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'.

 

[Zeromaru X]

New is bad, or retcon's and changes to existing elements of a setting are bad?

Does the setting breaks because they added dragonborn to it? If that is the case, the setting was bad to begin with and needed rework.

 

[Scribe]

Does the setting breaks because they added dragonborn to it? If that is the case, the setting was bad to begin with and needed rework.

Does the feel of the setting change by dropping a bunch of creatures that never existed into it, and shifting the basis of conflict?

Yes.

Does that make the original setting bad? Absolutely not.

 

[Zeromaru X]

At least, the critic understood why it is unfun to rely on ethnic stereotypes. (I did kinda agree about setting a Tiefling over the indigenous Rovers, seeming counterproductive.)

There is no reason for angst either. At least at the moment there are robust fan sites the track and compile every official reference to the Greyhawk setting.

And the DM's Guild is open to them, as well. There is nothing stopping them now to share their version of Greyhawk with the rest of us.

 

[Zeromaru X]

Does the feel of the setting change by dropping a bunch of creatures that never existed into it, and shifting the basis of conflict?

Yes.

Does that make the original setting bad? Absolutely not.

Well, I never played in the original setting, so I wouldn't know if the feel changed or not. But you still have your old Greyhawk (with all its racism, sexism, xenophobia, and all that Gygaxian stuff) in your old books, and nobody can take that from you.

Just leave the young ones enjoy their new "woke" bad Greyhawk in peace.

 

[Scribe]

Well, I never played in the original setting, so I wouldn't know if the feel changed or not. But you still have your old Greyhawk (with all its racism, sexism, xenophobia, and all that Gygaxian stuff) in your old books, and nobody can take that from you.

Just leave the young ones enjoy their new "woke" bad Greyhawk in peace.

I'm not throwing around "good" or "bad".

To say that if a setting cannot absorb a whole new species, it must have been bad, doesn't quite work for me.

 

[Yaarel]

Does the feel of the setting change by dropping a bunch of creatures that never existed into it, and shifting the basis of conflict?

Yes.

Does that make the original setting bad? Absolutely not.

I dont understand how adding species "changes" Greyhawk. Greyhawk is and has always been kitchen-sink gonzo.

The 1983 Greyhawk mentions the existence of nonhumans. For example, some of those mountain ranges have massive dwarven civilizations. Yet the lists of dukes and counts and barons IGNORES the existence of these nonhuman civilizations.

For 5e 2024 to remind people that the nonhumans are part of the fabric of Flanaess too is ... obvious.

There are dragons who prevail in a number of Flanaess regions. Some of these dragons hatched dragonborns from their own eggs. This is inherently consistent within the Greyhawk premise.

There is a demon (Grazzt) and a demon offspring (Iuz) in the heart of Flanaess itself. How can it be a "change", they brought a bunch of Abyssal tielfings with them? How can it be a discontinuity if Good tieflings from elsewhere arrived to help defend against the Evil tieflings. This is inherently consistent within the Greyhawk premise.

 

[Parmandur]

This is what I was talking about the other day. And this guy is polite, I grant him that...

Entirely Unsolicited Grognard Opinions on the World of Greyhawk in the 2024 D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide

Art by Francesca Baerald I got a look at the World of Greyhawk section in the 2024 Dungeon Master Guide (DMG) and that is two hours of my precious time on this green Earth that I’m never getting ba…

ageofgreatsorrow.wordpress.com

OK, this thing is just dumb:

"This conflates quasi-deities and demi-gods, which in Greyhawk and D&D mean different things. Iuz is a demi-god, but not a quasi-deity like Murlynd or Keoghtom. This distinction is important if you’re trying to introduce the setting to new players and you don’t want to confuse the crap out of them."

In the new DMG, demi-god is explicitly a subcategory of quasi-deity (as is Titan). This rant is sloppily written.

 

[Scribe]

I dont understand how adding species "changes" Greyhawk. Greyhawk is and has always been kitchen-sink gonzo.

Apparently, this is not seen as objective truth. We had a long thread here about the 'humancentric' Greyhawk, and this latest tangent is regarding a long blog post that would seem to affirm that view.

We then have posts decrying that perspective, and claiming that if a change to this is fundamentally a change to the setting, then the setting was bad.

At which point I again will say, if you have to change a setting to get what you want out of it.

1. Great, change it for your table.

OR

2. Play a setting more appropriate to your feelings.

OR

3. Just wait long enough, Wizards will get around to retconning the setting you want changed anyway.

 

[Yaarel]

Apparently, this is not seen as objective truth. We had a long thread here about the 'humancentric' Greyhawk, and this latest tangent is regarding a long blog post that would seem to affirm that view.

Greyhawk has supertech space aliens! What does it take to qualify as "kitchen-sink gonzo"?!

If these space aliens now arrive to conquer Oerth ... this is entirely consistent within the premise of the Greyhawk setting.

 

[Zeromaru X]

I'm not throwing around "good" or "bad".

To say that if a setting cannot absorb a whole new species, it must have been bad, doesn't quite work for me.

Wasn't the intention of the setting being "the basic setting" to start homebrewing D&D, even back then in the 80s? If a setting intended for that is unable to adapt to the new trends of D&D and accept the change of paradigms in race/species development, then yes, is bad, because it cannot adopt the new basic elements despite being the setting for the basic stuff.