What do we Really want

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

zombiegleemax

Jul 05, 2003 16:19:11
I see a lot of people talking about the lack of GH support from Wotc, but what is it you want? Lets pretend that Wotc just said they are relaunching GH and asking the fans what they want? Do you want Modules, Sourcebooks (if so on what subjects, - on groups- or places- what?), expanded Deities? Basically give it a little thought and answer this question, going into a little detail.

Here are some that comes to my mind

"Races of Flanaess" - Covering the 4 human lines is some detail. Info on the Eleven Kingdomes, the Drwarves, halflings ect.

"Ancient Kingdoms" - Book going into soem detail on the time just before the rain of colorless fire, with some history, artifacts, magic, PrC ect.

"High and Mighty" - the Gods that didn't make it into the PHB or Deities and Demigods. Some info on the leaders of soem important Religous Orders, and a few new PrC and spells.



Anyway you get my idea behind this to to trully find our what the fans as a group want.
#2

zombiegleemax

Jul 05, 2003 16:38:39
I'm trying to think of Greyhawk materials I would make use of.
More Greyhawk specific prestige classes would be great (maybe a Ranger of the Gnarley Woods, a Scarlet Brotherhood monk PrC, etc) and adding more Greyhawk flavor to attempts like the Fist of Hextor.
The 2E accessory, the Greyhawk Player's Guide was somewhat incomplete. That would be a decent thing to revise.
A Greyhawk DM Guide could encompass a lot of things (world history, similar info. to the Living Gazetteer, races, prestige classes, etc.).
Monsters from Dragon magazine that were for Greyhawk could be compiled.
I still must note that I would be very disappointed if these books detailed the world too much. Forming a better foundation for the DM to build on is great, building everything for the DM is a bad idea IMO.
I would hate to see Greyhawk become FR.

PS: A better advertised message board would be a good first step.
#3

zombiegleemax

Jul 05, 2003 17:50:37
The only thing I think players and DMs need are the crunchy bits. We don't need to be force fed storylines. I would much rather have tools for fleshing out the world. Feats, Spells, PrCs, etc.
#4

zombiegleemax

Jul 05, 2003 18:42:42
I don't know if anyone here on this board is a fan of Ravenloft, but personally I would like to see more suppliments like RL has. The Gazetteer books are wonderful, where they pick a specific region and go into a little more detail with it. The sidebars with storyhook ideas on them are great. I would love to see something like this for Greyhawk, as long as it didn't make it too detailed like Faerun is. Definitly an expanded God book would be nice. I would also like to see the stats for some of the NPCs, more than just the ones in the epic book. I think more PrCs for Greyhawk would be good, as long as they weren't crap like some of the FR specific ones (Archmage comes to mind, so glad they fixed it in 3.5!). Supplement books for the different power groups would be cool, (more info on the Scarlet Brotherhood). As long as they were good products, and not just fluff.
#5

zombiegleemax

Jul 05, 2003 23:43:06
This may be a big pain in the kiester but not really. If they, WotC, took advantage of these boards and asked for brief descriptions of adventures, campaigns and changes that have happened in our own version of Greyhawk. Such as if my party had done something significant that had a lasting impact, it would be documented. Compile actual player happenings throughout the world and either edit them down to add as flavor throughout a new "overview" book. Or compile them as actual happenings and sell them as such in there own book, to be used as adventure hooks, rumors, jump off points etc. I personally think it would be cool to see where others in the Greyhawk setting have taken it. Instead of relying on someone in some office that may never have played in and loved Greyhawk, i.e. some FR geek.
I loved the ideas listed above.
This is just a side rant that I would like to see even if I have to compile them and email them out to all of you. Please leave your opinions.
#6

zombiegleemax

Jul 05, 2003 23:51:45
something that might help me with this info, is listing the book ideas you likr with numbers as to which you should be done first. Then second ect,

and if for example you like the idea of powergroup sourcebook, who it should cover, or a gazatter, how the regions should be broken down. Thanks
#7

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 0:09:39
I'm intrigued Bayushi, are you in a position to make something happen? Do you have someones ear? Or do you just like to get our hopes up?
#8

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 0:25:41
" I'm intrigued Bayushi, are you in a position to make something happen? Do you have someones ear? Or do you just like to get our hopes up?"

no I'm not in the position to change things as they stand. but if I have a "this is what the fans are asking for" I might end up in one. And as everyone one on this board knows, the world can change in 5 minutes, so it's go to have as much infor as possible, (as I hope this makes sense - it's been a long few days)
#9

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 0:49:27
Here is my idea:

What if we take these suggestions, and actually do them. Put them up as netbooks or free pdfs or something, and see how much things are effected. Will Greyhawk fans like what we have done? Do players find the manner in which it is laid out, etc. well done? Is it something one would actually pay money for. I think an experiment in the viability of our ideas is in order. Perhaps if the conclusions are good, we can move forward with another step.

Perhaps...(11pm and hopped up on caffeine/just off work)

If there is enough advertisement for the setting floating around, WotC would want to capitalize on it. How would one create a large scale, free advertisement medium? Over the internet! What would it be exactly? I have no clue at the moment. I am in a Dr. Pepper induced typing frenzy.

Edit: Also, a centralized fan site for online campaigns using the Greyhawk material could be a viable idea for advertising or whatnot. And also for playtesting. I tried to get the guys at my former website, d20 Citadel, to get into it, and we had a couple campaigns set in the Theocracy of the Pale. I was too busy to DM, and it fell apart under a novice DM. Its been about a year since the site went down, but I'm currently working on getting a new site up.
#10

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 1:17:43
What if we take these suggestions, and actually do them. Put them up as netbooks or free pdfs or something, and see how much things are effected.

By Jove, I think he's got it!

Well, partially anyhow.

Wanna revive Greyhawk? Stop looking at Big Brother at WOTC. First and foremost, if your discussing Greyhawk, stop doing the same old compare and contrast with Forgotten Realms. Face a few facts. Greyhawk (although IMHO, being far superior) is simply not as popular as FR. It never will be. It wasn't once FR was released. Stop bemoaning whatever WOTC does with Greyhawk in the core. You want a smidgeon of Greyhawk material, you buy core. You want lots of FR material, you buy core and then buy FR specific. Stop being kids wishing upon a star and start being adults ****** off and ready to do something about it.

First, set up websites or start participating in ongoing GH fansites.

Second, start creating new material. Start making the things that you wish WOTC would hand over to you. You want a full scale primer/gazz/source book, make one. Collect fan material. If you can't do it alone, gather up some friends that you know and start a collaboration. Get some motivation! Stop lamenting and crying. Really, its not going to rouse the giant until its a shout. But first, you need enough material together that is well written, interesting, mechanically sound, and viable to use to entice either old veterans or new players. There are homebrew settings out there that get upwards of 500 to 1,000 downloads a month for their core release sets, without advertising their site, without support of nostalgia from a campaign setting about 20 years in the making (of course, these are the free ones, which may have more to do with it than quality, but you get the drift).

There are websites already asking for new submission material to enhance Greyhawk. Well, what the heck are you sitting around for? Start pumping out something to them. Start networking those websites together. Heck, donate a few bucks to them so they can get some advertising on sites like ENWorld and such. Better yet, buy the advertising for them (its not that much money, and what website like Cannonfire wouldn't like a little advertising as a thank you for some odd years of serving the GH community).

Lastly, find Roger! He'd help save GH (surely, save it from what I'm not sure. Even if WOTC entirely omits any references of GH from everything it publishes, the setting only dies when you stop playing in it.)
#11

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 1:36:49
Really Bad Suggestion: There should be a new, consolidated site for all the Greyhawk material. Think PlanetGreyhawk. With the efforts of everyone combined, a truly powerful force could arise. Form a coalition and lets get started on making this a reality! Forge the scattered Greyhawk players, many of whom do not know of these boards, into a formidable consumer force! Entertain the masses with the fascinating allure of Greyhawk, and make the corporate executives see what they have been missing.

Also, I would like to point out the whole Activision/Viacom thing. It doesn't relate to anything here except that I find it interesting. A company sues another company for not adequetly exploiting a license to which they have the rights to. ;)

Edit: I'm not exactly sure as to my mental state right now, so I'm going to try and get in a good long four hours of sleep before heading back to work..... Tomorrow I might be a little more clear.
#12

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 3:19:59
Sorry, but consolidation is probably the best thing for GH. The amount of GH material on the web is HUGE. Problem is, its also scattered about.

As for impressing corporate execs with the prospect of a formidable consumer force, why bother? WOTC is not going to start begging from Peter to pay a debt to Paul. Its not going to inroad new sales in GH since that would cut sales in FR (and that's garuanteed to happen, a lesson TSR learned a little too late). In the end, they'd either A: break even in sales or B: Lose money if GH doesn't sell as well. WOTC has labeled its flagship. Deal with it.

Also, I'm sure that any GH fans with net access know of these boards as well as at least a few of the GH resources out there. I think your underestimating and insulting the average gamer's intelligence (not flaming you, even thoughit may sound like it, sorry).

WOTC owns the GH rights. So as far as 're'creating old GH material that has been published, forget it. Instead, hope that RPGA puts out some more comprehensive GH stuff for backstory. What you can do though, is start 'expanding' GH. Start developing things that have only been touched upon briefly (Suel Empire Sourcebook anyone? or perhaps even fleshing out some of the unknown regions off the GH world map from Dragon Annual #1).

Start emailing people. Start some dialogs (if possible) with some of the WOTC staff and see if someone takes a bite. Ask what you can and can't do with new GH material. Remember, quite a few of these 'evil corperate demons that are killing GH' once either played in GH or DMed whole GH campaigns. Kim Mohan and Skip Williams are the two who pop into mind first. Granted, some lame ol email of 'hey! what the (insert explative here) is up with GH!' isn't likely to get you far, so submit a professional inquiry as to what you can and cannot do with GH. Same thing with the RPGA. Heck, at least with the RPGA, its driven by fan support and the fans dictate the direction that GH takes. You can't beat em, so join em (especially now since its free to join the Living Greyhawk for downloads of modules ;)).
#13

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 3:37:40
Look out someone is ranting intelligently.
And I'mmmmm likin' it. - Mach2.5 can be my new hero!!!!

As I said suggested earlier and would now like to complete.
ALL Greyhawk supporters, players, DMs send me any changes in "Your" Greyhawk. I'm talking overthrown governments, new gods, destroyed gods. I want to know how it happened, where, why, under what circumstances etc.
I want to compile all the "new" happenings in Greyhawk as we the players have lived them.
Send all material to [email]Dragonsbane1970@yahoo.com[/email] -
#14

Aeolius

Jul 06, 2003 8:28:21
First and foremost, WotC needs regularly published GH specific web-enhancements and articles. On a board over at EN World, someone was looking for a campaign world. When I mentioned GH, they replied:

"Aeolius, there's nothing wrong with Greyhawk, but I was looking for something that will be officially supported."

AAARRRGGHHH!!!

So, I think WotC needs to begin with the "Mysterious Places" of GH. Once a month, at wizards.com, they should release an adventure detailing one of the Mysterious Places, as presented in "Greyhawk Adventures".
#15

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 9:32:15
(Sanity is back)

I believe that the your idea is a good one, although it probably would not work(Aeolius). Also, I think my writing is convoluted enough to adequetly confuse people as to my meaning. I didn't mean anything by my above comments.

I still think (and agree with Mach 2.5) that consolidation would be the best bet. Rather than have each of us doing their own thing, we need to have everything, every project detailed and up on a new website. Get the other websites to join. Make a web ring or incorporate them all together. Have our own weekly or monthly features and somesuch.

(I entitled my last post really bad suggestion because I was unsure as to how you would react to it, and wished to have something to fall back on if my idea was flamed)
#16

Aeolius

Jul 06, 2003 9:42:29
Originally posted by CryptoNova
I still think (and agree with Mach 2.5) that consolidation would be the best bet. Rather than have each of us doing their own thing, we need to have everything, every project detailed and up on a new website. Get the other websites to join. Make a web ring or incorporate them all together. Have our own weekly or monthly features and somesuch.

Does canonfire.com meet these objectives? If not, what would you change, to establish such a site?
#17

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 11:11:21
I do not believe Canonfire meets the objectives I am suggesting.
Here is a list of objectives I think would cause an increase in popularity:

Regulars- Weekly/Monthly features similar to those on the D&D website. Monster Mayhem, Spellbook, etc.

Active Forums- Have a set of boards which people actually want to post in regularly. Hold message board campaigns to playtest new materials and ideas.

Advertisement- Almost to the extreme. Get it up everywhere. If they play D&D, they should know about Greyhawk. If they know about Greyhawk, they should know about the site.

Campaigns- Create a new "Living" League for the website. Use results to create new storyline ideas and adventure hooks.

Crunchiness- Goes back to regulars. More crunchy bits to actually use in a campaign. We have the history extremely well covered online. Concentrate on items, feats, PrCs, spells, etc. that people will use and that are Greyhawk specific.

I was slightly serious when I said PlanetGreyhawk. Get a high profile site, combine with another big company, advertising, etc. One might be able to pull off getting a PlanetGreyhawk with the coming release of ToEE.

Edit: And as before, do not go into so much detail that it is redundant and ridiculous. Keep everything roughly open.
#18

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 12:51:57
I think the idea of a repository of fan ideas and changes to Greyhawk is a good idea. So good that it could start its own thread on the main topic list so that everyone else could locate it and chime in. This thread asked what we want WotC to do with Greyhawk.

So far I've heard: "updated storyline information" as well as "no storyline, just crunchy bits"; and gazeteer type stuff.

Though we may never see a published hardcover book, I don't think it far-fetched that WotC designers could create prestige classes based on say the Rangers of the Gnarly Forest and post it to a Greyhawk section of the website (Note: I did not say the Living*Greyhawk section).

So, back on track, what types of products with a Greyhawk logo would you shell out cash for?




Side note: I have to ask why the stuff showing up in Dungeon magazine doesn't fit the bill? Quadripartite was a high-level Greyhawk adventure (Dungeon 99) that wasn't tied to the RPGA. Also included was a "Temple of Boccob" map. Though no adventure was included with it, it's at least a sign that the Lord of All Magics has a presence in today's D&D.
#19

zombiegleemax

Jul 06, 2003 13:15:20
ive made a thread entitled "Our Greyhawk Fansite..." where we can talk about the site mentioned above. Go there and let's talk about it.

(this is in an effort to keep this thread ontopic as well as give a place to talk about the other topic)
#20

zombiegleemax

Jul 08, 2003 3:33:37
I want lots of money and to have sex with lots of Hollywood mega-star babes.
#21

Gnarley_Woodsman

Jul 08, 2003 19:09:34
And to take over the world with hordes of undead minions??? At least that was your goal the last time we crossed swords... So those would be the "Female Zombies" from The Night of the living Delglath" right?
#22

zombiegleemax

Jul 09, 2003 0:02:21
I can see posting this tread was a waste of time, oh well. live and learn
#23

ranger_reg

Jul 09, 2003 3:39:23
Originally posted by Bayushi Tai
I see a lot of people talking about the lack of GH support from Wotc, but what is it you want? Lets pretend that Wotc just said they are relaunching GH and asking the fans what they want? Do you want Modules, Sourcebooks (if so on what subjects, - on groups- or places- what?), expanded Deities? Basically give it a little thought and answer this question, going into a little detail.

1. A campaign setting book similar to FRCS and DLCS. They can include more deities not mentioned in the core rulebooks.

2. A race book similar to 3.5e MM.

3. A magic book tailored specifically for GH.

3. Greyhawk city book similar to a lot of Waterdeep products.
#24

Gnarley_Woodsman

Jul 09, 2003 7:35:17
I'm sorry Bayushi Tai. It's just that there so many people posting what they want, and they've pretty much covered the possibilities.

For me to say.

I want a quality hardback campaign book including:

1) Updated character profiles and region/site decriptions.

2) The weather charts and calender.

3) An article on the various festivals and religious holidays.

4) A specific monster compendium revisiting the creatures from the Greyhawk compendium, From the ashes boxed set, and the Greyhawk adventures book.

5) Race descriptions including the various human subraces(Oeridian, Baklunish, Flan, Suloise Etc..), and the demi-human variants. Also humanoid organizations Like the various orc tribes.

6) More greyhawk specific PrC's, GEnerica or not if they're re-printed in the "Greyhawk" book then they are Greyhawk, but new ones and descriptions of how the old ones fit into the various societies of the Flaness.

7) Brief history of Oerth including information from beyond the Faness, (Possibly including the tidbits from Chainmail).

8) A review of the power structures of the political organizations thier rivalries and goals. (The scarlet Brotherhood, or the Horned Societies secret plot to push Iuz out of thier territory)

9) Random encounter tables by region.

10) Unique magic, Spells, artifacts, magic items.

The bottom line everything I have mentioned is redundant. It's also already been done! I've pretty much given in and made this book myself! It's not done yet, but when it is I'll be happy to put in PDF format and share it!

So, Bayushi Tai there's the Woodsman's idea of what should be done. Sorr again about going OT. Hope you'll forgive me