D&D (2024) WotC Invites You To Explore the World of Greyhawk

This week a new D&D Dungeon Master's Guide preview video was released. This one features the sample setting chapter in the book, which showcases the World of Greyhawk.

One of the earliest campaign settings, and created by D&D co-founder Gary Gygax, Greyhawk dates back to the early 1970s in Gygax's home games, receiving a short official setting book in 1980. Gyeyhawk was selected as the example setting because it is able to hit all the key notes of D&D while being concise and short. The setting has been largely absent from D&D--aside from a few shorter adventures--since 2008. Some key points from the video--

• Greyhawk deliberately leaves a lot for the DM to fill in, with a 30-page chapter.
• Greyhawk created many of the tropes of D&D, and feels very 'straight down the fairway' D&D.
• This is the world where many iconic D&D magic items, NPCs, etc. came from--Mordenkainen, Bigby, Tasha, Otiluke and so on.
• The DMG starts with the City of Greyhawk and its surroundings in some detail, and gets more vague as you get farther away.
• The city is an example of a 'campaign hub'.
• The sample adventures in Chapter 4 of the DMG are set there or nearby.
• The map is an updated version, mainly faithful to the original with some tweaks.
• The map has some added locations key to D&D's history--such as White Plume Mountain, the Tomb of Horrors, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, Ghost Tower of Inverness.
• There's a map of the city, descriptions of places characters might visit--magic item shop, library, 3 taverns, temples, etc.
• The setting takes 'a few liberties while remaining faithful to the spirit of the setting'--it has been contemporized to make it resonate in all D&D campaigns with a balance of NPCs who showcase the diversity of D&D worlds.
• The backgrounds in the Player's Handbook map to locations in the city.
• Most areas in the setting have a name and brief description.
• They focus on three 'iconic' D&D/Greyhawk conflicts such as the Elemental Evil, a classic faceless adversary; Iuz the evil cambion demigod; and dragons.
• There's a list of gods, rulers, and 'big bads'.

 

[KoolMoDaddy-O]

What TSR/WotC puts out is the 616/Sacred Timeline. Everyone else's campaign is an alternate timeline, mine included.

I love this perspective. Personally I hate the Greyhawk Wars because to me, the 1970s/80s Cold War tension of the setting is instrumental to its atmosphere and the Wars p*ssed all that away. So in my variant timeline the Wars never happened, nor will they ever happen.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I love this perspective. Personally I hate the Greyhawk Wars because to me, the 1970s/80s Cold War tension of the setting is instrumental to its atmosphere and the Wars p*ssed all that away. So in my variant timeline the Wars never happened, nor will they ever happen.

Well, based on the map they provide with the DMG, it looks like we are back to the 576 CY timeline. So it's all Michael J. Fox*- we are back to the future, with no Greyhawk Wars.

*With less creepy incest overtones.

 

[Parmandur]

*With less creepy incest overtones.

Speak for your own Greyhawk.

 

[nyvinter]

Right, there’s a whole fandom of Greyhawk that digs deep into whatever source they can to try and suss out what was a Gygax idea present in his game versus something concocted for publication by others. I don’t give the map of Oerth much credence because well, it’s horrible, IMO.

I do agree about the map, it's terrible in so many way. But see, to me that means it's probably originated with Gygax.

 

[Voadam]

Speak for your own Greyhawk.

Game of Thrones' influence has a long reach.

 

[TiQuinn]

I do agree about the map, it's terrible in so many way. But see, to me that means it's probably originated with Gygax.

It could’ve but it gets so fuzzy what was a Gygax creation and what wasn’t. I don’t want to assume that it sprung from his game. There’s a lot of apocrypha when it comes to that setting.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It could’ve but it gets so fuzzy what was a Gygax creation and what wasn’t. I don’t want to assume that it sprung from his game. There’s a lot of apocrypha when it comes to that setting.

As I covered in another thread, according to his answer on this forum (in 2005) he did scout out the world, but the map that was being shown wasn't what he had done.

 

[Thakazum]

In the recent Vecna book, Vecna was a Flan Emperor from Oerth, what are you talking about...?

That's what I "get" for not buying the recent Vecna book? You can just correct me without the attitude. I can take it.

 

[Parmandur]

That's what I "get" for not buying the recent Vecna book? You can just correct me without the attitude. I can take it.

Bemusement seems an appropriate reaction to an out-of-bowhere bizarre statement? Vecna has never at any time not been from Oerth, at least in 5E.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I love this perspective. Personally I hate the Greyhawk Wars because to me, the 1970s/80s Cold War tension of the setting is instrumental to its atmosphere and the Wars p*ssed all that away. So in my variant timeline the Wars never happened, nor will they ever happen.

That's why I don't go past the the Twin Cataclysms, since it just throws away the 1970s/80s Cold War example of mutually assured destruction. -422 CY is the one true year for Greyhawk campaigns for me.