Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 traversetravis Jul 28, 2007 18:09:59	Hi, I'm not very familiar with Greyhawk, and I'm looking for help. I remember that in an early GH boxed set, in the foreword to one of the books, there was an explanation of how TSR employees actually found texts from Oerth containing a kind of proto-RPG written by a scribe from Oerth. The TSR employees then converted that text into AD&D. Would someone list: 1) The name of that book. 2) The name(s) of the Oerth scribe or scribes who wrote the proto-RPG. 3) The name(s) of the TSR employee(s) who wrote the foreword (and presumably translated the Oerth text into AD&D). 4) Is there a webpage that tells more about this "framing story"? 5) Was this kind of "framing story" used for any other GH products? Travis
#2 johnjohn Jul 28, 2007 21:44:33	What I think you are thinking of is in the original greyhawk boxed set (gold box with a couple of knights on horses, banner streaming from a lance) in the Glossography (the 2nd little booklet in the box which covered climate/population type stuff)... Anyways in the foreword it says something about how someone called the "savant-sage" wrote a 7 volume epic but only the 3rd book of the series survived.. (Titled a guide to the world of greyhawk). ages pass someone named Pluffet Smedger the Elder (a sage) from the royal university at rel mord found a copy and examined it... To help his students understand it he made a game using the information found in the book. So anyway Smedger wrote the glossography to accompany the work he found from the savant sage titled "Guide to the world of greyhawk" which coincidently is the title of the other book in the boxed set. Then there is a quick blurb about how TSR translated everything into AD&D game terms.
#3 ripvanwormer Jul 28, 2007 21:44:57	1. Glossography 2. Pluffet Smedger, the Elder 3. Steve Winter (editor), Allen Hammack (product planning manager). Though I'd credit Gary Gygax for the actual translations. It says "written by Gary Gygax," after all. Though Winter and Hammack wrote the foreword, I think their role in the book itself is limited to editing and product managing. 4. No. 5. No. Pluffet Smedger's Glossography was part of a proto-RPG used to examine the historical events and political interactions described in A Guide to the World of Greyhawk, which was written some 400 years before by the Savant-Sage of Greyhawk. Both books, the Guide and the Glossography, ended up in the hands of TSR.
#4 thanael Jul 31, 2007 9:42:02	On a related note, see also Greyhawk Meta-Text Onomastics by tzelios
#5 grodog Aug 01, 2007 0:56:59	I've used the framing story in games occasionally (in particular the association of the Rift Canyon with illithids), but otherwise I haven't used it alot. It's been awhile since I've checked out tzelios' work, Thanael: thanks for the reminder/pointer :D Has anyone seen him around of late?
#6 traversetravis Aug 01, 2007 17:37:03	Thanks everybody for the help. That was exactly what I was looking for. Travis