -- I'm pretty certain there's no* Greyhawk material in Frostburn, for instances -- but that's the line.

*Deity names aside.

Didn't at least one of those dieties get a new prestige class, though? If you're going to say something's not Greyhawk because it just uses the name, when are you going to know when something legitimately is "real" Oerth material?

And am I the only lunatic who'd like to see the Chainmail setting redone for 3.5, since it is, in theory, a part of Oerth we never saw before that game?

 

[kenobi65]

Also, keep in mind that the RPGA has been "developing" Greyhawk through the Living Greyhawk campaign.

 

[Whimsical]

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.

 

[ecliptic]

Living Greyhawk is junk because the non-Living gamers barely get any information out of there. Not to mention the information that does come out is usually lower quality and definitely is not canon.

 

[Testament]

Living Greyhawk is junk because the non-Living gamers barely get any information out of there. Not to mention the information that does come out is usually lower quality and definitely is not canon.

Oh please <rolleyes>. Half the reason Geyhawk died is because no-one could agree on what the frug "canon" meant. And at any rate, the info is there if you'd actually bother to look up the websites. I'll even get you started with my own region http://perrenland.lythia.com

And don't go demeaning the massive amount of work of all the Triads and writers VOLUNTARILY put in by declaring it "junk" and "lower quality". If you think you could do a better job, then put up or shut up.

 

[Nellisir]

Didn't at least one of those dieties get a new prestige class, though? If you're going to say something's not Greyhawk because it just uses the name, when are you going to know when something legitimately is "real" Oerth material?

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.

And am I the only lunatic who'd like to see the Chainmail setting redone for 3.5, since it is, in theory, a part of Oerth we never saw before that game?

Nope. I'd like to see an actual RPG (vs mini/wargame) treatment of it -- even an article in Dragon. It'd be a nice addition. I like new settings.

Cheers
Nell.