D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[pemerton]

I've decided I cannot accept any version of Greyhawk if it wasn't written by an AI trained exclusively on Gary Gygax's written communications.

Perforce.

 

[pemerton]

Greyhawk was very much that Appendix N sword and Sorcery. It is Distinctly a different flavor, than Forgotten Realm High Fantasy, and Dragonlance.

Furyondy vs Iuz, or The Shield Lands vs The Horned Society, can be pretty high fantasy if you ask me. Likewise, the Battle of Emridy Meadows as part of play, rather than just backstory, would seem to have a JRRT-esque vibe.

There are parts of GH that support S&S, but they're not the whole of the setting. Which is no surprise: it was written and published for D&D play.

How does Primal Barbarians, Warlocks, and Sorcerers fit into Greyhawk?
Where are the social links of Aaasimar, Goliaths, and Good Orcs in Greyhawk?
Are Goliaths just Half Giants? I thought we were dropping half folk?
How do Dwarves and Halflings get to cast Arcane magic now?

@Remathilis already made the point that magic-using Dwarves and Halflings appeared in GH in the tear 2000. They seem pretty easy to incorporate to me.

Goliaths can come from any of the mountain ranges full of Ogres and Giants.

Warlocks and Sorcerers are trivial to incorporate. Primal Barbarians are not much more challenging in my view - why would Wolf and Tiger Nomads, or Rovers of the Barrens, not include these sorts of people?

Aasimar seem nearly as easy as Tieflings. I mean, don't they go back to the mid-90s and Planescape? Which ostensibly at least extended to GH?

that doesn't mean that Greyhawk was specifically intended to be all of whatever D&D is, and therefore is intended to be expanded to take on anything added to D&D over the decades. Again, that's Eberron.

I think GH was intended to be all of "whatever D&D was" when it was published: basically AD&D c early-to-mid 1980s. Incorporating Warlocks, Sorcerers, Tieflings and Goliaths doesn't seem to pose any challenges to me. As someone posted upthread, Dragonborn can easily enough come from somewhere to the west. (Perhaps connected to the Pinnacles of Azor'Alq from GH Adventures? "Whatever else dwells among the pinnacles, it is certain that dragons of all sorts and sizes make their home there . . ."" p 89.)

 

[pemerton]

With Greyhawk it is indeed easy to add something new. I just feel that the settings origin as the personal original setting of one of the game's creators made during a very early period of the game's history should be respected and considered when deciding what and how to add new things, and I feel there are folks here who see no good reason to give that consideration.

In 1988, the GH Adventures hardback included a frog folk called the Grung - "highly territorial, toadlike humanoids that dwell in swamps and marshes" who are typically 3' tall and who "are among the creatures most deadly to travelers in the Vast Swamp" (see pp 27-8).

How do these relate to Bullywugs and Wastri the Hopping Prophet? What about the two-and-a-half foot tall Grippli from the MM2? Why were they never mentioned in earlier GH materials?

The reason is obvious - they hadn't been made up yet! But I don't remember howls of outrage - a commercial publisher is going to publish new stuff. You either use it or you don't!

 

[pemerton]

Don't do that to Greyhawk, or any other setting they touch. You don't have to blow up a setting to add new stuff to it.

Not blowing up the setting in a fundamental way that ignores its history to that point is a ridiculous standard to expect the owner of that setting to uphold?

I think it's ridiculous.

(1) Greyhawk is not great literature. It's a a grab-bag of fantasy ideas and D&D mechanical elements merged together on some adaptation of an old wargame club map.

(2) A commercial publisher like WotC will publish stuff it thinks will sell. If you don't like the stuff, you don't buy it.

(3) The setting has no independent existence. It can't be "blown up". Either you enjoy and make use of what they publish, or you don't.

In the 1990s I was using GH material that referred to the Horned Society taking over the Shield Lands (the City of GH boxed set) and other GH material that just ignored those events even though set later in the imaginary timeline (the post-GH Wars stuff). I just picked and chose what I wanted to use. It's not hard!

 

[pemerton]

I'll just say that having an example setting where a party of 4 can have species and classes from the PHB and over half of characters having no lore links to the setting due to species/class choice is a dangerous game.

What's the danger?

I mean, I had Orc PCs in a GH game in the first half of the 1990s. We worked it out. I'm sure contemporary RPGers are as imaginative as we were back then.

 

[Azzy]

IIn the 1990s I was using GH material that referred to the Horned Society taking over the Shield Lands (the City of GH boxed set) and other GH material that just ignored those events even though set later in the imaginary timeline (the post-GH Wars stuff). I just picked and chose what I wanted to use. It's not hard!

The impression that I get, being a mostly lurker on the Canonfire boards, is that that's really how much of the GH fanbase operates—you take bit you like and disregard the elements you don't like.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Like a standalone version of Witchlight or Radiant Citadel, or Strixhaven than made D&D's Gatekeepers cry tears of blood and crusade against them?

Why can't D&D fans have new, nice things? D&D fans.

Sadly, all too true. The "mandatory 70% approval rating or it gets scrapped forever" policy just reinforces this.

I'd rather they didn't "mess up" anyone's old favorite setting, myself...

Same. One of the reasons I put a fair amount of thought into what good rules would look like for playstyles I don't like, but which I know many people love.

Did you ever watch the show? Actually, correction. Did you watch the ENDING of the show?

Likely not, since SUF was a separate show, and thus if someone found the original not to their taste, they'd be unlikely to even know it exists.

Secondly, are we mocking finding peaceful resolutions to a centuries old conflict? Really? Being kind and understanding to other people doesn't make you weak or foolish. And certainly not "HA! You foolish person who doesn't want to murder everyone, you deserve to be driven insane for those ideas of peace and understanding!"

But Chaosmancer, idealism and hope are for losers! Everyone knows you can only be a dumb-dumb baby idiot unless you embrace the mature, serious, adult characteristics, like being cynical, jaded, selfish, petty, violent, cruel, and manipulative.

Because that wouldn't be touching on tradition for the 50 year anniversary.

Precisely why I have the fears I stated. Greyhawk is "safe" in WotC's eyes. Name and image recognition will guarantee the old hands are on board, so they can change whatever they like to get the new blood on board as well. I fear such thinking will blow up in their faces.

What are things that never happened. There was no anti Strixhaven and Witchlight crusades. There was some concerns on the quality.

And Radiant Citadel had some concerns on how its economy worked.

Er...you do remember the whole "Disneyfied" debacle, don't you? That hit both Witchlight and Radiant Citadel. The former got flak for both being too fae and not fae enough, which was...a little annoying to say the least. The latter also had more than a little bit of (more or less) "why do we even need this" as though past settings were somehow held up to a standard of vital necessity (they weren't), but this one featuring characters and creators of a variety of backgrounds, ethnicities, etc. was somehow suspect (it wasn't). And before that, Strixhaven had both anti-LGBTQ pearl-clutching and "but you're talking about SEX! In a game CHILDREN play!!!" non-troversies.

There has absolutely been major pushback against every single one of these things. On this very forum, even.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In 1988, the GH Adventures hardback included a frog folk called the Grung - "highly territorial, toadlike humanoids that dwell in swamps and marshes" who are typically 3' tall and who "are among the creatures most deadly to travelers in the Vast Swamp" (see pp 27-8).

How do these relate to Bullywugs and Wastri the Hopping Prophet? What about the two-and-a-half foot tall Grippli from the MM2? Why were they never mentioned in earlier GH materials?

The reason is obvious - they hadn't been made up yet! But I don't remember howls of outrage - a commercial publisher is going to publish new stuff. You either use it or you don't!

But, you see, adding to it then, thirty years ago, is not the same as adding to it now. Things added now don't have tradition, and thus must be wrong. Things added then have tradition, and thus can't be wrong.

Of course, since the only way for something to gain tradition is to be added, this neatly produces the (entirely circular) conclusion that nothing may ever be added now. Even though things that have tradition now did not have it when they were added then. That fact is inconvenient and thus ignored.

 

[pemerton]

why the psychic platypus and blue-skinned goblin are missing.

Does 5e D&D not have Xvarts? Now that is a travesty - how does Raxivort fit in without Xvarts?

 

[Nikosandros]

Perforce.

I thought that AI was the antithesis of weal...