D&D 5E Greyhawk 5e campaign advice?

[AstroCat]

Hey, we are going to start a new 5e campaign for our home group, and would like to use Greyhawk as our setting. We play lots of Adventure League Forgotten Realms and just finished the long Ravenloft Curse of Strahd campaign so Greyhawk sounds like a perfect change of pace. A more gritty, sword & sorcery flavored version of D&D (a bit more old school vibe) for our next campaign. This time we are planning on using mostly off the shelf modules and playing it a bit like an episodic series, where I'll DM a couple modules, and the I'll hand off DM'ing to another member for a couple and then rotate around.

First off I was planning on using Tales of the Yawning Portal's Sunless Citadel and then go into The Forge of Fury using the in-book location advice. I'll need to come up with some way to link them up a bit and maybe have a wilderness/travel adventure in between the two modules. I'll jump back in as DM for Against the Giants for sure as well.

The biggest thing we are trying to figure out is which source book to use/what timeline. My understanding is we should probably go for either the original box set, or the 2000 Gazetteer. I played Greyhawk as a kid a lot, but for several members this will be their first Greyhawk setting and I don't want to overwhelm them with lore. I figure we'll have the characters start out not all that worldly, and more locally based for their backstories, so the PCs can learn the world as their characters do.

Should we go for the "latest" or "original" for the timeline? Any other Greyhawk 5e advice? thanks!

 

[Pauln6]

Depends if you want an ongoing plot arc. Pre-wars, it's easier to just plop adventures anywhere and sing your own kind of song. Post wars, the plot arc of many nations is defined in relation to what happened during the wars. You can even do research into the living Greyhawk 5 year plot arc for a particular nation and use that as inspiration for background flavour, adventure hooks, or your own plot trajectory.

 

[hastur_nz]

I ran Greyhawk with the original box-set, as well as Gazeteer for my main references, with a bit of extra material from here and there. Personally I didn't like much of the "Greyhawk Wars" stuff, but from memory the Gazeteer is actually about 80% original box-set, and 20% Greyhawk Wars etc.

So my answer is simply: it doesn't really matter. Pick a starting location, and take it from there; use what you like, forget the rest. Like you say, don't swamp people with background that's not needed, let pieces unfold as required.

Personally, I'd recommend starting in the Sheldomar Valley for a more 'rural / frontier' feeling, e.g. the Yeomanry. The 'Wars' didn't affect that place much, you can largely ignore it. The recommended places given in the Yawning Portal book are too far-flung, especially if you want to actually create a single campaign out of them (it's a very long way from NW Bissel, to the Pomarj, and that's just the first two!). If you want classic old-school urban adventures, I love Greyhawk City, and that place is always full of shenanigans no matter what timeline you care for (Mad Gods Key, from Dungeon Mag, is a great kick-off adventure, it's easy to convert to 5e). I've never liked Homlet or the area, although it is a classic.

I've used Greyhawk a lot, from 1e through to 5e:

I ran the 3.5 book "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk", and needed very little back-story that wasn't already there.

I ran "Age of Worms" campaign, twice (3.5, 5e), and the first time I used a bit of additional materials for side-treks, some additional stuff in Dyvers, and way out west somewhere, but mostly I needed very little back-story that wasn't already there in the adventure path. The second time, I used very little back-story outside of the adventures, just a little bit around the Rift Canyon.

Way back in 3.0 days, I ran Against the Giants, with the original locations in the Crystalmists etc. PC's started at level 8 or so, with no real back-story (i.e. exactly as written in G1, lol). Straight after that, we started a new campaign, starting in the Yeomanry. They ended up adventuring all the way to the Hold of the Sea Princes, then up to Keoland etc. That was a lot of home-brew wilderness, with adventure bits sourced from all over. It was about 8+ levels of adventures, but still only covered a few geographical areas.

Once we even did a retro AD&D game, starting around the Wild Coast and ending up in the Pomarj vs the Slavers; I used a few bits of background fluff to help pad out what were mostly just dungeons.

Oh, last advice: don't try and change rules stuff to try and make it "more Greyhawk". Greyhawk is pure 'fluff', the default D&D rules should be totally applicable to the world, because 'back in the old days', it was the default setting and baked into the core (AD&D) books. Sure, you might wonder how a Dragonborn or similar fits in, if someone want to play one, but that's pretty simple, and probably not even required (none of my players ever chose weird, non-GH races in my GH games, and in all my campaigns across all sorts of settings, if they do, the player takes on most of the burden of explaining how it makes sense). Make sure the Human Variant is an available option, and you should be sweet (the world is generally dominated by humans, with 'demi-humans' second, then 'monsters').

 

[Shiroiken]

While I like Gygaxian Greyhawk (Folio, Boxed Set, and adventures pre-1985), it requires a bit of knowledge and time to make it work. Because of this, unless you're going to run the full campaign, I'd suggest just getting the Gazetteer. It fully develops the setting more, making it easier for the DM. Some older adventures might be harder to run post-wars, but not many.

 

[AstroCat]

Yeah, I like the idea of the more simple base pre-85 version, which is how I probably most remember the setting, (which also allows all old school modules to be used) but I don't like that it's super sparse and requires more DM time/work. The Gazetteer version is more complicated to convey to new players, and more new for me too, but has a lot more info for the DM and would be a nice clean "modern/up to date" starting point for everyone. Tough choice... I'm leaning slightly towards the Gazetteer version, because it's more fleshed out but not sure yet.

Also any suggestion were Sunless Citadel and Forge could "live" kinda close to each other? We also will be doing Giants and probably Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. So all 4 need to happen somehow.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[AstroCat]

Yeah, that is good advice and my gut tells me to go that way, just got a little spooked about over work load... I like @hastur_nz way of basing off of the '83 set and then just referencing the Gazetteer version to flesh out any areas as needed.

 

[Eltab]

The Greyhawk Gazetteer is awesome!

Where IS that forest of bone trees? How did they get that way? Can they be "cured"? Your Druid has a quest - and he needs help to solve the whole thing.
You can do the same with any other character and any other location.

 

[hastur_nz]

As per Yawning Portal, by GH cannon the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan is south of the Olman Islands, so basically just "off the map" in the original boxed set. More modern maps place it exactly, IIRC, maybe even the one in the Gazeteer. Certainly the one in the Savage Tide AP places it exactly. Wheever you start, it's meant to be a big journey to get there and back. So I'll just repeat myself: don't plan on a huge treck across the Flanaess, start the campaign around the Yeomanry, or Hold of Sea Princes, and you can easily have all your adventures happen on the outskirts of there, or at least in neighbouring areas. Or start on the Wild Coast. Or whatever.

A bit of a google search, and you can find some more detailed maps of the areas you're interested in, if you don't want to flesh them out yourself. My old maps are on a different computer, but from memory I found ones for the Yeomanry, Wild Coast, etc, on the canonfire site and/or the old Living Greyhawk site.

 

[Shiroiken]

Also any suggestion were Sunless Citadel and Forge could "live" kinda close to each other? We also will be doing Giants and probably Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. So all 4 need to happen somehow.

Tomoachan is set in the Amedo (sp?) Jungle and the Giants are set in the Crystalmist Mountains/Jotens/Hellfurnaces, which aren't too far apart. I'd set Forge of Fury either in one of those mountain ranges or (if you want to expand a bit) in the Lortmil Mountains across the Sheldomar Valley. I'm not familiar with the Sundless Citadel, but I'm sure there's a spot for it somewhere in the Sheldomar Valley (unless it needs a desert).