# Is Greyhawk Relevant?



## Dragonhelm (Jul 31, 2010)

I'm sure that many of us have played at some point or another in the world of Greyhawk. This was Gygax's world, home to some of the greatest classic dungeons in D&D. It is for that nostalgia factor that we hold it in such high regards.

Yet as time has gone on and the hobby has evolved, I have to wonder if it still holds up all these years later.

One of the questions I ask is why WotC would ever want to re-release Greyhawk. They might get some sales based on nostalgia, but what really sets it apart enough to draw in a new crowd? My fear on this is that, as a generic setting, it will be outshone by other generic settings, most notably the Realms. It doesn't offer the wide range of cultures that other settings do. There's nothing geographically or culturally that really sets it apart.

But what of the classic dungeons? My guess is that they'd rather release those in books like Tomb of Horrors. Rather than put out a setting about dungeons, put out books on dungeons.

Does GH need reinvention? I would say yes. It needs to be set apart somehow.

I don't know what Greyhawk needs, or how to make it more relevant to the modern-day gamer. I wish I did. I would hate to just see it fade away, yet that seems to be what's happening. Should it be another continent on the same planet as the Realms? Does it need a makeover?

Thoughts?


----------



## DragonLancer (Jul 31, 2010)

I think these days Greyhawk is just nostalgia for the "good old days" of early D&D. I myself like generic settings but the current thing seems to be every setting needs a hook of somekind and Greyhawk doesn't have that, and thus I don't think it appeals to the current generation of gamer.


----------



## Klaus (Jul 31, 2010)

Greyhawk could/should be taken back to its Sword & Sorcery roots. The Free City of Greyhawk itself is heavily inspired by Lankhmar (with established Thieves and Assassins Guilds, etc).

Even the "good kingdoms", like Veluna, Furyondy and the Shield Lands would be safe only within a certain radius of the nobles' castles. The very fact that we have the "Shield" Lands (so-named because it shields the other realms from the evil kingdoms) marks Greyhawk as a gritty setting.

And Gygax added to the Sword & Sorcery flavor a couple of evil kingdoms that rival Mordor itself. We have the Great Kingdom, the Horned Society, and Iuz. Think of it: this is a campaign where an actual demigod rules a kingdom right next to the civilized lands!


----------



## Philosopher (Jul 31, 2010)

Klaus said:


> Greyhawk could/should be taken back to its Sword & Sorcery roots. The Free City of Greyhawk itself is heavily inspired by Lankhmar (with established Thieves and Assassins Guilds, etc).
> 
> Even the "good kingdoms", like Veluna, Furyondy and the Shield Lands would be safe only within a certain radius of the nobles' castles. The very fact that we have the "Shield" Lands (so-named because it shields the other realms from the evil kingdoms) marks Greyhawk as a gritty setting.
> 
> And Gygax added to the Sword & Sorcery flavor a couple of evil kingdoms that rival Mordor itself. We have the Great Kingdom, the Horned Society, and Iuz. Think of it: this is a campaign where an actual demigod rules a kingdom right next to the civilized lands!




Agreed. What Greyhawk needs is someone with an appreciation of class sword & sorcery to bring out these aspects.

Those familiar with Gygax's original presentation of the setting will note that the threat of war was in the air. Perhaps it could be reset to beginning of the Greyhawk Wars, and the setting's schtick could be that war is being waged all around. This would be a change from classic Greyhawk being focused on the awesome dungeon crawls, but I don't think it would be deviating from the feel of Greyhawk too much - it would just be focusing on a specific aspect of it.


----------



## billd91 (Jul 31, 2010)

Greyhawk was certainly relevant throughout the 3e run with the success of the Living Greyhawk organized play campaign. WotC let it lapse with 4e, but I'd be hard pressed to say that the setting is somehow irrelevant. It could probably stand to lay fallow for a bit since 8 or so years of organized play kind of wears things out, but after a few years of laying low, I don't see any reason it couldn't surge back.


----------



## Hand of Evil (Jul 31, 2010)

Agree with Klaus but also think a lot of gamers do not know Greyhawk of old, they see it as their "dads/moms" campaign setting.    It just need to be dusted off, a few things adjusted.


----------



## El Mahdi (Jul 31, 2010)

I think people choose their own style of play, whether High Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, Grim & Gritty, etc.  I don't think they want a Campaign World to choose that style for them.  A Campaign World that has lots of cultures, hooks, regions, etc., that they can then play their type of game in, is going to be chosen more over one that is less flexible.

With that in mind, I don't think Greyhawk could be changed enough to make a difference, and still be Greyhawk.  I think it can only successfully exist as a nostalgia thing.  It may be possible to re-print the Campaign World, and even update it to 4E mechanics, but I don't think major changes could work.  I think Forgotten Realms is spared this a little more due to it's plethora of cultures and geographic areas, and it's history of already having world changing events.  Greyhawk just wouldn't be Greyhawk anymore if the same thing was done to it.

So in my opinion, Greyhawk is only relevant as a Nostalgia product, not as a currently published major campaign world.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Jul 31, 2010)

billd91 said:


> Greyhawk was certainly relevant throughout the 3e run with the success of the Living Greyhawk organized play campaign. WotC let it lapse with 4e, but I'd be hard pressed to say that the setting is somehow irrelevant. It could probably stand to lay fallow for a bit since 8 or so years of organized play kind of wears things out, but after a few years of laying low, I don't see any reason it couldn't surge back.




If you did the organized play, then it might seem worn out.  Not all of us did.  From my perspective, there hasn't been any GH setting products since the early 3e days.  I remember it more as an AD&D setting.

As far as the idea of GH being a setting about war, I would have to wonder how it would then stand out compared to Dragonlance, whose history is defined largely by war.


----------



## Dykstrav (Jul 31, 2010)

Sadly, I'd have to say that Greyhawk is largely irrelevant to many gamers these days. I personally love the setting, but it's mostly a "legacy setting" to today's gamers.

I'm actually running a Greyhawk game right now under Pathfinder rules for my players that don't really know much about it. I specifically went with Greyhawk _because_ most of my players don't know it very well--unlike the Realms, not every corner has been highly detailed and the overall feel of the setting is wilder and grittier. The players have immensely enjoyed getting to explore it. 

I'm using a combination of the _Living Greyhawk Gazetteer_ and previous edition supplements and this suits me just fine. In fact, I'd rather _not _have any official support for the setting at this time. If they change things around as much as they did for the newest version of the Forgotten Realms or to try to make classic Greyhawk appeal to newer gamers, I'd prefer for it to lay fallow.


----------



## Klaus (Jul 31, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> Agreed. What Greyhawk needs is someone with an appreciation of class sword & sorcery to bring out these aspects.
> 
> Those familiar with Gygax's original presentation of the setting will note that the threat of war was in the air. Perhaps it could be reset to beginning of the Greyhawk Wars, and the setting's schtick could be that war is being waged all around. This would be a change from classic Greyhawk being focused on the awesome dungeon crawls, but I don't think it would be deviating from the feel of Greyhawk too much - it would just be focusing on a specific aspect of it.



I don't think all-out war is needed, or even wanted, but constant skirmishes are a must. The "Lawful Good" realms are right next door to "Chaotic Evil" and "Neutral Evil" kingdoms. A "world war" is too much of a modern concept, but centuries of border skirmishes, minor sieges and espionage can be as taxing as any single war.

Add to that the fact that most realms are Neutral, including the Free City. Greyhawk is not really about Good vs. Evil (like Dragonlance), but Neutral vs. Everything Else.


----------



## the Jester (Jul 31, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> I'm sure that many of us have played at some point or another in the world of Greyhawk. This was Gygax's world, home to some of the greatest classic dungeons in D&D. It is for that nostalgia factor that we hold it in such high regards.
> 
> Yet as time has gone on and the hobby has evolved, I have to wonder if it still holds up all these years later.
> 
> One of the questions I ask is why WotC would ever want to re-release Greyhawk. They might get some sales based on nostalgia, but what really sets it apart enough to draw in a new crowd? My fear on this is that, as a generic setting, it will be outshone by other generic settings, most notably the Realms. It doesn't offer the wide range of cultures that other settings do. There's nothing geographically or culturally that really sets it apart.




What?

Are you, er, _familiar_ with Greyhawk?

IMHO it's much cooler than the FR, DL or any of the other "generic fantasy worlds" that are pretty much GH in drag anyhow.

Greyhawk has a VERY wide range of cultures, from the Barbarian kingdoms in the NE to the Arabesque Baklunish to the Amerindian Rovers to the Gypsy-inspired Rhenee to the racist empire of the Scarlet Brotherhood to... well, it keeps going, and even different nonhuman cultures are hinted at, sketched out or detailed- valley elven culture; the Grugach; Celene and Urnst; gnomes in camouflage; a demigod ruling an evil empire; another fallen empire where undead are sometimes the leading citizens; etc. 

Geographically you have the Sea of Dust, the Barrens, the Land of Black Ice, the Sinking Isle, the Riftcanyon, the Nyr Dyv... I think there are plenty of distinctive and cool geographical areas in the Flanaess. 

Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're looking for here- what is it you think sets FR apart as more relevant than GH? Because to my mind, it's all about taste. If you prefer a sort of Renaissance, high fantasy feel, you will likely prefer the Realms, whereas if you prefer a sword & sorcery Dark Ages feel, you'll prolly prefer Greyhawk.


----------



## JohnRTroy (Jul 31, 2010)

Depends on what you mean by "relevance".

Greyhawk, FR, etc., are all settings, and as such they exist independently of either the vox populi (what's popular) and trends.  There is no objective "evolution" of the hobby, from what I can see, just different trends.  And I hate the term "generic" used to describe it.  "Generic" just means that it's tropes and influences are common.

So yes, I think it has relevance in and off itself.  And I think asking if it "holds up" is a loaded question, implying that the quality goes down as it ages.  

I think the big problem is its ties to D&D.  As a campaign setting it is tied closely to the fate of it's parent IP, D&D, and thus has had to change over time to fit it.  So that lead to changes from 3e that started a trend, and now a lot of the "Proper Nouns" from GH can be found in all current D&D.  Secondly, in recent years WoTC hasn't seen GH as something to support.  When the RPGA took over handling it I knew things weren't going well.  (I fear the same thing will happen with Forgotten Realms).

Also, I think over time older things have less relevance because of cultural impact.  Older gamers might be jaded and looking for something that does not mimic the influences Gygax had, while younger gamers look for inspiration from other cultures and cultural influences.  (Japan's Fantasy Anime/Manga/Videogames, current writers and authors of Fantasy Fiction, new genres like Steampunk).  So, I think the popular conception is that it is a relic.


----------



## El Mahdi (Jul 31, 2010)

the Jester said:


> ...that are pretty much GH in drag anyhow...




Aaaaaaah!  As soon as I read that I flashed a mental image of Mordenkainen in Drag!  The Horror!


----------



## Dragonhelm (Jul 31, 2010)

the Jester said:


> What?
> 
> Are you, er, _familiar_ with Greyhawk?
> 
> IMHO it's much cooler than the FR, DL or any of the other "generic fantasy worlds" that are pretty much GH in drag anyhow.




Familiar enough to know that the FR and DL are by no means clones of GH.  

I see where you're getting at with the geography and people, though.

Truthfully, I'm not even wholly certain what I'm looking for.  Is GH something that would sell these days?  Does it have a draw that the Realms or Pathfinder doesn't have?  If it was updated to 4e, is there a place for all the 4e-isms?




El Mahdi said:


> Aaaaaaah!  As soon as I read that I flashed a mental image of Mordenkainen in Drag!  The Horror!




ROTFL!


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Jul 31, 2010)

*Shrug*

It's still my favorite campaign setting.  To me, Greyhawk *is* D&D.  No matter how much the game evolves, somehow at its core I will always see a ragged fellowship standing on a packed dirt road outside a little village called Hommlet, following the siren's call of adventure and rumors of adventure.


----------



## Bullgrit (Jul 31, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:
			
		

> It is for that nostalgia factor that we hold it in such high regards.



And the "old school" Greyhawk fans haven't burst in to rake you over the coals for saying the N-word?

Bullgrit


----------



## Chainsaw (Jul 31, 2010)

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> *Shrug*
> 
> It's still my favorite campaign setting. To me, Greyhawk *is* D&D. No matter how much the game evolves, somehow at its core I will always see a ragged fellowship standing on a packed dirt road outside a little village called Hommlet, following the siren's call of adventure and rumors of adventure.




You rule. I'm playing in a OD&D Greyhawk megadungeon (monsters, gods, etc) right now. My DM runs another C&C campaign set in Greyhawk as well. Pretty relevant to all of us.


----------



## Nifft (Jul 31, 2010)

Hand of Evil said:


> Agree with Klaus but also think a lot of gamers do not know Greyhawk of old, they see it as their "dads/moms" campaign setting.    It just need to be dusted off, a few things adjusted.



 Like the names. IMHO many of the names are painfully bad, and naming stuff is half the work of making a setting for some of us.

But as bad as the location names were, the Wizard names were equally awesome, and have taken their (rightful) place in every setting's core spell list.

So: my favorite bits of Greyhawk have already permeated pretty much every setting.

Cheers, -- N


----------



## Ariosto (Aug 1, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:
			
		

> One of the questions I ask is why WotC would ever want to re-release Greyhawk. ...  Does GH need reinvention? I would say yes. It needs to be set apart somehow.



There seems to be a lack of understanding here of the difference between "re-release" and "reinvent". 

Why would I want another corporate reinvention when the very purpose of the folio (and the later boxed edition) is for _personal_ invention?

If it's the classic, then guess what:

_That_ sets it apart!

If demand for the classic is low, then the supply of originals can meet it.

If there is little demand for yet another "Greyhawk" product having nothing to do with Gygax, then I reckon it's just as well for Wizards to make stuff enough people actually do want to pay for.


----------



## pawsplay (Aug 1, 2010)

That Greyhawk is so associated with a generic setting raises the question not, "Why Greyhawk?" so much as why everything else?


----------



## JoeGKushner (Aug 1, 2010)

As I get older, I tend to go with the, "They'd only screw it up" philosiphy and if I want to use my older materials... I just use the old materials.

It'd be great to see a new Greyhawk with the high quality product that WoTC is known for. Hell, be great to see them license it out to Paizo as they have just about equal production values.

But as far as it's relevance? People just starting the game now never probably know that Vecan was for years if not decades just a hand and eye and that Ioun was just some floating magical items.

The game evolves.


----------



## pawsplay (Aug 1, 2010)

The world will not be the same once gamers are no longer swapping "Head of Vecna" stories.


----------



## Bullgrit (Aug 1, 2010)

I don't care about a PC's back story -- I'm more interested in the story made with the PC while playing the game.

This is a big reason why I like the World of Greyhawk so much -- so much of its back story was made by the original PCs while playing the game. The fact that so many of the NPCs of the setting were actual PCs in the original game, and the adventure locals in the setting were actual adventures in the original game. This is why Greyhawk is the best setting to me.

Its history wasn't just written, it was made by the DM and Players while playing the game.

Plus, D&D and Greyhawk came about at the same time. Greyhawk essentially *is* D&D; D&D essentially *is* Greyhawk. No other campaign setting is this way. Not even Blackmoor.

Bullgrit


----------



## haakon1 (Aug 1, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> It doesn't offer the wide range of cultures that other settings do.




I disagree.  There is much breadth and depth in Greyhawk's countries.  And they resonate with real history, because Gygax put his background in wargaming and mythology into the cultures.

To some extent, of course, Greyhawk is a "build your own campaign" setting, with a lot left to the DM to interpret and fill in, but I've always found that a good thing.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 1, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> As far as the idea of GH being a setting about war, I would have to wonder how it would then stand out compared to Dragonlance, whose history is defined largely by war.




As Klaus pointed out, the Greyhawk Wars were not a conflict of Good vs. Evil. Greyhawk is more complex (and plausible) than that. Some conflicts are more about Law vs. Chaos (Trithereon can and does come into conflict with Heironeous, say - and both are good deities), or other factors altogether.



Klaus said:


> I don't think all-out war is needed, or even wanted, but constant skirmishes are a must. The "Lawful Good" realms are right next door to "Chaotic Evil" and "Neutral Evil" kingdoms. A "world war" is too much of a modern concept, but centuries of border skirmishes, minor sieges and espionage can be as taxing as any single war.




Very good. I like there being tension in the air. Constant skirmishes but no all out war. That would work quite well.


----------



## haakon1 (Aug 1, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> Agreed. What Greyhawk needs is someone with an appreciation of class sword & sorcery to bring out these aspects.
> 
> Those familiar with Gygax's original presentation of the setting will note that the threat of war was in the air. Perhaps it could be reset to beginning of the Greyhawk Wars, and the setting's schtick could be that war is being waged all around. This would be a change from classic Greyhawk being focused on the awesome dungeon crawls, but I don't think it would be deviating from the feel of Greyhawk too much - it would just be focusing on a specific aspect of it.




Reseting to BEFORE the Greyhawk Wars would be good . . . but realistically, I think moving on with the 3e version of Greyhawk is fine.  Just have the silly Greyhawk treaty thing die, and have it be a world at war . . . which is pretty much what it was meant to be, I think.

That is, a world full of wars and skirmishes, but no means one overarching good v. evil conflict, a la the 2e version.  That just never fit right.


----------



## Orius (Aug 1, 2010)

haakon1 said:


> To some extent, of course, Greyhawk is a "build your own campaign" setting, with a lot left to the DM to interpret and fill in, but I've always found that a good thing.




I think that that is both Greyhawk's strength and weakness.

Strength because it was created as a campaign setting back in a time when it wasn't uncommon for modules to have blank areas for the DM to set up on his own.  That's kind of what Gary did with Greyhawk, he gave gamers a world with some basic details that they could flesh out themselves.  

Weakness because settings like Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms set a new standard for the campaign world, with more detailed locations and a metaplot.  Greyhawk never had that, and when these things were added to the setting, fans wren't happy because it clashed with the developments in their own Greyhawk flavored homebrewed campaigns.  Though the fallout from Gary's departure from TSR and some really weak late 1e Greyhawk modules probably did their share of damage, more so than Greyhawk Wars did itself.



haakon1 said:


> Reseting to BEFORE the Greyhawk Wars would be good . . . but realistically, I think moving on with the 3e version of Greyhawk is fine.  Just have the silly Greyhawk treaty thing die, and have it be a world at war . . . which is pretty much what it was meant to be, I think.
> 
> That is, a world full of wars and skirmishes, but no means one overarching good v. evil conflict, a la the 2e version.  That just never fit right.




That sounds like the same family-friendly influences that had demons, devils and assassins yanked from the game at work again.

I don't think Greyhawk Wars are really going to be pulled from setting canon, especially given the work on the setting done in late 2e and early 3e that was better recieved.  I think though the fan base was fractured seriously enough back in the late '80s and early '90s that the setting just may not be commerically viable anymore.


----------



## Starfox (Aug 1, 2010)

the Jester said:


> Greyhawk has a VERY wide range of cultures, from the Barbarian kingdoms in the NE to the Arabesque Baklunish to the Amerindian Rovers to the Gypsy-inspired Rhenee to the racist empire of the Scarlet Brotherhood to... well, it keeps going, and even different nonhuman cultures are hinted at, sketched out or detailed- valley elven culture; the Grugach; Celene and Urnst; gnomes in camouflage; a demigod ruling an evil empire; another fallen empire where undead are sometimes the leading citizens; etc.




To me, Greyhawk is Fantasy Europe (and part of the mid east), mirror-imaged (west to east), and without the burden of RL-historical accuracy. The backdrop of Greyhawk is really deep, with the migration of its human peoples being a major part of the story. But I think this is also Greyhawk's weakness - it is a little more demanding than, say, the Forgotten Realms. Things are supposed to fit, to work together. They have to be integrated. FR is more of a patchwork. This makes GH a bit harder to use, but also a lot more rewarding in my book.

Also, I simply know it better than I know the FR.


----------



## Ariosto (Aug 1, 2010)

Orius said:
			
		

> I think that that is both Greyhawk's strength and weakness.




Commercially today, it's the kiss of death.

If a lot of people lined up to buy a reissue of the classic, valuing the extent to which it is a "build your own" framework, then they would not be signing up to buy a whole series of products. WotC would have to think of something different to sell next. People who more predictably buy the latest thing in a brand line are more desirable patrons. In general, people who spend more are more desirable.

_More_ people who spend more is a doubly desirable demographic. Construction kits are not as popular as stuff done for you.

To whatever degree this is "just human nature", the portion of humanity catered to is a self-reinforcing thing. D&D for a while now has been presented as a matter of buying lots of books. Even a single of the hardbound volumes typical today -- even the original FR boxed set -- dwarfs the material in the old WoG boxed set. The selection pressure has been for people who are into that, people who like an encyclopedic game setting product that -- like an encyclopedia -- needs to be "updated" by purchasing supplements or replacements.


----------



## vonmolkew (Aug 1, 2010)

To Olgar:  hallelujah, brother!

I can still sit and stare at that map of Darlene's for hours, wondering what was going in some of those far off places.....


----------



## Nifft (Aug 1, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> Commercially today, it's the kiss of death.
> 
> If a lot of people lined up to buy a reissue of the classic, valuing the extent to which it is a "build your own" framework, then they would not be signing up to buy a whole series of products. WotC would have to think of something different to sell next.



 But that *IS* the current WotC setting strategy. Two books, a couple of modules, some on-line support, and then we're off to a different setting the next year.

If it was really the "kiss of death", we wouldn't be getting Dark Sun. We'd be getting more Eberron or FR stuff.

Cheers, -- N


----------



## Theocrat (Aug 1, 2010)

*Greyhawk is best when its Dead*

Hi all - 
As owner of GreyhawkOnline.com, ThePale.org, and the owner of the OerthJournal.com I think Greyhawk is still a big part of RPG gaming. 
Greyhawk is not dead in the sense of its useless. I swore I'd never buy a 4e book, and haven't yet 4e is filled with tons of Greyhawk lore. The latest Deminomicon for example. Yes, they've taken the terms, personality and concepts from Greyhawk and further genericized them or made them into aspects that don't fit into Greyhawk, but that doesn't mean that Greyhawk is just for nostalgia or other useless aspects. 
If fact, after 2e's Sargent era, Greyhawk flourished under the minor guidance of Erik Mona and Gary Holian. Using AOL, we fleshed out much of Greyhawk - which became the foundation for Living Greyhawk's concepts of Greyhawk. This was an early fan-based formation that grew into a larger gaming based formation that furthered the growth and direction of Greyhawk (both good and bad). 
Now that Greyhawk is back to being a dead world in the sense of the dead tree format from WotC, the AOL days are back. The Internet has continued to  expand upon Greyhawk - with better research and objectivity that many of the WotC writers during the later bit of 2e and 3e era. I've always lambasted Sean K Reynolds for his work on Greyhawk - because it would be contradictory or plain out of place and with a lack of previous research. Now however, I just friended him on FB and said that I appreciated the work that he's done on WoG 2.0 - because it's much better researched and original than before. But this is because Greyhawk has such a convoluted history that research is the only way to make sure things work out in the crease. With WoG 2.0 (Golarion, if you don't catch it) they are making things up as they go along - new creases are OK. 
So with Greyhawk dead, it is up to those fans that have a love for the setting more than it is a job. Sure past Greyhawk writers loved the setting - but not nearly to the extent that Maldin loves his Greyhawk City and Geology. As fans they time needed to explore a concept and a region can take years - that no professional writer can take. This allows Greyhawk to live, to soar, even if it takes 4x longer than any previous explorations of the world. 
The OerthJournal has most excellent articles furthering the understanding of the world - heck two or three people are working on further expanding the Western zone - and their research, exploration and knowledge of Greyhawk will make their source books no-less canonical than those products produced by WotC/TSR by authors that just wrote. 
And this is why Greyhawk is viable. Greyhawk is best when its dead. 

Be Well. Be Well Marked In The Grave.
Theocrat Issak


----------



## grodog (Aug 1, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> I'm sure that many of us have played at some point or another in the world of Greyhawk. This was Gygax's world, home to some of the greatest classic dungeons in D&D. It is for that nostalgia factor that we hold it in such high regards.
> 
> Yet as time has gone on and the hobby has evolved, I have to wonder if it still holds up all these years later.




and



DragonLancer said:


> I think these days Greyhawk is just nostalgia for the "good old days" of early D&D. I myself like generic settings but the current thing seems to be every setting needs a hook of somekind and Greyhawk doesn't have that, and thus I don't think it appeals to the current generation of gamer.




and 



El Mahdi said:


> [snip] I don't think Greyhawk could be changed enough to make a difference, and still be Greyhawk.  I think it can only successfully exist as a nostalgia thing.  It may be possible to re-print the Campaign World, and even update it to 4E mechanics, but I don't think major changes could work.  I think Forgotten Realms is spared this a little more due to it's plethora of cultures and geographic areas, and it's history of already having world changing events.  Greyhawk just wouldn't be Greyhawk anymore if the same thing was done to it.
> 
> So in my opinion, Greyhawk is only relevant as a Nostalgia product, not as a currently published major campaign world.




I disagree that folks play in Greyhawk only for nostalgia, or that it's only value is as a nostalgia K-Tel compilation aired on beyond-late-night TV:  I'm sure some do play GH for nostalgia, just as some people play in any setting (or listen to different styles of music, or whatever) for nostalgia, but Greyhawk offers a lot more than "gaming when I was 9".  Greyhawk is a rich setting that offer a lot of detail if the DM and players want it, or it is a very generic setting that offers an almost-blank slate the offer DMs and players widely-ranging freedom to build whatever they want within it's confines.  It's flexibility is one of the reasons that I remain drawn to Greyhawk after playing in it for 30 years.  



Dragonhelm said:


> Does GH need reinvention? I would say yes. It needs to be set apart somehow.
> 
> I don't know what Greyhawk needs, or how to make it more relevant to the modern-day gamer. I wish I did. I would hate to just see it fade away, yet that seems to be what's happening. Should it be another continent on the same planet as the Realms? Does it need a makeover?




I think that for Greyhawk to rise again as a "top tier" setting, it probably needs devoted attention from WotC, and to have a team of writers who can write to its strengths as well as create new material that blends with its rich history of already-published content.  A reboot like what was done recently with Star Trek might or might not work: Greyhawk's already had a few reboots in its past, although none other than Greyhawk Wars were very major in how they changed the setting.



Klaus said:


> Greyhawk could/should be taken back to its Sword & Sorcery roots. The Free City of Greyhawk itself is heavily inspired by Lankhmar (with established Thieves and Assassins Guilds, etc).  [snip]
> 
> And Gygax added to the Sword & Sorcery flavor a couple of evil kingdoms that rival Mordor itself. We have the Great Kingdom, the Horned Society, and Iuz. Think of it: this is a campaign where an actual demigod rules a kingdom right next to the civilized lands!




and 



El Mahdi said:


> I think people choose their own style of play, whether High Fantasy, Sword & Sorcery, Grim & Gritty, etc.  I don't think they want a Campaign World to choose that style for them.  A Campaign World that has lots of cultures, hooks, regions, etc., that they can then play their type of game in, is going to be chosen more over one that is less flexible.




I agree with Klaus:  Greyhawk offers a lot of options.  You can play heavily politics and RP in cities and between/among the politicking nations; you can play traditional "ring quest" games against the evil nations; you can play grim-n-gritty Midnight-style gaming in the post Greyhawk Wars era; you can play in arctic environs down through steaming jungles; you can play high-fantasy with warring artifacts in Greyhawk's past (Suel Imperium), present (the Great Kingdom is home to at least six or seven potent artifacts, plus hugely magical locations from which some can be created), and future (mind flayers are still running around in the Rift Canyon in 998 CY, and---a bit closer to 576 CY---Robin Bailey's Nightwatch novel offers a glimpse into a possible future when Greyhawk's magic is starting to fade).  Cultures are spread throughout the lands, and pretty diverse---inspired by American Indians, Gaelic Celts, Arabians, Aztecs, and others (in addition to the flexibility to define or redefine any nation/culture in whatever way you want, of course).  Greyhawk pretty much has it all---if you know where to look for it.



Philosopher said:


> Those familiar with Gygax's original presentation of the setting will note that the threat of war was in the air. Perhaps it could be reset to beginning of the Greyhawk Wars, and the setting's schtick could be that war is being waged all around. This would be a change from classic Greyhawk being focused on the awesome dungeon crawls, but I don't think it would be deviating from the feel of Greyhawk too much - it would just be focusing on a specific aspect of it.




Good point, Philosopher:  the Greyhawk Wars were being staged in the 576 CY timeline as detailed in the folio and original boxed set, as well as in the Dragon Articles penned by Gygax and Kuntz.  I'm not sure I'd want to blow up the setting again, per se, but Greyhawk does accomodate that option quite well, even for Gygax-Kuntz purists.


----------



## grodog (Aug 1, 2010)

Dykstrav said:


> I'm using a combination of the _Living Greyhawk Gazetteer_ and previous edition supplements and this suits me just fine. In fact, I'd rather _not _have any official support for the setting at this time. If they change things around as much as they did for the newest version of the Forgotten Realms or to try to make classic Greyhawk appeal to newer gamers, I'd prefer for it to lay fallow.




The beauty of Greyhawk's publishing history is that you can pretty much do just about anything with it, and likely be supported by some form of canon:  Greyhawk's continuity is a mess, so picking and choosing elements from different rules editions and eras of the campaign's publishing history is one of my favorite ways to keep the setting fresh.



JohnRTroy said:


> I think the big problem is its ties to D&D.  As a campaign setting it is tied closely to the fate of it's parent IP, D&D, and thus has had to change over time to fit it.  So that lead to changes from 3e that started a trend, and now a lot of the "Proper Nouns" from GH can be found in all current D&D.




I think that's part and parcel of the ways that the settings are managed:  because in many cases, WotC folks who were writing "for Greyhawk" (in particular the 3.5 era) weren't as familiar with the setting and it's history, so Greyhawk was watered down as a "name dropping" marketing lure in many cases.  (I'm talking more specifically after the departure of Erik Mona, Lisa Stevens, James Jacobs, and other folks who are, of course, deeply familiar with Greyhawk).  



JohnRTroy said:


> Secondly, in recent years WoTC hasn't seen GH as something to support.  When the RPGA took over handling it I knew things weren't going well.  (I fear the same thing will happen with Forgotten Realms).




I thought that the Living Greyhawk support was pretty good, in terms of keeping the setting alive, and many of the folks running the Triads and writing scenarios were long-time fans of the setting.  So, I'd truthfully rather see GH (or FR, DL, DS, etc.) in the hands of dedicated fans rather than corporate writers who know far less about the setting and its history.  



Dragonhelm said:


> Truthfully, I'm not even wholly certain what I'm looking for.  Is GH something that would sell these days?  Does it have a draw that the Realms or Pathfinder doesn't have?  If it was updated to 4e, is there a place for all the 4e-isms?




I think that Golarian is, in many ways, a more-modern successor to Greyhawk, since ISTR Erik Mona stating that it was consciously designed to play upon the strengths of Greyhawk, and to leverage the same same core inspirations from S&S fiction. 

In terms of what you're looking for:  does Greyhawk seem more dead because its stat blocks aren't current to 4.0 (or 3.5 or whatever you're playing)?  Or, are you looking for some specific hook/teaser/plot/AP that will draw you in?  Or, something else?


----------



## grodog (Aug 2, 2010)

JoeGKushner said:


> As I get older, I tend to go with the, "They'd only screw it up" philosiphy and if I want to use my older materials... I just use the old materials.
> 
> It'd be great to see a new Greyhawk with the high quality product that WoTC is known for. Hell, be great to see them license it out to Paizo as they have just about equal production values.




I think that this is one of Greyhawk's weaknesses, and it relates directly to the lack of support for the setting from WotC:  there's not an easy way for a player new to D&D to pick up Greyhawk and start to play there.  The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is 10 years old this November.  The same challenge exists for other OOP settings of course, too:  without a FRCS or LGG, it's hard for someone to pick up the setting, absorb it and then determine where they want to set their game, based on the kind of game they want to play.  It's also hard to know what other books to pick up, if you're so inclined to leverage previous edition stuff in your games:  what fits well with the kind of game I want to run, in the type of area I want to run it, etc.  



JoeGKushner said:


> But as far as it's relevance? People just starting the game now never probably know that Vecan was for years if not decades just a hand and eye and that Ioun was just some floating magical items.
> 
> The game evolves.




Hmm:  what did 4e do to Ioun Stones? 



Bullgrit said:


> This is a big reason why I like the World of Greyhawk so much -- so much of its back story was made by the original PCs while playing the game. The fact that so many of the NPCs of the setting were actual PCs in the original game, and the adventure locals in the setting were actual adventures in the original game. This is why Greyhawk is the best setting to me.
> 
> Its history wasn't just written, it was made by the DM and Players while playing the game.




That's definitely part of the draw in researching the early history of the development of D&D, Greyhawk, and Greyhawk Castle, and the accounts of play from back then.  



Orius said:


> Strength because it was created as a campaign setting back in a time when it wasn't uncommon for modules to have blank areas for the DM to set up on his own.  That's kind of what Gary did with Greyhawk, he gave gamers a world with some basic details that they could flesh out themselves.  [snip]
> 
> Weakness because settings like Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms set a new standard for the campaign world, with more detailed locations and a metaplot.  Greyhawk never had that, and when these things were added to the setting, fans wren't happy because it clashed with the developments in their own Greyhawk flavored homebrewed campaigns.




I agree, in particular with the idea that how campaigns are published and marketed is a big factor in why "do it yourself" doesn't appeal as much as it once did:  while many players do create their own adventures, settings, and such, many more play in settings and modules that were created for them, and that definitely indicates a shift in how the game is marketed (and then played) starting ~1980 vs. the first 8 years of OD&D.  



Orius said:


> I think though the fan base was fractured seriously enough back in the late '80s and early '90s that the setting just may not be commerically viable anymore.




To quote Lisa Stevens from BITD @ http://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects...agonCompendiumII&wosid=QlhISqQQbA4YHv61v6sWZw:



Lisa Stevens said:


> Germytech said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




So, I like to think that Greyhawk still has legs for personal fan reasons, as well as the hope to professionally publish Greyhawk materials once more in the future.


----------



## Ariosto (Aug 2, 2010)

Nifft said:
			
		

> But that *IS* the current WotC setting strategy.




But it "can't" be, says the familiar argument for edition-churning and against selling different games!

But "what if"?

Pretty much "what grodog said".


----------



## Henry (Aug 2, 2010)

grodog said:
			
		

> Hmm: what did 4e do to Ioun Stones?




Dropped the stones, and made Ioun a "default" goddess of magic. Can't say as I'm happy with the decision, myself.

EDIT: Correction: I checked the compendium, and they have been re-introducing Ioun Stones a bit at the time.


----------



## Argyle King (Aug 2, 2010)

I love Greyhawk, but I think I'd honestly rather see the rights to the setting be purchased by a company other than WoTC.  I'm not trying to knock 4E, but I really don't feel that the mechanic structure and default design assuptions of the current D&D model would produce what people would want out of Greyhawk.  I'll go so far as to say that I think Greyhawk would better be reproduced by a non-d20 system; while I like plenty of Paizo's products, and I did highly enjoy D&D 3E, I don't think that system accurately captures the elements of Greyhawk that I want to be highlighted either.


----------



## Klaus (Aug 2, 2010)

Johnny3D3D said:


> I love Greyhawk, but I think I'd honestly rather see the rights to the setting be purchased by a company other than WoTC.  I'm not trying to knock 4E, but I really don't feel that the mechanic structure and default design assuptions of the current D&D model would produce what people would want out of Greyhawk.  I'll go so far as to say that I think Greyhawk would better be reproduced by a non-d20 system; while I like plenty of Paizo's products, and I did highly enjoy D&D 3E, I don't think that system accurately captures the elements of Greyhawk that I want to be highlighted either.



May I ask why do you think that?

If anything, Dragonlance is the least-4Eish of the old settings (since no gods, no healing, except now healing is no longer a divine gimmick).

Greyhawk works perfectly with 4e, IMHO.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 2, 2010)

Theocrat said:


> Hi all -
> As owner of GreyhawkOnline.com, ThePale.org, and the owner of the OerthJournal.com I think Greyhawk is still a big part of RPG gaming.
> Greyhawk is not dead in the sense of its useless. I swore I'd never buy a 4e book, and haven't yet 4e is filled with tons of Greyhawk lore. The latest Deminomicon for example. Yes, they've taken the terms, personality and concepts from Greyhawk and further genericized them or made them into aspects that don't fit into Greyhawk, but that doesn't mean that Greyhawk is just for nostalgia or other useless aspects.




You make an excellent point here.  GH has a ton of good ideas.  I'm surprised, though, to see some of the names from the name spells stripped from the spells.  

For those who aren't big Greyhawk fans, is Greyhawk best used as a place to mine ideas?

By the way, I wanted to say how I appreciate your work with Greyhawk.  I've worked very hard to keep Dragonlance alive, so I can empathize with your position.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 2, 2010)

grodog said:


> I think that Golarian is, in many ways, a more-modern successor to Greyhawk, since ISTR Erik Mona stating that it was consciously designed to play upon the strengths of Greyhawk, and to leverage the same same core inspirations from S&S fiction.




I really like what I see in Pathfinder.  When I look at the descriptions of the nations, I can see where many classic modules (and not just GH) can be implemented.  At the same time, it has a rich cultural background like the Realms.  And while it has that classic element to it, it also feels new and fresh.



> In terms of what you're looking for:  does Greyhawk seem more dead because its stat blocks aren't current to 4.0 (or 3.5 or whatever you're playing)?  Or, are you looking for some specific hook/teaser/plot/AP that will draw you in?  Or, something else?




I'm thinking more in terms of story.  What is Greyhawk's draw?  Why should I play it over the Realms or Pathfinder?  Why should I fall in love with Greyhawk?


----------



## renau1g (Aug 2, 2010)

grodog said:


> To quote Lisa Stevens from BITD @ http://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects...agonCompendiumII&wosid=QlhISqQQbA4YHv61v6sWZw:
> 
> So, I like to think that Greyhawk still has legs for personal fan reasons, as well as the hope to professionally publish Greyhawk materials once more in the future.





The only thing with this is that it may have been popular back in the 2e (and earlier) days, very few new gamers since 3e was released were introduced to it (except through Living Greyhawk). It's only been 10 years or so since 3e , but that's a pretty big gap of gamers to try and win back over. While it _may_ be viable, it also seems like a higher risk than just going with a new setting as there are a lot of people who have a strong attachment to the setting (rightly so) and if WotC changed a bunch of stuff in it to fit into their 4e-isms that may cause even further anger from older gamers. I will admit to knowing little of Greyhawk, my 2e days were in a homebrewed setting and some time in Faerun so I'm not sure how well (or poorly) the setting could be converted to 4e.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 2, 2010)

Klaus said:


> If anything, Dragonlance is the least-4Eish of the old settings (since no gods, no healing, except now healing is no longer a divine gimmick).




Dragonlance is based very much on AD&D.  It did quite well in 3e as many of the organizations lent to the prestige class model well.  

While DL could be updated to 4e, I think you might have issues with things like true healing, cosmology, and more magic types than just arcane and divine.  

That being said, this  is a Greyhawk thread, so it might be good to get back on topic.


----------



## Saracenus (Aug 2, 2010)

Long time Greyhawker. It was my first setting back in 1980. Personally I think that WotC is stuck when it comes to putting out a Greyhawk campaign for 4e.

On one hand the old-shoolers out there would scream and holler if anything were changed (for good or ill) and on the other why would a new player want to purchase a campaign that is almost a clone of 4e's default assumptions.

We have seen FR and Eberron which scratch that last itch for a lot of folks. Dark Sun is going to finally stretch what the 4e engine can do for a campaign.

I will bet that next year we will see an original setting with some radical fluff assumption changes. I would be dumbfounded if Dragon Lance or Greyhawk were announced instead.

My two coppers,


----------



## CruelSummerLord (Aug 2, 2010)

One issue with Greyhawk is that it's many different things to many different people. To me, Greyhawk is a much lower-power setting than, say, FR with its 18th-level archmages and magic items readily available for sale. One of the things I've always hated is the notion that PCs can just stroll into town and buy whatever kinds of magic items they want, as if magic were just a cheap, tradeable commodity. Whether or not the lower-powered feel of Greyhawk would appeal to more modern gamers, when magic item creation is so much easier and magic shops are almost an inherent part of the game, is entirely up in the air. 

Part of the problem with Greyhawk canon is that a lot of it is extremely garbled and contradictory, not to mention that so much of it is just plain *bad. *Many Greyhawkers are, shall we say, hostile to the idea of an ongoing metaplot or official changes that seem dictated from on high. It's why many Greyhawk fans (including myself) despise the Greyhawk Wars as written...and I'm not particularly fond of many of the changes wrought by Living Greyhawk, either, and so I don't consider them canon. One of the biggest critiques Greyhawkers have launched at FR was its ongoing metaplot, which many of us viewed as being dictated from on high, personal campaigns be damned. 

Up to EGG's departure from the company, Greyhawk had a tradition of only "changing" through modules that the PCs could directly participate in, with the DMs applying the results as written to their campaigns. Otherwise, there was little hint of an ongoing metaplot or changes wrought by NPCs that altered the status quo. Making radical changes to Greyhawk was the job of the individual gaming group. 

All this ties back into the notion of what point in the timeline a new Greyhawk release would be placed. It could be rewound to 576 CY, restoring the old status quo. Needless to say, that wouldn't prevent a steady supply of modules and sourcebooks that further flesh out various parts of the setting from being released...it's just that the timeline would never be advanced and every book would assume a base setting of 576 CY. Historical information released by subsequent generations of writers and Living Greyhawk could be integrated where they fit, but otherwise the status quo remains as Gygax wrote it. Essentially, we'd have the old boxed set all over again, but this time much more fleshed out, detailled and given an overall flashier treatment along the lines of what FR has gotten the last few years. 

That would be my preferred way of doing things. But part of the problem is that Greyhawkers are also notoriously divided on _where _exactly the setting should be frozen at. Some fans love the Greyhawk Wars, others hate them. Some people would want to integrate the changes wrought by Living Greyhawk, others would not. Some fans would want to integrate changes such as magic shops, dragonborn, eladrin and tieflings, while others (including myself) would rather go skydiving without a parachute. 

With all that in mind, I think Greyhawk would work best as a grimmer, grittier setting that reinforces many of the traditional D&D and Tolkien stereotypes, where magic items are rarer, characters tend to be of lower level, and the setting is otherwise frozen unless the DM and players decide to change it themselves. In some respects, I think it would work as a meat-and-potatoes setting for gamers who don't like the very high power levels of other settings. 

Emphasizing the shades of grey, the lower power level, and the traditional "swords and sorcery" nature of the setting, and you might find a niche for Greyhawk that other worlds don't really fill. 

And before anyone accuses me of being a crotchety old-timer, please note that I'm actually only 28 years old. I just happen to prefer the lower power levels, where +1 swords are rare and cherished treasures and being 7th level means you really stand out in a crowd. I also like being able to do what I want without having a metaplot breathing down my neck-if you read my stuff at Canonfire, you'll see that a lot of what I write knowingly violates canon. I take what I want and then toss out the rest, which is the attitude I hope people take with anything I write. If they like the whole thing, great, but if they just take the bits they want and toss out the rest, then I consider it mission accomplished.


----------



## Orius (Aug 2, 2010)

grodog said:


> To quote Lisa Stevens from BITD @ http://paizo.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects...agonCompendiumII&wosid=QlhISqQQbA4YHv61v6sWZw:
> 
> 
> 
> So, I like to think that Greyhawk still has legs for personal fan reasons, as well as the hope to professionally publish Greyhawk materials once more in the future.




Hmm, avoiding setting proliferation makes sense too.  Honestly both Greyhawk and FR are very very similar, no matter how much their respective fans may disagree.  Both are generic fantasy kitchen sinks that do "default" D&D.  The only real difference is that Greyhawk skews a bit more towards S&S style fantasy while FR skews a bit towards high fantasy.  Another way of looking at it is that the Tolkien races are perhaps more firmly integrated into FR as Gary wasn't a huge fan of Tolkien and included nods mostly to hook LotR fans; I think Greenwood might be a bigger Tolkien fan since the Tolkien races, particularly elves, seem a bit more prominent in the background of FR.  

In any case, these are picky differences that matter little to the casual player.  When comparing the two settings, FR has the upper hand.  Even if the game suppliments for Greyhawk sold numbers comparable to FR products, FR also has a significant and popular book line, licensed electronic games like Pool of Radiance, Baldur's Gate, and Neverwinter Nights, and so on.  Greyhawk just doesn't have all that behind it, so it makes sense that it gets less support.  And if you think Greyhawk has it bad, just look at poor Mystara.


----------



## thedungeondelver (Aug 2, 2010)

Henry said:


> Dropped the stones, and made Ioun a "default" goddess of magic.


----------



## Nifft (Aug 2, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> But it "can't" be, says the familiar argument for edition-churning and against selling different games!
> 
> But "what if"?



 When your "can't be" clashes with an "is", we don't have to ask "what if".

"Is" wins.

Reality trumps theory.

Cheers, -- N


----------



## Nifft (Aug 2, 2010)

Henry said:


> EDIT: Correction: I checked the compendium, and they have been re-introducing Ioun Stones a bit at the time.



 The default setting of 4e isn't Greyhawk, so the default setting's treatment if Ioun isn't really anything to do with Greyhawk.

4e's default setting stole some gods form Greyhawk and some from FR, and made up some new ones. It's not like 3.x, where the default setting was a setting.



Dragonhelm said:


> For those who aren't big Greyhawk fans, is Greyhawk best used as a place to mine ideas?



 That's what I do, but then, I steal from lots of places.

Cheers, -- N


----------



## Argyle King (Aug 2, 2010)

Klaus said:


> May I ask why do you think that?
> 
> If anything, Dragonlance is the least-4Eish of the old settings (since no gods, no healing, except now healing is no longer a divine gimmick).
> 
> Greyhawk works perfectly with 4e, IMHO.






In my opinion, Eberron is a very good example of how the mechanics of 4E change the feel of a setting. Originally, I would have said Eberron actually took further some of the elements of Greyhawk which I am thinking of during my posts. Eberron in 4E feels a lot different to me, and I think Greyhawk would too; even if less different. 

I would very much agree that the way the default 4E setting presented in the first DMG mirrors a lot of how Greyhawk was presented, but the system has since moved (in my opinion) a lot more strongly in one very specific direction - both in terms of support playstyle and just style in general. It performs that style extremely well, and I enjoy it when I'm in the mood for it.

However, for me; when I look at things overall, 4E assumes too much about the way I want to play when I sit down at the table. One of the strengths of Greyhawk was that it did a good job of having just enough detail to entice you and interest you, but remaining somewhat generic. By extent, this also meant that each group could take Greyhawk and have the ability to make it their own. Hack & Slash dungeon crawling, political intrigue, and carving out a kingdom in wild and unknown lands were all possibilities, and only a few possibilities among many. I think a more versatile system which better supports a broader array of play styles would better fit Greyhawk and maintain the memories that people have of being able to make Greyhawk into their Greyhawk. What I think drew people to Greyhawk was the freedom to live the fantasy they wanted to live through their character.

I might be an oddball though because -on the other hand- I actually feel that the style of Forgotten Realms and 4E go together very well. Many people hate the new Forgotten Realms, but I feel that the way 4E is structured fits Forgotten Realms, and I feel that WoTC actually did a very good job of fitting the new D&D elements into Forgotten Realms and explaining (in story) what happened to the old elements.

Why I'd rather not see even Paizo or some other company create Greyhawk is because of one of the areas where I feel 4E actually succeeds very well. One thing which I feel 4E does extremely well is encounter design. I feel that having more creatures involved in a combat is more exciting and allows for more creative story telling through encounters than the '4 PCs beating on one monster until it dies' idea behind CR. I say this as someone who loved D&D 3rd Edition. I enjoyed the game, and I like what little experience I've had with Pathfinder, but this is one area where I 100% feel that 4th Edition's mechanics perform better than the old CR system.


----------



## gamerprinter (Aug 2, 2010)

*Huh?*



Johnny3D3D said:


> '4 PCs beating on one monster until it dies' idea behind CR.




Wow, our group of five members never get to fight just one monster in encounters in our PF game (nor 3.5 for that matter) - where does this idea come from, that that's the idea behind CR? Unless a random encounter generates a single monster, almost every combat scenario are group encounters is more individuals than consisting in the party. Its almost always 2:1 in ratio between opponents vs. the PC party ALWAYS, with one bad ass that's about half the party in equivalent CR, with a bunch of minion like guys about half as tough as any in the party.

Nobody told us, we're only supposed to fight one monster, things would be much simpler if that were true.

In fact both PF and Trailblazer fervently recommends to never make CR just one monster - where is this CR as one monster even mentioned, never heard that concept before!?

GP


----------



## pemerton (Aug 2, 2010)

CruelSummerLord said:


> To me, Greyhawk is a much lower-power setting than, say, FR with its 18th-level archmages



I just wanted to pick up on this comment.

The 1st ed AD&D folio and boxed sets actually identified numerous high-level NPCs as part of the world - I remember the rulers of Stonefist and of the other northern barbarians being particularly high level, but by no means the only ones. There were also the NPCs in the Isle of the Ape, and by implication the original campaign NPCs - Bigby, Mordenkainen etc - had to be pretty high level just to account for the spells they'd researched (I know that Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure has them at around 12the level, and I can't remember what level they are in the Rogue's Gallery).

The 2nd ed Greyhawk material didn't do anything to reduce this proliferation of high-level NPCs - what with the Circle of Eight in its various incarnations, the evil NPCs in Iuz the Evil, etc - and I don't think things were very different in 3E's Greyhawk either.

Now I don't know FR very well. Maybe it has twice or ten times as many high-level NPCs. Nevertheless, Greyhawk as published has never been lacking them, and to that extent I wouldn't call it low-powered.


----------



## Argyle King (Aug 2, 2010)

gamerprinter said:


> Wow, our group of five members never get to fight just one monster in encounters in our PF game (nor 3.5 for that matter) - where does this idea come from, that that's the idea behind CR? Unless a random encounter generates a single monster, almost every combat scenario are group encounters is more individuals than consisting in the party. Its almost always 2:1 in ratio between opponents vs. the PC party ALWAYS, with one bad ass that's about half the party in equivalent CR, with a bunch of minion like guys about half as tough as any in the party.
> 
> Nobody told us, we're only supposed to fight one monster, things would be much simpler if that were true.
> 
> ...





I was always under the impression that a given CR meant that a monster of that CR was an adequate challenge for a party of that level...?  I'm more than a little rusty on my 3rd Edition knowledge though.

I'm aware that you can use multiple monsters to increase the CR, but, in my experiences, that works at a more shallow range of levels than the 4E system.  To use an extreme absurd example, no amount of CR 1 creatures can even remotely hope to challenge even a single level 1 PC.  (Yes, I know this is true of 4E too, but it's been a while since I've played 3E, so I'm fuzzy on the CRs of specific creatures at this point.)  It might not always be a whole party against one creature, but -in my experiences- 4E tends to be friendlier to the concept of having a lot of elements involved in a combat.


----------



## MoxieFu (Aug 2, 2010)

If WotC really wanted to get back some of the good will of older players I wish they would release Greyhawk into the public domain. This would do far more than anything in the Essentials Line in winning back some of what they have lost.

I don't think there's much chance of them doing anything with it. It is not a good fit for 4E. They have said many times that it is not financially viable. 

I would love to see what Paizo, Goodman Games, and other publishers could do with the setting and their game systems. Not to mention that they Gygax Estate would be so much freer to release material of Gary's that is held up from publication.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Aug 2, 2010)

If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized.

Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go. Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea Princes, pick one. Etc.

Keep the good stuff only, such as the Free City of Greyhawk, Iuz, Great Kingdom, Scarlet Brotherhood, Theocracy of the Pale, one of the good guy nations, etc.

When to set it is tricky. The classic prelude to war period is best for a rpg campaign setting, but it smacks of the Cold War, not the 2010s.

Relevance:
1. More female rulers and NPCs.
2. Environmentalism vs commercial development. Environmental disaster, perhaps represented by magic gone awry while attempting to control elemental forces such as giants or the Temple of Elemental Evil.
3. Economic decline, possibly due to the aforementioned disaster. Hits City of Greyhawk hard. Many made homeless.
4. A new, good-aligned ruler comes to power in the Great Kingdom. Ends war, forges diplomatic ties with good-aligned nations.
5. Minor wars still rage. With the Baklunish if you want to be super-obvious. Savage humanoids in their mountain strongholds would be another option. Or perhaps dwarves.

The world I recently made up for a session at the weekend had economic decline in a Roman/Holy Roman-style empire, and commercial exploitation of the environment as its big issues. Both were probably unconscious on my part.

<- Relevant


----------



## Doug McCrae (Aug 2, 2010)

pemerton said:


> Now I don't know FR very well. Maybe it has twice or ten times as many high-level NPCs. Nevertheless, Greyhawk as published has never been lacking them, and to that extent I wouldn't call it low-powered.



FR definitely goes a step or two further than Greyhawk. Greyhawk's rulers are 10-20. FR's are 20-30. The guy who runs the bar over the Ruins of Undermountain is an 18th level fighter. I think his teenage daughter is 4th level. Those are the power levels in the 1e/2e setting books, anyway.

I get the impression with FR that the setting is very 'hard' in the sense that the PCs can't mess with it and will get a smackdown if they try. Ofc in another sense it's very, very soft, being a hippy Canadian nudie free love commune, with elves and wizards. If Conan somehow got in and started a drunken brawl, he'd be magicly spanked (probably literally) by a 25th level Gandalf-type or his 28th level hawt elven girlfriend.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 2, 2010)

grodog said:


> I think that for Greyhawk to rise again as a "top tier" setting, it probably needs devoted attention from WotC, and to have a team of writers who can write to its strengths as well as create new material that blends with its rich history of already-published content.  A reboot like what was done recently with Star Trek might or might not work: Greyhawk's already had a few reboots in its past, although none other than Greyhawk Wars were very major in how they changed the setting.



I don't think it needs a reboot, if that's the goal.  I think a line of novels would do the trick.

I know that there were some for 3e, but those weren't really Greyhawk novels, they were "generic D&D" novels that happened (like the rest of D&D in those days) to be set in Greyhawk.  But that was more like an afterthought.  Setting novels need to, among other things, showcase the setting.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 2, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> But it "can't" be, says the familiar argument for edition-churning and against selling different games!
> 
> But "what if"?
> 
> Pretty much "what grodog said".



EDIT:  Er... just this.  Could you please clarify what you mean here?


----------



## Jhaelen (Aug 2, 2010)

Greyhawk as a setting is no longer relevant. The 4e default setting killed it and took its stuff.

I used Greyhawk as a basis for my 3e campaign, but really, I could have just as well used any other setting.

It probably already wasn't really relevant anymore as soon as the next big generic/vanilla setting was published ('The Realms Best Forgotten').


----------



## 3catcircus (Aug 2, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized.
> 
> Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go. Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea Princes, pick one. Etc.
> 
> ...




That Balkanization is what makes Greyhawk so good as a framework setting that allows the DM to customize it to his campaign.  More importantly, it *feels* more realistic than Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Dragonlance *because* of those multiple similar "nations."  Real cultures aren't black-and-white "this region is this, that region is that."  There are always multiple similar cultures within close proximity to one another that are close but not identical to each other.  

"Keep the good stuff...?"  For some, the "other" stuff _is_ the good stuff.

As to more females and your comments about "relevance," it sounds like you want change just to mimic the slippery slope of political correctness run amok that we have to deal with in the real world.  No thanks.  I want my fantasy settings to feel realistic without having to deal with the real-world headaches.  Or - I don't want to play "Papers and Paychecks."


----------



## the Jester (Aug 2, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized.
> 
> Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go. Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea Princes, pick one. Etc.




Wow. I so totally disagree with all of this. Totally.


----------



## Klaus (Aug 2, 2010)

the Jester said:


> Wow. I so totally disagree with all of this. Totally.



Yep, I disagree with that too. For instance, Sea Princes vs. Sea Barons offers the chance for great seafaring rivalry, a la Portugal vs. Spain!


----------



## carmachu (Aug 2, 2010)

Dykstrav said:


> Sadly, I'd have to say that Greyhawk is largely irrelevant to many gamers these days. I personally love the setting, but it's mostly a "legacy setting" to today's gamers.
> 
> I'm actually running a Greyhawk game right now under Pathfinder rules for my players that don't really know much about it. I specifically went with Greyhawk _because_ most of my players don't know it very well--unlike the Realms, not every corner has been highly detailed and the overall feel of the setting is wilder and grittier. The players have immensely enjoyed getting to explore it.
> 
> I'm using a combination of the _Living Greyhawk Gazetteer_ and previous edition supplements and this suits me just fine. In fact, I'd rather _not _have any official support for the setting at this time. If they change things around as much as they did for the newest version of the Forgotten Realms or to try to make classic Greyhawk appeal to newer gamers, I'd prefer for it to lay fallow.




Is your game posted anywhere or the after reports? I'd love to see an old greyhawk game run with modern rules and see what you do. Sooner or later our Ptolus game is gonna end, and someone else is going to have to take over. I'd like to take it to greyhawk, since its such a wide open setting....


----------



## grodog (Aug 2, 2010)

Orius said:


> Hmm, avoiding setting proliferation makes sense too.  Honestly both Greyhawk and FR are very very similar, no matter how much their respective fans may disagree.  [snip]




I agree completely there:  I'm sure that's one of the reasons that TSR chose to replace GH with FR when Gary was outsted from TSR.  It's pretty easy to port over to FR from GH (and vice-versa) because you can find so many similar cultures, topographies, etc.  They are both very much settings that play to D&D's reuquirements (human and demi-human lands/nations, zones of wilderness, outer planes, etc., etc.).  



Orius said:


> In any case, these are picky differences that matter little to the casual player.  When comparing the two settings, FR has the upper hand.  Even if the game suppliments for Greyhawk sold numbers comparable to FR products, FR also has a significant and popular book line, licensed electronic games like Pool of Radiance, Baldur's Gate, and Neverwinter Nights, and so on.  Greyhawk just doesn't have all that behind it, so it makes sense that it gets less support.




I don't disagree with that logic either.  I brought up Lisa's quote because many folks have echoed the wrong idea that FR far outstripped GH in product revenue, and therefore the setting was killed because it just couldn't pull it own weight, so to speak.  I make no bones about the similarities of the settings, and I'm happy to steal ideas from the FR articles from Dragon, the 1e campaign setting set, sourcebooks, gazetteers, etc. for use in my GH campaigns:  a good idea's a good idea, regardless of what setting it originates in 



Johnny3D3D said:


> One of the strengths of Greyhawk was that it did a good job of having just enough detail to entice you and interest you, but remaining somewhat generic. By extent, this also meant that each group could take Greyhawk and have the ability to make it their own. Hack & Slash dungeon crawling, political intrigue, and carving out a kingdom in wild and unknown lands were all possibilities, and only a few possibilities among many.




That's what I was trying to drive at above, so naturally I agree 



Johnny3D3D said:


> I think a more versatile system which better supports a broader array of play styles would better fit Greyhawk and maintain the memories that people have of being able to make Greyhawk into their Greyhawk. What I think drew people to Greyhawk was the freedom to live the fantasy they wanted to live through their character.




And that's why I run GH in a 1e rules system, because for me, that provides the flexibility that matches how I want to play in Greyhawk.  I've also played GH extensively under 3.0 and 3.5---under an excellent GH DM (Marc-Tizoc González)---while I was living in CA, and had a wonderful time.  I think settings should, ideally, be able to transcend system, and should therefore work well in any system.  If it doesn't, in my mind, that's a problem with the system, not the campaign setting.  



pemerton said:


> The 1st ed AD&D folio and boxed sets actually identified numerous high-level NPCs as part of the world - I remember the rulers of Stonefist and of the other northern barbarians being particularly high level, but by no means the only ones. There were also the NPCs in the Isle of the Ape, and by implication the original campaign NPCs - Bigby, Mordenkainen etc - had to be pretty high level just to account for the spells they'd researched (I know that Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure has them at around 12the level, and I can't remember what level they are in the Rogue's Gallery).




I think Mordy is 16th level in RG, and Bigby is 14th or 15th IIRC.  Most of the GH NPC stats in RG except Robilar were made up by Brian Blume, according to Gary.  In the 1980 folio and 1983 boxed set, the rulers of various nations were mentioned as various class levels, most of whom were at least 9th level, and ranging up to 17th or 18th in some cases (the ruler for the Scarlet Brotherhood, and perhaps the Valley of the Mage come to mind immediately).  

I've certainly played GH as lower-level magic, but it has its high-fantasy side as well:  most of the artifacts from Eldritch Wizardry and the 1e DMG originate in Greyhawk, and PCs definitely found and wielded them in the Lake Geneva campaigns, so to say that GH is only a low-magic setting is clearly false.  



MoxieFu said:


> I would love to see what Paizo, Goodman Games, and other publishers could do with the setting and their game systems. Not to mention that they Gygax Estate would be so much freer to release material of Gary's that is held up from publication.




Just because the GH IP is owned by WotC doesn't mean that Gary's, Rob's, and other's original GH manuscripts couldn't be published.  There are several strategies to working around the IP issues, including getting permission to use them, licensing it, and using generic names that are readily identifiable to those in the know ("Castle of the Mad Archmage" for example).


----------



## grodog (Aug 2, 2010)

Hobo said:


> I don't think it needs a reboot, if that's the goal.  I think a line of novels would do the trick.




That would be fun, Hobo, especially if they were written with an appreciation for the setting and what has gone before (vs. the 3.x novels, which were mostly comedic in nature, other than the Tomb of Horrors by Keith Strohm, which I thought was pretty good, although it had too little about the Tomb itself in it).



Hobo said:


> Setting novels need to, among other things, showcase the setting.




Exactly!


----------



## Umbran (Aug 2, 2010)

I don't really know what you mean by "relevant".  But I'll put my answer thus:

Have I felt any need or desire to play in the Greyhawk setting, or steal elements from it for my own games in the past decade?  No.

I've considered stealing elements and inspiration of FR, Dragonlance, Eberron, other settings, and genre fiction recently, but not from Greyhawk.  If it says out of print, and becomes scarce, I am unlikely to notice.  In that sense, I don't feel it is particularly relevant to me.


----------



## billd91 (Aug 2, 2010)

pemerton said:


> The 2nd ed Greyhawk material didn't do anything to reduce this proliferation of high-level NPCs - what with the Circle of Eight in its various incarnations, the evil NPCs in Iuz the Evil, etc - and I don't think things were very different in 3E's Greyhawk either.
> 
> Now I don't know FR very well. Maybe it has twice or ten times as many high-level NPCs. Nevertheless, Greyhawk as published has never been lacking them, and to that extent I wouldn't call it low-powered.




Doug's right. FR is sort of like GH but with the amp turned up to 11. Check out *Volo's Guide to Waterdeep* and you'll get a sense of just how high magic FR really is. Now, I'll acknowledge that, thanks to the number of former adventurer innkeepers who stash +2 weapons and armor in their bedrooms, FR was a setting that kept the civilians formidable in case the PCs caused trouble with their adventurer's hubris. It just so happened, I preferred 3e's solution to it with NPC classes.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Aug 2, 2010)

Despite the crashed spaceship, quasi-gods with six-shooters, portals to Alice in Wonderland, the usual D&D zoo of about five thousand different monsters and eighty different varieties of evil humanoid, Greyhawk does feel a bit more historical compared to Forgotten Realms. NPC levels are lower, magic is rarer. Battles described seem to have been decided by cavalry charges and the like, not wizards and dragons. Which is actually a bit odd, given that D&D grew directly from the fantasy supplement for Chainmail.

All the crazy stuff is hidden away, encountered by the PCs, but not the general inhabitants. Wherever the PCs go they encounter villages where the bar man is a 4th level ranger with a +1 battle axe and so forth ofc, and there are evil cultists hiding in the local temple, but that's adventure fiction for you. The protagonists have to be challenged and have interesting adventures. One could argue that the discrepancy between PC and NPC experiences of the world is itself lacking verisimilitudinousness due to inconsistency.

Relevance to the modern gamer I will take to mean, "Is Greyhawk a good fit for 3e or 4e D&D?" 3e by default is a high magic world, magic items can be bought and sold. 4e says nothing about the world, it only describes the PCs' interactions with it. PCs can buy magic in 4e but this is not necessarily true of the rest of the world. I think the PCs can have plenty of magic without it not being Greyhawk, because the PCs' adventures in Greyhawk have always been more magical than the general setting.

If the PCs had as little magic as the rest of the world that would be at odds with the published texts, particularly the adventures. Nonetheless this could be easily achieved in 4e by making magic item bonuses inherent (a 'hero bonus' or somesuch) and restricting the PCs to martial classes only. One could also stay on Heroic tier. It's trickier to do this in 3e, but possible. One could go the E6 route.

What about spiked chains, double axes, tieflings and dragonborn? Greyhawk has always been weird. PC races such as gnomes are weird. But, I admit, it's a different flavour of weird.

Otoh there is a precedent for monster PCs in very old school D&D. There's a balrog PC in the first dungeon adventure and OD&D talks about how to handle monster PCs by starting them weak. As has been often noted, there's a strong gonzo element running thru 70s D&D, which certainly surfaces in Greyhawk in the form of the stuff I mentioned in the first paragraph.

I think if gnomes and cambions are fine, then so are dragonborn and tieflings. Again just because they are PC races doesn't mean they have to be common in the world.


----------



## CruelSummerLord (Aug 2, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized.
> 
> Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go. Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea Princes, pick one. Etc.
> 
> ...





No, no, a thousand times no. 

Do this and you'd kill many of the aspects of the setting that attracted fans to it in the first place. For one thing, having those multiple similar nations adds a subtle layer of realism to the setting. To a North American like me, the nations of places like the Middle East, Africa and South America all seem fundamentally the same, but as anyone who actually lives in those continents will tell you, every country has its own distinct traits and variations, howevermuch they might be similar in other ways. The same thing applies to English-speaking countries, when you see the cultural differences that separate the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and the differences each has within its own borders. They might seem fundamentally the same to an observer from Asia or South America, but people who actually live here know how untrue that is. 

Having so many of these different nations around allows DMs to engineer conflicts between them, or to play up shades of grey-is Keoland a benevolent overlord to ungrateful surrounding territories, or does it unfairly use its military and diplomatic power to bully its neighbours? Can Urnst and Nyrond honestly get along with one another, or are they constantly seeking to undermine each other due to a history of mutual repression and recrimination? What happens when the nations of the Iron League are at loggerheads over matters of trade-how do Idee and Onnwal maintain their alliance when they're competing for favorable trade and military alliances with Greyhawk and Keoland? 

Good and evil fundamentally exist in Greyhawk, but the lines are often much blurrier than you'd think. Evil forces will fight each other as much as they do the good guys, the good guys themselves will jockey for power and position the way allied nations tend to do in the real world. Just look at how the United States has butted heads with its European allies during World War II, the Cold War and even today. 

As for "relevance", arbitrarily adding more female rulers reeks of simple political correctness. If you read my own works at Canonfire, you'll find that discrimination against women and/or demihumans is perfectly legal even in places like the Yeomanry, Ratik and Nyrond. I certainly don't endorse these types of attitudes, but I do want to emphasize that Greyhawk is far from being a perfect world. Indeed, it can add make for interesting role-playing challenges if female PCs have to prove themselves along the lines of Jeanne of Arc, Marie Curie or Empress Maria Theresa, women who all had to prosper in times and areas dominated by men but were able to do so through their own talents. This is something many women even today will be familiar with, too.  

As for minor wars raging, this happens all the time in Greyhawk. From Gygax onwards, published materials are full of references to raiders, invasions, and brewing wars. Not to mention that many of these wars can be nipped in the bud by daring bands of heroes-indeed, this was arguably one of the points of _Against the Giants, _namely to thwart an impending giant invasion by slaying its leaders and striking at their home bases before they are ready to strike. In my own version of the Greyhawk Wars, the successful completion of these adventures decapitated the leadership of the impending giant invasions. The giants still attacked, but they had no leadership and no coordination, and so they ultimately failed to conquer Geoff or Sterich. Both nations emerged from the Wars battered and bloodied, but victorious. 

As for the rest of the "relevant" parts, I'd say that if you're going to introduce real-world themes, you need to do it subtly. There's nothing I hate more than fiction of any type that beats you over the head with the symbolism and the message-and some of the things proposed here, like a new king taking control of the "evil empire" and ending the war-cut way too close to overtly political themes, and that could put off more conservative players. 

One thing I'd view as absolutely essential is for liberals and conservatives alike to be able to enjoy fiction, whether it's comic books, TV or fantasy games.


----------



## Stormonu (Aug 2, 2010)

Saying Greyhawk is "not relevant" is about like trying to say that the Lord of the Rings Middle Earth isn't relevant in today's world of Harry Potter, Eragon and the like.

It simply isn't true.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 2, 2010)

Stormonu said:


> Saying Greyhawk is "not relevant" is about like trying to say that the Lord of the Rings Middle Earth isn't relevant in today's world of Harry Potter, Eragon and the like.
> 
> It simply isn't true.



Maybe you could help us all by explaining exactly how it is relevant, then.  I see it as an out of print setting that hasn't seen any significant new treatment in years, and is played by a steadily shrinking, small subset of gamers.

That's _iconic_ irrelevant, right there.  And I don't mean that to be a confrontational post; I could be convinced otherwise, maybe.  I just don't think there's a lot of value in a response that's basically, "Nuh-UH!  It *is* relevant."  Well, then, how so?  In what ways?


----------



## Nifft (Aug 2, 2010)

CruelSummerLord said:


> For one thing, having those multiple similar nations adds a subtle layer of realism to the setting. To a North American like me, the nations of places like the Middle East, Africa and South America all seem fundamentally the same, but as anyone who actually lives in those continents will tell you, every country has its own distinct traits and variations, howevermuch they might be similar in other ways.



 Yep, like one of then being an actual democracy, and another one only pretending to be a democracy on TV. Both look pretty similar to a disinterested outsider, but the motivations of the two nations are very different, and their reactions to world-shaking events will reflect this.



CruelSummerLord said:


> Having so many of these different nations around allows DMs to engineer conflicts between them, or to play up shades of grey-is Keoland a benevolent overlord to ungrateful surrounding territories, or does it unfairly use its military and diplomatic power to bully its neighbours? Can Urnst and Nyrond honestly get along with one another, or are they constantly seeking to undermine each other due to a history of mutual repression and recrimination? What happens when the nations of the Iron League are at loggerheads over matters of trade-how do Idee and Onnwal maintain their alliance when they're competing for favorable trade and military alliances with Greyhawk and Keoland?



 This is the kind of thing that I regularly steal for all sorts of games, from D&D to Shadowrun: balkanization makes for interesting political situations, and the fact that different kinds of external stimuli can make a nation treat its neighbors as friends or enemies.

Cheers, -- N


----------



## gamerprinter (Aug 2, 2010)

*eh*

... only that it was the first true D&D setting, and it really hasn't been outdated, its as viable now as any setting is always viable. Settings need some system to play, not necessarily the original. A setting is a place with some its own rules, but the system to run can be anything really - 1e to 4e, PF, to WHRPG, Runequest, whatever your flavor.

GP


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 2, 2010)

Johnny3D3D said:


> I was always under the impression that a given CR meant that a monster of that CR was an adequate challenge for a party of that level...?  I'm more than a little rusty on my 3rd Edition knowledge though.
> 
> I'm aware that you can use multiple monsters to increase the CR, but, in my experiences, that works at a more shallow range of levels than the 4E system.  To use an extreme absurd example, no amount of CR 1 creatures can even remotely hope to challenge even a single level 1 PC.  (Yes, I know this is true of 4E too, but it's been a while since I've played 3E, so I'm fuzzy on the CRs of specific creatures at this point.)  It might not always be a whole party against one creature, but -in my experiences- 4E tends to be friendlier to the concept of having a lot of elements involved in a combat.




I don't want to derail the thread, but I feel strongly enough about this issue to want to briefly address it. (Besides, it's somewhat relevant to a point I make below.)

I'm also under the impression that 3.x assumed you'd _typically_ (not exclusively) fight one monster at a time. However, in my years of playing 3e (and then Pathfinder), I have only very rarely ever played this way. You're correct that  having lots of lower CR creatures isn't much of a challenge. But I also don't buy the idea that each encounter should be tailored to the PCs' power level - monsters shouldn't only exist to fight PCs. Plenty of encounters should be easily dealt with (especially as they advance in level - powerful characters _should_ have an easier time with combat), and some should be _really_ hard - i.e., a number of monsters at or just below the CR of the party's level. Sometimes the PCs need to rely on good tactics. Sometimes the best tactic is to run away.

CR was a great innovation, but it should be taken as _at best_ a loose guideline, not a rule, of encounter design.



Doug McCrae said:


> If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized.
> 
> Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go. Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea Princes, pick one. Etc.
> 
> Keep the good stuff only, such as the Free City of Greyhawk, Iuz, Great Kingdom, Scarlet Brotherhood, Theocracy of the Pale, one of the good guy nations, etc.




I vehemently, but respectfully, disagree. I can appreciate why people may want things this way, and that's fine. But the many nations is precisely one of the things I love about GH. Others have explained why so many nations adds something, so I won't go into that here.



Doug McCrae said:


> Despite the crashed spaceship, quasi-gods with six-shooters, portals to Alice in Wonderland, the usual D&D zoo of about five thousand different monsters and eighty different varieties of evil humanoid, Greyhawk does feel a bit more historical compared to Forgotten Realms.




It's hilarious when you put it that way, but it's true.



Doug McCrae said:


> Relevance to the modern gamer I will take to mean, "Is Greyhawk a good fit for 3e or 4e D&D?" 3e by default is a high magic world, magic items can be bought and sold. 4e says nothing about the world, it only describes the PCs' interactions with it. PCs can buy magic in 4e but this is not necessarily true of the rest of the world. I think the PCs can have plenty of magic without it not being Greyhawk, because the PCs' adventures in Greyhawk have always been more magical than the general setting.
> 
> If the PCs had as little magic as the rest of the world that would be at odds with the published texts, particularly the adventures. Nonetheless this could be easily achieved in 4e by making magic item bonuses inherent (a 'hero bonus' or somesuch) and restricting the PCs to martial classes only. One could also stay on Heroic tier. It's trickier to do this in 3e, but possible. One could go the E6 route.




As I recall reading, the PCs in Gygax's campaign had _lots_ of magic items. In part, this was because he wanted to test things out before publishing them. But you're right, it would not lessen the feel of Greyhawk. There's a difference between the PCs having lots of access to magic and the campaign having lots of magic everywhere. The PCs, after all, are supposed to be extraordinary, moreso in Greyhawk than in the Forgotten Realms. (I don't take this as a dig at the Realms, it's just a different style.)

In any case, I don't think low magic among the PCs would be terribly incompatible with 3e. You only need those high levels of magic (with the ability to buy and sell magic items like other commodities) if you want to strictly follow the CR guidelines. I've never felt beholden to CR (see my comments on this at the beginning of this post). If my PCs don't follow the same power levels assumed by the core rules, I'll make my own judgment about what challenges would be appropriate for them. After all, I had played AD&D for years without CRs, and it worked just fine.

One the one hand, I think almost any ruleset could work with Greyhawk, largely because Greyhawk accommodates many play styles (dungeoncrawls, city-based games, war-based campaigns, etc - I think it was grodog who made this point quite well). Whatever your favoured ruleset does well, there's probably room for that in Greyhawk. Personally, I like using Castles & Crusades if I'm just using the old folio and/or boxed set, and Pathfinder if I'm using the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 2, 2010)

Hobo said:


> Maybe you could help us all by explaining exactly how it is relevant, then.  I see it as an out of print setting that hasn't seen any significant new treatment in years, and is played by a steadily shrinking, small subset of gamers.
> 
> That's _iconic_ irrelevant, right there.  And I don't mean that to be a confrontational post; I could be convinced otherwise, maybe.  I just don't think there's a lot of value in a response that's basically, "Nuh-UH!  It *is* relevant."  Well, then, how so?  In what ways?




I don't know what Stormonu has in mind, but the fact that it isn't played much does not mean it's irrelevant. Something could be relevant if it has something to offer us, even if no one recognized that relevance.

Having said that, it is still worth asking _why_ (or _whether_) something is relevant, so this is not a challenge to your question.


----------



## Hunter In Darkness (Aug 2, 2010)

This my upset some fans, but no to me it has never been relevant. I got into D&D in 91  and by then the shop never even carried Greyhawk. There were many other more interesting worlds to me. I have never had any desire to play in or run Greyhawk. I have never been complained to read much about it or it's gods.

To me the world is bland and boring with not a single thing that makes me want to find out more. I find the peoples, history , gods and nations all bland and boring for the most part. I know folks like it and all but to me it's not my kind of setting and totally Irrelevant for me as a gamer.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 2, 2010)

Hunter In Darkness said:


> This my upset some fans, but no to me it has never been relevant. I got into D&D in 91  and by then the shop never even carried Greyhawk. There were many other more interesting worlds to me. I have never had any desire to play in or run Greyhawk. I have never been complained to read much about it or it's gods.
> 
> To me the world is bland and boring with not a single thing that makes me want to find out more. I find the peoples, history , gods and nations all bland and boring for the most part. I know folks like it and all but to me it's not my kind of setting and totally Irrelevant for me as a gamer.




Out of curiosity, if you've never read much about Greyhawk, how do you know that it's "bland and boring"? There's no reason you have to learn about it if you don't want to, but your judgment seems to go beyond this.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 2, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> I don't know what Stormonu has in mind, but the fact that it isn't played much does not mean it's irrelevant. Something could be relevant if it has something to offer us, even if no one recognized that relevance.



Well, that seems like kinda special pleading.

Although I think maybe... and that's kinda a big maybe... a case could be made for Greyhawk's relevance based on its legacy.  The designers of the Golarion setting, for example, are huge Greyhawk fans, and I think that shows through in a lot of Golarion material.  And, of course, Greyhawk contributed a lot of stuff that is now just "generic D&D" back in the day.

I wouldn't bother making that case, but I think maybe one could be made there.


----------



## Mark CMG (Aug 2, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> Is Greyhawk Relevant?






I think that despite limited official support, the two RPGA DM rewards (Hommlet and Tomb of Horrors), seemingly thousands of fans use Greyhawk in whole or in part, as is or homebrew-adjusted, year after year, and that guarantees its continued relevance.  Can WotC make a buck off of it?  That's a whole different question with its own related and marginally related problems.


----------



## Argyle King (Aug 2, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> One the one hand, I think almost any ruleset could work with Greyhawk, largely because Greyhawk accommodates many play styles (dungeoncrawls, city-based games, war-based campaigns, etc - I think it was grodog who made this point quite well). Whatever your favoured ruleset does well, there's probably room for that in Greyhawk. Personally, I like using Castles & Crusades if I'm just using the old folio and/or boxed set, and Pathfinder if I'm using the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.





This is exactly why I feel Greyhawk would not feel the same in 4E.  When I said that Greyhawk was 'generic' earlier in my posts, I didn't mean that as saying the tropes were generic; I meant that as meaning the setting is written in such a way to intentionally give some amount of ambiguity about what is over that next hill.  There is plenty of detail from which to play a campaign, but there is enough room left open to allow -as I've already said- to allow an individual table to make Greyhawk into the experience they want it to be and enough freedom to allow a group of players to play the fantasy they want to play.  4E is a good game, but I think it makes too many assumptions about how people will be playing the game, and, while it is perfectly possible to convert Greyhawk into 4E, I feel that the mechanics of 4E would change the feel of Greyhawk.

With the setting having that freedom and some level of being generic, I would like to see Greyhawk recreated with a rules system which better supports a broader array of playstyles and character types.  I think a generic/universal system which can better mechanically match and keep pace with the freedom of fantasy choice provided by the Greyhawk fluff would make for the best experience.  Building a castle and/or engaging in the politics of the land should be just as viable as options as dungeon delving.


----------



## Hunter In Darkness (Aug 2, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> Out of curiosity, if you've never read much about Greyhawk, how do you know that it's "bland and boring"? There's no reason you have to learn about it if you don't want to, but your judgment seems to go beyond this.




I have been playing near 20 years so have picked up things here and there, but nothing makes me want to explore the setting or it's history. I learned a bit converting the dragon AP's to a setting I liked.  Some things stand out, Iggwilv,, the rain of colorless fire. But over all I found it Bland and boring. There is just nothing there that makes me want to go " I want to know more" 

So yes for me the setting not relevant to in the lest.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 4, 2010)

Hobo said:


> Well, that seems like kinda special pleading.




Given that I was making a general claim, and not exempting anything from a general rule, in what sense is what I said special pleading?


----------



## haakon1 (Aug 4, 2010)

CruelSummerLord said:


> With all that in mind, I think Greyhawk would work best as a grimmer, grittier setting that reinforces many of the traditional D&D and Tolkien stereotypes, where magic items are rarer, characters tend to be of lower level, and the setting is otherwise frozen unless the DM and players decide to change it themselves. In some respects, I think it would work as a meat-and-potatoes setting for gamers who don't like the very high power levels of other settings.
> 
> Emphasizing the shades of grey, the lower power level, and the traditional "swords and sorcery" nature of the setting, and you might find a niche for Greyhawk that other worlds don't really fill.
> 
> And before anyone accuses me of being a crotchety old-timer, please note that I'm actually only 28 years old. I just happen to prefer the lower power levels, where +1 swords are rare and cherished treasures and being 7th level means you really stand out in a crowd. I also like being able to do what I want without having a metaplot breathing down my neck-if




Agreed.  Except I'm 41.


----------



## Klaus (Aug 4, 2010)

One thing lots of folks seem to overlook:

Greyhawk's signature NPC, Mordenkainen, is True Neutral. He's as linely to hinder the PCs as to help them, since he's devoted to keeping the Balance between Good and Evil, Law and Chaos.

This "active Neutrality" is actually a good hook for Greyhawk.


----------



## Dykstrav (Aug 4, 2010)

carmachu said:


> Is your game posted anywhere or the after reports? I'd love to see an old greyhawk game run with modern rules and see what you do. Sooner or later our Ptolus game is gonna end, and someone else is going to have to take over. I'd like to take it to greyhawk, since its such a wide open setting....




We don't post anything about it... But I'll give you the brief rundown.

The inspiration came from a Forgotten Realms game that I was playing under the _Pathfinder_ rules. Basically, the DM and I have been playing for decades, but the rest of the players have missed several things that we consider classic D&D tropes--a dwarf mine as a dungeon, fighting evil cults, a champagne villain that remains hidden behind the scenes, and even classic D&D monsters like owlbears, carrion crawlers, and so forth. Apparently, the "new wave" players haven't gotten to experience the same sort of old-school games that we enjoyed, and were curious as to why we dug it so much. Hence, my basic idea for the Greyhawk game.

My main idea is to make a campaign that features several D&D classics, couched in what I consider the ideal campaign setting for it. My main goal is to replicate the sort of game I enjoyed when I was new to D&D, not necessarily fidelity to the Greyhawk setting... Although it's certainly a great setting for it.

Our party includes a paladin of Heironeous who dreams of leading a grand crusade against Iuz, a "hometown boy done good" fighter that serves as a warrior for Pelor, a street urchin thief from the Free City of Greyhawk that insists that's she's a "treasure hunter", a sorcerer with the draconic bloodline that believes that Bahamut is speaking to her through her blood, and a druid from the Gnarley Forest who wants to atone for accidentally killing a sacred animal.

The campaign began in Hardby, where the characters are investigating orc raiders from the Wild Coast making camps for further raids. They battle the orcs and drive them out, then begin working for a new temple of Rao that is just getting established in Hardby. They want the characters to venture into the Cairn Hills and retrieve relics from an ancient temple site for the new temple.

From here, the plot revolves around a "plot coupon" artifact quest. The characters discover a mysterious golden tablet with celestial text engraved upon it in the undead-haunted ruins. The local priesthood of Rao has informed the party that the tablet is one of the six _tablets of Aradros_, allowing them to incarnate a prophesied angel into the material plane and lead a great crusade against an evil demigod. Putting two and two together, they decide that the evil demigod must refer to Iuz, so they're off in a flash to find and assemble the other tablets.

To date, they have participated in the following "classic vignettes," each of which I've designed to serve as tribute to classic tropes rather than challenge them:

• Wild orcs threatening to invade civilized lands (along the Wild Coast around Hardby).
• Undead guarding ancient treasures within ruins (in the Cairn Hills).
• An urban excursion where the character thwart a plot of the Greyhawk Thieves' Guild by braving the sewers and fighting their agents there.
• Political negotiations between various factions of aristocrats and temples in the Free City of Greyhawk.
• Dealing with an infestation of wererats and dire rats in the sewers of the Free City of Greyhawk.
• Defending a border keep from monster incursions (lizardmen attacking Mistkeep).
• Assaulting a demonic temple in the wilderness (a temple devoted to Demogorgon within the Mistmarsh).

They'll hit 4th level at the end of the next session... They've already covered a lot of ground, and to date, the players have enjoyed it immensely.


----------



## Glyfair (Aug 4, 2010)

Before I start, let me preface this by stating I like Greyhawk.  I don't believe I played in it, and have only DMed it when running _Village of Hommlet_ and _RttToEE_.  Still, I do note that Greyhawk does not have the same cache as it had back in the day and some comments made have lead me to some trains of thought.



the Jester said:


> Greyhawk has a VERY wide range of cultures...



Which shows something that Greyhawk tends to lack, a certain cohesiveness.  To excel in todays market a setting really needs a strong theme.  I can be general or specific.  It might even have a couple of themes it focuses on.  Greyhawk doesn't really have that.  

I can see Klaus' comparisons to the classic Sword & Sorcery that Greyhawk does have.  Unfortunately, it is diluted by the evolution of D&D, which doesn't do Sword & Sorcery as well as you would think.  S&S tends to be about individual heroes.  D&D is about the party and a group rather than individual effort.  


Bullgrit said:


> I don't care about a PC's back story -- I'm more interested in the story made with the PC while playing the game.
> 
> This is a big reason why I like the World of Greyhawk so much -- so much of its back story was made by the original PCs while playing the game. The fact that so many of the NPCs of the setting were actual PCs in the original game, and the adventure locals in the setting were actual adventures in the original game. This is why Greyhawk is the best setting to me.
> 
> Its history wasn't just written, it was made by the DM and Players while playing the game.



Which would be a big draw for me, if I was one of that group that made the campaign.  Without that personal connection, not a big deal.

That doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the stories of how certain things in the world.  But that is as someone who is a fan of the setting, and not something that would draw me into the setting.

On the other hand, I played in a FRP campaign for much of the eighties.  Actions of the characters did modify the setting.  Finding out that we started a cult of "no-nose" orcs after our group cut the noses off a group of orcs (actually a remarkable series of coincidental critical hits during one combat) was gratifying to the players.

However, I don't see how that would be a draw to anyone other than the few dozen players who played in that campaign.  It doesn't have that personal connection to others.



> Plus, D&D and Greyhawk came about at the same time. Greyhawk essentially *is* D&D; D&D essentially *is* Greyhawk. No other campaign setting is this way. Not even Blackmoor.



*This* is a strong reason why Greyhawk resonates with me.  In fact, I liked the campaign better when it was just hinted at in the D&D and early AD&D rulesbooks and modules.  Once Gygax decided to organize a published form of Greyhawk, it lost some of that magic for me.


----------



## ssampier (Aug 4, 2010)

I really don't know much about Greyhawk. I own a PDF copy of Temple of Elemental Evil and I have read awesome reviews about the early D&D modules set in Greyhawk (and some not so great reviews).

I think Erik Mona and crew did a great job of adding the Dungeon adventure paths to GH.

In the end I always thought that Oerth was left intentionally vague for DMs to add their own stuff to it without violating canon.

I wonder if modern gamers want simple, undetailed worlds (whether barebones or only what you need). From what I read online GH does differ from FR in many, many ways, but enough to attract an audience? 

You can say that many gamers may buy a new Greyhawk book if it came out. You could probably say the same thing about a Pontiac Firebird or any other cool retro car; they remain niche products for a niche market.

Best to leave cool stuff in history and not mess it up with one person's revision.


----------



## Hussar (Aug 4, 2010)

Just on the sidebar about CR:  If you think that the presumption of combat numbers was larger than 1-3, take a look at pretty much every 3e published module from either WOTC or Paizo.  While there are exceptions, the overwhelming majority of encounters features 1-3 opponents.

How would you make Greyhawk relavent to new gamers?  That's a difficult question.  Generic setting isn't going to cut it really because, well, we already have those.  "It's a different flavor of generic from Forgotten Realms" is hardly a major selling point.

So, IMO, you'd need to drill down to what is important about the setting.  What is the big draw?  As has been mentioned, I think the idea of a G&G setting is the way to go.  The only problem with this is we already have a grim and gritty setting - Dark Sun.  And I'm not sure you could really out grim and gritty that.  

If G&G doesn't really cut it though, why not draw on the other major element of Greyhawk - history.  GH cultures are often drawn pretty directly from real world cultures.  The whole idea that Oerth is a variant Earth is pretty heavily embedded into the setting.  Use that.  Use the idea that your inspiration for your next GH campaign is less Darren Shan or Clash of the Titans and more History Channel.  

Historical fantasy is a pretty healthy genre with loads to draw on.  Make it less about the monsters and flying castles and more about the cultures and whatnot.  Really appeal to the world builders out there who seem to love this sort of thing.

Just my 2 cp anyway.


----------



## Orius (Aug 4, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized.




Interesting ideas, but unfortunately I don't have a fire extinguisher to lend you so you can deal with that big mob with the pitchforks and torches!  




Hunter In Darkness said:


> This my upset some fans, but no to me it has never been relevant. I got into D&D in 91  and by then the shop never even carried Greyhawk.




I think this is another big thing.  For those of us who got into D&D in the '90s, FR was the big main world, while Greyhawk was kind of in the background.  I have to honestly say, given the choice to run the two of them, I'd probably pick FR.  I'm simply more familiar with it.  However, I think Greyhawk would probably be more fun to run.


----------



## Nematode (Aug 4, 2010)

I think that Greyhawk fans have been justifiably confused. Even though it appeared that GH was a supported setting in the 3x era, it was more a case of expedient marketing with the implied setting and the RPGA living campaign, while the great material from the Paizo Dragon and Dungeon magazine era apparently resulted from an all too brief aberrant bubble of creative freedom.

You have to go back to the 1990s to find a Greyhawk-brand product line, and you have to go back about 20 years to find the last full sized setting treatment.

GH is like a wounded animal that was unwilling to die that managed to drag itself forward for almost the past decade. To me that’s in some way evidence of the extent of its relevance to players.

Back in 2008 Mike Mearls discussed Greyhawk in  this thread

He concluded:

“_Balancing the needs of the existing fans with the need to bring in new fans is probably one of the hardest things to do in game design, as 4e demonstrates. With Greyhawk, I think those difficulties are all the more daunting._”

I suspect that a GH that tried to make everyone happy would end up making no one happy, so even though I like the setting a lot, I find myself agreeing with Mike’s conclusion. But I think what's significant about his post is that it's consistent with the way that WotC has viewed GH ever since they bought it in the 90s … useful in certain respects, but not commercially relevant.

nematode


----------



## billd91 (Aug 4, 2010)

Nematode said:


> I think that Greyhawk fans have been justifiably confused. Even though it appeared that GH was a supported setting in the 3x era, it was more a case of expedient marketing with the implied setting and the RPGA living campaign, while the great material from the Paizo Dragon and Dungeon magazine era apparently resulted from an all too brief aberrant bubble of creative freedom.
> 
> You have to go back to the 1990s to find a Greyhawk-brand product line, and you have to go back about 20 years to find the last full sized setting treatment.




This really isn't entirely true. There was the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer in 2000 which is pretty much a full-sized setting treatment, the Age of Worms campaign in 2005(?), and the Living Greyhawk organized play campaign. There certainly was plenty of opportunity to get your Greyhawk on and,  for organized play, I understand it did very well.


----------



## Nematode (Aug 4, 2010)

billd91 said:


> This really isn't entirely true. There was the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer in 2000 which is pretty much a full-sized setting treatment




Sure it is. The last full sized treatment was From the Ashes in 1992: 2 books, 3 maps, assorted other things, and a box. LGG was a list of nations & places & dieties, as in, a Gazetteer. Its purpose was to establish a baseline of information for and orient players to the Living campaign. LGG was great, but it was not a full sized setting treatment.



billd91 said:


> the Age of Worms campaign in 2005(?)




That was a product of the Paizo magazine era. Great stuff, a classic, but it was the result of a fortunate anomaly rather than a decision on the part of WotC to sell a Greyhawk product line. Notice that it's "Greyhawk with the serial numbers filed off."



billd91 said:


> and the Living Greyhawk organized play campaign




Yeah, it was great. I even have a writing credit on one of those modules. RPGA's purpose is to market products for the company through social networking. GH was a good way for them to advance the goal. But again that's not the same thing as a branded product line.  

nematode


----------



## Starfox (Aug 4, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition, the place is far too balkanized
> 
> [...]
> 
> ...




Let me jump on the badwagon and say that this is NOT the way to go to make GH relevant. This is the way to go to make it bland, and in many ways the fault I find with FR.

I could reserse this to make my own list:

Relevance:
1. More courtly intrigue and succession issues, largely ruled by custom.
2. Feudalism vs commercial development. Monetary economy vs. feudal economy..
3. Economic advancement creates social disorder. City of Greyhawk becomes so rich it disturbs many of the old powers.
4. A new lawful-aligned and competent ruler comes to power in the Great Kingdom. Tries to re-unify the country, bringing peace and "good" results, but not necessarily by good means. How do the players face this?
5. Minor wars still rage. With central authority weak, conflict is const both in border regions and between feuding nobles. War is as much within each culture as between different cultures.

In my personal GH campaign, I play up the cultural conflicts between the different humans - and how these are slowly merging into a "common" mercantile culture with strong points in cosmopolitan cities like Greyhawk, Ironforge, and Sasserine. I play up how, good or evil, there is a natural conflict between various interest groups - Feudal vs. Merchantilist, Republic (Perrenland) vs Monarchy (Furyondy) and so on. Sure, these are just backdrop elements, but that is what a campaign world is all about.

I must also agree that Golarion feels much like Grehawk II. It is very easy to steal elements of golarion and fit them into Greyhawk - some almost feel like they were originally written for greyhawk. Red Mantis Assassins => Scarlett Brotherhood (or a part of) - who conveniently worships a god of insects named Bralm.

I am considering stealing the nation of Andorian, the republic from Golarion, and placing it in the northern part of the old Great Kingdom - culturally it seems like a perfect fit. As my next campaign is set to play out in Ahlissa in the south of the old Great Kingdom, this would be quite relevant (but again backdrop).

Another long-ranging plot I've been thinking of is to have Dwarfs invent and mass-produce the Warforged - and instill them with many dwarf virtues (loyalty, thriftiness). This seems pretty close to how Warforged already are. Together these two races try to enforce "stability" in western Flaness - which inevitably leads to conflict with both giants and humans.

This is one thing I like about an officially "dead" setting - it is ALL MINE to play with. There will be no further official releases that I have to decide whether to use or not. Of course, this also means that the setting will disappear from the minds of the gaming audience at large.


----------



## MerricB (Aug 4, 2010)

Nematode said:


> Sure it is. The last full sized treatment was From the Ashes in 1992: 2 books, 3 maps, assorted other things, and a box. LGG was a list of nations & places & dieties, as in, a Gazetteer. Its purpose was to establish a baseline of information for and orient players to the Living campaign. LGG was great, but it was not a full sized setting treatment.




The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer was 192 pages, which is about 70 more pages than Greyhawk got in the 1983 set. From the Ashes had (ahem) 192 pages in its two main books. (It also had a number of reference sheets).

This isn't the D&D Gazetteer we're talking about, but one of the GH team's shining moments. To my mind the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is the best presentation of the setting after the 1983 boxed set (which I suspect I love more partly for nostalgia reasons).

It is most unfortunate that Wizards never supported the LGG with a brand line of Greyhawk products. Ah well. We did get new Greyhawk adventures in Dungeon Magazine, though, of which Age of Worms is the most notable example. (It has _Tenser_ in it... appearing much as he did in _Isle of the Ape_).

Do I think Greyhawk could be successful today? Yes, I do - assuming it had a great team behind it. 

However, there is a greater part of me saying that it probably isn't worth doing. For me, I have my version of Greyhawk and almost inevitably, any new published material would diverge from that version. I have a version of Greyhawk inspired by the 1983 set, the original modules, later material, and many years of play.

Cheers!


----------



## Nematode (Aug 4, 2010)

MerricB said:


> The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer was 192 pages, which is about 70 more pages than Greyhawk got in the 1983 set. From the Ashes had (ahem) 192 pages in its two main books. (It also had a number of reference sheets).
> 
> This isn't the D&D Gazetteer we're talking about, but one of the GH team's shining moments. To my mind the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is the best presentation of the setting after the 1983 boxed set (which I suspect I love more partly for nostalgia reasons).




Ahem if you must but you know as well as I Merric that LGG simply wasn't intended to be a full blown treatment. It lacked the features: no Greyhawk monsters, no Greyhawk magic items, no special character stuff or prestige classes, no starter adventure, no section focusing on a city; the things that back then came in the box, and I'm assuming (simply for the sake of comparison) are representative of the sorts of things that appeared in the 3e era FR books - I don't know, I don't own em - and presumably still appear in the hardbacks of setting treatments. 

It did have some material necessary for play like favored weapons and clerical domains. And later we got some nice stuff in the Living Greyhawk Journals. But otherwise LGG was boxed in by Greyhawk being the implied, rather than supported setting. 

I love my copy of the LGG, too.

nematode


----------



## Jhaelen (Aug 4, 2010)

Stormonu said:


> Saying Greyhawk is "not relevant" is about like trying to say that the Lord of the Rings Middle Earth isn't relevant in today's world of Harry Potter, Eragon and the like.
> 
> It simply isn't true.



Relevant in what way and for whom?

Greyhawk may be relevant for historians and - maybe - D&D's designers. It's utterly irrelevant for someone playing D&D today using any campaign setting except Greyhawk.

If the designers are mining the setting for everything that was cool about it, that's great. But do I have to know where the stuff actually came from? Not really - unless I'm interested in the history of the game.


----------



## vagabundo (Aug 4, 2010)

If Greyhawk was to re-released for the current edition it would need a hook - other than it's pedigree.

It could be a set of rules that bring back some of the old skool flavour: hex-crawling, random encounters, a set of mini-less (quick) combat rules and some of the older modules re-released for the setting.

If you're going to go for nostalgia they should go all out.


----------



## Dausuul (Aug 4, 2010)

You know, I've never played in Greyhawk, but out of the classic three (Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance) it's my favorite, and the only one in which I myself would ever consider running a campaign.

FR strikes me as a forerunner of modern "kitchen sink" fantasy--every damn thing you can think of crammed into a single world without rhyme or reason. It makes it fertile ground for work-for-hire novelists and module writers, since they can create whatever they please and plunk it down in the Realms someplace. But it lacks any kind of coherent theme. If you asked me to describe FR's "setting hook," I would be completely at a loss--it ain't got one.

Dragonlance is very coherent (although the parade of apocalypses and total-world-changing events diluted that coherence somewhat), but it's so tightly tied to the novel storyline that I would have trouble figuring out where to fit my own plot into the world. Dragonlance's major NPCs and established metaplot are so big they suck all the oxygen out of the place. At least for me.

But from what I've seen of it, original Greyhawk looks like an excellent swords-and-sorcery world. Lots of powerful villains but no single Big Bad; scraps of backstory but no overarching metaplot; a consistent flavor and feel across the setting. And the whole place feels much more authentic to me--like a real, lived-in world, such as one might expect from a setting designed by a history buff.


----------



## Mallus (Aug 4, 2010)

Greyhawk is relevant to me in that it helps inform most, if not all, of the D&D settings I've worked on. I'm especially fond of some of the names --the Nyr Dyv, Verbobonc, The Theocracy of the Pale-- the epic ancient stuff - The Rain of Colorless Fire!-- and the gloriously silly stuff --Murlynd with his six shooters and spoon.

It plays a big role in defining "D&D-style fantasy" for me. That said, I have no desire to run it ever again, though I'd happily play in a Greyhawk campaign.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Aug 4, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> FR strikes me as a forerunner of modern "kitchen sink" fantasy



I think of Greyhawk as kitchen sink fantasy also. Anything that uses all the monsters and classes in D&D is kitchen sink imo. The Greyhawk wandering monster tables include all those in default D&D and even add xvarts, flinds, ogrillons, norkers, quaggoths and qullans. I don't even know what qullans are! All the classic modules are located in Greyhawk - GDQ, A1-4, S1-4, T1-4, EX1+2. Lots of gonzo there, including the crashed spaceship and Alice in Wonderland. And there's Murlynd with his techno-magic.

When I played in a Greyhawk set campaign, the GM greatly reduced the number of evil humanoids to be found in default D&D, to make it more plausible and Tolkien-esque. Ie less kitchen sink.


----------



## Mallus (Aug 4, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> I think of Greyhawk as kitchen sink fantasy also.



Without a doubt.


----------



## ferratus (Aug 4, 2010)

I think the early Greyhawk modules are indeed some of the best adventures ever written for D&D.  They have certain vitality in them that was hard to match.   Don't get me wrong, I don't think they are more well designed or well constructed than the 3e or even 4e modules, but they do benefit by being the first and establishing the tropes that later adventures would either follow or react to.

However, the setting itself bores me to tears.   The wider setting isn't anything different from any standard fantasy setting.  There is an arab place, a viking place, a vaguely anti-catholic presentation of a theocracy, and other standard pseudo-medieval places common to every fantasy setting.  

All the vitality of the setting has gone into the demons, the monsters, the cults, and the dungeons.   Tharizdun, the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Witch Queen Iggwilv, Iuz the Old, the Scarlet Brotherhood, the Horned Society, the Fiend-Seeing Throne, etc. etc. are all fantastic.   However, they are all easily lifted out of the setting, and that has been pretty much what WotC has done.

Now that said, everything I've said about Greyhawk can be said about Dragonlance too.  That is a generic setting, and the original adventure path is the best part of it.  That adventure path could be easily lifted out and run in another setting as well.   So asking if Dragonlance is relevant is sauce for the goose.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> Given that I was making a general claim, and not exempting anything from a general rule, in what sense is what I said special pleading?



The claim itself is special pleading.  If something is being ignored, it's irrelevant, and the idea of, "Well, it _could_ be relevent, if only people paid attention to it!" is a pretty vacuous claim, since it's true for literally everything.  If taken at it's face value, your claim alleviates the need for a word with the definition of irrelevent.  _Nothing_ could ever be irrelevent under this scheme.

Special pleading.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2010)

Johnny3D3D said:


> With the setting having that freedom and some level of being generic, I would like to see Greyhawk recreated with a rules system which better supports a broader array of playstyles and character types.  I think a generic/universal system which can better mechanically match and keep pace with the freedom of fantasy choice provided by the Greyhawk fluff would make for the best experience.  Building a castle and/or engaging in the politics of the land should be just as viable as options as dungeon delving.



Not to derail the discussion, and I won't be dragged into an argument about this, but this claim is completely baloney.  There's nothing "generic" about AD&D compared to 4e.  Neither is generic, both make a lot of assumptions about how the fantasy world that they're portraying is supposed to work.  The older D&D assumptions are so ingrained in many people's minds that they no longer see them as specific, but they absolutely are. D&D is unlike just about any non-D&D fantasy in a lot of very striking ways.

In that same sense, Greyhawk wasn't ever generic either.  It's just so familiar to a certain subset of gamers that they see it as generic, because it's their baseline for fantasy.  Not because it truly is.


----------



## 3catcircus (Aug 4, 2010)

We're still wondering how Greyhawk is relevant.  Let's look at it from a different perspective - ease of use by a new player or DM who doesn't have the tribal knowledge needed of other campaign settings.

Greyhawk is relevant because a DM can take either the WoG boxed set or the LGG and use it as-is as campaign setting without having to deal with any metaplot problems.  More importantly, unlike Forgotten Realms, there haven't been more than one world-shattering event.  We had, in recent in-game history, one - one event - a world war, which is very easy to ignore.  You can go pre-war, or you can go post-war.  No worrying about the deities walking the earth and multiple iterations of the same (Bane, Iyachtu Xvim, back to Bane, Orcus/Tenebrous/Kiaransalee, etc.), no worrying about spell plagues.

For the players and DMs getting into D&D for the first time, that is way too much backstory, history, and metaplot to try and digest, especially since it is much more detailed than Greyhawk.

I think that if Greyhawk were to be re-issued, they would need to go the Goodman Games "Known Realms" treatment - a big boxed set and then pretty much hands-off other than tidbits within the adventure modules, or the FRCS route - one big book, but then hands-off.  Golarion is being handled fairly well, but they have the horsepower to produce quality supplements adding detail to various locales.  

Looking at the Gazetteer of the Known Realms, each realm averages maybe two pages, tops, for each entry - and they are just detailed enough to set visions dancing in both player's and DM's heads alike - and that's all the info the player's should be getting (recent history, various settlements, rulers, population, power centers/factions.)  The DM's guide goes into some detail about ancient history/creation myths (with no crunch) and then details the pantheon, world-specific monsters, feats, classes, equipment, and spells - stuff that the DM can choose (or not) to expose to his players. The details of each of the various significant NPCs (rulers, famous heroes/villains, etc.) are very limited (for example, the leader of the "main" dwarven kingdom is really not much detailed than his name - he is described as "LG male dwarf Ari3/Ftr14, Str 16, Con 17, Wis 15, Cha 14, along with some text about his motivations)  That's it.  No detailed list of spells, feats, or magic items he carries.  No long drawn-out history of his achievements and how uber he is.  This fits with the old-school feel sought by the DCC line.  It is that feel that makes Greyhawk feel "right."  Limited details, providing DMs and players the framework to provided a populated world that they can go and conquer.

Seriously - the way to properly support Greyhawk is to clean up inconsistencies, clarify canon, and then allow DMs and players to expand upon it as they see fit within their own campaigns.  No metaplots, no one-pager descriptions of NPCs, No having to track through a convoluted history.  If *any* metaplot is desired, it ought to be done only in the way that (go ahead and groan now) they attempted to do in the TORG game - individual DMs provide feedback to the company and the majority outcomes of various strategic plot points becomes the "official" canon moving forward into the next products.  No novels driving the metaplot.  No deltas between various novels, no arbitrary changes to the campaign world that the players and DMs didn't at least have an opportunity to affect.


----------



## amerigoV (Aug 4, 2010)

3catcircus said:


> Seriously - the way to properly support Greyhawk is to clean up inconsistencies, clarify canon, and then allow DMs and players to expand upon it as they see fit within their own campaigns.  No metaplots, no one-pager descriptions of NPCs, No having to track through a convoluted history.  If *any* metaplot is desired, it ought to be done only in the way that (go ahead and groan now) they attempted to do in the TORG game - individual DMs provide feedback to the company and the majority outcomes of various strategic plot points becomes the "official" canon moving forward into the next products.  No novels driving the metaplot.  No deltas between various novels, no arbitrary changes to the campaign world that the players and DMs didn't at least have an opportunity to affect.




I agree with that. I was reading through Expedition to Castle Greyhawk and the there was some interesting backstory that drove the adventure. I would think a cleaned up, low/no crunch version of GH would do pretty well - something for the Grognards and for those that might want take a run at the old girl even with 4e. I have not partook of Greyhawk in many years, but I would pick up a clean up version.


----------



## Beginning of the End (Aug 4, 2010)

Johnny3D3D said:


> Why I'd rather not see even Paizo or some other company create Greyhawk is because of one of the areas where I feel 4E actually succeeds very well. One thing which I feel 4E does extremely well is encounter design. I feel that having more creatures involved in a combat is more exciting and allows for more creative story telling through encounters than the '4 PCs beating on one monster until it dies' idea behind CR. I say this as someone who loved D&D 3rd Edition. I enjoyed the game, and I like what little experience I've had with Pathfinder, but this is one area where I 100% feel that 4th Edition's mechanics perform better than the old CR system.




If you actually loved 3rd Edition, it might behoove you to actually read the guidelines for encounter design.



Hussar said:


> Just on the sidebar about CR:  If you think that  the presumption of combat numbers was larger than 1-3, take a look at  pretty much every 3e published module from either WOTC or Paizo.  While  there are exceptions, the overwhelming majority of encounters features  1-3 opponents.




I grabbed some random circa 5th-level samples of adventure design from WotC and Paizo.

(3 or less / 4 or more)

Speaker in Dreams - 15 / 12
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (Chapter 5) - 66 / 68
Age of Wyrms (Blackwall Keep) - 5 / 5
Legacy of Fire (Part 2) - 13 / 18

I think your definition of "overwhelming majority" needs some work.

In quite a few cases, the number of < 3 encounters is inflated because in actual practice the DM is advised to have solo creatures move from their quarters to engage if they overhear fighting in other areas (creating larger encounters). But the count here is based on static counts in each encounter area.



Doug McCrae said:


> Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian  will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not  three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go.  Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea  Princes, pick one. Etc.




The problem with this approach is that you lose the internal regional politics which, IMO, make the setting interesting. It's like saying, "France and England are practically identical. Lose one of them." Well, OK. But then you lose both William the Conqueror and the Hundred Years War.



Hobo said:


> Maybe you could help us all by explaining exactly  how it is relevant, then.  I see it as an out of print setting that  hasn't seen any significant new treatment in years, and is played by a  steadily shrinking, small subset of gamers.
> 
> That's _iconic_ irrelevant, right there.




10-15 years ago the same thing could be said about Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories: They had been out of print for a generation. So, clearly, Robert Jordon's Conan novels were relevant and Howard's stories weren't when it came to Conan, right?

In short, hinging "relevancy" to the decision of a copyright holder to publish or not publish material is a questionable measure in any case.

It becomes downright silly, however, to define "not relevant" as "out of print" in a thread where the OP is asking whether or not Greyhawk is relevant enough to re-publish it. Your argument boils down to, "It's not currently in print, so it shouldn't be in print." Tautological nonsense.


----------



## Aeolius (Aug 4, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> If I was doing Greyhawk first thing I'd do is cut the number of nations by about two thirds. There's way too much repetition... Nyrond and Furyondy even sound similar, pick one. One type of barbarian will do, frost, ice and snow is two too many. One Arab nation, not three. Don't need both Rel Astra and Greyhawk, so the former has to go. Get rid of all the little crap around Keoland. Sea Barons or Sea Princes, pick one... Keep the good stuff only, such as the Free City of Greyhawk, Iuz, Great Kingdom, Scarlet Brotherhood, Theocracy of the Pale, one of the good guy nations, etc.




     The whole "pick one" philosophy is one of 4e's terminal flaws, IMO. "We have a water race, we don't need more?" So long, locathah and sea elves. "We have a pretty evil outsider, we don't need two", "We have a pretty nymph-like creature, no need for another", etc etc... In the end you end up with a vacuous Monster Manual that reads more like a jumble of playing cards. Leave my kitchen sink alone, dernnit! One man's trash is another man's treasure. Let me decide what my own "good stuff" is, thank you.

     I know my Greyhawk games are typically not stereotypical adventures. With Oerth fans, you have those that like 1e, those that like 2e, those that like 3e, some that like more than one, some that hate all but one, and so forth. I consider that a feature, not a bug. There is something in the World of Greyhawk for everyone. It's a sandbox; treat is as such. Granted, it's a sandbox with a set of suggested directions, but who reads directions anyway?

     I started playing D&D in 1979. The only campaign setting I have used with regularity is WoG. All of my online games since 1995 have been set there (with the exception of one game set in Hades, but the PCs came from Oerth). I have notes for my next game and it too is set on Oerth. I have looked at other campaign settings, but the World of Greyhawk has a sense of familiarity and comfortability, yet remains unfinished and malleable.

     Over the past few weeks I have been looking at origin stories for the sahuagin. I have come across at least three different myths, ranging from "came from humans", "came from elves", and "came from anguilians". Should I "pick one?" No, I am enjoying the chaos that the different and distinct concepts contained by all. In the end, I might amalgamate two or more ideas into my own.

    That's what it's all about.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 4, 2010)

Starfox said:


> This is one thing I like about an officially "dead" setting - it is ALL MINE to play with. There will be no further official releases that I have to decide whether to use or not. Of course, this also means that the setting will disappear from the minds of the gaming audience at large.




That's a good point. All the information is there for me to play in a Greyhawk campaign. If what I'm after is a campaign that I can make my own, then I don't need WotC or anyone else to publish the setting anew. Of course, if we follow through with that line of reasoning, if I want to make my campaign setting my own, then I don't need Greyhawk. Of course, if we conclude that Greyhawk has no relevance because of this, then we can conclude the same thing for any campaign setting. Not everyone wants a setting that is _entirely_ their own.



Nematode said:


> Ahem if you must but you know as well as I Merric that LGG simply wasn't intended to be a full blown treatment. It lacked the features: no Greyhawk monsters, no Greyhawk magic items, no special character stuff or prestige classes, no starter adventure, no section focusing on a city; the things that back then came in the box, and I'm assuming (simply for the sake of comparison) are representative of the sorts of things that appeared in the 3e era FR books - I don't know, I don't own em - and presumably still appear in the hardbacks of setting treatments.




Yes, because it was the Living Greyhawk _Gazetteer_, not the Living Greyhawk _Campaign Setting_. Personally, I prefer the gazetteer format for Greyhawk, but you are correct that it did not receive the full treatment.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 4, 2010)

Hobo said:


> The claim itself is special pleading.  If something is being ignored, it's irrelevant, and the idea of, "Well, it _could_ be relevent, if only people paid attention to it!" is a pretty vacuous claim, since it's true for literally everything.  If taken at it's face value, your claim alleviates the need for a word with the definition of irrelevent.  _Nothing_ could ever be irrelevent under this scheme.
> 
> Special pleading.




No. Not at all.

I was challenging your definition of relevance as requiring people to be paying attention to it. To describe what I was doing as special pleading is to beg the question on your understanding of relevance.

A society could pay no attention to medical science; that does not mean that medical research has nothing to offer them. Before anyone jumps on me for the analogy, I am _not_ claiming that Greyhawk is as valuable as medical science - I'm just saying that relevance need not be recognized. If Greyhawk _does_ have something to offer current and future gamers (and I'm open to the possibility that this is not the case), it may still need to be marketed to them as such.


----------



## UngainlyTitan (Aug 4, 2010)

Long time  player that never got into Greyhawk, reading the thread has been interesting from a game history point of view but nothing in the thread would entice me to buying a new Greyhawk setting. 
The parts of Greyhawk have become iconic features of D&D but in my opinion some of the naming conventions are weak, like mentioned up thread with the sea princes and the sea barons. 
It seems to me that looking at the existing settings,
Ebberon is where you can do steampunk, film noir mysteries or cold war spy stuff as well as the usual kitchen sink D&D
Dark Sun, is pretty grim struggle to survive, freedom fighters or Mad Max - post apocalyptic 
FR - high magic kitchen sink D&D
Dragonlance - epic adventure arcs tying in closely to the fate of the known universe 

What is the one line pitch for Greyhawk? and the low magic version of the Forgotten Realms is not going to cut it.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> 10-15 years ago the same thing could be said about Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories: They had been out of print for a generation. So, clearly, Robert Jordon's Conan novels were relevant and Howard's stories weren't when it came to Conan, right?



Well, more like 40 years ago, but yeah.  At that time, they were pretty irrelevant.  Nobody even knew what they were.


			
				Beginning of the End said:
			
		

> In short, hinging "relevancy" to the decision of a copyright holder to publish or not publish material is a questionable measure in any case.
> 
> It becomes downright silly, however, to define "not relevant" as "out of print" in a thread where the OP is asking whether or not Greyhawk is relevant enough to re-publish it. Your argument boils down to, "It's not currently in print, so it shouldn't be in print." Tautological nonsense.



I didn't hinge my definition on that.  Maybe you should read what I posted if you're going to reply to it.  That was just one bit of evidence to suggest that it wasn't relevent, and not even the most important one.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 4, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> I was challenging your definition of relevance as requiring people to be paying attention to it. To describe what I was doing as special pleading is to beg the question on your understanding of relevance.



That's a pretty rich thing to claim, given your position that a setting that gets less attention year over year, has nothing published for it on a regular and "big" basis, and has continually dwindling popularity is relevent, and you've failed to offer any evidence, despite being specifically asked to do so, to demonstrate this relevence.  Heck, I did more to establish its relevence than you did by referring to its legacy in terms of monsters, characters, locations and spells that have become iconic in D&D since Greyhawk's heyday.


			
				Philosopher said:
			
		

> A society could pay no attention to medical science; that does not mean that medical research has nothing to offer them. Before anyone jumps on me for the analogy, I am _not_ claiming that Greyhawk is as valuable as medical science - I'm just saying that relevance need not be recognized. If Greyhawk _does_ have something to offer current and future gamers (and I'm open to the possibility that this is not the case), it may still need to be marketed to them as such.



OK, that's a nice point, but you still don't do anything to establish any relevence of Greyhawk.  All you've done is said that it _could_ be relevent.  Especially if D&D campaign settings had any useful points of analogy with medical science.

Which they don't.


----------



## amerigoV (Aug 4, 2010)

ardoughter said:


> What is the one line pitch for Greyhawk? and the low magic version of the Forgotten Realms is not going to cut it.




Greyhawk - no wimps allowed! (Tomb of Horrors, Temple of Elemental Evil, etc)

This thread and looking over Expedition to Castle Greyhawk has me itching to run some old school stuff. I might have to get the Gazetter and take a look at some options.

FR is alright, but they keep screwing it up on the even editions of the release of D&D. While it has the kitchen sink, many DMs feel restricted by its voluminous canon (I just do not allow FR fanboys in the group - it solves that problem). I have always been luke warm on the setting, but I thought they did a fantastic job on the 3.0 FRCS. I love Eberron, but it does have a Theme to it, so not everything fits as nicely (an you always have adjust for Dragonmark family perspectives, etc). 

I'll admit it is a hard sell, especially with Pathfinder's world kinda in the same niche (fantasy, areas with themes but not a driving theme like Darksun/Eberron).


----------



## Jhaelen (Aug 5, 2010)

Aeolius said:


> The whole "pick one" philosophy is one of 4e's terminal flaws, IMO. "We have a water race, we don't need more?" So long, locathah and sea elves. "We have a pretty evil outsider, we don't need two", "We have a pretty nymph-like creature, no need for another", etc etc... In the end you end up with a vacuous Monster Manual that reads more like a jumble of playing cards. Leave my kitchen sink alone, dernnit! One man's trash is another man's treasure. Let me decide what my own "good stuff" is, thank you.



That's, imho, a flawed comparison. What you don't need in a Monster Manual are two aquatic races that are mechanically completely identical. This doesn't mean they have to have identical cultures. D&D has always had a tendency to equate race and culture, e.g. elves are like this, dwarves are like this, etc. Heck, in BECMI D&D race even equals class!

The traditional 'D&D' way was to introduce a new race or racial subtype to portray a different culture. That's completely unnecessary, though. It's something I disliked a lot in 1e and 2e. Did we really need 'Valley Elves'?

I first noticed this being changed with the Eberron setting. Valenar elves and Aerenal elves are very different culturally but completely identical mechanically.

And since starting with 3e you could easily customize aspects of monsters by adding class levels, templates or simply changing skills & feats, you can even create mechanical variants of the same basic race/monster.

In 4e some races/monsters show up in every monster manual. There's no longer even any need for a common baseline creature. A DM doesn't have to use the same stat block twice, even when portraying identical monsters.
On the flip-side you can use the same stat block for superficially very different creatures.

Take the 4e Dark Sun setting: Half-Giants are simply reskinned Goliath. It's something that makes a lot of sense if you're consequently separating mechanics from culture.

'Plane Below' includes several sample encounters using reskinned monsters, often with modified abilities. It makes sense and saves space.

Other rpgs are even more advanced in this respect. E.g. in DSA/TDE there's a kind of 'meta-template' for 'chimerical creatures'. This covers every creature that resembles a hybrid between two other creature types. Or Ars Magica which uses a toolkit approach to create stats for every kind of animal.

There's still bestiaries for both DSA/TDE and Ars Magica, but they have a completely different focus than D&D Monster Manuals: They provide background information for the setting (flora/fauna) and story hooks. But that's also available in D&D supplements, it's just not in the Monster Manuals.


----------



## Beginning of the End (Aug 5, 2010)

Hobo said:


> > 10-15 years ago the same thing could be said about Robert E. Howard's  original Conan stories: They had been out of print for a generation. So,  clearly, Robert Jordon's Conan novels were relevant and Howard's  stories weren't when it came to Conan, right?
> 
> 
> 
> ...




What?

40 years ago = 1970. The year that Marvel started publishing the Conan comic book. The Lancer series of Conan reprints had just been published in 1968 and would continue in print for a decade. And Jordon wouldn't publish his first Conan novel until 1982.

So, no. I wasn't talking about 1970. And nothing in my description matches the state of affairs as it existed in 1970.

I was talking about 1995-2000 for a reason. That's the time period when Howard's stories had been out of print for 15-20 years (depending on how you count) while Robert Jordon's novels were still in print.

So, basically, you couldn't be more wrong.



> I didn't hinge my definition on that.  Maybe you should read what I posted if you're going to reply to it.  That was just one bit of evidence to suggest that it wasn't relevent, and not even the most important one.




So you didn't write: "  I see it as an out of print setting that  hasn't seen any significant  new treatment in years, and is played by a  steadily shrinking, small  subset of gamers. That's _iconic_ irrelevant, right there."

Interesting. 

And immediately after claiming that you never said that, you didn't post: "That's a pretty rich thing to claim, given your position that a setting  that gets less attention year over year, has nothing published for it on  a regular and "big" basis..."

Fascinating.

Well, you should probably figure out who hacked your account.


----------



## Argyle King (Aug 5, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> If you actually loved 3rd Edition, it might behoove you to actually read the guidelines for encounter design.
> .





loved - past tense; I haven't played 3rd Edition for several years, so -as I admitted- I am more than a little rusty on the rules. I still have a hefty 3rd Edition library, but I mostly use it as source material for creatures and ideas to convert into the systems I currently play. To be perfectly honest, if I were to try playing 3rd Edition right now, it would be like relearning the system all over again.

Even so, I still stand by the statement I made: when comparing 4th Edition to 3rd Edition, 4th is more built around the idea of having a lot of entities involved in an encounter than 3rd is. While I'm not a huge fan of 4th Edition, I do feel 4th Edition got some things right, and the ideals behind encounter design (even if I don't like the implementation or execution of those ideals) is one of the things I feel they got right.


----------



## Voadam (Aug 5, 2010)

Nematode said:


> Ahem if you must but you know as well as I Merric that LGG simply wasn't intended to be a full blown treatment. It lacked the features: no Greyhawk monsters, no Greyhawk magic items, no special character stuff or prestige classes, no starter adventure, no section focusing on a city; the things that back then came in the box, and I'm assuming (simply for the sake of comparison) are representative of the sorts of things that appeared in the 3e era FR books - I don't know, I don't own em - and presumably still appear in the hardbacks of setting treatments.
> 
> It did have some material necessary for play like favored weapons and clerical domains. And later we got some nice stuff in the Living Greyhawk Journals. But otherwise LGG was boxed in by Greyhawk being the implied, rather than supported setting.
> 
> ...




This inspired me to pull out my From the Ashes. It does indeed have a couple of monsters, most notably for Greyhawk flavor the Great Kingdom animus undead which are big deals for the Ashes campaign and derro (which originated in 1e but have a neat greyhawk tie in), as well as quickly forgotten things like the abyssal bats, a dark treant, babboon things, and the thessalos. About 8 pages or so of monsters.

I don't remember the 1980s 1e boxed set having any monsters though. Or magic items. Its been a while though.

LGG didn't have prestige classes, but it did detail world power groups and such. FTA had short adventures in it on those cards, but the 1e boxed set had only some paragraph adventure ideas (a werewolf pack leader, who is also a vampire!).

I think the LGG was a great campaign setting book and would be fantastic to run a campaign out of with no other sourcebook, but I also enjoyed the 32 page OE/1e Greyhawk folio one and could go with that as well.


----------



## btmcrae (Aug 5, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> I'm sure that many of us have played at some point or another in the world of Greyhawk. This was Gygax's world, home to some of the greatest classic dungeons in D&D. It is for that nostalgia factor that we hold it in such high regards.
> 
> Yet as time has gone on and the hobby has evolved, I have to wonder if it still holds up all these years later.




While the nostalgia factor has died down due to fewer older folks playing, and newer folks simply not having heard of Greyhawk much due to it being allowed to lie fallow, Greyhawk still has a following among fans, and a presence in WotC products to attract older players' cash(and because they do not want to waste the time creating something new, or can't think of something new with as much "cool" factor presumably).



Dragonhelm said:


> One of the questions I ask is why WotC would ever want to re-release Greyhawk. They might get some sales based on nostalgia, but what really sets it apart enough to draw in a new crowd?




Why?  So that they could actually write some material for a campaign  setting that hasn't been super-detailed, ergo sell a metric crap-ton of  supplements with information in them on a world which has but the  merest, tiniest portion of it somewhat detailed in a half-arsed  fashion?  Oh, and they don't have to put int too much lead time in  creating the setting whole cloth either- they already have the  springboard.



Dragonhelm said:


> My fear on this is that, as a generic setting, it will be outshone by other generic settings, most notably the Realms. It doesn't offer the wide range of cultures that other settings do. There's nothing geographically or culturally that really sets it apart.




That is rather unfounded, as it is kind of hard for a campaign setting which was barley detailed to not offer the cultures that other settings do.  Those cultures are there, but they were never allowed to be developed before Greyhawk was crated up and put in that old warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant.



Dragonhelm said:


> But what of the classic dungeons? My guess is that they'd rather release those in books like Tomb of Horrors. Rather than put out a setting about dungeons, put out books on dungeons.




Well, they might do that, but that would be a mistake.  Does a book about dungeons fire you imagination, or does a book about **a world with places of adventure** in it, and **adventures set in that world** fire you imagination.  The Dungeoneer's Survival Guide didn't do a whole hell of a lot for my interest in dungeons let me tell you, but information on campaign settings and **much more importantly**, adventures **set in those worlds** did.  Classic D&D is a generic term, for a generic game system, just as is the term "cards".  Do you want to play "cards", or "Poker!, and do you want to play "D&D" or "Greyhawk!".  "Cards" and "D&D" do not make me think "AWESOME!!!", but "Poker!" and "Greyhawk!" do.   



Dragonhelm said:


> Does GH need reinvention? I would say yes. It needs to be set apart somehow.




No, it doesn't need reinvention at all- it merely needs to be fleshed out so as to do it some semblance of justice, and to show people all of the things that are there, but that the IP holders have up until now only allowed allusions to be made to.  Turn the writers loose, **explore the entire world** rather than just one tiny corner of it, and **take the players(i.e customers) on the journey from the established bits(the Flanaess) into entire new realms of adventure across the whole of Oerth**.  _**That**_ is a recipe for success.   



Dragonhelm said:


> I don't know what Greyhawk needs, or how to make it more relevant to the modern-day gamer. I wish I did. I would hate to just see it fade away, yet that seems to be what's happening. Should it be another continent on the same planet as the Realms? Does it need a makeover?
> 
> Thoughts?




Greyhawk should *NOT* be stuffed into the Realms.  That would pretty much kill it.  You might as well ask people, "Shouldn't Terry Brooks just sell off Shanara to the Tolkien IP holders so that it can be stuffed into Middle Earth?  After all, they are very similar..."   Kinda sounds like a bad idea, huh?  Greyhawk doesn't need a drastic makeover either, just some actual attention.


----------



## Orius (Aug 5, 2010)

Nematode said:


> Ahem if you must but you know as well as I Merric that LGG simply wasn't intended to be a full blown treatment. It lacked the features: no Greyhawk monsters, no Greyhawk magic items,




Hmm.  Isn't that what the core books were for?  Okay, that is an oversimplification, but much of what is Greyhwk is core to begin with.  

Honestly, I can also see why near-identical monsters would be cut from the current edition because of publishing needs.  The most important things to include in basic monster manual are the popular monsters, as well as a variety of monster types, and a variety of different abilities and combat roles.  It's easy enough to cut something that looks like something else and maybe doesn't get a lot of use in general.


----------



## haakon1 (Aug 5, 2010)

Nematode said:


> LGG simply wasn't intended to be a full blown treatment. It lacked the features: no Greyhawk monsters, no Greyhawk magic items, no special character stuff or prestige classes, no starter adventure, no section focusing on a city; the things that back then came in the box




Yeah.  LGG was all killer, no filler.  

Pure Greyhawk fluff goodness, very little crunch and very little of the half-baked filler looseleaf and card materials in the City of Greyhawk and From the Ashes box set.

The main difference, though, is the LGG crew knew and loved Greyhawk, and put a multi-year effort into the research and fixing the canon, with respect and even reverance for what had gone before.   To me, it's more like WOTC _allowed_ the Greyhawk fandom's own champions to fix the setting, rather than just contracting to publish a book.  Erik Mona was a Greyhawk uberfan before he was famous . . . 

Whereas CoG and especially FtA didn't understand the setting as well and took a heavy hand in rewriting it, from a professional "what do we think will sell" perspective, rather than a work of art that happened to be commercially sold.

Ars artis gratia versus ars pecuniae gratia.


----------



## haakon1 (Aug 5, 2010)

Hobo said:


> Greyhawk wasn't ever generic either.  It's just so familiar to a certain subset of gamers that they see it as generic, because it's their baseline for fantasy.  Not because it truly is.




Nod.  My dad was a professor who taught English.  A big, recurring joke in their profession?

The student who complains that Shakespeare is overrated, because it's all cliches . . . which the professor has to explain were not cliches when the Bard coined the phrase.  

And lest you think that's apocryphal and there never could have been a student so stupid . . .  my wife was traveling through O'Hare Airport on Monday night and literally heard a passenger screaming at United desk clerk: "Do you know who I am?  My husband is the president of Boeing Airlines! (sic)"

So, yes, Virginia, the morons in off-told jokes sometimes do exist in real life!  (AKA, as Homer Simpson once said: "It's funny 'cause it's true.")


----------



## Nematode (Aug 5, 2010)

Orius said:


> Hmm.  Isn't that what the core books were for?  Okay, that is an oversimplification, but much of what is Greyhwk is core to begin with.




I assume you mean the 3x era core books? No, they were for Dungeons and Dragons. 

My participation in this thread has been to try to shed light on an answer to the OP's question, is Greyhawk relevant, and my point of view is, to its owner, it has only been in very particular and limited ways. And, I contend that the events of the last 10 years have left many Greyhawk fans justifiably confused.

And I've tried to illustrate all that with examples. I'm not happy with Greyhawk's lapsed status, in fact it makes me sad, but for better or worse, I'm a realist, so that's where I come from.

For any setting fans who want to see new GH material, I suggest they go upthread and find Theocrat's post(s) and re-read them. The Theocrat is wise.

Here's a final example of my point of view on the relevance thing. 

I have no doubt that someone will correct me if I'm wrong, and even if I'm right, but I seem to recall that, apart from the RPGA LG material, the only full-frontal Greyhawk product that has been marketed by WotC (by which I mean the word "Greyhawk" appears somewhere on the cover, and within the book in a meaningful context, and things are called by their Greyhawk names) since about the year 2000 or 2001 was Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk in 2007.

nematode


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 5, 2010)

Hobo said:


> That's a pretty rich thing to claim, given your position that a setting that gets less attention year over year, has nothing published for it on a regular and "big" basis, and has continually dwindling popularity is relevent, and you've failed to offer any evidence, despite being specifically asked to do so, to demonstrate this relevence.  Heck, I did more to establish its relevence than you did by referring to its legacy in terms of monsters, characters, locations and spells that have become iconic in D&D since Greyhawk's heyday.
> 
> OK, that's a nice point, but you still don't do anything to establish any relevence of Greyhawk.  All you've done is said that it _could_ be relevent.  Especially if D&D campaign settings had any useful points of analogy with medical science.
> 
> Which they don't.




I was pretty clear, in the passages you quoted, that my point was not about establishing the relevance of Greyhawk (indeed, as I stated, it's an open question to me). My issue was with your criterion of relevance.

But you seem to insist on misinterpreting what I say. Fine. I'll save you some trouble by pointing out that this post does not even try to establish the relevance of Greyhawk. But still, feel free to point it out again. I won't bother replying again, though.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 5, 2010)

I think an answer to the question of Greyhawk's relevance might be found in Gary Gygax's forward to the original D&D rules published in 1974:



> Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burrough's Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find DUNGEONS and DRAGONS to their taste.




D&D has grown and changed much since those days, but that was when Greyhawk took shape. So remove "DUNGEONS and DRAGONS" from the above quote and replace it with "Greyhawk". Greyhawk is a fabulous setting if you want to run adventures similar to the Sword & Sorcery tales Gygax mentioned. But if you don't care for them, and instead prefer reading about Raistlin, or Drizzt, or would rather be watching anime or playing WoW than reading a novel, then Greyhawk may not be for you. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying D&D has become like anime or WoW, just pointing out that different people get their inspiration from different sources.)

Just a thought, for your consideration.


----------



## Hunter In Darkness (Aug 5, 2010)

I disagree with that. I love  sword and sorcery and REH stands as one of my hands down favorite authors but I just do not find Greyhawk relevant to what I want to run or play in.


So no just because you have zero interest in Greyhawk does not mean you dislike the works of such folks as REH Camp & Pratt,Fritz Leiber or E.R.Burrough. 

Maybe you do not feel GH captures the feel of sword and sorcery. But is uninspiring to you. Maybe it just does not feel like something Burrough or REH would write to you.

So no Greyhawk is not the be all end all of sword and sorcery roleplaying.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Aug 5, 2010)

The funny thing is, Philosopher, that quote is going in the opposite direction. It's anti-realism. Gary is chiding wargamers who prefer their games to be historically accurate, without wizards and dragons and elves, saying they lack imagination.

Indeed many gamers might feel that Greyhawk is too unreal for their tastes, with all of the crazy stuff - the D&D wandering monster tables with added monsters for example. Sure it's more real if you compare it to Forgotten Realms, World of Warcraft or some anime, but that's not saying much. Like I mentioned upthread, when I played in a Greyhawk game, the main modification the GM made was to cut out a lot of the D&D zoo.

Indeed, partly because of that zoo, Greyhawk doesn't really resemble Hyboria, Lankhmar or even, I think, Barsoom. It's way more of a kitchen sink setting than any of those, mostly because it's default D&D, which is:

a) A crazy zoo of monsters and magic.
b) Its own genre.

The only fictional fantasy world I'm familiar with that gets close to the monster and magic heaviness of Greyhawk is Vance's Dying Earth. And the worlds of Marvel and DC, if you count them as fantasy.

D&D's not medieval. It's the Wild West with swords and plate mail. It pulls in stuff from all over - Caine from Kung Fu, Celtic bards and druids, Vancian wizards, knight hospitallers with Biblical powers, Conan, Cugel the Clever, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, demi-humans from Tolkien. These guys, all together in the same hodgepodge of a world, enter a very big hole in the ground to fight a zoo of monsters from mythology, folklore, sci-fi, Hammer horror movies, HP Lovecraft, kids' toys and Gary's fevered imagination.

And this is all true of Greyhawk. It's a big old mess.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 5, 2010)

Hunter In Darkness said:


> I disagree with that. I love  sword and sorcery and REH stands as one of my hands down favorite authors but I just do not find Greyhawk relevant to what I want to run or play in.
> 
> 
> So no just because you have zero interest in Greyhawk does not mean you dislike the works of such folks as REH Camp & Pratt,Fritz Leiber or E.R.Burrough.
> ...




You've gotten the conditional statement wrong. The claim is not that if you like S&S, then you'll like GH. That would imply that if you don't like GH, then you don't like S&S. That's the thing that you're saying is wrong, and I agree with you. But it's not the claim being made.

The claim is that if you do not like S&S, then you won't like GH. Perhaps you also take issue with that claim, but it's not the same thing. It in no way implies that GH is all there is to S&S. But it does imply that GH one of many things found in the S&S genre.



Doug McCrae said:


> The funny thing is, Philosopher, that quote is going in the opposite direction. It's anti-realism. Gary is chiding wargamers who prefer their games to be historically accurate, without wizards and dragons and elves, saying they lack imagination.
> 
> Indeed many gamers might feel that Greyhawk is too unreal for their tastes, with all of the crazy stuff - the D&D wandering monster tables with added monsters for example. Sure it's more real if you compare it to Forgotten Realms, World of Warcraft or some anime, but that's not saying much. Like I mentioned upthread, when I played in a Greyhawk game, the main modification the GM made was to cut out a lot of the D&D zoo.




The claim is that GH is in the S&S genre, not that it is "realistic", so I'm not sure what you mean when you say the quote is "going in the opposite direction". Do you mean that Gygax's point is that D&D is about fantasy rather than being specifically about S&S? If so, that's a fair point. But I think the examples he uses are telling.



Doug McCrae said:


> Indeed, partly because of that zoo, Greyhawk doesn't really resemble Hyboria, Lankhmar or even, I think, Barsoom. It's way more of a kitchen sink setting than any of those, mostly because it's default D&D, which is:
> 
> a) A crazy zoo of monsters and magic.
> b) Its own genre.
> ...




I guess I had something specific in mind about what S&S is. I'm not sure if I want to get into that issue, as it's a whole other can of worms.    All I'll say is that S&S is rather multifarious, and I do think GH is included, whereas FR and DL are not. When you said, "It's the Wild West with swords and plate mail. It pulls in stuff from all over - Caine from Kung Fu, Celtic bards and druids, Vancian wizards, knight hospitallers with Biblical powers, Conan, Cugel the Clever, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, demi-humans from Tolkien," I have to admit that (perhaps with the exception of Tolkien) this sounds like it would fit perfectly into the S&S genre - high action with no single metaplot. Howard's Conan tales, Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser tales, Moorcock's Elric tales - they've got a bit of that kitchen sink thing going on (although, granted that it's not quite as much as GH).

I would argue that GH _was_ default D&D, but is not anymore, and hasn't been for quite some time (despite WotC's claim about 3e). As I said in my last post, I think D&D has evolved much since those early days. So has GH, but not as much. Calling GH "a big old mess" is fairly apt, but either I don't think it's as much of a mess as you do, or I have more tolerance (fondness?) for messes than you.


----------



## Doug McCrae (Aug 5, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> All I'll say is that S&S is rather multifarious, and I do think GH is included, whereas FR and DL are not.



Yes, you're right, GH is closer to S&S than FR and DL. The latter are much more influenced by Tolkien and Tolkien knockoffs like Shannara.

My point is that GH simply has far too much stuff in it to resemble the stories of REH, et al. The problem is it's not one S&S author, it's *all* of them. Plus a whole bunch of other stuff.



> Calling GH "a big old mess" is fairly apt, but either I don't think it's as much of a mess as you do, or I have more tolerance (fondness?) for messes than you.



I'm a huge fan of mess. It's just that I don't think the S&S authors, taken individually, are a very close fit for D&D/GH, because of the sheer quantity of stuff in GH. If you mush them up together, then sure, but would any of those authors have written something that was all mushed up together, to the extent that D&D is? They wouldn't because that amount and variety of monsters and magic are unnecessary in a story, liable to bewilder the typical reader. The author has to spend a lot of time explaining all the weirdness and the quantity of it breaks verisimilitude. I guess one exception would be the Desrick on Yandro, which is a great story, though it's a 'weird tale' rather than S&S.

In the Conan stories for example, Conan will typically enter a ruin or other dangerous location and fight one weird monster such as an ape-man or a Cthulhoid horror, not six different varieties of evil humanoid and a dozen other weird monsters. My point is that GH/D&D is not a good match to the typical S&S tale. It's its own genre.

As you say, GH is closer to S&S than FR and DL. But, imo, GH isn't very close to S&S.


----------



## Mallus (Aug 5, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> My point is that GH simply has far too much stuff in it to resemble the stories of REH, et al. The problem is it's not one S&S author, it's *all* of them. Plus a whole bunch of other stuff.



Bingo! The only fiction D&D closely resembles is the stuff written _after_ D&D became popular and was explicitly influenced by it. D&S is like the serpent Ouroboros, swallowing it's own tail and pooping into it's mouth. Or like the Human Centipede formed into a ring.

(my brain is doing that thing again where it's unbidden words and images creep me out...). 



> As you say, GH is closer to S&S than FR and DL. But, imo, GH isn't very close to S&S.



Yeah, Greyhawk is more like the rich profusion of different genre elements (ie, the big mess) typically found in mainstream comic books.


----------



## billd91 (Aug 5, 2010)

Nematode said:


> Here's a final example of my point of view on the relevance thing.
> 
> I have no doubt that someone will correct me if I'm wrong, and even if I'm right, but I seem to recall that, apart from the RPGA LG material, the only full-frontal Greyhawk product that has been marketed by WotC (by which I mean the word "Greyhawk" appears somewhere on the cover, and within the book in a meaningful context, and things are called by their Greyhawk names) since about the year 2000 or 2001 was Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk in 2007.
> 
> nematode




There may not have been that much coming out of WotC with the Greyhawk logo, maybe, but I don't see the GH fans as being particularly confused by the situation. While the responsibility for GH material was made a bit more diffuse because of involvement of RPGA volunteers and Paizo's license for the magazines, there was certainly a lot of adventure material and other articles available. You may dismiss that as far as topics of relevance go, but I don't. 

If I wanted to dismiss Greyhawk's relevance I'd point to tepid sales of their attempts to revitalize the brand starting in 1998. Of course, that was also at a transitional time for AD&D/D&D as a whole so I'm not certain that the timing did Greyhawk sales any favors.


----------



## Eridanis (Aug 5, 2010)

It seems like some folks are starting to take this a little personally. The conversation is not off the rails yet, but it could get there quickly if we don't show each other a bit more respect while posting. Take a breath before posting, please.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 5, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> My point is that GH simply has far too much stuff in it to resemble the stories of REH, et al. The problem is it's not one S&S author, it's *all* of them. Plus a whole bunch of other stuff.
> 
> I'm a huge fan of mess. It's just that I don't think the S&S authors, taken individually, are a very close fit for D&D/GH, because of the sheer quantity of stuff in GH. If you mush them up together, then sure, but would any of those authors have written something that was all mushed up together, to the extent that D&D is? They wouldn't because that amount and variety of monsters and magic are unnecessary in a story, liable to bewilder the typical reader. The author has to spend a lot of time explaining all the weirdness and the quantity of it breaks verisimilitude. I guess one exception would be the Desrick on Yandro, which is a great story, though it's a 'weird tale' rather than S&S.
> 
> In the Conan stories for example, Conan will typically enter a ruin or other dangerous location and fight one weird monster such as an ape-man or a Cthulhoid horror, not six different varieties of evil humanoid and a dozen other weird monsters. My point is that GH/D&D is not a good match to the typical S&S tale. It's its own genre.




Ah, I think I see your point. The way I look at it, though, is that because GH incorporates elements from all these authors, any one of them could be represented in GH. It's not necessary to include all elements into a single adventure or location. The way I play, I see the variety of monsters, classes, races, etc., not as things that are all to be used together (although they can be), but as options to choose from in crafting a particular adventure or campaign. If I want a Hyborean feel, I can have that by emphasizing those elements of GH. If I want a Lankhmarian feel, I can have that by emphasizing _those_ elements of GH. And those elements are there, moreso than in FR and DL.

I guess I share with you the desire to keep things simple in a campaign I'm running/playing in. I just think that the _setting_ can be messy to accommodate a variety of campaigns, and I think GH has that going for it. YMMV and all that.



Mallus said:


> The only fiction D&D closely resembles is the stuff written _after_ D&D became popular and was explicitly influenced by it.




Well, I like to think that _my_ campaigns are more like the earlier fiction than the later fiction. But that's my style. And I find GH fits that style well. As before, YMMV and all that.


----------



## Hussar (Aug 5, 2010)

Beginning of the End - I have a rather strong suspicion that your "random" choices were anything but.  I've done this before and every time I looked at random adventures from Dungeon or WOTC modules, it's come up with about 80% 1-3 monsters.

But, since my Dungeon mags are not in my grubby hands right now, I'll have to check this later.  I could be wrong.  It could easily be I just happened to grab the wrong adventures.


----------



## Lord_Blacksteel (Aug 5, 2010)

Couple of points here:
"One of the questions I ask is why WotC would ever want to re-release Greyhawk. They might get some sales based on nostalgia, but what really sets it apart enough to draw in a new crowd?"

To this I answer "Red Box" as in new 4E Essentials Red Box. Apparently WOTC believes nostalgia carries some weight. After seeing what's coming in the essentials line I wouldn't be shocked at all if Greyhawk was the 2011 campaign world, as nostalgia seems to be the theme that's kicking off at Gen Con. Gamma World anyone?

As far as support/being dead/company screwing it up if they republish or update Greyhawk: The 4E approach is to publish 2 books about a campaign world, period. For Eberron & the Realms it was Player's Guide (Crunch)/Campaign Guide (Fluff). Dark Sun is changing it to World Book/Monster Book. Either way, there is more than enough Greyhawk material to make 2 interesting, useful books. 

Mechanically, how would it be different? Make it a non-everything goes setting - trim out the newer races like Dragonborn and the PHB3 crowd, re-skin Goliaths as Half-Ogres, implement the inherent bonus options from DMG2 as standard for GH to reduce the proliferation of magic items, add some paragon paths and there you go - old school flavoring in a 4E setting.

Or go the other way, one I put on my blog a few months ago, and say everything 4th ed is in, but this Greyhawk is "the time before" - why are the races different? Because they die out later. Why is there more magic? The world is younger and magic is everywhere now, but it will fade later. Why are the gods different? Because some of them will die as well, some of them will change names, and some of them have not ascended yet - maybe Heironeous is the Paladin PC in your campaign and his epic destiny is ascension to godhood where he becomes ideal paladin god of a later age - it's Prehistoric Greyhawk - the map looks quite similar, a lot of the touchpoints are there, but it doesn't trample existing canon from the CY500-600 era.

As far as the original question of relevancy, how can it not be? There is clearly a nostalgic movement alive inside WOTC and 4E, there's an old-school movement outside of WOTC for older editions of D&D where Greyhawk features prominently(OSRIC, Swords and Wizardry, etc.), and there's a neo-Greyhawk campaign world driving the current biggest competitor to 4E over with Paizo and the Pathfinders - how can you say anything other than yes, it's very relevant in today's D&D (and offshoots) scene.


----------



## Jor-El (Aug 5, 2010)

Be pretty cool if the Nentir Vale sourcebook that's forthcoming next year ended up placing POLand somewhere in Greyhawk.... 

Greyhawk might not a lot of relevance to the current D&D crowd, but you have to admit it has at least a _teensy bit_ due to the fact that many of the gods, spells, and artifacts in 4E are still ported from that setting.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 5, 2010)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> Couple of points here:
> "One of the questions I ask is why WotC would ever want to re-release Greyhawk. They might get some sales based on nostalgia, but what really sets it apart enough to draw in a new crowd?"
> 
> To this I answer "Red Box" as in new 4E Essentials Red Box. Apparently WOTC believes nostalgia carries some weight. After seeing what's coming in the essentials line I wouldn't be shocked at all if Greyhawk was the 2011 campaign world, as nostalgia seems to be the theme that's kicking off at Gen Con. Gamma World anyone?




[pure speculation]When you put it that way, I wonder if the red box at all indicates that the next setting is Mystara. While I'd be surprised if this were the case, Mystara would certainly work perfectly well using only the Essentials red box.[/pure speculation]


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 5, 2010)

Jor-El said:


> Be pretty cool if the Nentir Vale sourcebook that's forthcoming next year ended up placing POLand somewhere in Greyhawk....
> 
> Greyhawk might not a lot of relevance to the current D&D crowd, but you have to admit it has at least a _teensy bit_ due to the fact that many of the gods, spells, and artifacts in 4E are still ported from that setting.




I had considered the idea that PoL might be placed in Western Oerik.  

Although my prediction for next year's campaign setting is that it will be appropriately named the Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Setting.  *shrugs*


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 6, 2010)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> To this I answer "Red Box" as in new 4E Essentials Red Box. Apparently WOTC believes nostalgia carries some weight. After seeing what's coming in the essentials line I wouldn't be shocked at all if Greyhawk was the 2011 campaign world, as nostalgia seems to be the theme that's kicking off at Gen Con. Gamma World anyone?




You make a good point.  I had not considered the new Red Box in conjunction with GH in terms of nostalgia factor.  



> As far as support/being dead/company screwing it up if they republish or update Greyhawk: The 4E approach is to publish 2 books about a campaign world, period. For Eberron & the Realms it was Player's Guide (Crunch)/Campaign Guide (Fluff). Dark Sun is changing it to World Book/Monster Book. Either way, there is more than enough Greyhawk material to make 2 interesting, useful books.




I agree with this.  I couldn't see a prolonged product line, but two books?  Sure thing folks would buy it, for the nostalgia and name factor alone.  



> Or go the other way, one I put on my blog a few months ago, and say everything 4th ed is in, but this Greyhawk is "the time before" - why are the races different? Because they die out later. Why is there more magic? The world is younger and magic is everywhere now, but it will fade later. Why are the gods different? Because some of them will die as well, some of them will change names, and some of them have not ascended yet - maybe Heironeous is the Paladin PC in your campaign and his epic destiny is ascension to godhood where he becomes ideal paladin god of a later age - it's Prehistoric Greyhawk - the map looks quite similar, a lot of the touchpoints are there, but it doesn't trample existing canon from the CY500-600 era.




I imagine that they would do a reboot instead, ala Dark Sun, to the era pre-Greyhawk Wars (though they might take elements from later).  I'm guessing they would try to fit in 4e-isms wherever they could.  So, for example, you might have longtooth shifters as Wolf Nomads and razorclaw shifters as Tiger Nomads.  

It would be Greyhawk, but modernized to the current edition.  In esence, given a new coat of paint.




> As far as the original question of relevancy, how can it not be? There is clearly a nostalgic movement alive inside WOTC and 4E, there's an old-school movement outside of WOTC for older editions of D&D where Greyhawk features prominently(OSRIC, Swords and Wizardry, etc.), and there's a neo-Greyhawk campaign world driving the current biggest competitor to 4E over with Paizo and the Pathfinders - how can you say anything other than yes, it's very relevant in today's D&D (and offshoots) scene.




All excellent points.  You've given me some glimmer of hope, as have the other posters on this thread.

Now, let's say my wild prediction of a Greyhawk reboot as the D&D Campaign Setting comes true.  Points of Light not only is integrated with the setting, expanding it, but you also have a built-in theme.  I don't know if this will happen or not, but I hope it is true.  I would love to be as energized about GH as I am about other D&D settings.


----------



## Hussar (Aug 6, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> [pure speculation]When you put it that way, I wonder if the red box at all indicates that the next setting is Mystara. While I'd be surprised if this were the case, Mystara would certainly work perfectly well using only the Essentials red box.[/pure speculation]




Oh, man, I  would LOVE this to happen.  Bring back the way far out gonzo type setting - flying ships, cat people, six gun crossbows.  Fantastic.

The only problem is, I think a lot of it would tread on Eberron's toes.  The things that make Mystara unique have been incorporated into other settings - the generic stuff like "The Shires" and whatnot aren't really going to fly and the technomagical stuff is already in Eberron.

Me?  I'd love to see Mystara come back.  But, like Greyhawk, I'm not sure if there's enough "hook" there to draw people in.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 6, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> Although my prediction for next year's campaign setting is that it will be appropriately named the Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Setting.  *shrugs*




Why do you think that's what they'll be calling it? There's the Nentir Vale Gazetteer coming out next year, but I didn't think that this is the next campaign setting.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Aug 6, 2010)

Hunter In Darkness said:


> I have been playing near 20 years so have picked up things here and there, but nothing makes me want to explore the setting or it's history. I learned a bit converting the dragon AP's to a setting I liked.  Some things stand out, Iggwilv,, the rain of colorless fire. But over all I found it Bland and boring. There is just nothing there that makes me want to go " I want to know more"
> 
> So yes for me the setting not relevant to in the lest.




Oh, dude -- this makes me think you are missing some of the best Greyhawk bits, many of which are short paragraphs or throwaway lines in the early AD&D modules and tournament adventures that hint at a much larger, deeper, and more magically mysterious world than is immediately apparent to the PCs.

It's the sort of hints offered in the introduction of _Ghost Tower of Inverness_, or in the timeline of Greyhawk history, that draw me in to the setting, thus:



			
				Ghost Tower of Inverness said:
			
		

> Know you that in the elder days before the Invoked Devestation and the Rain of Colorless Fire, when the ancient peaks of the Abbor-Alz still thrust skyward sharp and majestic and the Flan tribesmen were but newcomers to the land, there existed between the Bright Desert and the mouth of the river Selintan a great fortress called Inverness . . .  Know you also that here was said to dwell the great wizard Galap-Dreidel at the height of his power and glory, and that he did lift the Castle Inverness from the very foundation of rock upon which it rested ...


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 6, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> Why do you think that's what they'll be calling it? There's the Nentir Vale Gazetteer coming out next year, but I didn't think that this is the next campaign setting.




Last year, when we were wondering what this year's setting would be, they re-released Dark Sun's Prism Pentad series.

Now, they're releasing the D&D brand of novels.  If they hold to the same pattern, then they would go with a D&D brand setting.  Likewise, using the D&D name for a setting would draw in sales and solidify the implied setting into an actual one.

Might be a topic for another thread.  Although this time tomorrow, we should know for sure.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 6, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> Last year, when we were wondering what this year's setting would be, they re-released Dark Sun's Prism Pentad series.
> 
> Now, they're releasing the D&D brand of novels.  If they hold to the same pattern, then they would go with a D&D brand setting.  Likewise, using the D&D name for a setting would draw in sales and solidify the implied setting into an actual one.
> 
> Might be a topic for another thread.  Although this time tomorrow, we should know for sure.




Now that you mention it, I've noticed (and I'm sure you have too) that the DL and FR novels now have the D&D logo featured prominently on the cover, while the campaign setting logos are only on the spine. They seem to be wanting to give the D&D brand itself the central focus, so calling the new setting the "Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Setting" is a possibility.


----------



## TikkchikFenTikktikk (Aug 6, 2010)

Is Greyhawk still relevant to the modern gamer?

No, because the modern gamer barely has the imagination to play a pen-and-paper role-playing game. They certainly do not have what it takes to play in Greyhawk.

A few posts have called Greyhawk gonzo. That is incorrect, but only because gonzo doesn't mean what you think it means. Your heart is in the right place.

Someone finally quoted Our Father's introduction to the original rules. But then everyone, including the quoter, took the wrong lessons.

Let me get Socratic and ask a question: Has anyone in this thread _actually read_ the works Our Father mentioned?

Let me help you:
[sblock]
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in Lankhmar:
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-Book-1-Swords-Deviltry/dp/1595820795/]Amazon.com: Lankhmar Book 1: Swords And Deviltry (9781595820792): Fritz Leiber: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-Book-Swords-Against-Adventures/dp/1595820760/]Amazon.com: Lankhmar Book 2: Swords Against Death (The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser) (Bk. 2) (9781595820761): Fritz Leiber: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-Book-Swords-Mist-Bk/dp/1595820817/]Amazon.com: Lankhmar Book 3: Swords in the Mist (Bk. 3) (9781595820815): Fritz Leiber: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-4-Swords-Against-Wizardry/dp/1595820787/]Amazon.com: Lankhmar Volume 4: Swords Against Wizardry (9781595820785): Fritz Leiber: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-Book-5-Swords/dp/1595820825/]Amazon.com: Lankhmar Book 5: The Swords of Lankhmar (9781595820822): Fritz Leiber: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-Book-Swords-Ice-Magic/dp/1595820809/]Amazon.com: Lankhmar Book 6: Swords and Ice Magic (Bk. 6) (9781595820808): Fritz Leiber: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-Book-Knight-Swords-Fafhrd/dp/1595820752/]Amazon.com: Lankhmar Book 7: The Knight and Knave of Swords (The Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Saga of Fritz Leiber) (9781595820754): Fritz Leiber: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-Book-Swords-Against-Shadowland/dp/1595820779/]Amazon.com: Lankhmar Book 8: Swords Against the Shadowland…[/ame]

Robert E. Howard's Conan saga:
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Conan-Cimmerian-Original-Adventures/dp/0345461517/]Amazon.com: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian: The Original Adventures of the Greatest Sword and Sorcery Hero of All Time! (9780345461513): Robert E. Howard: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Bloody-Crown-Conan-Cimmeria-Book/dp/0345461525/]Amazon.com: The Bloody Crown of Conan (Conan of Cimmeria, Book 2) (9780345461520): Robert E. Howard: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Conquering-Sword-Conan-Cimmeria-Book/dp/0345461533/]Amazon.com: The Conquering Sword of Conan (Conan of Cimmeria, Book 3) (9780345461537): Robert E. Howard: Books[/ame]

Edgar Rice Burroughs's Martian adventures of John Carter:
All are available in the public domain someplace on Earth except for the final novel _John Carter of Mars_:
Barsoom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
However, I recommend tracking down the Ballantine paperbacks for Michael Whelan's delicious cover art:
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Mars-Edgar-Rice-Burroughs/dp/0345331389/]Amazon.com: A Princess of Mars (9780345331380): Edgar Rice Burroughs: Books[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Mars-Martian-Tales/dp/0345324390/]Amazon.com: The Gods of Mars - Martian Tales #2 (9780345324399):…[/ame]
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Warlord-Mars-Edgar-Rice-Burroughs/dp/0345324536/]Amazon.com: Warlord of Mars (9780345324535): Edgar Rice Burroughs: Books[/ame]
etc.

The L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt fantasies:
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Magic-L-Sprague-Camp/dp/1886778655/]Amazon.com: The Mathematics of Magic (L. Sprague De Camp) (9781886778658): L. Sprague de Camp; Fletcher Pratt, Mark L. Olson, Marc Fishman: Books[/ame]

I'll add one more that wasn't mentioned but almost certainly influenced Our Father:
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Once-Future-Terence-Hanbury-White/dp/0441627404/]Amazon.com: The Once and Future King (9780441627400): Terence…[/ame]
[/sblock]

What lessons can we learn from reading all of this?

In my humble opinion, there are two essential lessons to be learned from these stories and applied to the question of whether Greyhawk is relevant to the modern gamer:

1. Heroes in these stories may attempt anything.
    * John Carter literally wills himself from a civil war battlefield to Mars and back.
    * Fafhrd has a star-crossed affair with a ghoul, amongst other absurdity.
    * Conan.
2. The setting and scene are subject to the whims of the narrator.
    * Despite the heroes knowing magic, in the de Camp/Pratt stories the heroes still can fail.
    * This is fiction and fantasy; the author can write whatever the  he wants to write.
    * Having flying cars, energy weapons, swords, sexy princesses and heroes, thri-kreen (yep totally ripped off from Burroughs between WWI and WWII), creatures that have almost evolved into brains that just think eternally, and generally a zoo of bizarre lifeforms and a Nevada gun store of technology makes things more awesome, not less. 

If anything, the core mechanic of 4th Edition is the **perfect** abstraction to make such a setting relevant again. Players can try to do anything; just roll a d20. The DM may do whatever he wishes to the setting, verisimilitude be damned; just add and subtract modifiers and set DCs as you wish.

What issue of The Sandman is it? Morpheus is in hell attempting to regain his helm, but must challenge the demon who possesses it to a game of Reality.

"I am a dire wolf, prey-stalking and lethal-prowler"
"I am a hunter, horse-mounted and wolf-stabbing"
"I am a horsefly, horse-stinging and hunter-throwing"
"I am a spider, fly-consuming and eight-legged"
etc.

Later in the series it is called "the oldest game".

Others in this thread have done a thorough job explaining why non-Greyhawk settings cannot serve such a game. But, as exemplified by the apotheosis of the setting, Castle Greyhawk, anything can happen on Oerth. Because more than in any other module or source book, Castle Greyhawk demonstrates that heroes can try anything and the setting is clearly subject to the whims of the narrator. It is a tautology, but because of this Greyhawk is the most "D&D-ish" it is the best of any setting. 

Modern gamers rarely have the imagination to actually attempt **anything**. Modern gamers rarely have the imagination to have whims with which they can subjugate the setting and scene.

So, QED. Greyhawk has no relevance to modern gamers.


----------



## Hungry Like The Wolf (Aug 6, 2010)

I haven't been playing as long as some people and I don't really have a great knowledge of DnD like others in this thread but I guess I fit the bill for a modern gamer. I've always played in Greyhawk every since my first game which was in Living Greyhawk. My current 4E campaign is in Greyhawk.

So either my friends and I are the exception to the rule or Greyhawk is still very relevant.


----------



## Argyle King (Aug 6, 2010)

Second thoughts...


In contrast to what I said earlier, if I worked for WoTC, I would want to release Greyhawk as a setting.  After reading what others have posted, I 100% agree that Greyhawk is more than nostalgia, but, even if it is, so is the Red Box.  This has some value that can be used in a very positive way.  

Red Box and Greyhawk are part of what D&D was at the beginning; 4E (from my understanding) is intended to reach out to a new audience.  I also have heard that many older gamers have used 4E to teach their kids to play because of the more simple rules.  As such, I feel that it would be a great idea for WoTC to release a new Greyhawk and use it to bridge the gap between generations.  For a lack of better words, help those older gamers pass the torch onto their kids and a new generation of gamers by using a product to connect them.


----------



## Jhaelen (Aug 6, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> Is Greyhawk still relevant to the modern gamer?
> 
> No, because the modern gamer barely has the imagination to play a pen-and-paper role-playing game. They certainly do not have what it takes to play in Greyhawk.



Sometimes I wish for a way to give negative xp.


----------



## Klaus (Aug 6, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> Is Greyhawk still relevant to the modern gamer?
> 
> No, because the modern gamer barely has the imagination to play a pen-and-paper role-playing game. They certainly do not have what it takes to play in Greyhawk.




Let me share with you something I learned as an artist:

The larger your brush is, the less accurate your painting will be.


----------



## Mallus (Aug 6, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> A few posts have called Greyhawk gonzo.



Because it is. Unless you think the word "gonzo" is reserved for stories about men who drive around with a trunk full of amphetamines, booze, and ether. Or for Muppet names. 



> "I am a dire wolf, prey-stalking and lethal-prowler"



I am Mallus's complete lack of agreement. Possibly comprehension. 



> Modern gamers rarely have the imagination to actually attempt **anything**



Maybe you should find a new group of modern gamers to game with? In the mean time, poke around here some more. There's a hell of a lot of imagination on display at ENWorld. You could start w/the Story Hours.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 6, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> Is Greyhawk still relevant to the modern gamer?
> 
> No, because the modern gamer barely has the imagination to play a pen-and-paper role-playing game. They certainly do not have what it takes to play in Greyhawk.





Folks, 

How about we continue this discussion without the broad and blanketing insults?  

Thanks.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 6, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Oh, man, I  would LOVE this to happen.  Bring back the way far out gonzo type setting - flying ships, cat people, six gun crossbows.  Fantastic.
> 
> The only problem is, I think a lot of it would tread on Eberron's toes.  The things that make Mystara unique have been incorporated into other settings - the generic stuff like "The Shires" and whatnot aren't really going to fly and the technomagical stuff is already in Eberron.
> 
> Me?  I'd love to see Mystara come back.  But, like Greyhawk, I'm not sure if there's enough "hook" there to draw people in.



Looks like it's high time someone started the spinoff thread, "Is Mystara Relevant?"


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 6, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> Someone finally quoted Our Father's introduction to the original rules. But then everyone, including the quoter, took the wrong lessons.




No, the "lesson" of the quote is not that we should make unsubstantiated blanket insults.

There's no "lesson"; I wasn't quoting Gygax as if his word is sacred ("Our Father"? I respect the man, but come on), I was quoting him because it suggests what he had in mind for his campaign. Insisting that this style is the only one worth playing is rather... unimaginative.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 6, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> What?
> 
> 40 years ago = 1970. The year that Marvel started publishing the Conan comic book. The Lancer series of Conan reprints had just been published in 1968 and would continue in print for a decade. And Jordon wouldn't publish his first Conan novel until 1982.



Exactly.  And I was rounding.  Only a few years before that was when Howard was "rediscovered."  Before that, he was irrelevant.


			
				Beginning of the End said:
			
		

> I was talking about 1995-2000 for a reason. That's the time period when Howard's stories had been out of print for 15-20 years (depending on how you count) while Robert Jordon's novels were still in print.
> 
> So, basically, you couldn't be more wrong.



Well, you can hardly claim Howard was irrelevant when a popular line of books based on his character was going on, could you?

Well... I guess you could.  But it would seriously undercut whatever point you're trying to make.


			
				Beginning of the End said:
			
		

> Well, you should probably figure out who hacked your account.



So now, not only did you not read my original post (in spite of quoting it) you also didn't read the subsequent post either. 

Here's a hint for you: just because you can find the keyword you're looking for in my post doesn't mean that my post says what you claim it does.  I never said being out of print was the definition of being irrelevent.  I said it was one thing (among a few others listed) that would certainly characterize Greyhawk as being iconically irrelevant to today's gamer.

But hey, keep on going there with... whatever it is you're trying to point out.


----------



## Desdichado (Aug 6, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> I was pretty clear, in the passages you quoted, that my point was not about establishing the relevance of Greyhawk (indeed, as I stated, it's an open question to me). My issue was with your criterion of relevance.
> 
> But you seem to insist on misinterpreting what I say. Fine. I'll save you some trouble by pointing out that this post does not even try to establish the relevance of Greyhawk. But still, feel free to point it out again. I won't bother replying again, though.



Great.  Well, then, if you're not going to actually reply to me, but are going to talk about something else... how about you... not... reply to me, then?

Might save everyone a fair bit of confusion.


----------



## TikkchikFenTikktikk (Aug 6, 2010)

I thought my holding up the module Castle Greyhawk as the apotheosis of the setting would have tipped my hand. Ah, well. Carry on. Apologies to anyone offended.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 6, 2010)

Hobo said:


> Looks like it's high time someone started the spinoff thread, "Is Mystara Relevant?"




I would be up for such a discussion, though I think I would phrase it differently due to setting content.  

How would you present Mystara for 4e?  

Then talk about what would set it apart from the Realms and Greyhawk.  

I'm a fan of the old TSR settings, and what makes these discussions interesting to me is looking at the settings, seeing how they can stand out one from another, and seeing how they might work with 4e and a modern audience.  

So yeah, feel free to start a new thread.


----------



## Mistwell (Aug 6, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> 1. Heroes in these stories may attempt anything.
> * John Carter literally wills himself from a civil war battlefield to Mars and back...
> 2. The setting and scene are subject to the whims of the narrator...
> 
> ...




It sounds to me like you are describing the Amber setting, and the Amber Diceless game, rather than the Greyhawk setting, and the D&D game.  There are far more boundaries in D&D and Greyhawk than in something like Amber and the Diceless rules.


----------



## evileeyore (Aug 6, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> Our Father's ... Our Father ... Our Father




Can we keep the real world religious discusions out of the gaming area please?


----------



## ColonelHardisson (Aug 6, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> I thought my holding up the module Castle Greyhawk as the apotheosis of the setting would have tipped my hand. Ah, well. Carry on. Apologies to anyone offended.




I think it might have helped to mention WG7. Then it would have clicked a bit better. I go back far enough that just saying Castle Greyhawk doesn't automatically bring to mind the module you referenced (I have it, but long ago dismissed it as irrelevant), and more recent gamers would only recall Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk or Castle Zagyg.


----------



## Orius (Aug 7, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> I thought my holding up the module Castle Greyhawk as the apotheosis of the setting would have tipped my hand. Ah, well. Carry on. Apologies to anyone offended.




Bah.  Gnomes and their pranks....


----------



## Doug McCrae (Aug 7, 2010)

TikkchikFenTikktikk said:


> I thought my holding up the module Castle Greyhawk as the apotheosis of the setting would have tipped my hand. Ah, well. Carry on. Apologies to anyone offended.



I thought you made several good points. Specifically,

1) Having a Nevada gun store's worth of tech makes things more awesome, not less. Pretty reminiscent of D&D's approach to magic items throughout its history.
2) Experienced gamers are less likely to try anything because they know what works and what doesn't. They lack the, often very attractive, enthusiasm of the newbie.


----------



## Coldwyn (Aug 7, 2010)

I think Greyhawk lost relevance not because what it had but because what it was lacking compared to later setting.
Kitchen sink effect aside, I think it´s safe to assume that most later settings have focus, either on theme (World of Darkness, Eberron), meta-plot (3.x Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance) or support function (Golarion).
GH is a good DIY setting: Pick a place, pick up some names and backgrounds, work with it. I loved the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer for that.
But right now, PoL provides the same DIY-function but with broader strokes.


----------



## JoeGKushner (Aug 7, 2010)

Stormonu said:


> Saying Greyhawk is "not relevant" is about like trying to say that the Lord of the Rings Middle Earth isn't relevant in today's world of Harry Potter, Eragon and the like.
> 
> It simply isn't true.




that Greyhawk movie totally rocked and really brought the setting to the forefront of gaming again.

Oh wait...


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 7, 2010)

I wanted to go on record as to say I was completely wrong about the 2011 setting.  

That's okay.  Nentir Vale is getting some love, and we're seeing Ravenloft again!  I wasn't certain RL would get any love with the Domains of Dread.  So glad to be wrong there.

I'd still like to see Greyhawk brought back someday, though.


----------



## Jor-El (Aug 8, 2010)

Kind of "frightens" me that the Ravenloft game will allow you to play a Vampire, Werewolf, and Ghost....

Twilight. 

That's all I'm sayin'.


----------



## MerricB (Aug 8, 2010)

Jor-El said:


> Kind of "frightens" me that the Ravenloft game will allow you to play a Vampire, Werewolf, and Ghost....
> 
> Twilight.
> 
> That's all I'm sayin'.




Sounds a lot more like _Being Human_ to me.

Cheers!


----------



## White Tornado (Aug 8, 2010)

Jor-El said:


> Kind of "frightens" me that the Ravenloft game will allow you to play a Vampire, Werewolf, and Ghost....
> 
> Twilight.
> 
> That's all I'm sayin'.



Well, you don't _have_ to play a vampire, and DM's don't _have_ to allow it. I think it's a smart move in a commercial sense - lots of people will want to play a vampire. Personally I think a horror setting wouldn't be complete without these _options_.

It doesn't just relate to Twilight, by the way. A friend of mine made a AD&D "half-vampire" (homebrewed race) based on Spike, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, six years ago.


----------



## Umbran (Aug 9, 2010)

MerricB said:


> Sounds a lot more like _Being Human_ to me.




Or just a WoD game.


----------



## Voadam (Aug 9, 2010)

Coldwyn said:


> I think Greyhawk lost relevance not because what it had but because what it was lacking compared to later setting.
> Kitchen sink effect aside, I think it´s safe to assume that most later settings have focus, either on theme (World of Darkness, Eberron), meta-plot (3.x Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance) or support function (Golarion).
> GH is a good DIY setting: Pick a place, pick up some names and backgrounds, work with it. I loved the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer for that.
> But right now, PoL provides the same DIY-function but with broader strokes.




What would you say is the meta-plot focus of FR? Is it significantly different from say the GH metaplot of the greyhawk wars introduced in 2e?

With the 3e FRCS I felt it was similar to the LGG in providing a short entry on a ton of countries and gods so you could pick a place and go run with it.


----------



## Starfox (Aug 10, 2010)

Saying role-playing games copy Twilight is like saying AD&D copied the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.


----------



## Jor-El (Aug 10, 2010)

Starfox said:


> Saying role-playing games copy Twilight is like saying AD&D copied the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon.




Sigh. It was called HUMOR people! Laugh a little!


----------



## Tharen the Damned (Aug 10, 2010)

Henry said:


> Dropped the stones, and made Ioun a "default" goddess of magic. Can't say as I'm happy with the decision, myself.
> 
> EDIT: Correction: I checked the compendium, and they have been re-introducing Ioun Stones a bit at the time.




Funny when you know that EGG ported the Item directly from Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" books. Here Ion was a legendary magician who created these Items.


----------



## Coldwyn (Aug 10, 2010)

Voadam said:


> What would you say is the meta-plot focus of FR? Is it significantly different from say the GH metaplot of the greyhawk wars introduced in 2e?
> 
> With the 3e FRCS I felt it was similar to the LGG in providing a short entry on a ton of countries and gods so you could pick a place and go run with it.




It depends on the books you bought. If you´ve bought the FRCS and nothing else, I´d say you have more or less the same.
But most of the later sourcebooks (and Dragon mag articles) also included more of the book plots into the canon, adding their more or less substantional meta-plot to the whole. Return of the shades and the Lloth-thingie as an prime example.

With GH, there hasn´t been much canonization going on, as far as I can see.


----------



## Mortellan (Aug 10, 2010)

Coldwyn said:


> With GH, there hasn´t been much canonization going on, as far as I can see.




It's not been easy for GH because its canon material was scattered like shot all over the D&D map. In 3x GH was publicly declared the default world, plus Dragon and Dungeon Mags had a little blurb in the corner of every issue that said 100% Official Content. So, technically everything WotC and Paizo put out that related to GH was all canon at that point yeah? The rub with GH fans I'd guess is besides the LGG, none of them had a GH banner across the top like we're used to since the old TSR days, also GH fans have been burnt by b.s. canon before. Then throw in the RPGA's literal thousands of published adventures and even the most stalwart GH advocate working for WotC would have a hard time tracking what's canon anymore. 

So the fact recent GH hasn't been burdened with this set-in-stone canonization is probably an advantage over FR at this point.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 10, 2010)

Coldwyn said:


> It depends on the books you bought. If you´ve bought the FRCS and nothing else, I´d say you have more or less the same.
> But most of the later sourcebooks (and Dragon mag articles) also included more of the book plots into the canon, adding their more or less substantional meta-plot to the whole. Return of the shades and the Lloth-thingie as an prime example.
> 
> With GH, there hasn´t been much canonization going on, as far as I can see.




What about Age of Worms?


----------



## Hussar (Aug 11, 2010)

Philosopher said:


> What about Age of Worms?




Really depends on whether you think Paizohawk is Greyhawk canon or not.  It's not... exactly ... canon, but, it certainly could be.  The nice part is, most of it was set very far away from the main parts of Greyhawk that you could likely ignore most of it anyway.

Although it might be hard to ignore the death of Demogorgon.  

But, as was said, there's nothing really approaching anything like a setting bible for Greyhawk, so, it's more of a readers buffet than anything else - pick and choose your own canon and you probably don't have to worry too much about other canon since, unless your players are REALLY energetic, they likely can't find any contradictory canon anyway.


----------



## Mortellan (Aug 11, 2010)

Hate to correct ya Hussar as I agree with the spirit of the post. I just don't want people to be confused. Age of Worms was the paizohawk AP that was set FIRMLY in the central Flanaess, using Greyhawk City and its environs for half the quest. The follow up, Savage Tide was set far far away and the preceeding AP, Shackled City was retrofitted into the Flanaess a while after it was concluded.


----------



## Coldwyn (Aug 11, 2010)

Mortellan said:


> It's not been easy for GH because its canon material was scattered like shot all over the D&D map. In 3x GH was publicly declared the default world, plus Dragon and Dungeon Mags had a little blurb in the corner of every issue that said 100% Official Content. So, technically everything WotC and Paizo put out that related to GH was all canon at that point yeah? The rub with GH fans I'd guess is besides the LGG, none of them had a GH banner across the top like we're used to since the old TSR days, also GH fans have been burnt by b.s. canon before. Then throw in the RPGA's literal thousands of published adventures and even the most stalwart GH advocate working for WotC would have a hard time tracking what's canon anymore.
> 
> So the fact recent GH hasn't been burdened with this set-in-stone canonization is probably an advantage over FR at this point.




Consider this for once: When all the unbranded stuff from the 3E era is part of the GH-canon, that would be more than horrible. All that stuff, beginning from Sword & Fist to the later Complete and Races series all suggest GH as default setting.



Philosopher said:


> What about Age of Worms?




I´m of two minds in regards to AoW and ST. At their core, both are GH at its finest but if I remember correctly, both had direct conversion guides for FR and Eberron availlable from day one, showing how easily transportable they are. This begets the question whether they should be counted as generic because they could have easily been rpinted with another branding and nothing much would change.


----------



## Hussar (Aug 11, 2010)

Mortellan said:


> Hate to correct ya Hussar as I agree with the spirit of the post. I just don't want people to be confused. Age of Worms was the paizohawk AP that was set FIRMLY in the central Flanaess, using Greyhawk City and its environs for half the quest. The follow up, Savage Tide was set far far away and the preceeding AP, Shackled City was retrofitted into the Flanaess a while after it was concluded.




I thought most of the names were filed off to protect the innocent?  Something like that.  Free City and all that.

But, yeah, it was pretty steeped in Greyhawk.  So was Savage Tide as well.  Honestly, it was running STAP that got me interested in the Oerth Journals.  Didn't read all of them, but, there was some fascinating stuff there.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 11, 2010)

I was talking with a friend about this topic today, and few thoughts came to mind.

First, I think Greyhawk could really shine again if someone would give it the right love and production values.  Paizo showed us that there were still possibilities.

However, my friend brought up an interesting thought.


> But I can't help but wonder if there isn't a reason why it's faded into the background. Can it be made to shine while still remaining true to what drew fans in all those years ago.




Could it be that any attempt to modernize Greyhawk or make it a 4e setting would land up killing the heart of the setting?  Or should the setting evolve past the original vision to meet the expectations of the modern 4e audience?


----------



## Semah G Noj (Aug 11, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Really depends on whether you think Paizohawk is Greyhawk canon or not.  It's not... exactly ... canon, but, it certainly could be.  The nice part is, most of it was set very far away from the main parts of Greyhawk that you could likely ignore most of it anyway.
> 
> Although it might be hard to ignore the death of Demogorgon.




Interestingly enough, the events in Savage Tide are treated as canon in _Demonomicon,_ having occurred 100 years or so ago.  It has Demogorgon getting killed and replaced by a PC.  He got better.


----------



## the Jester (Aug 11, 2010)

Coldwyn said:


> I´m of two minds in regards to AoW and ST. At their core, both are GH at its finest but if I remember correctly, both had direct conversion guides for FR and Eberron availlable from day one, showing how easily transportable they are. This begets the question whether they should be counted as generic because they could have easily been rpinted with another branding and nothing much would change.




Why does that matter? You could do the same with just about any of the 1e modules, most of which are totally Greyhawk. They usually have _less_ GH references than the Age of Worms adventures did.


----------



## Philosopher (Aug 11, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> Could it be that any attempt to modernize Greyhawk or make it a 4e setting would land up killing the heart of the setting?  Or should the setting evolve past the original vision to meet the expectations of the modern 4e audience?




That's a good question - if it's changed enough, is it still Greyhawk? If it isn't, then is there a point to "updating" it?


----------



## Voadam (Aug 11, 2010)

Coldwyn said:


> It depends on the books you bought. If you´ve bought the FRCS and nothing else, I´d say you have more or less the same.
> But most of the later sourcebooks (and Dragon mag articles) also included more of the book plots into the canon, adding their more or less substantional meta-plot to the whole. Return of the shades and the Lloth-thingie as an prime example.
> 
> With GH, there hasn´t been much canonization going on, as far as I can see.




Eh, I've got the 1e folio and gazeteer, the 1e/2e Greyhawk Adventures, for 2e From the Ashes and then later the Player's Guide, plus I had the LGG for a while.

There was a late 1e module about Vecna rising up from being a lich to trying to be a god, in 2e he was hinted as a god and he went to ravenloft and did the whole ravenloft, greyhawk, planescape apocalypse thing to remake the world with him as a god and became more and more central as a god in 3e and 4e. This seems to mirror Bane from FR being a big 1e god killed in the 2e transition avatar trilogy modules and novels and then returning out of his demigod son before becoming a core 3e FR god again and then becoming a 4e central core god alongside Vecna in POL land.

There were some 2e modules culminating in Iuz impersonating a barbarian god and starting the Greyhawk wars, then the Greyhawk wars boxed set. Then From the Ashes uses these metaplot events to recast the world as a grim dark post war with the scarlet brotherhood out in the open, the Great Kingdom splintered, Iuz expanded to an empire, good nations exhausted from war, and the land swarming with unleashed demons. Then late 2e the player guide advances the timeline, says someone took the Crook of Rao from the 1e module Isle of the Ape and banishes most of the demons, forcing Iuz into a significant reduction as a looming threat and the campaign world is a lot more sunlit medieval fantasy without the grimy war issues.

LGG I mostly read the god stuff and not the countries and history so I didn't really get a sense of how world plot stuff stayed the same or changed again.

Having started with Greyhawk in the early 80s and following a lot of transitions it looked like a world that developed a lot of metaplot even if it was not novel plot.


----------



## deinol (Aug 11, 2010)

Short answer: Yes. It is still relevant.

I did an informal poll over at Pazio about what settings people are playing using Pathfinder.

Top 5 Pathfinder Settings:

1. Homebrew (17.8%)
2. Golarion (16.2%)
3. Forgotten Realms (13.9%)
4. Eberron (8.1%)
5. Greyhawk (6.9%)

Other settings (37.07%)

Coming from Paizo, Golarion is probably a little more represented than the global gaming community. Still, Greyhawk has a reasonable number of people still playing it. More than Ravenloft, Dark Sun, or Planescape (All excellent settings which most people would say are still relevant today.) I suspect Greyhawk will remain relevant for a long time to come.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 11, 2010)

deinol said:


> Short answer: Yes. It is still relevant.
> 
> I did an informal poll over at Pazio about what settings people are playing using Pathfinder.
> 
> ...




Got a link?  I'd be curious what people are saying.


----------



## deinol (Aug 11, 2010)

Dragonhelm said:


> Got a link?  I'd be curious what people are saying.




Settings Thread

I started the thread to see how tied to Golarion Pathfinder players are. When I compiled some numbers I noticed Greyhawk was in the top 5 so I figured people here might be curious.

Most people do say they use homebrew modifications, or bring stuff from other settings into their favorite world. Greyhawk is just as easy to do that with as Forgotten Realms or Golarion.


----------



## Mortellan (Aug 12, 2010)

Hussar said:


> I thought most of the names were filed off to protect the innocent?  Something like that.  Free City and all that.




Hah! I forgot about that. Shows how my brain filled in those blanks. Those were weird times. Paizo couldn't use Tenser or Greyhawk City, in the name of adaptability I guess, but for every name that got changed they slipped 9 others by.


----------



## haakon1 (Aug 12, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Really depends on whether you think Paizohawk is Greyhawk canon or not.  It's not... exactly ... canon, but, it certainly could be.




More or less is in my campaigns.  A PC doing library research found a secret history that mentioned Cauldron . . . first reference the players have ever heard to this jungle volcano city, which IMC, at the time the history was written, was controlled by the Hold of Sea Princes.



Hussar said:


> The nice part is, most of it was set very far away from the main parts of Greyhawk that you could likely ignore most of it anyway.




Indeed.  Erik Mona is genius.




Hussar said:


> Although it might be hard to ignore the death of Demogorgon.




It's 'hawk.  Nothing fundamental happens until the players are involved in it happening.


----------



## Lord_Blacksteel (Aug 12, 2010)

Still seems a little strange that we didn't really get a solid announcement on a campaign setting for 2011. We have the separate Ravenloft game - OK. We have the Nentir Vale book which I guess will still be "generic" as far as not being specifically tied to Eberron or the Realms or Greyhawk. I suppose that could be it for the year but I'm kind of hoping that there will be an announcement at a later date.

I saw some good points made about nostalgia and Mystara - upon further review I could see that, or my own inclination that Greyhawk would tie in with the theme of the year, or a completely new world. If Nentir Vale is it then it seems a little ...scaled back. One of the aspects of 4E's production & presentation that I have really liked is the one-setting-per-year approach that keeps the game from getting bogged down in 100 Realms booklets + 50 Eberron supplements + 2-3 Greyhawk items + some Dragonlance Books etc. It's "support" without trampling the thing under 10 tons of over-detailed supplements and metaplot and I think it's a wonderful compromise, so I'm sorry to see it (as of right now anyway) going away. 

Ah well - Greyhawk is still relevant to ME even if it takes 4th edition off...


----------



## Odhanan (Aug 12, 2010)

Greyhawk is more relevant to me right now than it ever was before. 
The rest, to paraphrase Shakespeare, is silence to my ears at this point.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Aug 13, 2010)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> Still seems a little strange that we didn't really get a solid announcement on a campaign setting for 2011. We have the separate Ravenloft game - OK. We have the Nentir Vale book which I guess will still be "generic" as far as not being specifically tied to Eberron or the Realms or Greyhawk. I suppose that could be it for the year but I'm kind of hoping that there will be an announcement at a later date.




The Ravenloft game is the 2011 setting.  It's just being presented a bit differently.


----------



## lordxaviar (Sep 10, 2010)

*Is Greyhawk Relevant?*     I'm  sure that many of us have played at some point or another in the world  of Greyhawk. This was Gygax's world, home to some of the greatest  classic dungeons in D&D. It is for that nostalgia factor that we  hold it in such high regards.

Yet as time has gone on and the hobby has evolved, I have to wonder if it still holds up all these years later

First without getting too demeaning... D and D has not Evolved! it is gone...  4 E is so far from Gary's idea of a Medieval War game, to the point of Monty haul on crack, it is the exact opposite of where he wanted to go.

But that Aside, i hope that they don't re-release Oerth into 4.0 it would ruin it.  I just hope that Hasbro will one day wake up and allow the sale and continued existence of the older versions of D an D.


----------



## Dragonhelm (Sep 11, 2010)

lordxaviar said:


> First without getting too demeaning... D and D has not Evolved! it is gone...  4 E is so far from Gary's idea of a Medieval War game, to the point of Monty haul on crack, it is the exact opposite of where he wanted to go.
> 
> But that Aside, i hope that they don't re-release Oerth into 4.0 it would ruin it.  I just hope that Hasbro will one day wake up and allow the sale and continued existence of the older versions of D an D.




You know, I don't mind a thread being resurrected for the sake of further discussion.  Thread necromancy for the sake of bashing 4th edition (not 4.0) is not cool.  

Maybe 4th edition isn't the game that Gary Gygax helped to create alongside Dave Arneson.  From what I know of Gary (and this is third-hand knowledge at best), he may not have been as into the more recent versions of the D&D game, but he was just happy that people were playing.  That's what truly matters.  

If Greyhawk was ever to be re-released, it would undoubtedly be different from Gary's vision.  I would like to think, though, that whoever wrote it would create a version that not only included 4th edition elements, but also held true to Gary's vision as much as possible.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone (Sep 11, 2010)

I'm not sure I see a need for a new Greyhawk product.  LGG pretty much capped it -- it is generic enough to be essentially edition-free, but has sufficient detail to provide a large number detailed campaigns of a varietty of types.  Sure, it doesn't have any 4E Greyhawk-specific crunch in it, but is that really why you buy a campaign setting?

There's not really any canon to update, either.  Sure, it would be great to see more Oerth Journal-type articles and flesh out smaller settings, perhaps, but it's really not necessary.

D&D still IS Greyhawk, and Greyhawk IS D&D -- and for those of us that love the setting, we have plenty to use on up through 6th, 7th, 8th editions ...


----------



## Umbran (Sep 11, 2010)

lordxaviar said:


> First without getting too demeaning...





You have failed.  

You have committed thread necromancy, spent your time edition warring, and broken Wheaton's Law.

There will be no arguing on this point. Thread closed.


----------

