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D&D (2024) How Does Greyhawk Fit In To The New Edition?

Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk.

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According to Game Informer — “the surprising importance and inclusions of what is arguably the oldest D&D campaign setting of them all – Greyhawk.”

So how does Greyhawk fit in? According to GI, the new 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk. Not only that, but the book will come with a double-sided poster map with the City of Greyhawk on one side and the Flannaes on the other—the eastern part of one of Oerth’s four continents.
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Even as the multiverse of D&D worlds sees increased attention, the Dungeon Master's Guide also offers a more discrete setting to get gaming groups started. After very few official releases in the last couple of decades, the world of Greyhawk takes center stage. The book fleshes out Greyhawk to illustrate how to create campaign settings of your own. Greyhawk was the original D&D game world crafted by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and a worthy setting to revisit on the occassion of D&D's golden anniversary. It's a world bristling with classic sword and sorcery concepts, from an intrigue-laden central city to wide tracts of uncharted wilderness. Compared to many D&D campaign settings, it's smaller and less fleshed out, and that's sort of the point; it begs for DMs to make it their own. The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed. For those eager to take the plunge, an included poster map of the Greyhawk setting sets the tone, and its reverse reveals a map of the city of the same name. "A big draw to Greyhawk is it's the origin place for such heroes as Mordenkainen, Tasha, and others," Perkins says. "There's this idea that the players in your campaign can be the next great world-hopping, spell-crafting heroes of D&D. It is the campaign where heroes are born."
- Game Informer​

 

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Von Ether

Legend
On a side note, I laugh whenever someone complains about the animal races in 5e like tabaxi and tortles because those people clearly have never played Basic on Mystara and don't realize those races have been playable since the early 90s.
I ruffled feathers once on social media when someone thought they had invented spell casting spider folk for 5e. When I mentioned the Aranea had been around for decades, it was not taken kindly.
 

Azzy

ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ
Back when Dragon+ was a thing, there was an article where they talked about the tabaxi. They were supposed to be rakasta but opted for the tabaxi name because it had a toehold in Faerun already and the name wouldn't be confused with the fiend cats in the MM. So to me, that means they are the heir apparent to rakasta.

On a side note, I laugh whenever someone complains about the animal races in 5e like tabaxi and tortles because those people clearly have never played Basic on Mystara and don't realize those races have been playable since the early 90s.
It comes full circle, then.

Tom Moldvay and Lawrence Schick were co-DMs before they were hired by TSR. Their home setting that they shared was known as the "Known World", and one of the species that populated that setting were the Kzinti (taken from Larry Niven's books). Moldvay worked on the Basic line and brought a version of the Known World setting to that line, starting with The Isle of Dread module and the B/X Expert Set). And in the Isle of Dread, Moldvay introduced his version of the Kzinti as the Rakastas. Meanwhile, Schick was working on the AD&D line and got his version of the Kzinti published in the Fiend Folio... under the name "tabaxi".
 

Mandy Rae

Explorer
Okay, so this is nothing new . . . Greyhawk has been the default setting since it was officially published . . . I mean every "named" spell (Bigsby, Mordenkainen, Tasha, etc.) and artefact all get their names from a character (both PC's & NPC's in that setting. It's only when the DM starts to make their own maps/setting or they decide to use one of the other published settings that Greyhawk is no longer used . . .

At least it was the official setting for AD&D, since Mystara was the official setting for D&D . . .
 

Li Shenron

Legend
What 5e has been missing is tools for building your own world. Those hoping for a "well developed" Greyhawk are setting themselves up for disappointment if they think a chapter in the DMG is going to deliver that.
That was precisely my point.
If they do it right, it will have well designed and useful tools with some nice Greyhawk flavor. A cool map and very high-level descriptions of areas and politics, that DMs can use as a jumping off point.
I don't have all DMG of the past, but they haven't done it right in any of those I've seen. It's not like a DM can't use any map and high level descriptions as a starting point, it's that such high level stuff itself doesn't really teach worldbuilding, while at the same you don't even need an example to start worldbuilding if you really want to: just look at any atlas of the world, any scale, and it already serves as an example. In fact, the real world was pretty much the example which set Gygax as well as Greenwood to design their fantasy worlds.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
That was precisely my point.

I don't have all DMG of the past, but they haven't done it right in any of those I've seen. It's not like a DM can't use any map and high level descriptions as a starting point, it's that such high level stuff itself doesn't really teach worldbuilding, while at the same you don't even need an example to start worldbuilding if you really want to: just look at any atlas of the world, any scale, and it already serves as an example. In fact, the real world was pretty much the example which set Gygax as well as Greenwood to design their fantasy worlds.
This new DMG is providing tools, and an example. Lukely about as light an example as Gygax provided for Greyhawk, which is good. There are also apparently going to be multiple Adventures in the DMG.
 

Clint_L

Legend
Greyhawk is very Human centric and also very much based on Medieval Fantasy. I don't think this is going to fly well with the current player base that prefers Tieflings, Tortles, and Top hats.

I don't think Greyhawk could survive the new player base and still keep the flavor people want from Greyhawk.
I can't speak for "people," but I am a Greyhawk fan from way back, and I am very much looking forward to this iteration. If it didn't include options for all the species that are currently in the game, I would have to add them. Except Aarakocra.
 

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