List your ideas and we'll compile them in the first posts of this thread.
===========================================
This book should be hardcover, with production values similar to that of the FRCS.
Top tier authors should be used, and Erik Mona seems to be at the top of the fans' list..
Here is a possible taxonomy for a GCS that is loosely modeled after the LGG and the FRCS:
1) Life in the Flanaess
2) Races in the Flanaess
3) Character Options
Greyhawk specific feats (possibly adapted from Dragon 315 & 319)
4) History
4a) Request for more detail on pre-Flan history.
4b) Fans seem to fall into three categories about advancing the time line of Greyhawk history:
4bi) 0 years - There is concern that advancing the timeline will alienate part of the existing fan base.
4bii) 5-10 years - Some advancement is wanted to mix things up, but not too much. Greyhawk should be recognizable.
4biii) 50+ years - A clean slate is needed to publish a fresh Greyhawk that can reinvigorate interest in the campaign.
5) Current State of Affairs
5a) Update Greyhawk canon to include Living Greyhawk developments as mentioned in the next post.
5ai) It should be noted that there are Greyhawk fans who oppose this idea. Such opposition has merit. Some of the concerns involve the lack of oversight that was provided to Living Greyhawk's advancement of canon, and that some of the developments were not well thought out.
5aii) Greyhawk fans who support the inclusion of Living Greyhawk developments bring up some of the following points. Some of the work done in the LG campaign was, and is, excellent. The promise of Living Greyhawk has included that the canon would be advanced by the players. Doing this will make a GCS appealing to the participants of the campaign.
5b) Local power groups and corresponding prestige classes, where applicable. Prestige classes should occupy the minimum needed space.
Examples include: Knights of Furyondy, Knights of the Hart, Knights of Luna, Knights of Veluna, Knights of the Watch/Dispatch, Royal Explorer of Keoland, Silent Ones
5c) Mysterious Places series published on Wizards.com
5d) The Underdark of the Flanaess
5e) More background on areas bordering the Flanaess, such as Hepmonland, Amedio Jungle.
5f) Some would like to see the rest of Oerik described in greater detail - but not with the specificity that other campaigns provide.
6) Geography
6a) Geographical overview of the Flanaess
6b) Brief overview of the rest of Oerth
7) Transcontinental Power Groups
8) Prominent NPCs (may be included with Transcontinental Power Groups, or with Geography)
Examples: Bigby, Drawmij, Turrosh Mak, Melf, Mordenkainen, Nystul, Otto, Rary, Robilar, Jallarzi Sallavarian, Arkalan Sammal, Warnes Starcoat, Tenser, Theodain
9) Monsters of Greyhawk - Creatures specific to the Greyhawk setting
Greyhawk Dragon
10) Deities
The LGDD is a good place to start.
11) Maps
The Incorporation of Living Greyhawk Canon by Region
Ahlissa
Bandit Kingdoms
Bissel
Evard and who she really is
Invaded by Ket
Blackmoor
Bone March
Bright Lands
Celene
Dyvers
Ekbir
Frost Barbarians
Furyondy
Geoff
Free of Giants' control.
Hochoch now controlled by the Knights of the Watch/Dispatch
Gran March
Greyhawk
Highfolk
Ice Barbarians
Irongate
Iuz, Empire of
Keoland
Dreadwood
Godakin Keep
King Scotti's permanent death and resurrection
Linth
Ket
Lendore Isles
Lordship of the Isles
North Kingdom
Nyrond
Series where Imperium/Hextorian's take over
Onnwal
Pale
Paynims, Plains of the
Perrenland
Pomarj
Ratik
Rel Astra and the Solnor Compact
Rovers of the Barrens
Scarlet Brotherhood
Sea Barons
Sea Princes
Shield Lands
Snow Barbarians
Sterich
Ruled by Giants.
Stonehold
Sunndi
Tenh
The Ether Threat
Tiger Nomads
Tusmit
Ulek, County of
Ulek, Duchy of
Ulek, Principality of
Reclaimed much of their land
Ull
Urnst, County of
Urnst, Duchy of
Valley of the Mage
Veluna
Verbobonc
The Skyroad
Wolf Nomads
Yeomanry
Zeif
What would you like to see in a Greyhawk Campaign Sourcebook?
List your ideas and I'll compile them in this thread.
The thing I would like to see most is to add/update the "major" changes/plot lines of the Regional/Core mods that the LG campaign has made, to Greyhawk cannon.
Examples: The events of the Ether Threat...Bright Sand Series...The Nyrond series where the Imperium/Hextorian's take over....The Keoland Series where King Scotti dies and is then returned to the throne...The Bissel "Evard" series.
But what I would want is lots of adventure hooks. We mined LGG for a score or more of adventures in just my region.
WotC: "no, you can't have this anymore *ganks LG*
LG players: "but we love LG and its fun, I hate you, give it back"
WotC: "No you have to play with this now"
LG players: "but I don't wanna play in Elminster's stomping grounds, he's such a butthole"
WotC: "too bad"
LG players: "NOOOOO"
WotC: "lets just set this on store shelves*greyhawk's back*"
I wouldn't be surprised if a short while after 4.0 has been out (a year or so) we saw a sudden upsurge, and by upsurge I mean the existence of, Greyhawk product.
Marcia
I will not be buying any more 3.5 products, including the GCS if it comes out in a 3.5 only version.
Marcia
WotC hasn't announced a GCS, or any future Greyhawk material beyond Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk. If there is to be a future GCS, and I believe that the presence of this forum gives us reasonable hope, it will probably be a 4E book.
That said, do we want this book to be developed without our input? I don't. I'd like to be part of an effort that guides the eventual authoring team to produce a book that's a grand slam.
I want a 400+ page book that's so amazing that when I'm finished reading it, I'll wonder why they didn't make it longer.
Enough about what I want. What do you want?
If there is a wrinkle to that idea that I could provide, it would be that I'd like to see some way that would highlight when changes/characters were characters from Living Greyhawk campaigns.
If characters from the Duchy of Urnst manage to restore the rightful Duke or his son in the next year, not only would I like that conflict and aftermath in the book, but someway to indicate that players in a campaign were the ones that made it happen.
Is that ego (no, it won't be me)? It's being proud of a community of players.
Silent Ones
Royal Explorer of Keoland
Disciple of Vecna
Paladin of Murlynd
etc
The Mages of Power
Greyhawk feats
Epic rules subsystem for becoming a personage like Heward or Keoghtom.
An Iuz mini-campaign.
Fading Lands
More detail on the pre-flan history.
Details on the Suel and Baklunish kingdoms and areas West.
I am not sure if we need very specific information on what happened in each module or city. But, we could benifit from having loose ends tied up. Such as, contridictory events, like the Lendore Isles.
Also, we need to be clear on psionics, gunpowder and other oddities that don't work on Greyhawk. Most of the mysteries could remain mysteries.
Last, but maybe most important, is the look and style of the people and places. I believe Shackled City and Age of Worms helped set up Greyhawk for those of us in the know. However, these story arcs were a bit vague.
Please consolidate all the Greyhawk threads to the new area or the old. We need everyones input on these topics and one place to put them.
Hope to hear more about this,
Sidestepper
LG was good for what it was, but did have problems with lack of overall oversight of all plotlines; and things that really changed the map around (see Tenh). I'm not sure that a non-LG player would find the changes to their taste. I'm not sure about mine!
Cheers!
Give me anything greyhawk, ANYTHING!
do this and ill buy the book just for that.
put his stats in and somewhere else and its a consider to think about.
The thing I would like to see most is to add/update the "major" changes/plot lines of the Regional/Core mods that the LG campaign has made, to Greyhawk cannon.
Examples: The events of the Ether Threat...Bright Sand Series...The Nyrond series where the Imperium/Hextorian's take over....The Keoland Series where King Scotti dies and is then returned to the throne...The Bissel "Evard" series.
It would be nice if the maps in Dungeon or Dragon (I forget which magazine) as well as the assorted RPGA information from Living Greyhawk, could be consolidated in some way. Most of the basics are in the Core Books. We need the monsters, spells and items that are unique to the world.
I am not sure if we need very specific information on what happened in each module or city. But, we could benifit from having loose ends tied up. Such as, contridictory events, like the Lendore Isles.
Also, we need to be clear on psionics, gunpowder and other oddities that don't work on Greyhawk. Most of the mysteries could remain mysteries.
Last, but maybe most important, is the look and style of the people and places. I believe Shackled City and Age of Worms helped set up Greyhawk for those of us in the know. However, these story arcs were a bit vague.
Please consolidate all the Greyhawk threads to the new area or the old. We need everyones input on these topics and one place to put them.
Hope to hear more about this,
Sidestepper
Well, gunpowder won't work UNLESS you're one of the White Paladins of Murlynd. They're the only ones for whom it will work, by divine decree.
As for Psionics, it's about time someone remembered that Psionics is native to Greyhawk, and that back in 1st ed AD&D it was in the PHB and therefore CORE, albeit optional.
Also, remember the Unearthed Arcana 1st ed book? Drow player characters, as well as the other elven subraces, and the halfling and dwarven subraces, too. (Maybe Gnomes will get absorbed into the dwarven subraces, if they're being cut from the 4th ed PHB...)
Blast it, I want ALL of it BACK!
I absolutely grew to despise the RPGA for completely taking over Greyhawk, then telling everyone what the could and could not play, arbitrarily decided upon by a triumvirate of grognards, and thereby eliminating a HUGE chunk of Greyhawk history and WoG 'legacy' games/campaigns...
One thing that must be a definite is all the gods/churches/cults being detailed, including herital sects (the fatalistic sect of Nerull mentioned in Iuz the Evil for example). Hopefully it all gods will have a racial origin (they might be commonly worshipped - but the worship had to start someware) except for unkowns like Tharizdun and 'recent' additions like Vecna and Iuz.
I'd like it to be in the style of the ebberon campaign book, with unique options, sidebars for notable npcs, etc.
It doesnt have to have a complete history, but a good summary of the current state of affairs would be good.
I'd like some actual details on faiths too, as I mainly had my characters making stuff up constantly about the guys they worshipped.
Also, it should note that Jerich the LAwful Neutral Erinyes has been raised to godhood, and has chosen his champion as Kraid, the chaotic good, paranoid and slightly odd swashbuckler. He was the first to worship him, so he calls dibs on champion status.
I would like to see an adventure built around the Great Kingdom and the rescue of the capital.
I would like to see another Greyhawk Wars. The way I see it is that Iuz over extends himself towards Greyhawk, and is pushed back to his old boarders. The Shiled Lands come back, The area that was controled by the Horned Society subplanted by Vecna, (Behind the thrown or in the thrown) and a revolution of what was the old Great Kingdom to a new Grand Republic. I would build a lot of Heroes of Battle type adventutes as well as dungen crawls built around recovering magic weapon caches to turn the tide one way or another. But that's just me.
Its also pretty clear to me that the major WotC designers for this themselves dont consider the events of the last 8 years to be canon, as evidenced by their post over on EnWorld regarding the Expedition mod and one of the key NPCs who appears therein.
That said, I'd like to think that we could all support a "Rumors of the Flannaes" section that DID highlight the major plotlines of the last 8 years, and that basically presented itself as "not necessarily what happened, just what that drunken sot of a bard said in the tavern last night". That way, we'd all know what happened, but more "purist" players wouldnt feel beholden to use it if they felt it harmed the setting in some way.
Lastly, say what you will about LG, and Ill just say this - As lovers of the setting we endured the pain that was Puppets (and even accepted it as canon when they made Larissa Hunter the Magister of Dyvers), we can surely overcome anything put into the campaign over the last 8 years, cant we?
...a detailed Greyhawk city hardback.
Let's not overlook the "Mysterious Places"; not everyone runs urban adventures. My current game, for example, starts in the region of Turucambi reef and may explore such regions as the Sinking Isle, Jungle of Lost Ships, wreck of the Sea Prince, Drawmij's undersea fortress, and who knows... I might follow through on my "threat" to make the lesser moon Celene a hollow Dyson Sphere with an inner ocean. ;)
Greyhawk relevant prestige classes...
I know this is just my personal preference, and it's not one that is shared by all, but here goes:
God, no! No more prestige classes! If they finally do publish a new Greyhawk sourcebook, I don't want to see one-third of it wasted on new prestige classes!
Okay, that's out of the way. Whew!
My main complaint about the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer was that it didn't include anything about the Underdark. I know that Drow of the Underdark included information about Erelhei-Cinlu, but there could still be more.
Oh, and how about a comprehensive guide to the important people, places, and things of the setting?
One thing people haven't mentioned is that Geoff is now free of giant control while Sterich is ruled by the giants again. And Ulek AFAIK has mostly recovered its territory that was lost to Mak.
I'd like to see the Ether Threat and the Tenh series added to the book as well as the drow Gloom and Disunion series.
Mike
I can appreciate that some of the more dedicated users of the setting do not like some of the liberties taken with the setting under the RPGA's ownership.
Agreed, to an extent. I actually DID like some of the LG stuff, it's the over-arcing decrees they made that made me step away and say "Um, NO" when it came to the setting. Unless I was DMing the campaign, I wouldn't play, simply because most of our gaming group today consists of folks who started with 3rd ed, and had never taken part in a true Greyhawk campaign, so they didn't know enough to do anything but look at the Gazeteer and then totally make stuff up on the fly.
Not to brag, but in our area, I'm known as THE guy to go to to play in a fun Greyhawk game, since I've got the most experience in the setting and know which races were playable in the game-world before the RPGA stepped in...
Lastly, say what you will about LG, and Ill just say this - As lovers of the setting we endured the pain that was Puppets (and even accepted it as canon when they made Larissa Hunter the Magister of Dyvers), we can surely overcome anything put into the campaign over the last 8 years, cant we?
It's not what they PUT IN, it's what they TOOK OUT, that bothered me. Also, the whole "Hey, we have modules right HERE, ready for tons of Greyhawk play!", then coded the pdf's so that you have to be a registered RPGA judge in order to open and use said modules. I have no desire to agree to kowtow to thier arbitrary regulations concerning what my players can and cannot play, in order to use their materials. I've still got all my old 1st and 2nd ed Greyhawk stuff, and it's not that hard to convert To Hits, THAC0, and AC from the old systems to 3.5.
I think Creighton mentioned that it wouldn't be possible to take into account all the changes that LG brought into the world because there was no official list of who was on the Triads in various regions. Thus for copyright reasons a Greyhawk campaign sourcebook couldn't take into account all of the changes that LG brought into the world. I think it *might* be possible for a select few LG people like Erik Mona and Creighton to add their input into a Greyhawk campaign sourcebook. Otherwise it would have to leave off with the material in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
One thing people haven't mentioned is that Geoff is now free of giant control while Sterich is ruled by the giants again. And Ulek AFAIK has mostly recovered its territory that was lost to Mak.
I'd like to see the Ether Threat and the Tenh series added to the book as well as the drow Gloom and Disunion series.
LG Greyhawk WASN'T canon? WHAT? If it wasn't, WHY on Oerth did WotC give sole purview of the Flannaess to the RPGA? Why didn't we get a real Greyhawk setting before 4th ed????
IIRC, back when they first got the permission from WotC, the RPGA website was proclaiming that their campaign was canon, and would advance canon further in light of the lack of Gygax, Moore, or Sargent.
Greyhawk campaigns seem to pretend that the PC's are the only heroes capable of dealing with every threat (RttToEE anyone?) and evil strongholds seem to pop up and develop with no intervention; I'd like to see what 4e has to say about that.
I know the nature of creatures in the lower planes are changing (devils will be fallen angels, etc.), so perhaps the nature of Graz'zt and Iuz may change - but still, it would be nice to see a fair attempt made at preserving what drove more recent (latter 2e) published Greyhawk campaigns.
I wouldn't mind seeing at least some of what happened in LG being included as well; it might give the rest of us some interesting material to work with. Beyond the City of Greyhawk, the Circle of Eight and Iuz' lands, there isn't a lot happening in published works.
I'd like to see full powers of deities detailed with a few examples of aspects so we don't have to wonder what the limits of their abilities should be (start with the gods and work down instead of giving us one version of an aspect after another, leaving us to wonder what the full one is like).
And most importantly, writing that is inspiring and doesn't leave the world feeling like an overdeveloped comic book.
The migration of peoples, the different human pantheons, trade, etc.
I'd like to see the major plots of each region's first 5 year arc, at least, be put into a new GCS. The details don't have to be all THAT specific, but there should be something.
I would also like it if the LG campaign *didn't* end in an apocalypse, the way the current Circle is talking about. Thank you, no.
Then, future products can be focused on updating regional histories and cultures, but NOT advancing the timeline.
Greyhawk campaigns seem to pretend that the PC's are the only heroes capable of dealing with every threat (RttToEE anyone?) and evil strongholds seem to pop up and develop with no intervention; I'd like to see what 4e has to say about that.
But that is because in Greyhawk, the PC's ARE the heroes!
Many old-timer (1st ed AD&D) Greyhawker's who now play 3.5 and had to suffer under the Realms-centric 2nd ed quickly grew sick and tired of the whole "it's Blackstaff's, Drizzt's, and Elminster's world, not yours" attitude that most FR DM's had. Either the Big Guns would step in and claim all the credit for your deeds, or they'd end up rescuing you as the DM's Deus Ex Machina, or they'd simply step in and take away all the stuff you and your party had looted from the tomb/temple/ruin, etc.
Actually overheard at the gaming table in one FR game:
Elminster: "Oh, no, my dear lads, this is far too dangerous for you to have, here let the grown-ups dispose of this..."
But that is because in Greyhawk, the PC's ARE the heroes!
Many old-timer (1st ed AD&D) Greyhawker's who now play 3.5 and had to suffer under the Realms-centric 2nd ed quickly grew sick and tired of the whole "it's Blackstaff's, Drizzt's, and Elminster's world, not yours" attitude that most FR DM's had.[/i]"
With powerful NPC's like Mordenkainen and the Circle of Eight around, though, it doesn't stand to reason that the PC's are the only classed heroes in the world. Yes, I agree that in a specific campaign, if the PC's discover a significant threat and are able to play a role in quelling it, that they be primarily assigned the task of dealing with it.
The point I'm trying to make is mostly specific to the cult's temple in RttToEE. It's a powerful place, violently repelling anyone who gets too close without infiltrating, and yet it has been allowed to develop and thrive for as long as it has. And the campaign mentions little about anyone beyond tiny little Hommlet taking an interest in it.
It does stand to reason, however, that when a significant threat is discovered, town elders and significant NPC's concerned with stability of the region would take an active interest in how successful the PC's are in dealing with it instead of simply hiding away in their fortresses and churches. I'm just hoping material for 4e Greyhawk takes that into account. There are ways to allow PC's to be the heroes AND let significant NPC's get involved in a way that actually makes PC's feel involved in the workings of the world. It allows the PC's to develop actual relationships with the world of Greyhawk. It's much more fulfilling that way.
I may be lynched for saying this but...
...Bring Gary back to design/head this.
The universe could implode.
Not likely to happen.
A better compromise would be to bring Roger E. Moore and Anne Brown in, Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins and the Players Guide To Greyhawk were great reworkings of the original WoG, GW, and OotA (Out of the Ashes) sets, covered more of the setting than any of the other boxed sets did*, and unlike Sargent or Gygax, had plenty of flavor text to go with the crunchy bits.
*: other than the City of Greyhawk boxed set, that is
this is what i would like to see, mordenkainen on the first page after the table of contents, and his 4e stats and background
do this and ill buy the book just for that.
put his stats in and somewhere else and its a consider to think about.
No no, then he's too much like a certain other wizard known for his campaign setting....
Well atleast he's not something stupid and cheesy like chosen of Boccob.
I'd like an updated Gazetteer... which being mostly locations, gods, history, and human subraces, should be easy enough and applicable to 3e or 4e. Throw in some 4e crunch for bonus points... regional feats, magic items, prestige classes, npcs, spells, and monsters (such as ether creatures)... where applicable to 4e. But even more importantly, updated maps! World, region, city, etc. Write this for those who might what to set a campaign in Greyhawk (or eventually maybe even restart LG), for those who just want to borrow cool locations or NPCs, and for those of us who played LG and want consolidated updates of both the regions we saw and those we never did.
This could either be a consolidated book (with maps!) or a series of online Dragon/Dungeon articles.
The other thing I'd like to see is a Mega-adventure (or series) for 4e (possibly with dual 3.5 stats) starting at APL 16 for those of us who want to continue play with our retired LG characters on our own. Hey, high-level play is supposed to be easier in 4e, right? Preferably include as much conversion help as you can (although I'm sure DMs will have their work cut out for them, and some stuff just won't translate cleanly).
Finally, some "best of" translations of LG mods to 4e would be cool, with notes on running them in Greyhawk or incorporating them into your own setting.
PS - If folks want more Greyhawk, buy Greyhawk Ruins. Even if it's not the Gazetteer you were looking for.
Trevor
As for Ruins of?
Already plan on getting it, it will come in SO handy to my campaign once we start it back up. (Right now Camille is running us thru FR, so no Greyhawking just yet.
)Gryllmyre, I agree on your point concerning RttToEE, but in my opinion, that's just bad writing on the author's part. It would've been more sensible to explain that such luminaries as the Fellowship of the Torch, the Golden Scimitars, Bladestorm, the Justicar and Escalla, Phillidor the Blue Wizard, Tang the Horrific, the various members of the Circle, and others are either: dead, been wrangled into becoming landed nobles, retired, or are so powerful (epic level like most of the Circle) that a mere 3rd level Fireball is like the oft joked-about Power Word: Nuke.
But, instead he went with the 'only you, the player characters can deal with this' shoe-horn plot-device.
its the oldest business strategy in the world.
WotC: "no, you can't have this anymore *ganks LG*
LG players: "but we love LG and its fun, I hate you, give it back"
WotC: "No you have to play with this now"
LG players: "but I don't wanna play in Elminster's stomping grounds, he's such a butthole"
WotC: "too bad"
LG players: "NOOOOO"
WotC: "lets just set this on store shelves*greyhawk's back*"
I wouldn't be surprised if a short while after 4.0 has been out (a year or so) we saw a sudden upsurge, and by upsurge I mean the existence of, Greyhawk product.
Theres a real kernel of truth in that...
It's not what they PUT IN, it's what they TOOK OUT, that bothered me. Also, the whole "Hey, we have modules right HERE, ready for tons of Greyhawk play!", then coded the pdf's so that you have to be a registered RPGA judge in order to open and use said modules.
It is an RPGA campaign.
Why wouldn't the adventure require you to use them as part of the RPGA?
I have no desire to agree to kowtow to thier arbitrary regulations concerning what my players can and cannot play, in order to use their materials.
Then don't play.
Whenever you play in someone else's campaign, you must follow their rules. The Living Greyhawk campaign is an RPGA campaign, not your campaign. To use the materials you must follow the rules of people running the campaign.
When you run an RPGA game, they aren't your players, they are RPGA players, and you are answerable to the RPGA rules.
As for the rules of the campaign, they are in no way arbitrary. They are very deliberately crafted to manage a campaign with thousands of players. Individuals may not like them, but the many thousands of regular RPGA players have been satisfied enough with them to make the LG campaign extremely popular.
LG Greyhawk WASN'T canon? WHAT? If it wasn't, WHY on Oerth did WotC give sole purview of the Flannaess to the RPGA? Why didn't we get a real Greyhawk setting before 4th ed????
LG is a real Greyhawk setting. That the vast majority of the material can not be carried forward to a new version of the setting book does not in any way diminish the amount of effort put into developing the setting for the LG campaign.
A better compromise would be to bring Roger E. Moore and Anne Brown in, Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins and the Players Guide To Greyhawk were great reworkings of the original WoG, GW, and OotA (Out of the Ashes) sets, covered more of the setting than any of the other boxed sets did*, and unlike Sargent or Gygax, had plenty of flavor text to go with the crunchy bits.
*: other than the City of Greyhawk boxed set, that is
Gygax and Sargent had nearly too much flavor text, and virtually no crunchy bits.
Indeed, that is a hallmark of GH sourcebooks - a near total dearth of crunchy bits. More than 90% of every books is nothing but flavor text, descriptions of lands, histories, and personalities, with little more than a few stat blocks, and some random specialist cleric information serving as the crunchy bits. A few of the GH '98 books had character kits, but that is as crunchy as it got.
Also, in terms of sheer text size, the '83 setting book and FtA had much more much more content than tAB and PGtG. The only thing those added were a few more paragraphs about areas beyond the Flanaess, particularly Hepmonaland and the Amedio. In terms of detail though, they can not in any way compare to the content of their predecessors or successor (the LGG).
The Glossography book inside the WoG boxed set was almost nothing BUT graphs, charts, and tables. The Quasi-deities section was about the only bit of descriptive text in the whole book, the Gods themselves got extensive stat blocks, but almost NO descriptions of personality or dogma! It was like a divine Monster Manual.
How is THAT not crunch?
The OotA boxed set was a bit better, but suffered under the same flat, dry Dragnet "Just the facts, ma'am" writing style that made the original WoG books read like a school textbook. The best perk of the book was the inclusion on page 16 of Atlas of the Flannaess, the 'Greetings and Farewells' paragraphs, and that was only roughly half a page out of the entire boxed set pair of booklets.
It's not flavor text if the text has no flavor.
Now, City of Greyhawk, now THAT had flavor. The main boxed sets, though?
It is an RPGA campaign.
But it wasn't, originally. It was a campaign for EVERYONE that played D&D. The present scenario is exclusionary and elitist, and against everything that WotC claims they're trying to do with D&D.
Whenever you play in someone else's campaign, you must follow their rules. The Living Greyhawk campaign is an RPGA campaign, not your campaign. To use the materials you must follow the rules of people running the campaign.
To which I would gladly agree if there were any 3.5 D&D Greyhawk products outside of the RPGA, but there are not. Right now, it's a monopoly, whereas players of the Forgotten Realms and Eberron actually have resources available for non-RPGA FR and Eberron game play.
LG is a real Greyhawk setting. That the vast majority of the material can not be carried forward to a new version of the setting book does not in any way diminish the amount of effort put into developing the setting for the LG campaign.
Oh, bloody PLEASE! That's the biggest load of nonsense I've EVER heard! :headexplo The LG book itself is almost 100% photocopied from Gygax's original text, except for the changes implemented in The Adventure Begins and Players Guide to Greyhawk! Most of the nation blocks have been copied WORD-FOR-WORD, paragraph by paragraph. If it weren't the fact that it was licensed by WotC, it would've been grounds for one of the worlds biggest plagiarism suits! The only real new stuff was in the Appendix, and the inclusion of Zuoken in the deities section. (and despite adding in a god of Psionics, they still disallowed the psi rules
) Development? HAH!??????????
The Glossography book inside the WoG boxed set was almost nothing BUT graphs, charts, and tables. The Quasi-deities section was about the only bit of descriptive text in the whole book, the Gods themselves got extensive stat blocks, but almost NO descriptions of personality or dogma! It was like a divine Monster Manual.
How is THAT not crunch?
I meant the entire boxed set.
And it may have escaped you, but the majority of those table were setting irrelevant. Travel times, encounter charts, a weather table, all primarily fluff.
As for the deity descriptions, apparently you missed the stuff in the other book, which contained the descriptions and such of the deities.
It is not crunch simply because the majority of it was not edition specific rules material. No prestige classes, no feats, no hard system rules.
The OotA boxed set was a bit better, but suffered under the same flat, dry Dragnet "Just the facts, ma'am" writing style that made the original WoG books read like a school textbook. The best perk of the book was the inclusion on page 16 of Atlas of the Flannaess, the 'Greetings and Farewells' paragraphs, and that was only roughly half a page out of the entire boxed set pair of booklets.
It's not flavor text if the text has no flavor.
That text has quite a bit of flavor. It is almost written from the POV of a local writing the descriptions, and it has a definite bias in many of them.
That's why people can create so much material from them. They contain so many little quips and comments that you could run a hundred campaigns, each completely different, and still not use every last seed hidden in those books.
Now, City of Greyhawk, now THAT had flavor. The main boxed sets, though?
City of Greyhawk was nice.
It contained a lot of wrong flavor. Like the polymorph gang, which ignored that a polymorphed creature changes back to its natural form when killed.
But it had decent flavor.
If you can't find the flavor in the 83 set and FtA, you really aren't looking. Particularly Sargent's work.
The results will NOT be pretty.
As for the Polymorph gang you referred to...
yeah, that WAS pretty dumb
But it wasn't, originally. It was a campaign for EVERYONE that played D&D. The present scenario is exclusionary and elitist, and against everything that WotC claims they're trying to do with D&D.
Living Greyhawk was always an RPGA campaign.
The campaign is not exclusionary or elitist in the least. Any one can join the RPGA and take part in it. And after the first year of the campaign, membership was absolutely free, and so was ordering and playing adventures.
Overall, the RPGA is everything it should be, as is the LG campaign.
To which I would gladly agree if there were any 3.5 D&D Greyhawk products outside of the RPGA, but there are not. Right now, it's a monopoly, whereas players of the Forgotten Realms and Eberron actually have resources available for non-RPGA FR and Eberron game play.
There are quite a few resources available for Greyhawk, from the RPGA, that are absolutely free. They include the various Regional websites, as well as the main RPGA website, which contains a number of articles that are freely available.
Oh, bloody PLEASE! That's the biggest load of nonsense I've EVER heard! :headexplo The LG book itself is almost 100% photocopied from Gygax's original text, except for the changes implemented in The Adventure Begins and Players Guide to Greyhawk! Most of the nation blocks have been copied WORD-FOR-WORD, paragraph by paragraph. If it weren't the fact that it was licensed by WotC, it would've been grounds for one of the worlds biggest plagiarism suits! The only real new stuff was in the Appendix, and the inclusion of Zuoken in the deities section. (and despite adding in a god of Psionics, they still disallowed the psi rules
You have obviously not read the LGG.
The nation descriptions are 3-20 times the size of any previous descriptions. incorporating significant new details. The geographic features are similar, but then how much does a mountain change?
The deities section includes every single deity from the 83 set list. Dozens of deities received write ups for the first time ever.
Living Greyhawk was always an RPGA campaign.
Now you're being obtuse. LG, perhaps, but we're not speaking exclusively of LG, now, we're speaking about Greyhawk, period.
Overall, the RPGA is everything it should be, as is the LG campaign.
Opinion, not fact.
You have obviously not read the LGG.
Actually, my copy is right next to my computer desk. Want me to quote a page, any page?
The nation descriptions are 3-20 times the size of any previous descriptions. incorporating significant new details.
As I stated in the flying-off-the-handle portion of my rant:
except for the changes implemented in The Adventure Begins and Players Guide to Greyhawk
And even there, the additions were in some cases cut-and-paste, with occasional paraphrases.
Sorry if I went off the handle in the preceeding rant, Samwise, but just stop and imagine what kind of uproar you'd hear if WotC refused to print any kind of FR sourcebook, and told all of the Realms fanatics that if you want to play in the Realms, you'll have to play according to the RPGA rules, like they did to us Greyhawkers in 3rd ed/3.5.
The results will NOT be pretty.
Except . . .
You do not have to join the RPGA to buy the LGG.
You do not have to play the Living Greyhawk campaign to use the LGG.
So your comparison is utterly moot.
I was in (then took over) a GH campaign before LG started.
That group continued playing GH campaigns while LG ran, completely unaffiliated with the RPGA in any way. (Not including me being an LG Triad member, and our original gaming location being the WotC chat rooms.)
The group will continue to play GH campaigns after LG ends. (And I am no longer a reviewer of RPGA core adventures.)
Absolutely, in no way, shape, or form, do you have to play the LG campaign to play a GH campaign, use the LGG, or use LG web content.
And, since you seem unaware, while LG has been running, the RPGA ran a Forgotten Realms D&D Campaign called Legacy of the Green Regent. You had to be an RPGA member to get access to the adventures, but it in no way stopped people from playing regular Forgotten Realms campaigns.
They ran and finished one Eberron D&D Campaign called Mark of Heroes, and are running a second one called Xen'drik Expeditions. Again, you must be an RPGA member to get the adventures, but it in no way interferes with anyone running their own Eberron campaign.
Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the RPGA has already announced that for 4E they will be running a Living Forgotten Realms Campaign. I've yet to hear any screams of outrage over being denied total access to all materials written outside the RPGA.
Except . . .So your comparison is utterly moot.
As is your counterpoint. While Green Regent, Mark of Heroes, and Xen'drik Expeditions were running, WotC had 3.5 sourcebooks and support/ 'splat' books for Eberron and Forgotten Realms.
GREYHAWK HAD NO SUCH WotC SUPPORT.
To repeat myself,
just stop and imagine what kind of uproar you'd hear if WotC refused to print any kind of FR sourcebook, and told all of the Realms fanatics that if you want to play in the Realms, you'll have to play according to the RPGA rules, like they did to us Greyhawkers in 3rd ed/3.5.
The results will NOT be pretty.
Now you're being obtuse. LG, perhaps, but we're not speaking exclusively of LG, now, we're speaking about Greyhawk, period.
You said the RPGA was barring access to Greyhawk. It has never done so. It has only controlled access to the Living Greyhawk campaign.
If you don't want to speak exclusively of LG, then don't try and portray it as the entirety of Greyhawk. It is not.
Opinion, not fact.
As is everything you said.
Actually, my copy is right next to my computer desk. Want me to quote a page, any page?
No.
I want you to quote a specific national entry, and compare it to the specific national entry of the same nation from FtA or the 83 set.
Then I want you to count the number of deities in the LGG, and compare it to the number of deities in FtA, and tell us how many were added, above and beyond just Zuoken.
As I stated in the flying-off-the-handle portion of my rant:
And even there, the additions were in some cases cut-and-paste, with occasional paraphrases.
Cite it.
Show side by side national entries that have a majority content that is cut and paste with occasional paraphrase.
A lot of the history is simply copied forward.
As is a lot of the simple background, like racial descriptions and geographic features.
But the overwhelming majority of the LGG, the detailed national entries, is anything but that. When an entry is 2-4 pages in the LGG compared to hallf a column in the 83 set or FtA, it should be quite obvious there is more than just cut and past or paraphrasing.
As is your counterpoint. While Green Regent, Mark of Heroes, and Xen'drik Expeditions were running, WotC had 3.5 sourcebooks and support/ 'splat' books for Eberron and Forgotten Realms.
GREYHAWK HAD NO SUCH WotC SUPPORT.
So what?
GH had minimal support for years, before FtA, then after Ivid was cancelled up until tAB and the PGtG, then finally until the LGG.
I did not have the least bit of trouble running a GH campaign during that time period.
And with all the generic supplements for 3E/3.5 over the past 8 years, I have not had any trouble finding additional material for my home GH campaigns, which happened to include psionics, even though the LG campaign did not.
So now you want me to imagine WotC cuts off all new products for Eberron and Forgotten Realms?
You mean the way they cut off Planescape?
The way they cut off Spelljammer?
The way they cut off Birthright?
The problem with your scenario continues to be with your insistence that because the RPGA runs a campaign based in one of those settings, it somehow constitutes the only way to conceivably play in those settings.
It would not.
And it ignores that Forgotten Realms and Eberron are major cash cows for WotC, so they have little reason to end them suddenly. Greyhawk was not ended suddenly. It was simply never started up after the LGG. As such there is just no comparing the campaigns and product releases, no matter how much you demand such a comparison be made.
No.
I want you to quote a specific national entry, and compare it to the specific national entry of the same nation from FtA or the 83 set.
If you think I'm going to spend the next few hours before sunrise typing that up, you must be rooming with Zagyg Ygrane.
Then again, maybe Wizards employee can play around with contracted work of RPGA members to "design a Greyhawk" for fixed pay hoping everything remains cool. That way, good designers will be able to vary their work from existing work they designed and Wizards won't get in trouble.
I hope they do find a way to work with the excellent innovators of the RPGA Living Greyhawk game.
The thing I would like to see most is to add/update the "major" changes/plot lines of the Regional/Core mods that the LG campaign has made, to Greyhawk cannon.
Examples: The events of the Ether Threat...Bright Sand Series...The Nyrond series where the Imperium/Hextorian's take over....The Keoland Series where King Scotti dies and is then returned to the throne...The Bissel "Evard" series.
I'll second this notion. We don't need huge amounts of information and it's a shame that so many rulers suffered so much hardship in such a short period but I would like to see the hard work by all the triads and fans be immortalised formally too.
I hope they do find a way to work with the excellent innovators of the RPGA Living Greyhawk game.
As long as they don't ignore the non-RPGA roots of the setting and remember to include the various sub-races and other features of the setting, such as psionics (Emrikol the Chaotic comes to mind), I have no problem with that.
The predominant problem I had with the RPGA (other than their being the sole source of 3.0/3.5 Greyhawk besides Dungeon magazine) was their general subtractiveness. "You can do this and this, but not this, this, this, and that other thing." Far more "You cannot's" than "you can's", all in all.
Let's not overlook the "Mysterious Places"; not everyone runs urban adventures. My current game, for example, starts in the region of Turucambi reef and may explore such regions as the Sinking Isle, Jungle of Lost Ships, wreck of the Sea Prince, Drawmij's undersea fortress, and who knows... I might follow through on my "threat" to make the lesser moon Celene a hollow Dyson Sphere with an inner ocean. ;)
I've really been enjoying the articles on the Domain of Greyhawk that appear periodically on WotC. I spoke with the author a while back and he said that his remit didn't allow him to detail any locations that were under the control of the regional triads. With those gloves off it would be great to see a regular article on D&D Insider adding some depth to various Greyhawk locations. The focus in Dungeon mag was largely under the same limitations I believe (although Spinecastle did get a look in recently).
I'm a big fan of the city stat blocks (assuming that is to remain broadly similar in 4e) with lists of the names of major npcs and locations. It's a great help to DMs if players are just passing through these locations.
If you think I'm going to spend the next few hours before sunrise typing that up, you must be rooming with Zagyg Ygrane.
No, I don't expect you to do that at all, as it would definitely prove your statements about the LGG are completely wrong.
But that's OK. A lot of people upset about things like not being to use psionics in the LG campaign make wild statements about LG and the LGG. Some like to say you can't play a character with the Neutral alignment in the campaign, others say the book is horrible because it has no crunch, and others say it is bad because it doesn't have enough fluff. So I'm used to correcting statements like that.
The actual contents of the book and rules of the campaign are quite easy for anyone to investigate if they want to learn the truth about either. I strongly encourage people to take the time and check them out themselves. Even if the LG campaign is ending next year, there are still a lot of play opportunities, and a lot of adventures available for people to enjoy.
http://i19.ebayimg.com/06/i/000/b2/8f/833a_1.JPG
I don't know if this means they are just having greyhawk go out with a bang, or the possible future hardcopy releases of greyhawk material.
Halber
The problem with Greyhawk is this. I DO ALSO run a Greyhawk game. BUT...
You NEED players who understand FEUDALISM. The problem with D+D 4 is that they are taking the FEUDALISM out of the game, and by this, I mean the procedures like quitrent, right of the first night, and other things that most people put into their Greyhawk game by virtue of the nature of royal perogative that operates within it.
My realms game is more successful than my greyhawk game because...
Governments are weird. That's right, you have strange oligarchies with masks, mercantile oligarchies like venice, and other social obstacles of general strangeness.
If you play a Greyhawk game with people who understand feudalism, the game is great, but unfortunately, that number of people grows smaller every year.
In Greyhawk, people have to understand the difference between racism in the real world and ROLEPLAYING racism. YES, Elves HATE orcs. YES, Half-Orcs would rather die than sup with a dwarf. It's part of the feel of the world that a lot of people just don't get along.
If there's a "Taboo" that is sinking Greyhawk, it's the inability of new players to comprehend feudalism and "Roleplaying Racism."
I would LOVE a new Greyhawk sourcebook. And a TON of new material.
BUT...
I don't think Wizards thinks that there are enough people who understand feudalism and "roleplaying racism" to warrant publishing these books. They want a larger market for their product, and unfortunately, that's why they went with the Realms first.
Living Greyhawk or no, I'll buy it if they publish it. I'd take Greyhawk as my second setting over Eberron any day.
But if they screw you on Greyhawk, you should check out the Paizo stuff and Golarion. That's a great world, too.
They seem to want players to identify more closely with their flagship setting, Eberron, than with the crusty old relic that is Greyhawk. Just my observation, anyway...
Now, that being said, it's a sad commentary on the state of roleplaying games (and on the public), if Forgotten Realms is more popular today only because it's themes are considered more dumbed down to appeal to the North American market than Greyhawk.
Well, I like Greyhawk a lot, but I've run a Forgotten Realms game for 20 years.
The problem with Greyhawk is this. I DO ALSO run a Greyhawk game. BUT...
You NEED players who understand FEUDALISM. The problem with D+D 4 is that they are taking the FEUDALISM out of the game, and by this, I mean the procedures like quitrent, right of the first night, and other things that most people put into their Greyhawk game by virtue of the nature of royal perogative that operates within it.
My realms game is more successful than my greyhawk game because...
Governments are weird. That's right, you have strange oligarchies with masks, mercantile oligarchies like venice, and other social obstacles of general strangeness.
If you play a Greyhawk game with people who understand feudalism, the game is great, but unfortunately, that number of people grows smaller every year.
In Greyhawk, people have to understand the difference between racism in the real world and ROLEPLAYING racism. YES, Elves HATE orcs. YES, Half-Orcs would rather die than sup with a dwarf. It's part of the feel of the world that a lot of people just don't get along.
If there's a "Taboo" that is sinking Greyhawk, it's the inability of new players to comprehend feudalism and "Roleplaying Racism."
I would LOVE a new Greyhawk sourcebook. And a TON of new material.
BUT...
I don't think Wizards thinks that there are enough people who understand feudalism and "roleplaying racism" to warrant publishing these books. They want a larger market for their product, and unfortunately, that's why they went with the Realms first.
Living Greyhawk or no, I'll buy it if they publish it. I'd take Greyhawk as my second setting over Eberron any day.
But if they screw you on Greyhawk, you should check out the Paizo stuff and Golarion. That's a great world, too.
If you think FR is just a dumb, overpowered copie, think again. The genders roles and the question of the sexulities as treated in FR is a good counter-example - a feudal world where paganism rules, and its logical consequences. It's also a game much darker in bits than expected, where dictature like Thay will stay alive for a long, long while...
The same remarks, issues, etc can be applied to FR. And sadly, recently, a certain gygax-Only syndroma come to appears with Greenwood old fans....
As for Eberron, one have compared it to a fantasy Shadowrun - nearly an alternate 'Fourth World'. it says something.
Myself, however, I could very well give GH a chance; I would buy a campaign sourcebook of good quality. My take is that it could be set after the last products of pre-Living grehawk maybe, but distant enough perhaps to smooth and erase due to the time passed the things the anti-War fans disliked.
Take also notes from the design of Eberron, and allow vagueness, places for DM to add his own stuff, and all that. opportunities, ideas, suggestions.
You might want to look at English feudalism vs. French vs. Germanic vs. Spanish.... they're all different from each other.
Also, take a closer look at Greyhawk's governments... not all of them are feudal in nature. Some are oligarchies, like that of the Free City itself. Some are matriarchal oligarchies. The Yeomanry is a democratic republic. The Pale is a Theocracy.
Or were you saying that this makes Greyhawk better than the Realms? It wasn't very clear.
As for the Feudalism issue mentioned by one of the previous posters i dont think that honestly has anything to do with greyhawk but that posters interpetation of it.
Its a great setting with alot of history but with our current game our Dm is finding he is going through old modules that took place in the area of our game and pulling out the fluff bits to help with his campaign material.
Id also like to point out that the Specieism issue mentioned again by the same previous poster are again not specific to greyhawk much of those animosities like dwarven dislike of goblins exists in fr as well.
Players don't want their characters worrying about silly things like what they can say to nobles, or what weapons or armor they are legally allowed to own.
Not to mention that Feudalism is more a bunch of theoretical concepts than an actual historical government type, and that Greyhawk has more non-Feudal governments than it does Feudal ones, and the thing is best left as a backdrop theme than actual hard and fast content.
Greyhawk, and D&D in general, are exceptionally anti-Feudal in nature.
Players don't want their characters worrying about silly things like what they can say to nobles, or what weapons or armor they are legally allowed to own.
Not to mention that Feudalism is more a bunch of theoretical concepts than an actual historical government type, and that Greyhawk has more non-Feudal governments than it does Feudal ones, and the thing is best left as a backdrop theme than actual hard and fast content.
Very few players would even have a clue what the true political, legal and economic situation under fuedalism was. Most people seem to base their views on basic high school history with a smattering of Hollywood.
Unless I'm sadly mistaken, only Dark Sun has had less info about more than the first Box Set set in a small portion of an continent.
Forgotten Realms got Horde, Kara-Tur, Maztica, and Al-Qadim was also "officially" set there.....
Dragonlance got the Time of the Dragon box set to expand beyond Ansalon.
I want more of Greyhawks world to play in. Simply more of it.
Wouldn't it be fun if someone from beyond the Flanaess suddenly went on an invasional spree and tried to take over that part of the continent? PC's would then (of course, they're the heroes) be deployed behind the enemy lines to interupt their supply lines, and going westwards to explore and, more importantly, see if they can negotiate anything.....
*sigh*
But I'm prolly just dreaming
Not to mention that Feudalism is more a bunch of theoretical concepts than an actual historical government type, and that Greyhawk has more non-Feudal governments than it does Feudal ones, and the thing is best left as a backdrop theme than actual hard and fast content.
Allowed to own? How about can get your hands on or even afford? Really there is no place for "adventurers" in a true feudalistic society, if merely because the strict caste system leaves effectively no middle class. The rich are too comfortable, and the poor are too poor to adventure.
Allowed to own? How about can get your hands on or even afford? Really there is no place for "adventurers" in a true feudalistic society, if merely because the strict caste system leaves effectively no middle class. The rich are too comfortable, and the poor are too poor to adventure.
No, I mean allowed to own.
In a "true" high feudal society, a peasant gets executed for having a "chivalric" weapon (like say a long sword). Indeed since he can not afford it, he must have stolen, which is not only a personal crime against a knight, but also a form of insurrection as it is a symbol of a knight's authority to render justice.
Oh, and a feudal society does not have a strict caste system. It has a generally open social order below the royalty, with even high noble status accessible through the clergy.
Either way, that is one of the prime reasons why that kind of feudalism is not suitable for most D&D play. Players don't want to have to worry about hitting some silly glass ceiling of social class, and DMs don't want to have to justify an entire party of royal heirs, or worse deal with players abusing being an entire party of said heirs.
You NEED players who understand FEUDALISM. The problem with D+D 4 is that they are taking the FEUDALISM out of the game, and by this, I mean the procedures like quitrent, right of the first night, and other things that most people put into their Greyhawk game by virtue of the nature of royal perogative that operates within it.
First of all, such things as quitrents and the right of the first night have not, in fact, been part of any edition of D&D because D&D simply adopts a vaguely late medieval tone and leaves it up to the DM to develop his setting. No edition of D&D has simulated feudalism very effectively and certainly not to that level of degree. Nor do I see any indication that fourth edition will somehow magically make the simulation of feudalism impossible.
Secondly, it's clear that you don't know feudalism very well, or you would know that the 'right of the first night' was a late medieval myth and that it NEVER ACTUALLY EXISTED. There is not any evidence whatsoever that the right existed at the time it supposedly did as it appears in no early-mid medieval law code, the Church never protested it (and there's no way the Church would have let every lord have extramarital sex with every woman on his manor without protesting, even if it was only 'once'.), etc. It's a legal fiction invented in the late middle ages to try to explain things like why peasants had to pay a fee to get married in some places. It was then spread around by people like Voltaire, who would say just about anything to make a point, true or not.
Thirdly, I ran my first AD&D game in Greyhawk in 1984. We didn't know jack about feudalism but had a huge pile of fun. I have used it repeatedly since then with players who didn't know anything and we still had fun.
Finally, large chunks of the Greyhawk setting are not very feudal.
My realms game is more successful than my greyhawk game because...
Governments are weird. That's right, you have strange oligarchies with masks, mercantile oligarchies like venice, and other social obstacles of general strangeness.
I find it highly unlikely that the existence of odd-ball governments somehow makes Realms games work better.
If you play a Greyhawk game with people who understand feudalism, the game is great, but unfortunately, that number of people grows smaller every year.
In Greyhawk, people have to understand the difference between racism in the real world and ROLEPLAYING racism. YES, Elves HATE orcs. YES, Half-Orcs would rather die than sup with a dwarf. It's part of the feel of the world that a lot of people just don't get along.
Again, not a necessary part of the setting. Wasn't an issue for any game I ran, we had tons of fun.
If there's a "Taboo" that is sinking Greyhawk, it's the inability of new players to comprehend feudalism and "Roleplaying Racism."
I would LOVE a new Greyhawk sourcebook. And a TON of new material.
BUT...
I don't think Wizards thinks that there are enough people who understand feudalism and "roleplaying racism" to warrant publishing these books. They want a larger market for their product, and unfortunately, that's why they went with the Realms first.
The Realms gets favored over Greyhawk because ever since Gary Gygax left TSR, it was easier for TSR, then WOTC to push a setting it controlled completely that didn't have its creator floating around out there alienated from its creator. This created a self-sustaining momentum in favor of the Realms.
Combined with WOTC being wary about trying to run too many seperate game lines at once, this means Greyhawk is only likely to get much support if people who favor having lots of active lines end up in charge at WOTC.
I find it highly unlikely that the existence of odd-ball governments somehow makes Realms games work better.
Or worse. Perhaps it is closer to the actual reality of past europe, where there was not rerally one model feudal. Or perhaps it bring variety.
The Realms gets favored over Greyhawk because ever since Gary Gygax left TSR, it was easier for TSR, then WOTC to push a setting it controlled completely that didn't have its creator floating around out there alienated from its creator. This created a self-sustaining momentum in favor of the Realms.
Combined with WOTC being wary about trying to run too many seperate game lines at once, this means Greyhawk is only likely to get much support if people who favor having lots of active lines end up in charge at WOTC.
Note first that Ed Greenwood could pull a Gygax one day...
(I would remind Greyhawk fans that perhaps FR is good too, and it's a reason of it's success, first.
And also, if there was less a kind grognardise - which I am sure factored in this, perhaps the company(ies) would be less afraid of pulling new stuff. After all, would YOU work hard on a product for an old fandom knowing that you could get accused on the public place if you deviate the slightest from canon and expectations?)
Halber
Genghis...Just for the record...the Skyroad goes under Verbobonc not Veluna We haven't found any pylons in Veluna as of yet.
You sir, are correct! Its now fixed.
BTW, do you have anything about Veluna that you would like to add to the list? I know that this is a loaded question due to IP issues, so lets just say that listing it in this thread does not constitute consent to using the IP.
No, I mean allowed to own.
In a "true" high feudal society, a peasant gets executed for having a "chivalric" weapon (like say a long sword). Indeed since he can not afford it, he must have stolen, which is not only a personal crime against a knight, but also a form of insurrection as it is a symbol of a knight's authority to render justice.
Oh, and a feudal society does not have a strict caste system. It has a generally open social order below the royalty, with even high noble status accessible through the clergy.
Either way, that is one of the prime reasons why that kind of feudalism is not suitable for most D&D play. Players don't want to have to worry about hitting some silly glass ceiling of social class, and DMs don't want to have to justify an entire party of royal heirs, or worse deal with players abusing being an entire party of said heirs.
What I was trying to say is, before you even have to worry about it being illegal to have, you have to come up with some ridiculous way they could get their hands on it in the first place. In regards to clergy gaining nobility, OF COURSE clergy could gain nobility, seeing how it is the clergy that anointed rulers in most places in feudal Europe anyway. If the church is the true power (or at least a competing one), it isn't really changing level in status in any major way, simply transferring from one authority branch to another.
The only people I could see adventuring in a feudal society would be poor nobility without any sizable land, illegitimate children of nobility, and younger children of nobility (with nothing to inherit.)
P.S. (Afterthought edited in) In regards to clergy gaining nobility, why do you think they aren't allowed to marry? Just because Paul said he thought it would be best? Unlikely.
In Greyhawk, there's no reason that clerics can't marry. None at all. Many noble titles are "life" titles and thus not inheritable, if the local ruler is really worried about the local church trying to take over. Baron Jacoby of Ivyridge is a different sort of title from Jacoby, Baron of Ivyridge. The first denotes a life title and the second denotes an inheritable title. Guess which kind adventurers in Greyhawk are more likely to have?
What I was trying to say is, before you even have to worry about it being illegal to have, you have to come up with some ridiculous way they could get their hands on it in the first place.
You mean like looting a dead bandit?
Win one fight with a quarterstaff, upgrade to plate and long sword.
Pretty simple.
In regards to clergy gaining nobility, OF COURSE clergy could gain nobility, seeing how it is the clergy that anointed rulers in most places in feudal Europe anyway. If the church is the true power (or at least a competing one), it isn't really changing level in status in any major way, simply transferring from one authority branch to another.
No.
I mean a peasant becoming an abbot or even bishop, and thus becoming a feudal landowner, oweing fealty to a secular ruler.
The only people I could see adventuring in a feudal society would be poor nobility without any sizable land, illegitimate children of nobility, and younger children of nobility (with nothing to inherit.)
Which as I said is a problem itself.
P.S. (Afterthought edited in) In regards to clergy gaining nobility, why do you think they aren't allowed to marry? Just because Paul said he thought it would be best? Unlikely.
No.
They are not allowed to marry because the church did not want them assigning property to them as an inheritance.
With no legitimate children to claim the holding, there was virtually no legal impediment to keeping the holding an ecclesiastical fief forever. (Or at least until confiscated by the King or other sovereign.)
Greyhawk is at best just a little medieval. There are plenty of things that basicly don't belong there. Telescopes, large universities, the ability for adventures to travel without a lord's permission, the ability for adventurers to bare weapons in public. Feudalism is pretty much glossed over and forgotten.
Greyhawk is a fantasy setting that at best is medieval flavored. If your game want's strong feudalism, fine. But let's start talking about what we want to get printed, because no one want's to buy a book trying to straightjacket our history into a fantasy realm.
What I would like is for the history of western Oerik from the chainmail minis game to be included.
Yes, that would be an interesting addition, as well as some of the info about Hepmonaland, Hyboros, and 'Fireland', the other continents named (so far) in previous editions' material.
No.
They are not allowed to marry because the church did not want them assigning property to them as an inheritance.
With no legitimate children to claim the holding, there was virtually no legal impediment to keeping the holding an ecclesiastical fief forever. (Or at least until confiscated by the King or other sovereign.)
Actually the point my rhetorical question was trying to make.
I'd like to see full powers of deities detailed with a few examples of aspects so we don't have to wonder what the limits of their abilities should be (start with the gods and work down instead of giving us one version of an aspect after another, leaving us to wonder what the full one is like).
And most importantly, writing that is inspiring and doesn't leave the world feeling like an overdeveloped comic book.
IMO, these two things are counter productive. stats of gods are fairly irrelevant unless you plan on relying on them heavily as a plot device, which makes for a fairly boring campaign (see FR). Same can be said for major NPCs.
Not to mention, by stating them out, it actually pigeon-holes them into those stats, even when there are later things that come out that would make more sense (and therefore probably come out with "new and improved" stats for said things).
I'd much prefer a conceptual definition of gods and major NPCs, such as portfolios, descriptions, interests, allies and antagonists, etc. I don't care if a god is a cleric20/fighter20/monk20, just tell me they are a powerful warrior that also wields great divine magic, and I'll take it from there as a GM.
Not to mention, anything with stats can die. If you like campaigns where the PCs go around killing gods, more power to you, however, that's when the Xena series started getting really bad :-p
Integrate the material on Northwestern Oerik from Chainmail with the existing map of Oerik.
Make an agreement with Frank Mentzer to include Aquaria.
Travis
IMO, these two things are counter productive. stats of gods are fairly irrelevant unless you plan on relying on them heavily as a plot device, which makes for a fairly boring campaign (see FR). Same can be said for major NPCs.
Not to mention, by stating them out, it actually pigeon-holes them into those stats, even when there are later things that come out that would make more sense (and therefore probably come out with "new and improved" stats for said things).
I'd much prefer a conceptual definition of gods and major NPCs, such as portfolios, descriptions, interests, allies and antagonists, etc. I don't care if a god is a cleric20/fighter20/monk20, just tell me they are a powerful warrior that also wields great divine magic, and I'll take it from there as a GM.
Not to mention, anything with stats can die. If you like campaigns where the PCs go around killing gods, more power to you, however, that's when the Xena series started getting really bad :-p
I guess I can go with that, but I have to admit, I like the lesser version of the gods that WOTC has been puttting into the game. keep the "Aspects" of the gods. The are perfect for the PCs to fight and they don't take the God out of the game.
But I also admit, I would like to have the option of having the players go up against a God at a high level Epic game. But that doesn't need to take up sourcebook space.
Integrate the material on Northwestern Oerik from Chainmail with the existing map of Oerik.
I've always had a few problems with this map. The part of the map showing the Flanaess is nicely drawn and very "realistic" looking. As soon as you get west of the Sea of Dust, it looks like it was drawn on a bar napkin. Smooth coasts, no detail. Just uninspiring. And the names of some of the places, "Zindia", "Nippon", "Erypt" are just to "Earth-like" for me. Aside from the Nyr Dyv looking like Lake Superior, there is really no place on the Flanaess that reminds me of Earth. And then this map makes all these rather blatant correlations to real-Earth countries and it just doesn't sit right with me. I don't know if this is canon or not (although I've seen it around enough that it probably is) but I'd like to kinda leave this alone and let them take the countless number of places in the Flanaess that have little or no recent material attached to it, and develop that. The Flanaess is big enough to warrant all the material they can throw at it. Leave the rest, as far as I'm concerned.
Having said all that, It'll be a whole lotta years before I move to 4ed (I've got way to much 3.5 stuff, and we just moved over from 3.0 earlier this year). So any GH material they produce will be useless from a game mechanic point of view for me.
Greg
edit: got my lakes wrong...
I've always had a few problems with this map. The part of the map showing the Flanaess is nicely drawn and very "realistic" looking. As soon as you get west of the Sea of Dust, it looks like it was drawn on a bar napkin. Smooth coasts, no detail. Just uninspiring. And the names of some of the places, "Zindia", "Nippon", "Erypt" are just to "Earth-like" for me. Aside from the Nyr Dyv looking like Lake Superior, there is really no place on the Flanaess that reminds me of Earth. And then this map makes all these rather blatant correlations to real-Earth countries and it just doesn't sit right with me. I don't know if this is canon or not (although I've seen it around enough that it probably is) but I'd like to kinda leave this alone and let them take the countless number of places in the Flanaess that have little or no recent material attached to it, and develop that. The Flanaess is big enough to warrant all the material they can throw at it. Leave the rest, as far as I'm concerned.
Having said all that, It'll be a whole lotta years before I move to 4ed (I've got way to much 3.5 stuff, and we just moved over from 3.0 earlier this year). So any GH material they produce will be useless from a game mechanic point of view for me.
Greg
edit: got my lakes wrong...
You know that i the map is basicly Wisconson turned on it's side right?
You know that i the map is basicly Wisconson turned on it's side right?
Never, ever occured to me. Interesting. But then I'm Canadian, and while I can point out pretty much all 50 states, it would never have occurred to me to look at it in that way.
Just took a look and still don't see it. But I'll take your word for it.
Greg
Never, ever occured to me. Interesting. But then I'm Canadian, and while I can point out pretty much all 50 states, it would never have occurred to me to look at it in that way.
Just took a look and still don't see it. But I'll take your word for it.
Greg
It was something I read about years ago on Canonfire I believe. I guess I shouldn't assume that everyone reads those boards.
It was something I read about years ago on Canonfire I believe. I guess I shouldn't assume that everyone reads those boards.
I visit Canonfire, but only read bits and pieces. In fact, that's probably where I first saw reference to that map. (But not the reference to Wisconsin.) But there's a lot there that I haven't read.
Greg
I've always had a few problems with this map. The part of the map showing the Flanaess is nicely drawn and very "realistic" looking. As soon as you get west of the Sea of Dust, it looks like it was drawn on a bar napkin. Smooth coasts, no detail. Just uninspiring. And the names of some of the places, "Zindia", "Nippon", "Erypt" are just to "Earth-like" for me. Aside from the Nyr Dyv looking like Lake Superior, there is really no place on the Flanaess that reminds me of Earth. And then this map makes all these rather blatant correlations to real-Earth countries and it just doesn't sit right with me.
I feel that your concerns are astute. I am in favor of these revisions and clarifications for 4E Oerth:
1) Make the rest of the coastline of Oerik as detailed as the Flanaess'.
2) Incorporate the information on western Oerik from Gord's Greyhawk such as Jahind (likely a synonym for Zindia) and Sufang (the Celestial Imperium); and possibly including the Trigee names. For 4E, use the names that sound best, while leaving the other names as lesser-used synonyms. Same with the extra-Oerik lands of the Moving Islands and Gonduria, and also the Agitoric Ocean (the contrarily-named equivalent of the Pacific Ocean; also known as the Oceanum Titanicum). I don't know the legal status of the Trigee version of Greyhawk, but if Wizards doesn't own that material, then I'd like Wizards to make Trigee an offer.
3) Delineate western Oerik into geographical regions ("subcontinents") of a similar size as the Flanaess, and with the subcontinental boundaries marked clearly on the map. Give them names that are similar in form to "Flanaess". The name could be based on the name of the "root race" of that subcontinent, just as the name "Flanaess" is apparently based on the "Flan" root race(s) native to that subcontinent. These subcontinents could contain several of the previously-sketched countries. For example, there could be a term for a subcontinent including Nippon, the Nippon Dominion (likely including "Greyhawkized Korea", and possibly other cultures), Zindia/Jahind, and possibly other countries; this subcontinent would be named for the root race of those lands.
3) Gygax himself used Middle-eastern flavors for the Baklunish peoples, so it's reasonable to evoke other real world cultures for other parts of Oerik. However, I want these subcontinents to be as different from their real world counterparts as the Flanaess is different from Europe. In designing the cultures of the subcontinents of Oerik, I would examine what real world threads and formulas went into making the Flanaess, and then I'd reverse engineer them for application to other subcontinents. Though the Flanaess has mostly European cultural threads, there are other threads too, such as the Amerindian Rovers (specifically Plains Indian-style, like the Arapahos). In fact, given Gygax's familiarity with American Indians (the name "Greyhawk" is even said to be based on "Blackhawk"; and there are several Indian tribes still living in Wisconsin), there may be American Indian cultural threads in each subcontinent. For example, there may Pacific Northwest-style tribes (like the Tlingits) in Sufang, and Great Basin-style tribes (like the Shoshonis) in the Baklunish lands.
Even the European threads are given a "Greyhawk twist" (such as the **** Scarlet Brotherhood with Asian-style martial arts) and "Greyhawk themes" (such as the "Shades of Grey", embodied in Mordenkainen's extreme Neutrality). I would apply these Greyhawk twists and themes to the other subcontinents as well - the entire planet is part of the WORLD OF GREYHAWK (TM) after all.
4) Make each subcontinent have as similar number of countries, provinces, and free cities as the Flanaess. These polities (or sub-polities) would be of a similar size as their Flanaess counterparts. Even if some subcontinents contain large areas where one empire holds sway (such as Sufang), within these empires, the diversity of provinces, protectorates, rebel cities, and client tribes would be as great as the diversity within the Flanaess.
Travis
(0) More detail. I used to love that so little was spelt out but now I have a job and would prefer having more of the work done for me. I guess I'm old.
(1) Stat blocks for local militia / city guard etc. ... Don't make me search the regional triad's page to find out that most soldiers in country X are trained in the compound shortbow.
(2) If the noble families of Keoland are stabbing each other in the back then give me more details. I can't remember half of that stuff. Represent it graphically for me. Let me 'read' the nasty little conflicts at a glance.
(3) Maps of each country. I will pay more for a book that gives me more.
(4) Place the modules on the map. Saltmarsh should be on the map ... no question. The Keep on the Borderlands could be there under a different name. Over the years a lot of stuff has been placed in Greyhawk. Give us more of an idea of where it is. There will always be new stuff that the DM can place as it comes out. Barrow's Edge is a town that can go almost anywhere!
(5) Regional feats from Living Greyhawk Journal.
(6) More cities. The capitals of the major nations at least.
(7) I found all the minor deities too confusing. Maybe a clearer indication of where different deities were worshipped? I only really did stuff with core deities unless my PCs stumbled into a temple.
Cheers all.
P.S. I really enjoyed the Greyhawk novels, especially Paul Kidd's.
My wish list for Greyhawk Campaign Sourcebook:
(5) Regional feats from Living Greyhawk Journal.
AMEN!
P.S. I really enjoyed the Greyhawk novels, especially Paul Kidd's.
Ah, the Justicar and Escalla. Jus/Ev's the only guy I know of, Ranger-wise, who could take Drizzt in a fight.
*Twin scimitars flash in a hypnotic pattern designed to confu-*
*Broadsword chops dark-elven guy with two scimitars into two halves of a dark elven guy with scimitars*
Ah, the Justicar and Escalla. Jus/Ev's the only guy I know of, Ranger-wise, who could take Drizzt in a fight.
*Twin scimitars flash in a hypnotic pattern designed to confu-*
*Broadsword chops dark-elven guy with two scimitars into two halves of a dark elven guy with scimitars*
... The Justicar looked down in surprise at the halves of what had moments ago been a dark elf. Given the drow's reputation, the ranger had expected more of a fight.
"I think he expected you to let him finish his soliloquy first. That's hardly fair" chirped Escalla.
"He had two swords. I had one. He's dead. I'm alive. Can't get much more fair than that" grumbled the big man as he wiped his blade clean.
...
... The Justicar looked down in surprise at the halves of what had moments ago been a dark elf. Given the drow's reputation, the ranger had expected more of a fight.
"I think he expected you to let him finish his soliloquy first. That's hardly fair" chirped Escalla.
"He had two swords. I had one. He's dead. I'm alive. Can't get much more fair than that" grumbled the big man as he wiped his blade clean.
...
Lol! Very nice, I like.:D
the more people who make noise about it, the more likely WotC will realize that there is a market for a serious greyhawk 4E book, even if they don't continue to support the setting afterwards.
just keep the pressure up.
the more people who make noise about it, the more likely WotC will realize that there is a market for a serious greyhawk 4E book, even if they don't continue to support the setting afterwards.
I see no reason to convert to 4e myself. I'm completely happy with 3.5. ... If, however, Greyhawk got taken really seriously ... re-release of the old novels, new novels, maps, 'Best of Greyhawk' articles compendium with updated stats, miniatures, ...
WOTC would have made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
As it stands I plan on buying up some second hand 3.5 books that I don't have when/if people dump them and buying the expedition hardcovers that are still on the shelves and that is about it.
(4) Place the modules on the map. Saltmarsh should be on the map ... no question. The Keep on the Borderlands could be there under a different name. Over the years a lot of stuff has been placed in Greyhawk. Give us more of an idea of where it is. There will always be new stuff that the DM can place as it comes out.
Yes, I am for this as well. I would nail down the locations of all the 1st Edition modules, and also all the 3E modules that supposedly used Oerth as their default setting. Like camthalion said, there's always new adventures coming along for the DM to place.
I'd also like Wizards to officially recognize all of the home Oerth campaigns as Alternate Oerths. Anyone could register their campaign at Gleemax, and their Alternate Oerth would receive an official designation, such as Oerth-58, Oerth-793, and so on. Wizards' Oerth would be Oerth-1, and Gygax's home Oerth campaign would be symbolically recognized as Oerth-0.
Travis
I'd like Wizards to re-introduce the "meta-text" framing story used in the Glossography, as outlined at Canonfire (here; though sometimes the Wizards website misses the link) and in this Gleemax post.
Travis
I see no reason to convert to 4e myself. I'm completely happy with 3.5. ... If, however, Greyhawk got taken really seriously ... re-release of the old novels, new novels, maps, 'Best of Greyhawk' articles compendium with updated stats, miniatures, ...
WOTC would have made me an offer I couldn't refuse.
As it stands I plan on buying up some second hand 3.5 books that I don't have when/if people dump them and buying the expedition hardcovers that are still on the shelves and that is about it.
WotC will never, ever, relaunch Greyhawk. Sorry. It's just too similar to (waiting for the boos) Forgotten Realms.
That being said, a serious supplement would sell, and should be produced.
WotC will never, ever, relaunch Greyhawk. Sorry. It's just too similar to (waiting for the boos) Forgotten Realms.
That being said, a serious supplement would sell, and should be produced.
We will decide your punishment for blasphemy later, Yakman.
If they aren't going to relaunch it, maybe they could sell it to us hex by hex on some kind of wiki. heheh ... I'd pay a good 10 bucks for a lizardman infested hex in the Hool Marshes. Oddly enough, I'd only pay half that for some bucolic farm land near the King's Road of Keoland. Real Estate would work differently if the presence of dangerous humanoids was a plus.
I feel that your concerns are astute. I am in favor of these revisions and clarifications for 4E Oerth:
1) Make the rest of the coastline of Oerik as detailed as the Flanaess'.
2) Incorporate the information on western Oerik from Gord's Greyhawk such as Jahind (likely a synonym for Zindia) and Sufang (the Celestial Imperium); and possibly including the Trigee names. For 4E, use the names that sound best, while leaving the other names as lesser-used synonyms. Same with the extra-Oerik lands of the Moving Islands and Gonduria, and also the Agitoric Ocean (the contrarily-named equivalent of the Pacific Ocean; also known as the Oceanum Titanicum). I don't know the legal status of the Trigee version of Greyhawk, but if Wizards doesn't own that material, then I'd like Wizards to make Trigee an offer.
3) Delineate western Oerik into geographical regions ("subcontinents") of a similar size as the Flanaess, and with the subcontinental boundaries marked clearly on the map. Give them names that are similar in form to "Flanaess". The name could be based on the name of the "root race" of that subcontinent, just as the name "Flanaess" is apparently based on the "Flan" root race(s) native to that subcontinent. These subcontinents could contain several of the previously-sketched countries. For example, there could be a term for a subcontinent including Nippon, the Nippon Dominion (likely including "Greyhawkized Korea", and possibly other cultures), Zindia/Jahind, and possibly other countries; this subcontinent would be named for the root race of those lands.
3) Gygax himself used Middle-eastern flavors for the Baklunish peoples, so it's reasonable to evoke other real world cultures for other parts of Oerik. However, I want these subcontinents to be as different from their real world counterparts as the Flanaess is different from Europe. In designing the cultures of the subcontinents of Oerik, I would examine what real world threads and formulas went into making the Flanaess, and then I'd reverse engineer them for application to other subcontinents. Though the Flanaess has mostly European cultural threads, there are other threads too, such as the Amerindian Rovers (specifically Plains Indian-style, like the Arapahos). In fact, given Gygax's familiarity with American Indians (the name "Greyhawk" is even said to be based on "Blackhawk"; and there are several Indian tribes still living in Wisconsin), there may be American Indian cultural threads in each subcontinent. For example, there may Pacific Northwest-style tribes (like the Tlingits) in Sufang, and Great Basin-style tribes (like the Shoshonis) in the Baklunish lands.
Even the European threads are given a "Greyhawk twist" (such as the **** Scarlet Brotherhood with Asian-style martial arts) and "Greyhawk themes" (such as the "Shades of Grey", embodied in Mordenkainen's extreme Neutrality). I would apply these Greyhawk twists and themes to the other subcontinents as well - the entire planet is part of the WORLD OF GREYHAWK (TM) after all.
4) Make each subcontinent have as similar number of countries, provinces, and free cities as the Flanaess. These polities (or sub-polities) would be of a similar size as their Flanaess counterparts. Even if some subcontinents contain large areas where one empire holds sway (such as Sufang), within these empires, the diversity of provinces, protectorates, rebel cities, and client tribes would be as great as the diversity within the Flanaess.
Travis
no, no, no, no, and no.
the flaeness has more than enough room to develop characters, stories, plots, everything you could possibly want. There's no point in wasting pages on undeveloped places where almost no one ever campaigns and where everything would have to be developed from scratch.
let's keep oerik unexplored and make the flanaess as nice and detailed as can be, with lots of pages for organizations and other goodies.
Some guys WANT to know about more exotic locations. I bet there is guys like me who like exploration-themed campaigns. Why not, if it's well done?
no, no, no, no, and no.
the flaeness has more than enough room to develop characters, stories, plots, everything you could possibly want. There's no point in wasting pages on undeveloped places where almost no one ever campaigns and where everything would have to be developed from scratch.
let's keep oerik unexplored and make the flanaess as nice and detailed as can be, with lots of pages for organizations and other goodies.
The Living Greyhawk book on Greyhawk does that nicely already. Lets move beyond what we already have and get into new material.
The Living Greyhawk book on Greyhawk does that nicely already. Lets move beyond what we already have and get into new material.
Agreed. Other than the (impossible to find) data in the now-defunct 3.0 Chainmail game, they've been teasing us with vague hints (but no real facts) about the unexplored regions for literally DECADES, but without any meat underneath the plumage.
The Living Greyhawk book on Greyhawk does that nicely already. Lets move beyond what we already have and get into new material.
and things have changed in the course of the living greyhawk campaign... and don't you maybe, perhaps, want people who haven't played greyhawk before to pick it up ;)
There's an implied inference in the way WotC have handled Greyhawk in the last few years that they view it somewhat akin to something to scrape off the sole of their shoe, a bad reminder of the TSR/Gygaxian days that won't seem to go away and die of it's own accord.Having been an avid Greyhawk Fan/Player since Gary first released his folio, I think the above quote described perfectly WotC's attitude to Greyhawk.
I am thankful for people like Roger Moore, Sean Reynolds, and Erik Mona amongst others who have championed Greyhawk over the years..
Now as for what I'd like to see in the sourcebook.. a return to Old Greyhawk fundamentals - as once summarized by Nitescreed in the old Greytalk days ( I miss you Night! )
Criteria No. 1 Applied Internal Historic Consistency
Criteria No. 2 Player Resolution of Critical Events
Criteria No. 3 NPCs Reward More Often Than They Advise or Direct
Criteria No. 4 Persistent Personified Evil
Criteria No. 5 Villainous Variety
Criteria No. 6 Heroism With a Price
Criteria No. 7 Militant Neutrality
Criteria No. 8 Personal Magics
His article has been the bible to which we introduce new players into our Greyhawk campaign fore years - PM me if anyone wants an original copy.. I have it saved :D
Alas, I am unsure how well 'classical' Greyhawk will survive the transition to 4th edition..
Seems they're going all out to rid themselves of continuity, imo.
Not that horrible exercise in setting snobbery, self-contradiction, and stating the obvious.
Nightscreed identified nothing unique about Greyhawk in that essay. A new sourcebook needs a better guiding document than that if it is to truly advance the setting.
I concur with Samwise. Also IMO, criteria #7 would be suspect in 4e's new Points of Light theme which emphasizes isolated havens of light struggling against the wild darkness all around instead of defined nation-states and multinational wars with pockets of hidden evil like we have in GH.
I still have to admit, I want to see a Greyhawk that wipes away the national powers of the Flanaess and forces the PC's to explore and try to rebuild the nations. It would give the DM access to all the historical events from all the incarnations of Greyhawk, and allow for vast pockets of darkness from which the threats to civilization can emerge.
But THEN, you aren't playing in Greyhawk, you're playing in
GAMMA WORLD,
albeit with magic and elves...
But THEN, you aren't playing in Greyhawk, you're playing in
GAMMA WORLD,
albeit with magic and elves...
Why?
Is Greyhawk defined exclusively by those nations, existing forever, with no evolution of their relationships?
That negates Criteria 2 and 6, although it does sustain Criteria 4. Hence part of my overall rejection of those as relevant to the setting.
But there still is room for points of light in Oerth. The chainmail lands were in turmoil I don't think that it would be very hard at all to have those lands "bottom out" per say and have that sort of game there. All those empty battle fields, uncontrolled creatures roaming about it would make a great points of light setting. Paragon levels could be sending you in to the "Sea of Dust" looking for lost dungeon's.
Not necessarily intimately detailed stuff, but just name, phys desc, some personality traits, friends/foes - just to help round out the NPC's and help DMs and players alike, better grasp the dynamic of inter and intra community relationships.
Though the Flanaess has mostly European cultural threads, there are other threads too, such as the Amerindian Rovers (specifically Plains Indian-style, like the Arapahos).
Actually the rovers were originally intended to be more along the lines of cossack culture in asia, the minis for the rovers from the late 70's having handlebar mustaches and topknots just like cossacks. It was David Howery in his Dungeon adventure Ghost Dance that gave them an Amerind theme, which David later said he felt he had made a mistake with.
Other than that I pretty much agree with everything you said. Maybe not use the Trigee names, but something similar.
Oh and here is the current map of western oerik according to the chainmail setting, as you notice, none of the names are the same as on the Dragon Annual map posted earlier.
http://mysite.verizon.net/resox2tb/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/Clip0001.gif
I liked the chainmail setting because the underdark there had undead remenants of the ancient prime material Gith empire that apparently originated there.
Halber
Actually the rovers were originally intended to be more along the lines of cossack culture in asia, the minis for the rovers from the late 70's having handlebar mustaches and topknots just like cossacks.
Hmm...that's interesting! It brings up an issue of whether Greyhawk should be re-envisioned for 4E, going back to original conceptions (such as retconning the Rovers to be Cossacks)...or whether Wizards should stick with the later conceptions. Though each case would be different, in the case of the Rovers, I might keep the Amerindian theme, since it seems a fitting part of a fantasy world that was made by an American (along with the "Blackhawk" connection, and Gygax's early use of the map of North America to represent the setting). Perhaps not all divergences from Gygax's conception are uninspired.
Oh and here is the current map of western oerik according to the chainmail setting,
I would definitely incorporate the Sundered Empire into 4E Greyhawk. However, I would be sure to massage the "Greyhawk twists and themes" into the setting. I would designate it a subcontinent and give it clear boundaries on the map. I would give it a similar number of polities and sub-polities as the Flanaess (including various provinces within the countries shown on the map). For example, there'd be many tiny states within the Free States, and lots of polities in the Disputed Regions. I might also invent a synonym for the Sundered Empire that was similar in form to "Flanaess".
as you notice, none of the names are the same as on the Dragon Annual map posted earlier
As suggested in "To the Ends of the Oerth", I'd interpret that map as an ancient map, since it shows the Baklunish and Suel lands as "Empires". This would give Wizards room to replace the hamhanded names such as "Nippon" with more appropriate names (leaving the DRAGON Annual names as ancient terms that have mostly fallen out of use). It'd also make room for the previously-mentioned changes (e.g. divvying Sufang up into tiny provinces the size of those in the Flanaess, and "Greyhawkizing" the Chinese culture to the same degree that the Flanaess diverges from Europe.)
Travis
As mentioned by another poster, the Nyr Dyv is apparently inspired by Lake Superior. Continuing this theme would result in using specific North American geographic features for inspiration when designing geographic features in other parts of Oerth. This is not to suggest that North America would be the only geographic inspiration. European geography inspires the Flanaess, such as the Scandinavian Peninsula and the Thillonrian Peninsula (with reversed orientation; and with the Cold Tongue's name for it Rhizia perhaps equated with Scandza). Likewise, Middle-eastern and Asian geography may inspire western Oerik. However, this "North American geographic feature theme" could be used throughout Oerth, whereas the other Earth continents (Europe, Asia, Africa, S. America?) would be used for inspiration only within their Oerth counterparts. This is similar to how Tolkien used English topographic features throughout Middle-earth, such as a giant version of The Weald as the Wold of Rohan, and a gigantic Bristol Channel for the Gulf of Lune, but also used the Caspian Sea for the Sea of Rhun and the Sahara Desert for the Haradwaith.
Travis
But, even if that won't happen I will buy these books anyway! (and probably convert to the 4th Edition - and love it for bringing Greyhawk BACK!!!)
Just my Thoughts.
I'd particularly like for the next version of the Greyhawk Campaign to *not* take into account what happened in Living Greyhawk.
LG was good for what it was, but did have problems with lack of overall oversight of all plotlines; and things that really changed the map around (see Tenh). I'm not sure that a non-LG player would find the changes to their taste. I'm not sure about mine!
Cheers!
I unequivocally, without reservation, absolutely AGREE with MerricB!!!!!!!!! NO LG in the next GH for the reasons Merric has politely alluded to.
What I would like is if the history of western oerik from the chainmail minis game was included.
Halber
Not I. A god called "Stratis?" What's next? His cojoined twin "Tactis?" The whole "Stratis exploded" thing was hokey, IMO. And the setting was barely there. Most everything was poorly sketched just to set up the mini's game. It might have eventually evolved into something better but it wasn't popular enough to survive that long. There might be a good bit here or there but overall, I'd pass.
Now describing Western Oerth at some point? THAT would be cool to the point of necessity, IMO.
no, no, no, no, and no.
the flaeness has more than enough room to develop characters, stories, plots, everything you could possibly want. There's no point in wasting pages on undeveloped places where almost no one ever campaigns and where everything would have to be developed from scratch.
let's keep oerik unexplored and make the flanaess as nice and detailed as can be, with lots of pages for organizations and other goodies.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. :D
The Flanaess is the dead weight hanging around the World of Greyhawk's neck at this point. It has been done to death - Folio, 83 Box, FtA, tAB, LGG. Sure, it should be updated but it should not be the sum total of any new GH. Unlike, say Faerun, the Flanaess is a relatively small area. It gets claustrophobic fast, particularly when the likes of Iuz and the Scarlet Brotherhood start tramping around, as they have done of late. The World of Greyhawk, IMO, need room to grow and it needs to grow beyond the Flanaess. Greyhawk as just the Flanaess is like a ship in a bottle - intriguing, well crafted but its not sailing anywhere.
"As detailed as can be?" That's not Greyhawk. Greyhawk, at its best, does not describe; it suggests. The DMs take it from there. Greyhawk is a toolkit setting. It requires assembly more than other settings which try to give you everything there is to know about a setting.
I still have to admit, I want to see a Greyhawk that wipes away the national powers of the Flanaess and forces the PC's to explore and try to rebuild the nations. It would give the DM access to all the historical events from all the incarnations of Greyhawk, and allow for vast pockets of darkness from which the threats to civilization can emerge.
So FtA gone nuclear? No thanks. GH's thriving and interactive nation states is one of the setting's distinguishing features. Its not all city states and nations in name only. I do know a setting that is quite popular that is mostly city states and nations in name only. Turning GH into FR's baby brother is IMO a nonstarter. GH should be unique throughout, not a "me too" setting.
GH, IMO, needs time to clear its head, so to speak, after 1) being the 3x default; 2) hosting Living Greyhawk and 3) hosting PaizoHawk. I'd say leave GH "dead" for 3 or 4 years and then see how matters look.
When it does come back, I would prefer - 1) an entirely new creative team (no offense to any of the past GH writers); and 2) an advance of the timeline by at least 100 years so that the decks can be cleared for a throughgoing reimagining of the setting designed to attract new players as well as (hopefully) appealing to established players.
In terms of specifics, I'd like a new GH to 1) move beyond just the Flanaess so that the setting has more room to develop without trying to cram 10lbs into a 5lb bag and 2) new main villains as the old ones (Iuz & the SB etc.) are pretty much played out in their story lines/development to this point.
Greyhawk as prisoner of its past holds or as a "nostalgia" setting no appeal to me.
Erik Mona!!!! Erik Mona!!!
Apparently, he was quoted as being 'done with Greyhawk for now'.
Maybe he was flammed or harassed by some radical fans, got underpaid or had a bad working experience, don't like GH, etc....
Apparently, he was quoted as being 'done with Greyhawk for now'.
Maybe he was flammed or harassed by some radical fans, got underpaid or had a bad working experience, don't like GH, etc....
Actually Erik begged WOTC to get Greyhawk away from them. They refused.
Erik still loves Greyhawk, he just has to wait to do work on it again until it becomes good for him to work on it again.
Much love for Erik's work. Almost as much love as i have had for Gary's work.
My preference is to expand the balance between the macro world descriptions and the individual adventures and yes, even the occasional, much maligned "dungeon crawl."
I will also cast my vote in favor of freshening the Greyhawk universe up by moving some of the focus West and South to open new horizons without abandoning the old settings.
I hope there can be a balance between controll issues and fan responsiveness in 4E and Greyhawk.
Not I. A god called "Stratis?" What's next? His cojoined twin "Tactis?" The whole "Stratis exploded" thing was hokey, IMO. And the setting was barely there. Most everything was poorly sketched just to set up the mini's game. It might have eventually evolved into something better but it wasn't popular enough to survive that long. There might be a good bit here or there but overall, I'd pass.
Now describing Western Oerth at some point? THAT would be cool to the point of necessity, IMO.
Stratus was son of Stern Aliea, Brother to Herionius and Hexitor. Given those names, it sort of make sense. The way they described him at the Gencon It sounds like he just when nuts. To me it just sounded like the guy was toi into Warhammer. Even if chainmail sucked, it does set up a points of light champaign very well. The continent has been ravaged by war, but poised to make a comeback. Parts of the dead war god's body and hence divinity have been scatter all over the land. Those parts are spawning monsters and weapons and someone has to put and end to it. Can suvivor of the war band together, set aside the past and work together to forge a peace, or will they have to bring down the old to build and new hope.
....Can suvivor of the war band together, set aside the past and work together to forge a peace
Do not say WAR and FORGE in the same sentence when talking aobut Greyhawk! PLEASE!!! I'm begging you here.
Do not say WAR and FORGE in the same sentence when talking aobut Greyhawk! PLEASE!!! I'm begging you here.
Oh ye have little faith.
Besides, the metal men never stray that far from the egg of coot.
But really, it's just an excuse to shake up the status quo of the gameworld. But it doesn't have to be a 'nuclear' event. Say a great disaster befalls the world as Incabulos looses a disease that kills nine out of every ten exposed.
Or some fool finds the Wand of Orcus and accidentally unleashes a 'Land of the Dead' scenario upon the Flannaess.
I think that Mona is the right person to do the job... he not only knows but also loves Greyhawk...
Or some fool finds the Wand of Orcus and accidentally unleashes a 'Land of the Dead' scenario upon the Flannaess.
Hmmm ... I think great changes could be as much the result of times of relative peace. Maintaining a large standing army is expensive so armies disband. Nations become less dependent on each other militarily and more competitive economically. Petty squabbles cause fractures and splits within noble houses. Disease and natural disasters that cause cities to close their gates become a greater threat than war.
I agree. Give Greyhawk to Erik Mona. Advance the timeline by 100 years. BUT DO NOT BLOW THE ****ING PLACE UP!!
What about that quaint metal cave high in the Barrier Peaks? Or for that matter those lovely Blood Golems of Hextor that the Great Empire was messing about with?
Besides who knows when someone will attempt a planar travel again with disastrous results... :D
Hobunn, go to your room. NOW!
But that still leaves the ('points of lights') question standing then, doesn't it? If Greyhawk is going to continue to be a printed sourcebook sometime in the future then it will have to be brought into line with this 4E design principle. Would relative peace be enough to cause this change in a game setting?
'Points of light' is core and Greyhawk needn't be core. ... How long does it take to ride across Keoland by horseback anyhow? There is some distance between cities.
I would rather not see Greyhawk coming out of an apocalypse. I'd rather see PCs fighting off a coming apocalypse. One hundred years of relative peace and Greyhawk has grown complacent. Trust has been put in treaty and coin rather than shield and sword. Until ...
I am also for extensions west and south. I wouldn't mind cultures more inspired by Asian history but would be insulted if it was pure 'orientalism'. ...
That said, with a few exceptions, the current year for Greyhawk is STILL good for Points of Light, just have to worry about big nasty threats like Iuz and the Giants in Geoff, etc. When I was introduced to Greyhawk, it was described to me as large tracts of wilderness surrounding interspersed cities and towns. And the maps back that up as far as I have seen. There is like one line in the requirements for Points of Line that makes things difficult ("The centers of civilization are few and far between, and the world isn’t carved up between nation-states that jealously enforce their borders.") and to be perfectly honest, I seriously doubt any nation in the Flanaess could ever truly call themselves in absolute control of their borders, except to invading armies. A well hidden and defensible goblin fort that is being careful about who knows their exact location? That is not in the same category. And so what that it may be 20 or 30 different entities that together would make an army, seperate, they are merely minor players that are not worth the army's time.
Just my copper's worth.
:D
Not I. A god called "Stratis?" What's next? His cojoined twin "Tactis?" The whole "Stratis exploded" thing was hokey, IMO. And the setting was barely there. Most everything was poorly sketched just to set up the mini's game. It might have eventually evolved into something better but it wasn't popular enough to survive that long. There might be a good bit here or there but overall, I'd pass.
Now describing Western Oerth at some point? THAT would be cool to the point of necessity, IMO.
What matters the name of the god? I mean my group once laughed out loud at me when I introduced an antagonist who was a cleric of Kord. They kept tossing peices of rope and twine at him. Different cultures will have different deities.
Personnally my beef with the setting was that they took Oeridains and sent them west. Not that it doesn't make sense, but I don't like to re-hash the same culture over and over again when new ones can be created.
But ultimately it was a published setting, so that should account for something.
Halber
What Greyhawk needs is to be more fully fleshed out. Only a few locations have been given any attention in any depth- The Marklands, Iuz the Evil, Ivid the Undying, and The Scarlet Brotherhood rounds out the list of products that do this. That leaves more than half of just the Flanaess itself ripe for the same amount of attention. This is *campaign setting development*, which is what Greyhawk needs. *Campaign development* is what every dm in the world does to their own version of the World of Greyhawk, which involves things like advancing timelines as the player characters conduct their own adventures, which will be different from anyone else’s. This will result in the campaign setting diverging from group to group, but that is to be expected. What should not be expected is that the writers of a new campaign setting book will diverge the campaign world right out from under the feet of the dm's who run games in the setting.
At this point I would prefer that the timeline be moved up to 600 CY, just to settle things, and then cement the damn thing in place at that time. Then, the writers develop the campaign *setting* up to that point in time, and not any further. Spend time and effort giving detail to the lands, such that any dm who picks up a Greyhawk product can insert it into their campaign. Dm's need a base from which to leap forth from and do with Greyhawk what they will.
The main mistake with past Greyhawk products is that they railroaded timeline advances and major events upon the Greyhawk community as a whole, rather than expand on what little was already there. Forcing timeline advances and massive world changing events upon players in a campaign setting is simply a bad idea. "Here is *our* new Greyhawk product...but to really be able to make use of it you have to do things *our* way." rather than “Here is *your* new Greyhawk product…but to really make use of it, you need do things *your* way.” How very thoughtful that is to every dm who has their own campaign and runs things *their own* way. Such divergent products may prove to be interesting, but as to their usefulness, well, they aren’t that useful unless you knuckle under and accept them. Many people did this, while many others did not. A new campaign setting book, and what is laid down therein, should be made as accessible to everyone as is possible. One would think that would just be a smart thing to do, and not just for the reason of marketability.
The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer was an excellent example of what information a campaign setting book should contain. It is a broad overview of things, such that any player new to the setting will be able to get a good idea what Greyhawk is about. It is unfortunate that the production value of that book was not higher; at least the equivalent of what the Forgotten Realms and Ebberon received. With 4e, there will likely need to be more crunchy bits added to the book as well, but just those necessary things that the core books do not already contain.
The Living Greyhawk campaign material is not likely to make it into the book, but then again, I look on that material as “somebody else’s campaign” anyways, as does WotC apparently. Legal issues of ownership go to why Living Greyhawk material will not make it in to any new Greyhawk products. WotC only claims the ownership of the IP used in Living Greyhawk. That would be place names, character names, and other Greyhawk specific IP. All of the stories and plot lines are the property of their writers, just as if they were simply dm’s in their own campaigns creating their own stuff. The Living Greyhawk material isn’t canon anyways, just fan made creations made under the auspices of a community campaign. It truly is “somebody else’s campaign” and it will be easier to stomach any new Greyhawk that includes little or no Living Greyhawk material if one thinks of it in such a way. Much of the Living Greyhawk material was in fact very good, some of it exceptionally so. Most of it was decent enough, with the minority of it being unimaginative, poorly written, or both. I think it is possible to come to arrangements with the writers of the better material as to incorporating it into future Greyhawk material, and I really do support this, but don’t expect Living Greyhawk material to be taken wholesale into the fold of later products, but don’t be too disappointed when most, if not all of the Living Greyhawk material is shunted aside.
It clears out the baggage.
Greyhawk has been languishing under the burden of super-NPCs that no one is allowed to even contemplate surpassing for far too long. Tagging 50 years onto the timeline provides a reason to kill them off in grand droves.
Greyhawk also suffers from excessive canon denial. Nothing is allowed in because it contradicts some obscure reference about the current state of the Flanaess. Again, tagging 50 years onto the timeline provides room to revise anything and everything, relegating endless screaming matches the borders, current relations, and what race Cobb Darg is to the scrap heap forever.
Clear it all out!
From NPCs to plot hooks to every border and country. Rewrite the whole map and then some. Give the Flanaess a complete makeover from the team at Heretic Eye for the Canon Guy.
The Circle of Eight is just very hard to displace because they're all smart, high level wizards. And even there you see, in canon, several of them get killed.
It's the Forgotten Realms that has the problem of the "unkillable, unsurpassable, uberpowerful" NPCs.
Huh? I dunno about you, but in Greyhawk there's no problem with PCs outclassing NPCs. Seriously.
The Circle of Eight is just very hard to displace because they're all smart, high level wizards. And even there you see, in canon, several of them get killed.
It's the Forgotten Realms that has the problem of the "unkillable, unsurpassable, uberpowerful" NPCs.
They got killed by another of the "unkillable, unsurpassable, uberpowerful" NPCs.
Not only should they not be very hard to displace, there should be no need to displace them. They are not the PCs of the campaign. There is no reason they should ever be conceived as standing in the way of the PCs taking center stage. If they do, then they need to be treated no different from the orcs the PCs took out in their first adventure.
The main mistake with past Greyhawk products is that they railroaded timeline advances and major events upon the Greyhawk community as a whole, rather than expand on what little was already there. Forcing timeline advances and massive world changing events upon players in a campaign setting is simply a bad idea.
Fair enough, but I am not going to convert a campaign to 4.0. I would consider saying to my players "Okay, tell me what kind of legacy you want to leave, we'll work it into the story. Now, start rolling up your 4th edition great grandchildren". Greyhawk can change if you are playing a new campaign.
Clear it all out!
From NPCs to plot hooks to every border and country. Rewrite the whole map and then some. Give the Flanaess a complete makeover from the team at Heretic Eye for the Canon Guy.
So you allow a few fixations to tank the whole thing? Who gives a crap what race Cobb Darg is. It is a non-issue, as are many other things people fixate on. It is a discussion topic, nothing more. That it was never mentioned caused a single person to fixate on it, then pass it along and cause others to fixate on it, and now it is the phenomena that it is(Cobb Darg is the Paris Hilton of Greyhawk apparently). Ignore it, not the entire campaign setting as it is. A timeline advancement is not the necessary fix. Don't you think that things can be done without a timeline advancement? Dm's around the world take care of these very same issues every single day that they play. I'd imagine that some creative and talented writers could do much the same themselves.
On to other things now.
As to NPCs stealing the spotlight from anybody's PCs in Greyhawk, this is not a function of the campaign world; it is a function of having/being a crappy dm. Yes, the truth can sometimes be very harsh.
Well thought out and explained. Clearly there is valid reasons for moving ahead and keeping the current timeline pretty much where it is. I voted for a hop in time of 5-10 years, but even now I'm thinking it isn't necessary. I would still push it ahead a few years (maybe the five or so, or to the end of the century as you suggest) in order to tie up immediate loose ends. Pushing ahead a significant number of years isn't going to solve much. It will make many DMs want to change their current camapign. New D&D books and editions should not cancel out existing campaigns. If it is historical facts that people want fixed fine. A new book would over rule any existing books anyway. As long as DMs accept that, than errors and mishaps are fixed.
The Flanaess in my opinion doesn't need a make over. I Suggested more history in a post on a different thread primarily because a lot of people who would buy the new book are going to already own previous editions. The book will also be purchased by many new people who don't have existing products and they should be entitled to the whole picture, not just a "refresher" book like The Adventure Begins was. By adding to the early history, and by that I mean a page or two, not several pages, it's just one more area of the book where people can say "Hey, that's new, I got something extra for the money I spent, it's not just exactly the same thing over again."
People have always speculated about exactly what happened or led up to the Rain of Colorless Fire and Invoked Devastation. Adding a page or two could answer this, and quite possibly provide links for later on with artifacts, ancient undead NPCs coming from this time, that sort of thing, to be added later in other publications. I think of it as opening the window for a cool breeze without opening it all the way. As mentioned, only a page to two.
I totally agree with you in regards to the content of the book mirroring what the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer already provides. Just need a hardcover, more comprehensive, and significantly higher page count than what we have been given. It should have some 4th edition crunch such as prestige classes for the knighthoods and other wide spread groups. The localized groups (such as the Rangers of the Gnarley Forest) should appear in a regional book later on. As a whole, make the book editionless. Religions should concentrate on the purpose of the faith, beliefs, holidays, special ceremonies, things that push roleplaying and interaction between NPCs, PCs, and between other religions. Keep the deity stats out of the book. Keep Greyhawk magic items and new monsters out completely. These are for supplements not the core book. It takes up too much space which should be reserved for other types of world building material.
I don't feel that killing off the famous characters of the world is going to solve anything. NPCs such as Mordenkainen, Robilar, etc. need to remain and be given better roles in the world. I would like them to appear primarly because many players eyes widen when these names come up or when they meet one of these individuals once in a blue moon. Players may strive to become the next Mordenkainen in regards of being important to the world. This is good. What purpose will it serve to remove such individuals from the game world? Are they not one part of the world that makes Greyhawk unique? A good DM knows how to use NPCs like this to better the game. Famous NPCs should not be used frequently but rather sparingly. They need to maintain an aura of mystery by the players. Characters should not be their "regular lackeys". A DM who allows the campaign to revolve around the NPC and not the PCs needs to continue to play in order to improve their DMing skills.
I would like to see the famous NPCs adopt a new role on how they interact in the campaign, for example, placing Rary in charge of the Bright Desert is good. I didn't care for the Rary "The Traiter" idea, but that's beside the point. Here's what I do like. Now the Bright Desert has a unique feel when adventuring in it. Players and characters are going to know this is Rary's land. The DM can decide to include Rary or not to include him in their actual game. Either way, the NPC remains in place in order to "widen the eyes" of the players. I think a member or two of the Circle of Eight could be given better political positions in Greyhawk City (and I don't mean running the city.) This gives the DM use of the NPCs should they want to include them on occasions and some flexibility on how to use them. Similar roles for other NPCs should be included. They shouldn't be a bunch of retirees sitting around and they shouldn't be running the world either. Active roles in nations or wilderness areas are good as long as they don't dominate the scene.
The book should cover the basics already provided, yet add detail to the nations and wilderness to give everyone what they want. No big backdrop stories like Dragonlance, that should be reserved for individual campaigns. I have done this in my camapign and I love it. It allows me to play my favorite world, how I want to. I get to include my own ideas without feeling like I have to comply to someone else's. I think they did an excellent job of including such a backdrop in Dragonlance back in the 80's, but then that was also the chosen direction of the world, from the beginning. Greyhawk should remain the DM's world in order to give them the creative tools to expand.
The expansions I would like to see are national maps with more detail, kingdoms fleshed out better than they currently are and much more attention placed into the wilderness areas of the world (such as forests, swamps, and mountain ranges). Go back to random encounter tables as a starting point. Good DM's can always use these and add to them as additional supplements are published or if they want to give an area a more specific feel, they can be improved upon. Ignoring the type of monsters in these areas is not the answer.
Anyway...enough about what I think. What do you the reader feel about all of this?
.... Additionally, I'd like to see some good adventure hooks, through ineteresting settings (some of those old Mysterious Places), NPCs and plots. ....
"An adventure hook on every page" should be stamped on the back of the hand of anyone who works on the Greyhawk legacy.
Cebrion:
The expansions I would like to see are national maps with more detail, kingdoms fleshed out better than they currently are and much more attention placed into the wilderness areas of the world ....
"A national map for every kingdom" ... Now, what about the designers' third hand?
1) A core campaign setting that advances the setting a number of years and provides an overview of the history of the setting as well as plenty of hooks for the future of the setting. A handful of basic Greyhawk PrC's,feats, and other PC options
2) Not just one source book for the setting but a number of books that focus on the various regions and races of the Flanaess. For instance A source book on the Domain or Greyhawk of the Sheldomar Valley region.
3) Adventures! I dont think that a ton of adventures specific to Greyahwk is needed, but a handful of well written adventures that helps advance a major story line in the setting would be nice.
4) Basiclly a treatment of Greyhawk as done in the style of past 3e and 3.5 FR products that it deserves.
In many ways over the last few years I think Greyhawk is on the rise. This is in a large part due to Paizo and the hardcore dedicated fans that have followed the line over the years. The setting has staying power and its lack of popularity I think is due to a lack of product available to provide for and educate the D&D community. I constantly see on message boards "Im interested in Greyhawk what books should I try to find?" You dont see that with the Realms because product is readily available to the consumer in the form of novels and sourcebooks. Another comment I hear often is Greyhawk is a generic and dull setting. This stems from a lack of education based on the material. Greyhawk is diffrent from FR in many ways but its history and lands are chocked full of exciting adventures that could rival any Eberron or FR campaign.
So now that Im done ranting, I would like to conclude that if it matters to anyone at WotC, For what its worth, I am on the fence about 4e. I will however be motivated to join the 4e camp if I saw that the World of Greyhawk was going to be revitalized in this new edition.
As to prestige classes and similar crunchy things for the core book, I vacillate as to whether such things should be in the core book or in the regional books where those prestige classes would be a key feature. Perhaps only the more common "you can find these anywhere" prestige classes should be in the core book and those like “Monk of the Scarlet Sign” and the “Agent of Shar” should be relegated to the regional sourcebook covering their area of origin. With the first option you get the prestige classes up front to immediately use for your characters in the setting. With the second option you have the opportunity to present the prestige classes in all their regional glory.
I just don't think that the core book should necessarily be weighed down with too many initial rules for the entire setting, but rather focus on the setting itself. My only concern is that too many pages could be taken away from the simple setting description. It would be tempting to put all of this information in and make this a monstrously fat setting book coming in at around 400 pages or so and at a price of $50. That leaves lots of room for lots of things. Some of the nations deserve more page space than others, but two pages minimum would be a good start for even the small ones, with up to five pages for the big ones like Keoland or Iuz. Yes, give me two pages on little old Sunndi- just enough to whet the appetite and leave me anxiously awaiting the regional sourcebook that covers Sunndi(among other nearby lands) in 15-20 pages(more for the larger neighbors), with an overview of major towns, cities, and geographical features, plus most other things of import.
The core setting books ought to fill us in on the main areas, “just to get us by” until the regional sourcebooks come out and give the various regions their due. I would expect that anywhere from 5-8 regional books would be required for the Flanaess. From there they could go on to bust the campaign setting wide open with other regions that are only mentioned in the core setting book. Most importantly they don’t need to shake things up through the use of some sort of cataclysmic event to accomplish this. The simple introduction of a sourcebook for an area like the far west, Anakeri, Fireland, Hyperborea, or elsewhere will do that all on its own.
So you allow a few fixations to tank the whole thing?
A few fixations?
You mean like all the people declaring that Greyhawk was presented as a "finished" setting and they do not want any new product to possibly contradict that?
Or do you mean like entire websites dedicated to ignoring anything for Greyhawk published after 1985?
Or do you just mean some of the rather extreme denunciations made of From the Ashes and the Living Greyhawk Gazzeteer because they "change" things from the '83 set?
That is hardly a "few" fixations, and they are certainly quite vocal.
By presenting Greyhawk as essentially a new setting, while those complaints will not be silenced, they will be bypassed, as it would be obvious that the setting is something dramatically new and different.
A reimagining like the new Battlestar Galactica.
3) Adventures! I don’t think that a ton of adventures specific to Greyhawk is needed, but a handful of well written adventures that helps advance a major story line in the setting would be nice.
Adventures would certainly be a good idea, but any adventures that involve a major story line should be peripheral in nature. A good example of this is the original G series. The giants pose a threat, but the outcome of the adventure doesn’t involve any campaign setting alterations, unless of course the dm wants there to be an affect. Having important campaign setting changing elements in adventures has posed some problems in the past. This was a major problem with From the Ashes and later products that made assumptions about the outcomes of key elements from some adventures. The one that springs to my mind immediately is if pc's find and rescue Prince Thrommel from the Temple of Elemental Evil. The material published after the fact assumes that nobody found him, even though there is a note that pretty much points the away to him in the adventure. That still doesn't mean the pc's won't be fooled by the situation Thrommel is in and kill him off themselves however! :D If Thrommel isn’t found and rescued nothing really changes, but if he is found and rescued there are major campaign setting implications. Many assumptions are made regarding the Greyhawk Wars. If you want to use that material without altering it, you are merely along for the ride, rather than having an active hand in making use of the material provided to craft your own campaign events as you see fit. The problem with this is that if you don’t follow the “master plan” then all further material published will be of lesser use to you. It is just a plain bad idea to hamstring part of your customer base in this way, particularly when it is completely unnecessary, but this had been the end result of the Greyhawk Wars for many people who ply in the Greyhawk setting. This is certainly an important point that should be kept in mind by the writers of any future Greyhawk campaign setting book, sourcebooks, or adventures.
Irregardless, it is a bad idea to assume an adventure outcome regarding something that affects the campaign setting directly. If the giants win in the above example, perhaps they get together and cause havoc to their neighbors, or not. Every individual dm will decide how each adventure outcome will affect their own campaign world, if at all. The writers of the campaign setting material shouldn't be dictating to the dm’s that their outcome is wrong because it doesn't agree with what the campaign setting writers came up with. As such things affect later products that develop the campaign setting, it is a bad idea to do this, so any adventure shouldn’t touch on subjects that inherently involve campaign setting alterations. Interesting adventures can still be written with this in mind.
As such things affect later products that develop the campaign setting, it is a bad idea to do this, so any adventure shouldn’t touch on subjects that inherently involve campaign setting alterations. Interesting adventures can still be written with this in mind.
So if the setting books should not advance the setting, and the adventures should not advance the setting, how is the setting ever to advance?
Never? It should remain a permanent snapshot with additional details painted onto it over the years, adding a presumed complexity but never managing to paint over itself?
You do not get an active setting that way. And such continued pasting of details inevitably makes the overall structure a mess as people are left scrambling to reference dozens of books for particular obscure details. Well, unless such details are regularly collected into updates, but people have been quite resistant to "buying the same product twice," so that is not a very good solution either.
Not only should they not be very hard to displace, there should be no need to displace them. They are not the PCs of the campaign. There is no reason they should ever be conceived as standing in the way of the PCs taking center stage. If they do, then they need to be treated no different from the orcs the PCs took out in their first adventure.
AMEN brother!
Travis
Cebrion:
I would like them to appear primarly because many players eyes widen when these names come up or when they meet one of these individuals once in a blue moon.
Either way, the NPC remains in place in order to "widen the eyes" of the players.
What do you the reader feel about all of this?
I can see the fun in "eye-widening" run-ins with famous NPCs. However, after that, I want the PCs to advance to the point that Mordenkainen's and Robilar's eyes are widened when they meet the PCs. I prefer my players to not bow or scrape to anyone...it's not very heroic.
Travis
Camthalion: Save those maps for regional sourcebooks. The core campaign setting book should be the broad overview. Yes, we've seen at last three full versions of this, but its necessary to have this in print. As to campaign hooks, I'd settle for one every other page. That would still be lots of them. This reminds me of the 83' boxed set that had an adventure locales section where were mentioned some adventure hooks in a few short paragraphs(Werewolves of the Menowood, The Mist Golem, etc.). Those were nice additions, and they didn't have to be complex at all.
I'm thinking thumbnails of the nation with every nation description. I get so tired of folding and unfolding the map from the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. (Also, my son loves Greyhawk too but he's only 7 and he doesn't fold maps well). As a desktop publisher, I see the Gazetteer as far too text heavy. The coat of arms and the nation could appear with the description throughout. It would only add a few inches per nation.
Seriously. An adventure hook on every (other) page. One sentence adventure ideas throughout the book just to stimulate ideas.
Pictures of Elves that don't make them look like real snobs. Ugly, ugly elves in the Gazetteer.
A full page photocopiable calendar for those DMs who like to keep track of the adventure timeline.
...
There are also reasons to significantly advance the timeline that have nothing to do with the setting as a setting. Chief among these latter sort of reasons is the need to sell any new GH setting to new gamers.
If GH is left as it is, it will never get revived. That is not how the business works. To be revived, GH has to offer something new, something clearly distinct from what has come before and, most inportantly, something new and distinct that Wotc believes will attract new gamers.
Bringing back "old Greyhawk" has an obvious appeal to those who are already fans but it does not immediately have a selling point aimed at new fans. Therefore, the "more of the same" idea is Dead On Arrival. Not going to happen. Wotc has been VERY clear that it does not see GH in any of its incarnations to date as worthy to be supported by an actively published line. They have been even more specific in saying GH is too close to FR, in their opinion. So, GH either changes or Wotc won't revive it. End of that discussion unless some 3rd party were to get a license and view matters differently.
Imagining that no license will be forthcoming, and Paizo has repeatedly tried and been turned down, Wotc is the only game, pardon the pun, in town and they have spoken - GH in any of its incarnations to date is, in their opinion, not worth publishing.
So. How to change that calculus, given that GH has to see some significant changes to meet Wotc's generally stated objections to publishing the setting? The timeline must advance to implement the changes or GH could be relaunched and its past treated as if it never happened. Really, both results are similar for the setting but the timeline advance perserves the continuity and thereby holds out the hope of hanging on to some of the established fanbase while hopefully attracting new fans.
Those arguing for no timeline advance are, in fact I believe, practically arguing for GH to never be published by Wotc again. Wotc, if they read such comments and believe them typical of GH's "fanbase" will just say "See? We should not publish GH because it has no fanbase that will support a relauch that we (Wotc) believe is sustainable. The GH fanbase will only support a GH that we (Wotc) know won't sell."
The timeline advances or Wotc will not republish GH. Choose. Or Wotc will choose for you.
There are "in game" reasons to significantly advance the timeline. These, agree or disagree, have been well articulated.
They have been even more specific in saying GH is too close to FR, in their opinion.
Is it?
I've run FR for 20 years and Greyhawk is nothing like it.
Want me to play 4e? Republish Greyhawk. Or give it to Erik Mona and Paizo and let THEM do it.
Just HOW many enemies is Wizards trying to make here?
Do they WANT people not to show up at Gencon? I can go to Origins and get all my con jones out, and not show up at Gencon at all.
None the less I think that both settings are great, and I would love to and prefer to have a up dated Greyhawk setting.
Paizo more or less effectivly helped revive Greyhawk by presenting it to a new generation of players by providing interesting adventures, that not only have helped advance the time line but have snuck into WotC products and now are more or less regarded as cannon.
I also think that we have to remember WotC is a business and that they need to make good business decisions sometimes. So I think that if we are to expect GH to return we need to have a give take relationship with them on that as a consumer.
I believe that a new Greyhawk would be wildly successful if the books are well written,presented (something they have show they excel at), and most importantly suported with addtion product in the form of both adventures and source material/crunch books.
A sourcebook that provides info on an area is great. Rules that append to that and show me how to make it feel that way is even better. They both go hand in hand however.
Allow me to clarify my comment on national maps. In a accessory for a region which covers a a few nations I would like to see a full page color map of the kingdom inserted into the book. This map would show just the nation allowing more detail than what a poster map of the entire Flanaess would provide which would come with the core book. I did not mean to indicate that a national poster map for each kingdom would be desired.
TraverseTravis:
My comments concerning famous NPCs "widening the eyes" of the players does not mean the PCs should remain that way throughout the coarse of the campaign. I feel that they should rival or exceed these NPCs status as they acquire sufficient levels. This is what my campaign is like and it is good to see that yours is as well. Regretfully, you did not include the entire applicable comments I made so I posted it below. Hopefully it dispels any confusion since we seem to prefer the same outcome in regards to the character's status within the campaign. When my players rolled up their characters at the tail end of 2nd edition, I told them to not roll up just another character but to roll up a hero. These characters go up and beyond an ordinary character in regards to background and eventual purpose within the game world. Sure they started out as 1st level, but it was clear from the beginning that each individual (should they survive) will be destined for greatness which rivals or exceeds the famous NPCs of the world such as Mordenkainen. Please read and quote the entire post pertaining to the topic. If I failed to successfully communicated my ideas I apologize.
Here's the entire post regarding this topic.....
I don't feel that killing off the famous characters of the world is going to solve anything. NPCs such as Mordenkainen, Robilar, etc. need to remain and be given better roles in the world. I would like them to appear primarly because many players eyes widen when these names come up or when they meet one of these individuals once in a blue moon. Players may strive to become the next Mordenkainen in regards of being important to the world. This is good. What purpose will it serve to remove such individuals from the game world? Are they not one part of the world that makes Greyhawk unique? A good DM knows how to use NPCs like this to better the game. Famous NPCs should not be used frequently but rather sparingly. They need to maintain an aura of mystery by the players. Characters should not be their "regular lackeys". A DM who allows the campaign to revolve around the NPC and not the PCs needs to continue to play in order to improve their DMing skills.
I would like to see the famous NPCs adopt a new role on how they interact in the campaign, for example, placing Rary in charge of the Bright Desert is good. I didn't care for the Rary "The Traiter" idea, but that's beside the point. Here's what I do like. Now the Bright Desert has a unique feel when adventuring in it. Players and characters are going to know this is Rary's land. The DM can decide to include Rary or not to include him in their actual game. Either way, the NPC remains in place in order to "widen the eyes" of the players. I think a member or two of the Circle of Eight could be given better political positions in Greyhawk City (and I don't mean running the city.) This gives the DM use of the NPCs should they want to include them on occasions and some flexibility on how to use them. Similar roles for other NPCs should be included. They shouldn't be a bunch of retirees sitting around and they shouldn't be running the world either. Active roles in nations or wilderness areas are good as long as they don't dominate the scene.
The book should cover the basics already provided, yet add detail to the nations and wilderness to give everyone what they want. No big backdrop stories like Dragonlance, that should be reserved for individual campaigns. I have done this in my camapign and I love it. It allows me to play my favorite world, how I want to. I get to include my own ideas without feeling like I have to comply to someone else's. I think they did an excellent job of including such a backdrop in Dragonlance back in the 80's, but then that was also the chosen direction of the world, from the beginning. Greyhawk should remain the DM's world in order to give them the creative tools to expand.
I've been busy moving, but managed to quickly go though the thread. I have updated the first post in points 4b, 5a and 5f. I'd like the outline to reflect unanimity - but since that will never happen, it should reflect our differing views.
If I have not represented a view accurately, or if I'm missing something altogether, please let me know.
Thanks,
Russ...
[snip]
TraverseTravis:
My comments concerning famous NPCs "widening the eyes" of the players does not mean the PCs should remain that way throughout the coarse of the campaign. I feel that they should rival or exceed these NPCs status as they acquire sufficient levels. This is what my campaign is like and it is good to see that yours is as well. Regretfully, you did not include the entire applicable comments I made so I posted it below. Hopefully it dispels any confusion since we seem to prefer the same outcome in regards to the character's status within the campaign. When my players rolled up their characters at the tail end of 2nd edition, I told them to not roll up just another character but to roll up a hero. These characters go up and beyond an ordinary character in regards to background and eventual purpose within the game world. Sure they started out as 1st level, but it was clear from the beginning that each individual (should they survive) will be destined for greatness which rivals or exceeds the famous NPCs of the world such as Mordenkainen. Please read and quote the entire post pertaining to the topic. If I failed to successfully communicated my ideas I apologize.
[snip]
It's okay...I responded to your post because it was thoughtful.
And I see that not including "snip marks" when I quoted you could give the wrong impression to anyone who only read my post without having read your preceding post. My thinking was to include only the points most relevant to my response, yet I see that my carefree editting did not represent the breadth of your ideas on the topic. I'll try to do better!
Best wishes,
Travis
So if the setting books should not advance the setting, and the adventures should not advance the setting, how is the setting ever to advance?
Never? It should remain a permanent snapshot with additional details painted onto it over the years, adding a presumed complexity but never managing to paint over itself?
You do not get an active setting that way. And such continued pasting of details inevitably makes the overall structure a mess as people are left scrambling to reference dozens of books for particular obscure details. Well, unless such details are regularly collected into updates, but people have been quite resistant to "buying the same product twice," so that is not a very good solution either.
Settings are passive, *campaigns* are active. The setting merely needs to be developed. Dm's will make the setting active. Adventures should not necessarily be made to affect the setting- that choice should left in the hands of every single individual dm who can decide what affects *their* setting and what doesn't. Unless the writers for the setting can dominate the minds of every dm and force them to make all of the same developmental decisions, your setting altering products will hit a glitch very shortly(that glitch being all of the dm's who made *didn't* make the same developmental decisions the writers chose), so its best not to have such things at all.
As to drastically advancing the timeline, I think it would be a bit crass to do so, as one is basically flipping the bird to all current Greyhawk players. I just don’ think that this in necessary. A “my way or the highway” setting book is all well and good for a brand new setting, but not fore a long established one.
The setting should be snapshot, but you still can write adventures that can possible affect the setting, but you leave that ultimate decision in the hands of every dm to make. This of course precluded releasing any products that assume a specific outcome for m any previous product. You don't have to be too clever to work around that, but it does take cleverness to do it well, and I would expect nothing less. There can’t just be a single setting book, as that does not a product line make. I currently pull Greyhawk references from near a hundred sources, if not more. I imagine it would be a heck of a lot easier if I had all of that information in 6-8 books or so, plus perhaps a few modules that came out every year. Deatil are the peroagative of the dm. If the dm doesn’t know the details(obscure or not) for their own campaign, they probably ought not to be a dm.
As to the setting being active, that it is actively supported is what is important- that it is getting attention through development of basic knowledge of the setting through the output of sourcebooks(never mind that sales would also make WotC want to continue producing more products for the line. Living Greyhawk kept Greyhawk active, but it was/is a *campaign*(or lots or regional campaigns). What kept a lot of other people’s campaigns active was much of the material that was developed for Living Greyhawk. Quite few people very much liked most of that newly developed material. The development of the material was its own phenomenon. What the adventure writers for Living Greyhawk and all of the dm’s(both those who were members of the RPGA and those who were not) out there did with that material is what kept the Greyhawk setting active long after even the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer went out of print. You don’t need to *tell* dm’s how to make their setting be active. “Here’s our advanced timeline Greyhawk setting. For some lucky few of you, your ongoing campaign plans will fit right into it. To the rest of you we say ‘screw you’.” You needn’t obliterate the establishment and write the grand historical story arc for all the dm’s out there. They seem to have been doing that for themselves just fine for all of these many long years since Greyhawk was first unleashed upon the gaming world.
Just provide the material and the setting will be active, and most importantly it will be active according to the desires of every individual dm who will have more use for the material(it being fully open-ended). With “snapshot” style to the setting no one is left out in the cold. Setting development is of key importance. Advancing the setting(which I advocate taking the greatest of care when doing so) is much more feasible once the setting has actually first been *developed*. It’s kind of hard to make a PB&J when all you have is the peanut butter.
You have GOT to be kidding.
I've run FR for 20 years and Greyhawk is nothing like it.
Want me to play 4e? Republish Greyhawk. Or give it to Erik Mona and Paizo and let THEM do it.
Just HOW many enemies is Wizards trying to make here?
Do they WANT people not to show up at Gencon? I can go to Origins and get all my con jones out, and not show up at Gencon at all.
And WOTC could care less. The sold, not licenced, but sold Gen Con to Peter Atkinson.
If Greyhawk were to be relaunched, WotC would need to play to the setting's strengths. One thing that Greyhawk has going for it is its history. All (or nearly all) of the iconic D&D mods have been set in Greyhawk: Tomb of Horrors, Temple of Elemental Evil, White Plume Mountain, Vault of the Drow, etc. Any new GCS should contain write-ups about each location.
And, of course, any new GCS should be consistent with existing Greyhawk canon - even at the expense of differing from the new 4E cosmology (wherein succubi will apparently be devils, not demons, and eladrin are cousins to the elves, and who knows what else is going to be changed).
Settings are passive, *campaigns* are active. The setting merely needs to be developed. Dm's will make the setting active. Adventures should not necessarily be made to affect the setting- that choice should left in the hands of every single individual dm who can decide what affects *their* setting and what doesn't. Unless the writers for the setting can dominate the minds of every dm and force them to make all of the same developmental decisions, your setting altering products will hit a glitch very shortly(that glitch being all of the dm's who made *didn't* make the same developmental decisions the writers chose), so its best not to have such things at all.
Settings are active, with a regular stream of new products, or retired, with just the name and past products existing for players to use.
Campaigns are passive, with the DM never changing anything from the published books, or dynamic, with the DM presenting adventures that constantly advance and develop the setting.
Everything else comes down to the inherent contradictions involved in wanting to use a published setting that has new material released for it, and wanting to be in total control of your own campaign. Those two are in near direct opposition. I am not sure how you imagine the setting could be developed without contradicting someone's home campaign. There would however be a difference between developing everything in 597 CY, which is when most people have their active campaigns, and developing everything in 650 CY, when few, if any, people have active campaigns. With that there is no contradiction, just a jump to another time when things have changed for whatever reason.
As for adventures that do not affect the setting, they also tend to be adventures that are boring. Why would any players really care about an adventure that has no effect on the world? Even the most insignificant 1st level adventure should have some effect, which most of the "classic" 1st ed Greyhawk adventures did. (T1 - save Hommlett leading to the ToEE, U1-3 - save Saltmarsh, UK 2-3 - save Berghof, L1-2 - save Restenford; fail in any of them and a village, town, or entire region falls to evil.)
And yes, that means the PCs don't get to make the absolute resolution of such adventures. As I said, that is part of playing someone else's campaign - you must deal with the resolutions they have. The choice there is whether those resolutions are consistently forced, such as in the original DL modules, or the long term consequences are handwaved, as has happened with Greyhawk.
So strangely, I would like to see LESS stats and numbers, and more adventure ideas for a location. Less certainty and documentary, more possibility and customization.
Settings are active, with a regular stream of new products, or retired, with just the name and past products existing for players to use.
Campaigns are passive, with the DM never changing anything from the published books, or dynamic, with the DM presenting adventures that constantly advance and develop the setting.
Everything else comes down to the inherent contradictions involved in wanting to use a published setting that has new material released for it, and wanting to be in total control of your own campaign. Those two are in near direct opposition. I am not sure how you imagine the setting could be developed without contradicting someone's home campaign. There would however be a difference between developing everything in 597 CY, which is when most people have their active campaigns, and developing everything in 650 CY, when few, if any, people have active campaigns. With that there is no contradiction, just a jump to another time when things have changed for whatever reason.
As for adventures that do not affect the setting, they also tend to be adventures that are boring. Why would any players really care about an adventure that has no effect on the world? Even the most insignificant 1st level adventure should have some effect, which most of the "classic" 1st ed Greyhawk adventures did. (T1 - save Hommlett leading to the ToEE, U1-3 - save Saltmarsh, UK 2-3 - save Berghof, L1-2 - save Restenford; fail in any of them and a village, town, or entire region falls to evil.)
And yes, that means the PCs don't get to make the absolute resolution of such adventures. As I said, that is part of playing someone else's campaign - you must deal with the resolutions they have. The choice there is whether those resolutions are consistently forced, such as in the original DL modules, or the long term consequences are handwaved, as has happened with Greyhawk.
Is the setting of Greyhawk active or passive? Is the boatload of Greyhawk products that have been produced been keeping he setting flourishing? Nope. It is all of the fans that are keeping the setting flourishing. The Greyhawk campaigns of all sorts of people are active, while the setting itself is languishing in the hands of its current IP holder. That sort of contradicts everything you just said about settings being active and campaigns being passive. I guess you’d also say that Living Greyhawk has all the activity of a passive thing then.
A steady stream of products for a campaign setting keeps interest high, but it is up to the dm’s to make a campaign active. I said earlier that adventures need not *necessarily* be world altering in how they are written. It is up tot the dm to decide the ultimate outcome. That is not a passive campaign directive- it is completely and utterly open to all interpretation, which is the point. Read a bit more carefully. Another main point is that future products should not rely on the results of any adventure with variable world altering results that are necessarily written into them. Once again, adventures and products for the setting should be completely open and usable by *everyone*. You point to Temple of Elemental Evil, so go and have a look at how many possible variables there are to the outcome of just that adventure. A dm can run with any of them, and can have any, all, or none of them dramatically affect their campaign world. To choose any of these options is not passive- it’s exercising your dm creativity, and making the adventure fit your particular campaign, rather than have somebody dictate it to you(which would be passive). It would be simple idiocy to arbitrarily choose one among them as the “official” outcome and write future sourcebooks and other adventures based off of it(as is done with Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and other products). This in particular is something that should be shied away from. I’m simply saying to leave things open enough that any dm can run any sort of campaign and be able to make sue of any new material to the same extent that anybody else can.
There is no contradiction in wanting to play in a company’s campaign setting and, as the purchaser, expect any new material to be 100% useable by you as you wish to use it. You buy the campaign setting book. Other books are released that fit right along with it, but the material is *new*. How is it that “new” must be synonymous with “timeline advance?” Rather, the *new* products just happen to cover a portion of the world not yet covered before. It is of particular note that the timeline features of these *new* products all match up exactingly with the previous ones in this edition, so they are completely and utterly intermeshed. Anybody who uses the baseline products is assured than any future products will fit with them 100%. No contradictions at all. I’d certainly feel very good about buying the initial products in a line if they were set up this way, and I could expect all future products to be completely useful tome. It’s almost like buying an electric car, knowing that the electricity available 10 years from now will still be able to power it. I know! It’s insane!!! :P Perhaps I've explained myself more fully now.
The only reason a campaign would be passive is if the dm stuck with all the books and never, ever, advance their *own personal* campaign timeline. The characters don’t age for some reason, the seasons don’t change; perhaps that is not important to them and they just want to chop things up. Perhaps some new players might do that sort of thing, but those who want to get their teeth into a campaign world do anything but this and create an ongoing storyline. The reason a dm has the freedom to be active, and still make use of future products is if the products are established at a baseline which the dm can spring forth from. So, regardless of when anything is purchased the dm knows how it will fit into their particular campaign, and the product is immediately as useful to them as it would be to anybody else, as it isn’t predicated on anything *beyond a certain point*.
The Flanaess has never been decently and equitably developed in any detail, let alone any of the outside lands. You have to build an entire house before the decorator comes in and does the interior design. Greyhawk, as it has been, is only a partially built house. All of the time line advancement work that has been done for it has met with disdain from as significant amount of people for various reasons. Perhaps it is time to try and break the cycle, while still maintaining the features that have defined the campaign world for everyone up to this point.
At this point in time, setting a baseline for the campaign world can’t help but not fit with all campaigns currently running, but the baseline needs to be established. I see the reason for a 50 year time jump, but I think the baseline can be established without need for it. Greyhawk has been the bad-aid on that sensitive hairy portion of the gaming world’s body since the mid to late 80’s. It is time to rip that band-aid off quickly and all at once rather than slowly peeling it away, taking every possible hair with it, as has been the course of events over the last of 15 or more years.
1. We have the "toolboxers." These folks want toolboxes to run their campaigns in. Anything and everything will get tinkered with.
2. We have the "Continuity Hounds." Continuity is the most important thing in a setting.
The interest in each group is different. A toolboxer would never care if you hit the reset button on a setting. As long as it keeps the flavor that they like, then everything is cool. The continuity hounds do not like this approach.
However, if you choose to appease the continuity hounds, which sub-group do you appease? There's a puzzle.
Since you can't appease everyone, just reboot the damned setting.
Is the setting of Greyhawk active or passive? Is the boatload of Greyhawk products that have been produced been keeping he setting flourishing? Nope. It is all of the fans that are keeping the setting flourishing. The Greyhawk campaigns of all sorts of people are active, while the setting itself is languishing in the hands of its current IP holder. That sort of contradicts everything you just said about settings being active and campaigns being passive. I guess you’d also say that Living Greyhawk has all the activity of a passive thing then.
I would not say that the LG activity has been a passive thing, but plenty of people would. Just check a bunch of threads in the other Greyhawk forum here, or over on Canonfire, and you will see plenty of rants from people that the LG material is "closed" to "outsiders" and thus not "real" Greyhawk material.
So while for many people Greyhawk is indeed currently inactive, for me that will only happen when the LG campaign ends, and then only if no new Greyhawk products are produced.
It would be simple idiocy to arbitrarily choose one among them as the “official” outcome and write future sourcebooks and other adventures based off of it(as is done with Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and other products). This in particular is something that should be shied away from. I’m simply saying to leave things open enough that any dm can run any sort of campaign and be able to make sue of any new material to the same extent that anybody else can.
The solution is not to release a stream of adventures and then never incorporate them into the continuing development of the campaign setting. Look at the GDQ series and how many times the giants have invaded between 576 and 591 because nobody kept track of the continuity and used a single result for those adventures.
There is no contradiction in wanting to play in a company’s campaign setting and, as the purchaser, expect any new material to be 100% useable by you as you wish to use it. You buy the campaign setting book. Other books are released that fit right along with it, but the material is *new*. How is it that “new” must be synonymous with “timeline advance?” Rather, the *new* products just happen to cover a portion of the world not yet covered before.
. . .
Perhaps I've explained myself more fully now.
I understood that before.
You are still ignoring the simple reality of new products that do not advance the timeline, and the inherent contradiction between wanting the material to be both new and 100% compatible.
Why?
The Flanaess has never been decently and equitably developed in any detail, let alone any of the outside lands.How can you possibly expect any decent and equitable development of the Flanaess in any detail to not contradict what someone has done in their home campaign?
If you want any additional development of the Flanaess at the current date, you must be willing to accept that it will not be 100% compatible with what some one, some where, has already done in the campaign, and that person is definitely going to be you.
Whether it be the least description of a village right "there" where you just happened to have based your entire 20 year campaign, or the most expanded description of the noble houses of Nyrond which you have detailed back 10 generations, or any of the points in between, "new" must always be synonymous with "potentially contradictory." Even if you turn to outside lands, some people have done work on other areas and it will inevitably cause conflict.
There have been more than a few posts from people who recognize that unalterable fact, all focused on requesting that no new material ever be released for the setting because of it.
I would also note that is indeed unreasonable to expect the baseline setting products to be 100% compatible with products produced 10 years later.
I am sure you expect the electricity today still works with the computer you bought 10 years ago, but how many programs released this year are 100% compatible with your OS?
And just how many new upgrades have you installed in your 10 year old car?
No, the campaign setting, like your computer motherboard and your car, must be periodically upgraded to remain fully functional and compatible with all new releases.
I would also very much like for the Lendore Isles to go back to the way they were (inhabited by and accessible to nonelves), Secret of Bone Hill was my favorite adventure.
I then add a few of my own to give it a specific flavor or theme. I use probably about 60% Monster Manual (typically 21-30 encounters from his book alone) and 40% creatures from the other books, (so maybe another
10-15 encounters) from Fiend Folio and Monster Manual 2-5, along with sourcebooks. The tables are designed to significantly favor the Monster Manual encounters so they are by far predominate in my world.
I also include a lot of extras such as lair frequency such as in 1st edition, along with taking the different organization selections for a monster and assigning a % next to that. Notes are also included in regards to specific issues for a particular monster are for example, a unique creature, large dragon, or if they are likely to be encountered with other creatures, such as gnolls and flinds for example.
I don't play a random encounter only campaign but strictly use it as a means of world development and for when the PC need to travel. For extended journeys I try and roll encounters up in advance to same some time and minimize a game of nothing but random encounters.
I fully believe that a new Greyhawk hardcover should include extensive encounter tables. By not including them, I think most DMs are likely to ignore encounters and simply say you reach your destination rather than taking the time to include such events. A DM with more than the Monster Manual or a DM who wants to include other details to random encounters should be clever enough to add to them, customizing his or her World of Greyhawk.
Well I may be old fashioned, but I like Wandering Monster tables for different areas. [snip]
I'd like to see a DM's map which broke the entire Flanaess into numbered hexes, where each hex would have a brief outline of the kinds and numbers of monster and armed forces. And...dominion rules for subduing hexes and adding them to a PC's domain, like in the OD&D Companion Set. So, Epic-level PCs could go wilderness adventuring throughout the Flanaess as if it were a giant dungeon. If the DM wanted to "zoom in" to a particular locale and run a tactical-scale adventure, that'd be great, but PCs could also go on dominion-scale adventures using a less granular rules-set.
Travis
You are still ignoring the simple reality of new products that do not advance the timeline, and the inherent contradiction between wanting the material to be both new and 100% compatible.
Why?
I'm ignoring no such thing. I explicitly just addressed it. Once a baseline is established, and that is the key part, all new material must fit with it. There is no need for timeline advancement or for adventures to be incorporated into any new material. There is no timeline advancement. Everything is going on at roughly the same time. Adventures can be completed in any order according to the dm's wishes, and as the outcomes of the adventures do not affect new material through assumption that all of those adventures end a certain way, all players can used any new material, and at any time. If somebody buys into things later than most other people, it is not a problem. Everything works for them just as well.
I did specifically make the point that establishing the baseline is where there will be contradiction with some player’s campaigns. That is *initially* unavoidable, and this is very much due to the incompleteness of the setting and the heavy handed nature of those who previously chose timeline advancement as the "perfect" means of revitalizing the setting. Perhaps not having let the setting languish in the first place might have been the right way of doing things instead. Once the baseline is established, irregardless of whose feet it steps on, the product range must be inclusive. It must make use of the baseline and tailor future products to suit it through being 100 % compatible, which can be done under the guidelines I have put forth.
Timeline advance does not = campaign development. It is just a reason to rehash all of the information that has been put out up to that point, and with regards to Greyhawk that rally isn’t all that much. How many treatments do we need of the City of Greyhawk? A timeline advance doesn’t even really inform us any better of what the city is about, it mostly just changes the faces there. Rather than get yet another product that tells me who Ren o’ the Stars successor’s successor is I’d rather have brand new information on something that has never been covered before, or covered very poorly/minimally in the past. Develop the Baklunish lands, or any of a thousand other worthy topics, which in doing so requires no timeline advance whatsoever. Timeline advances throw the biggest box of wrenches into the existing information, as it all needs to redone (but you seem to want that). Seeing as Greyhawk (the Flanaess specifically) has never been really complete in the first place, I think that this is starting from the wrong point of things. Once the lands themselves have been developed, then one might consider doing some things that might advance the timeline, but in a peripheral way that doesn’t alter things in too grandiose a fashion.
I consider campagin setting development to be building on the description of the world istelf. You give the impression that doing so must also include advancing the timeline. I obviously disagree with that.
I'm ignoring no such thing. I explicitly just addressed it. Once a baseline is established, and that is the key part, all new material must fit with it.
So then you do not care if the setting is detailed extensively, completely overuling all the work that individual DMs do?
I am sure a lot of them do.
There is no need for timeline advancement or for adventures to be incorporated into any new material. There is no timeline advancement. Everything is going on at roughly the same time.
So after a few years, Furyondy is facing a dozen different simultaneous invasions from Iuz at different points on the border.
Such a plan will collapse of its own weight in very short order.
Adventures can be completed in any order according to the dm's wishes, and as the outcomes of the adventures do not affect new material through assumption that all of those adventures end a certain way, all players can used any new material, and at any time. If somebody buys into things later than most other people, it is not a problem. Everything works for them just as well.
Well, except for the need to find all those out of print products that are never reprinted.
And old players will never buy them if they are reprinted because they could never be expanded.
I did specifically make the point that establishing the baseline is where there will be contradiction with some player’s campaigns. That is *initially* unavoidable, and this is very much due to the incompleteness of the setting and the heavy handed nature of those who previously chose timeline advancement as the "perfect" means of revitalizing the setting.
Ah! So you just want to put the entire burden on the current players and hope they tolerate it.
Of course, that does not preclude that some future product, expanding development of an area without actively contradicting anything will not cause the same problem with every product.
Timeline advance does not = campaign development. It is just a reason to rehash all of the information that has been put out up to that point, and with regards to Greyhawk that rally isn’t all that much.
No, it is a way to reboot and expand the setting without having to worry about invalidating individual DMs work. Everyone gets superseded, and they know it coming it.
How many treatments do we need of the City of Greyhawk?
As many as it takes to keep it in print.
You have a copy. I think new players to the setting might want one too.
A timeline advance doesn’t even really inform us any better of what the city is about, it mostly just changes the faces there.
With a timeline advancement, it can easily do both.
By changing all of the faces it gives the authors of the new version the freedom to delve into areas of the city never detailed before without having to fear contradicting reams of canon.
Timeline advances throw the biggest box of wrenches into the existing information, as it all needs to redone (but you seem to want that). Seeing as Greyhawk (the Flanaess specifically) has never been really complete in the first place, I think that this is starting from the wrong point of things. Once the lands themselves have been developed, then one might consider doing some things that might advance the timeline, but in a peripheral way that doesn’t alter things in too grandiose a fashion.
Yes, that is what I want.
As for how much has been developed, there is an immense amount of detail out there. Much of it utterly trivial, but there will always be one person ready to point out some minor reference you missed in regards to some location. Multiply that by all the different places in the Flanaess, and it is just begging for crazed canonists to jump all over you, condemning the least little thing you wrote.
I consider campagin setting development to be building on the description of the world istelf. You give the impression that doing so must also include advancing the timeline. I obviously disagree with that.
It must eventually include advancing the timeline, or the setting stagnates and chokes on its own excessive detail. There needs to be regular change and renewal of the setting material to keep it open and exciting.
It also serves as a reason to regularly produce setting books for new players as the old ones go out of print. By containing new material, the books are also attractive to old players for the new development and insights they contain.
Indeed, on that basis, I advocate that any and all subsequent sourcebooks always advance the timeline by at least as many years as they are published after the initial setting book, and that the cycle of books be planned around the regional sourcebooks rather than a single setting book.
You obviously feel that the setting can be frozen at one point in time, with material piled on it endlessly without the setting ever collapsing under its own weight. I obviously disagree with that.
No, it is a way to reboot and expand the setting without having to worry about invalidating individual DMs work. Everyone gets superseded, and they know it coming it.
I'm all for a reboot. But should they push the campaign world up 10 years, 100 years, or 500 years?
10 years: A lot of the same stuff is going on. Some things will have been resolved (the threads that were going nowhere or making Greyhawk more like FR). A few new enemies, a few old ones. A couple new faces on the council of 8 but mostly the same.
100 years: DMs and players who have invested in Greyhawk can tweak the new campaign world to carry traces of their legacy. Mordekainen, Bigby and the lot are long dead (but they have left a lot of loot buried around). Various loose threads are tied up or left to be resolved (orcish empire of the Pomarj and all that).
500 years: Gunpowder does work in Greyhawk after all. Fireballs you say? We'll show those elitist wizards what a wagon load of cannons can do! Chivalry is on its last legs as a new type of warfare shakes the Flanaess.
As many as it takes to keep it in print.
You have a copy. I think new players to the setting might want one too.
...
It must eventually include advancing the timeline, or the setting stagnates and chokes on its own excessive detail. There needs to be regular change and renewal of the setting material to keep it open and exciting.
It also serves as a reason to regularly produce setting books for new players as the old ones go out of print. By containing new material, the books are also attractive to old players for the new development and insights they contain.
Indeed, on that basis, I advocate that any and all subsequent sourcebooks always advance the timeline by at least as many years as they are published after the initial setting book, and that the cycle of books be planned around the regional sourcebooks rather than a single setting book.
You obviously feel that the setting can be frozen at one point in time, with material piled on it endlessly without the setting ever collapsing under its own weight. I obviously disagree with that.
As to the CoG, my meaning is unclear. Sure it needs to be in print, but how many copies of it do we now have in the library as opposed to sourcebooks dealing with the Baklunish states or the Sea Barons, or Rel Astra? That is my point. Of course basic material needs to be available.
The point about not needing a timeline advance, though a timeline advance now and again is not a bad thing, is that you need to actually reach the point, at least once, of having a massive amount of detail for the campaign setting to begin with. Greyhawk has only ever had a quarter-assed attempt made at achieving that. I'd rather that cycle not be repeated. So, I'd rather have more material built upon what is already there- fill in the blanks, while also republishing and updating the core products of what Greyhawk is all about(and yes, that means a City of Greyhawk book/boxed set too). There is less work to do this way, so it is likely to get close to actually being done for once.
As to the sourcebooks continuing to advance the timeline themselves by a number of years depending on how long after they are published after the initial setting book, I think that is a very bad idea. Do you expect each of these supplements to give a section of current events of what has happened everywhere else in the world? That ought to take a number of pages away from the focus of each sourcebook. Sounds like an almanac/sourcebook, except that it also makes assumptions about everyone’s personal campaigns regarding how events must play out in them. You would have the timeline not just dramatically advance, but also not even stabilize long enough to develop a base from which to spring forth from without already making assumptions about how people are running their campaigns. Sounds like a recipe for negativity, hate mail, rants, trolling and a whole other round of Greyhawk fan schisms. So much for making the world you own. This works fine for something like Living Greyhawk, where you have a massive community of disparate players that need a focal point to unify them. It does nothing but create problems for every other individual group of players who incidentally make up the majority of Greyhawk players. You seem to be fine with a creative mindset of “You will play in *our* campaign, not your own, for if you do not, we will not just promise- we will *guarantee* that our future products will not work well for you.” That does not sit well with me. Might as well abort Project Greyhawk now if that turns out to be the plan, because will be sure to create a hellstorm of negativity and plunge Greyhawk into the dark depths once again.
I do advocate a pile of material for the setting, set at about the same time. Besides, name a single setting that has collapsed under the mountain of material that was produced for it rather than for the reason it was a bad idea to begin with, or due to company mismanagement. Anyways, I can advance the timeline and take care of world changing events myself for my own campaign(as can all other dm’s to their heart’s content). It would simply be nice to actually have a good amount of material to base things off of to begin with. I’d rather not have products advancing the setting history because the players in my own campaign(and myself) do a fine job of creating that history for ourselves. We don’t need anybody else to tell us how to do it. We do however all want to know more basic information about the World of Greyhawk, and we all like adventures that make use of such information. It is immersive. We want to consume Greyhawk at our own pace, not have somebody force feed it to us on a timeline.
As to the CoG, my meaning is unclear. Sure it needs to be in print, but how many copies of it do we now have in the library as opposed to sourcebooks dealing with the Baklunish states or the Sea Barons, or Rel Astra? That is my point. Of course basic material needs to be available.
One, with two weak updates.
If you are suggesting the FtA and tAB updates of the city could have been better I will not disagree. That does not change that with the CoG out of print they were sorely needed.
The point about not needing a timeline advance, though a timeline advance now and again is not a bad thing, is that you need to actually reach the point, at least once, of having a massive amount of detail for the campaign setting to begin with. Greyhawk has only ever had a quarter-assed attempt made at achieving that.
As I said, GH has several tons of annoying, indeed destructive, trivial canon built up that is in very sore need of being cleared out.
Sounds like a recipe for negativity, hate mail, rants, trolling and a whole other round of Greyhawk fan schisms.
Those will exist no matter what. They are superabundant now, and they will come no matter what the next iteration of the campaign setting is, just as they have shown up with advancements in every other campaign setting.
So much for making the world you own.
That bit of fluff text was superseded when Gygax published Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure and Isle of the Ape, not to mention the summaries of campaign events in Greyhawk in Dragon magazine.
It is long past time that fanciful bit of fluff was accepted as obsolete and irrelevant. It has not been true for way too long, and it has been used a stick to beat on people who have added to the body of published material for the campaign as though it defined the quality of the material all by itself.
1. Removal of canon that hinders development.
2. Development of areas that have never been developed.
I see both these items as vital to Greyhawk's future.
100 years: DMs and players who have invested in Greyhawk can tweak the new campaign world to carry traces of their legacy. Mordekainen, Bigby and the lot are long dead (but they have left a lot of loot buried around). Various loose threads are tied up or left to be resolved (orcish empire of the Pomarj and all that).
Except for those who've become liches, deathknights, elan, or whatever...
500 years: Gunpowder does work in Greyhawk after all. Fireballs you say? We'll show those elitist wizards what a wagon load of cannons can do! Chivalry is on its last legs as a new type of warfare shakes the Flanaess.
Except that gunpowder DOES NOT work on Greyhawk*, by divine decree, not out of any actions or activities of Mordenkainen, Rary, or any other mortal agency. The only ones that gunpowder DOES work for is the White Paladins of Murlynd, whose quasi-deity patron grants them the "Secret of the Firebrands" feat. Unless and until Murlynd achieves Greater Deity status and supersedes his own patron, Heironeous, and then goes completely against his alignment and gacks Boccob, the god of Magic, that feat remains the ability of one single sect of paladins.
Sorry, I really don't see that happening.
*: Gunpowder does work in Greyspace, the crystal sphere that Oerth, Rao, and all its satellite worlds exists in, but not on the planet itself. It either becomes instantly inert, or explodes violently, immediately. See the SpellJammer book, Lorebook of the Void, page 89.
It sound like GH needs two things:
1. Removal of canon that hinders development.
2. Development of areas that have never been developed.
I see both these items as vital to Greyhawk's future.
I agree and will go one farther. Rather than "freeze" the timeline or "advance" the timeline, I'm beginning to think that Greyhawk should be completely REBOOTED from scratch. Use the best of everything from the last decades but restart the setting.
Jumping too far ahead removes many familiar things. Keeping the current timeline placing has its own problems, compounded somewhat by the Living Greyhawk material which many people not only like, but view as part of the campaign setting now. Either option conflicts with every campaign out there to some degree.
There is also another way to do things which just occurs to me; a return to the classic Greyhawk setting pseudo-classical age for Greyhawk- Greyhawk 550 CY. There are many good things about this:
1. You get the familiarity of many things, as many of the NPCs are even there, if much younger(maybe infants or young children even), while others are soon to appear.
2. The nations are all established, and more importantly this time have likely not been altered and done to death by every campaign out there.
3. Also, the timeline can be advanced to the writers' heart's content, and there is a real set point to work towards- 576 CY. I don't expect this incarnation to even get close to that date, let alone beyond it, so 550 CY is a safe starting point.
4. There are no canon conflicts at all, unless the writers really do something deviant and idiotic, in which case they would get torn a new one. They’d almost have to purposely screw things up it is so easy.
Going back can be just as progressive as going forward.
Going back can be just as progressive as going forward.
It faces issues of predestination, but there is indeed a lot of space to develop historical campaigns in the Flanaess.
Overall this seems a very positive way of revisiting the setting.
Predestination I don't see as much of a problem, at least for those who have the current Greyhawk material. Knowing where things are eventually going to end up for various individuals and nations is detailed in the current books so many DMs are going to be hesitant to include campaign changes that destroy this lore. If anything, it would help most DMs keep on track and play out many of these events. Sure by doing so you will get new details, but I doubt you'll get major shaking up in the world, and if you do it is just in that DMs Greyhawk not everyone's, and the DM can often attempt to rectify these changes if desired.
I think old time Greyhawkers as a whole would favor adventuring in the golden days. New players wouldn't have the current information in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer provides so for them it would be like having a current timeline anyway. No specific checks and balances to keep in place, much like a home world.
The only people I can see being disappointed in this idea as a whole are those who participated in the Living Greyhawk campaign for the last few years. But again, for them, playing in the golden years may work the same way as current non-living Greyhawkers. Play the old days and keep things in par with their eventual official outcome. For these folks, official will most likely mean Living Greyhawk history, so it would work out there as well I assume.
I agree and will go one farther. Rather than "freeze" the timeline or "advance" the timeline, I'm beginning to think that Greyhawk should be completely REBOOTED from scratch. Use the best of everything from the last decades but restart the setting.
You know, of course, that there would be a faction of fans who would refuse to have anything to do with it. They'd probably call it "Greyhawk in Name Only." Especially if the reboot version of Mordenkainen was a woman.... :D
I agree and will go one farther. Rather than "freeze" the timeline or "advance" the timeline, I'm beginning to think that Greyhawk should be completely REBOOTED from scratch. Use the best of everything from the last decades but restart the setting.
Yes. Greyhawk did not start off in a linear, comprehensive fashion nor was it maintained in a deliberately consistent manner. Those breaks are sometimes awkward even to we "old school purists". Nonetheless, there have been plenty of excellent conventions which should remain.
Those breaks are sometimes awkward even to we "old school purists".
I, for one, wouldn't be sad to see the flying saucer thing excised from canon. (That was "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks," wasn't it?) And Murlynd's six-shooters don't really fit the overall feel of the setting, either.
I think we've all been there. When I was in junior high, the Greyhawk campaign I played in mashed all sorts of things together. My character met Ningauble in the Caves of Chaos and ended up finding his way into Gamma World and the Bazaar at Deva. One of the characters (might have been mine - it's been a long time now) took a shot at Iuz with a .357 (the DM must've missed the thing about gunpowder not working - I also recall using an Uzi on a babau demon). But that was junior high - I'd never want to play in that kind of campaign now. Sure, I can ignore the stuff I don't like - that's always an option. But I think there's stuff that most of us could agree doesn't really fit.
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2780
This solution excludes nobody, and also presents Greyhawk in a very inclusive way to gamers who are completely new to Greyhawk.
I think somebody has finally come upon a better solution than all of those presented so far. Read about it here:
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2780
This solution excludes nobody, and also presents Greyhawk in a very inclusive way to gamers who are completely new to Greyhawk.
Actually that excludes everybody, and is probably the worst idea I have heard yet.
It will not please those who want nothing but what Gygax wrote because it will not be what Gygax wrote.
It will not please those who like the follow up material because it will not include that follow up material. (It is rather impossible to include the Greyhawk War before it happened.)
It will not please those who want LG material included for the same reason.
It will not please those who want the setting advanced because it will move the setting backward.
It will not please those who want to see more development as it will remove all development to date.
It will not please those who do not want what they have done contradicted as it will completely do away with everything they based their development on.
As for people new to the setting, they want a complete setting book. When it is set and what it is based on will mean nothing to them at first, but when they realize all of the above are telling them they are not really playing Greyhawk they will not be pleased either.
This would be a great way to destroy Greyhawk forever, and I hope WotC does not use it as a base for the next setting book.
I think somebody has finally come upon a better solution than all of those presented so far. Read about it here:
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2780
This solution excludes nobody, and also presents Greyhawk in a very inclusive way to gamers who are completely new to Greyhawk.
what an awful idea.
It seems we have found common ground
BtW there is a multiple timeline idea further on within the thread that atleast retains the current timeline and development - I think.
I think somebody has finally come upon a better solution than all of those presented so far. Read about it here:
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2780
This solution excludes nobody, and also presents Greyhawk in a very inclusive way to gamers who are completely new to Greyhawk.
Thank you, Cebrion.
This was the intent. To try to find a new way of approaching what has been a contentious issue among GH fans. I think the outline in the referenced thread and the discussion following thereafter on Canonfire fairly well sets out how elements would be put together and why, given the page count, as well as how further development and expansion could then occur.Of course, I have to note that this is all academic as the presentation of 4e in terms of both crunch and fluff is antithetical to much of what GH has been to date, necessitating either the mother of all retcons or drastic changes to the setting to such a degree that one must ask whether it would be worth the effort - ie I can't imagine Wotc publishing GH under 4e without the 4e conventions - demons as straightforward brutes, devils as the manipulators and planners etc.
Given 4e conventions as they have been revealed to date, I'd rather see no new GH than a GH compromised by 4e's "new hotness." GH in seeming only is not GH, IMO. Hopefully, the final exposition of 4e will be less than what it now seems to be going to be. But anon.
YMMV
Samwise I have posted your opinion on Canonfire; personally I have been against a "reboot" because it removes all development to date and contradicts development many games are based on.
It seems we have found common ground
BtW there is a multiple timeline idea further on within the thread that atleast retains the current timeline and development - I think.
Oh I want to see a "reboot" of the setting -
In the future.
Revise and redefine the setting 50+ years in the future of the setting, where everything that has been done remains as part of the history, and anything people have developed for their home games can remain as it is for their home campaign without being directly contradicted by something new as the new material just has not happened "yet" for their campaign.
I also do not favor doing so with anything as drastic as what appears to be happening with the Forgotten Realms. That is a bit too drastic for my tastes, but then I expect FR needs to clear out significantly more baggage than GH does at this point, so that may very well be the only way to set it up for that setting. GH I think can manage with less dramatic evolution.
Given 4e conventions as they have been revealed to date, I'd rather see no new GH than a GH compromised by 4e's "new hotness." GH in seeming only is not GH, IMO. Hopefully, the final exposition of 4e will be less than what it now seems to be going to be. But anon.
YMMV
Mine mileage definitely varies.
I would rather see GH even if it is "compromised" by the 4E variations to the background than not see GH at all.
There are people who think GH was "compromised" by the 2nd ed rules and FtA, and yet I think that was essential to advancing the setting. I expect the same thing will happen with 4E, and I would GH to be part of it rather than get left behind.
***It will not please those who want nothing but what Gygax wrote because it will not be what Gygax wrote.***
Anybody who still thinks that somehow the setting will magically be given back to Gygax is living in dream world, so nothing will please them anyways. As such, what will please them is a non-issue, as they have already decided that nothing done by WotC will ever please them(but we already knew that anyways).
***It will not please those who like the follow up material because it will not include that follow up material. (It is rather impossible to include the Greyhawk War before it happened.)***
You seem to not understand that it is possible to include information on the setting published for a time after the 576 CY era to be taken and put into the 576 CY era. For example, the fact that a town is finally detailed in a later product does not mean it cannot be fit into its proper place in an earlier time period, when it is stated that it existed back then.
***It will not please those who want LG material included for the same reason.***
As you know very well, there are ownership rights issues regarding almost all of the LG material, therefore it is mostly relegated to being “material from somebody else’s campaign”. So, sorry to say, most of LG material(as great as some of it may be) is a non-issue due to the legal ramifications, but we already knew that too. That many people refuse to acknowledge this doesn't make it any less true. So, this is another non-issue as it cannot be dealt with other than how it has been. It is of note that Living Realms will not allow this convoluted mess to occur again. Chalk it up as yet another Greyhawk setting development fiasco and move on.
***It will not please those who want the setting advanced because it will move the setting backward.***
It moves the setting backward not at all. It merely includes all eras of the setting and presents a very distinct inclusion of moving things forward in “Greyhawk: The Present Era”, without taking any drastic measures such as altering any "canon" material, and while also presenting the different eras in which to play Greyhawk to players completely new to the setting. You can use all of the information from the eras and play in the forward moving "Greyhawk: The Present Era"(where setting advancing new information would be presented), or not, as you choose. This just gives everybody very clear and delineated options for playing in what era they want to. It doesn’t preclude setting advancement, thus your statement about a lack of setting advancement is completely erroneous.
***It will not please those who want to see more development as it will remove all development to date.***
I’m not sure how you get this idea, as what is proposed in this plan is exactly the opposite or what you state here. ALL past material would be incorporated, with the aim of being inclusive while still moving forward from the present time onwards.
***It will not please those who do not want what they have done contradicted as it will completely do away with everything they based their development on.***
The proposed plan preserves the info for each era, but does make a point of adding to each of them from what came after(as it is applicable), and then some. For instance, Gorsend in Furyondy is not a featured in the Furyondy section of the 83’ folio or on the Darlene map, as the city was introduced later on, but that town might actually feature on the basic 576 CY era map, as it is written as having existed then. I think that example is direct enough. Anybody who has significantly altered the setting material beyond any of its incarnations is guaranteed to have some conflict, but they knew that as soon as they decided to change something just for their own campaign. There is no getting around that. People can ignore any new material that covers something they themselves have already developed, but that doesn’t mean that such material shouldn’t be developed for the vast majority of people who haven’t developed it yet.
***As for people new to the setting, they want a complete setting book. When it is set and what it is based on will mean nothing to them at first, but when they realize all of the above are telling them they are not really playing Greyhawk they will not be pleased either.***
That is not what this proposed book would tell players at all. It presents eras to be played in. All of them are Greyhawk, unless of course you think that the 83’ boxed set, FtA, and the present setting are not representative of Greyhawk at all…
Any new material will never please everyone. That is not possible at this point, particularly if people hold to unrealistic goals for any new Greyhawk setting book. Accept the following:
1. Gygax will NOT be writing the book. This is no surprise, so why would anyone complain about something they know is a forgone conclusion. You might as well complain that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Get over it as I did, a long, long time ago.
2. Living Greyhawk material will mostly NOT be included in the book, as each writer is the owner of their own material(other than IP owned by WotC) and they all would need to be bought out. WotC will not even bother to pursue the massive hassle it would be to deal with it all, and so will do things their own way. Anybody who expects they would pursue that mess at this point is utterly naive. Get over it, as I did when all the legal issues regarding Living Greyhawk material surfaced. Most of this material is likely dead, irregardless of whether it was good or not.
I do see this as the best option for preserving the previous material that has been done, while also catering to those who play in a specific era. If you play in the “Classic” 576 CY era of Greyhawk, then ignore the information listed in the other era sub-sections of each entry, which are additions to the “Classic Era” entries. The format might look something like this:
Sample Gazetteer entry:
The City of Greyhawk & Environs
Stat block with pop. stats, etc., with era updates to the base info in parentheses after each stat.
Situated along the banks of the Selintan River, the city of Greyhawk is one of the largest cities in the Flanaess…
History of the City
The City of Greyhawk grew out of the holdings of a petty lord who laid claim to an area stretching from the southern shores of the Nyr Dyv to the…
The Classic Era
In the year 576 CY, the City of Greyhawk is a teeming metropolis…
The Wars Era
While war has begun to ravage the lands around, the City of Greyhawk has undertaken a position of neutrality. Subsequently, the city has become a haven for refuges fleeing the destruction of the war, as well as a bustling center of commerce as the war trade brings mountains of gold into the coffers of the city’s merchants…
From the Ashes Era
With the signing of the Treaty of Greyhawk, the city is well on the way to returning to some semblance of normalcy. In way of maintaining its neutral status, the city hosts diplomats from all of the nations who signed the Treaty…
Present Era
Presently, the City of Greyhawk continues to prosper, its holdings in the south having expanded over the course of the last few years and now includes…
So, you see that all of the information from each era is presented separately, but dovetailing onto each proceeding bit. The Classic Era is the base material, and everything adds to it from there. If you want to play in the Classic Era then ignore what comes after. If you want to play in the Present Era then use it all as you wish. There is no right or wrong era to play in, and there is no right or wrong way to make use of the information- there is only YOUR way. Imagine that, and it’s all Greyhawk.
If Greyhawk needs any development, it's a rich backstory. This gives adventure writers great tools to use in adventure writing. I want to know more about the ancient empires and the wars between them.
Your views seem rather skewed Sam.
My views are direct, without bothering with pie in the sky dreams of what might happen.
Anybody who still thinks that somehow the setting will magically be given back to Gygax is living in dream world, so nothing will please them anyways. As such, what will please them is a non-issue, as they have already decided that nothing done by WotC will ever please them(but we already knew that anyways).
Tell that to all the people who have posted with wistful wishes that the next version of the setting be given back to Gygax.
You seem to not understand that it is possible to include information on the setting published for a time after the 576 CY era to be taken and put into the 576 CY era. For example, the fact that a town is finally detailed in a later product does not mean it cannot be fit into its proper place in an earlier time period, when it is stated that it existed back then.
You seem to not understand that including information on a town is not the same as including information on major developments to the setting caused by the change in era.
How will you fit Drax the Undying into 576 CY?
How will you fit Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil into 576 CY?
How will you fit civil war in the Hold of the Sea Princes and Keoish conquest of Westkeep into 576 CY?
As you know very well, there are ownership rights issues regarding almost all of the LG material, therefore it is mostly relegated to being “material from somebody else’s campaign”. So, sorry to say, most of LG material(as great as some of it may be) is a non-issue due to the legal ramifications, but we already knew that too. That many people refuse to acknowledge this doesn't make it any less true. So, this is another non-issue as it cannot be dealt with other than how it has been. It is of note that Living Realms will not allow this convoluted mess to occur again. Chalk it up as yet another Greyhawk setting development fiasco and move on.
And there is LG material that can be incorporated because WotC does own it. While I am sure you have no problem casually dismissing it, the people who wrote it and the people who like it will not let it go so easily.
It moves the setting backward not at all. It merely includes all eras of the setting and presents a very distinct inclusion of moving things forward in “Greyhawk: The Present Era”, without taking any drastic measures such as altering any "canon" material, and while also presenting the different eras in which to play Greyhawk to players completely new to the setting. You can use all of the information from the eras and play in the forward moving "Greyhawk: The Present Era"(where setting advancing new information would be presented), or not, as you choose. This just gives everybody very clear and delineated options for playing in what era they want to. It doesn’t preclude setting advancement, thus your statement about a lack of setting advancement is completely erroneous.
In which case it would not be set in 576 CY, and it would not reboot and reimagine the setting, and it would generally not be anything that was included in the initial post that you linked to.
If you are talking about something else, when would you propose this new era to take place? We already have 591 CY. Will it be 5 years later? 10 years later? 50 years later? More?
If so, in what way is this proposal any different from what I suggested for advancing the setting and revising it from there? Because you want to include a supplemental reference of the past? A nice thought, but space considerations will make that very difficult.
I’m not sure how you get this idea, as what is proposed in this plan is exactly the opposite or what you state here. ALL past material would be incorporated, with the aim of being inclusive while still moving forward from the present time onwards.
I am not sure what proposal you are talking about then, as what you linked to did not suggest that.
Anybody who has significantly altered the setting material beyond any of its incarnations is guaranteed to have some conflict, but they knew that as soon as they decided to change something just for their own campaign. There is no getting around that. People can ignore any new material that covers something they themselves have already developed, but that doesn’t mean that such material shouldn’t be developed for the vast majority of people who haven’t developed it yet.
You are ignoring that people have stated that issue as why they will never purchase anything new written for the setting.
That is not what this proposed book would tell players at all. It presents eras to be played in. All of them are Greyhawk, unless of course you think that the 83’ boxed set, FtA, and the present setting are not representative of Greyhawk at all.
I do not think that.
You only have to read some of the posts here to know that others do feel that way.
So, you see that all of the information from each era is presented separately, but dovetailing onto each proceeding bit. The Classic Era is the base material, and everything adds to it from there. If you want to play in the Classic Era then ignore what comes after. If you want to play in the Present Era then use it all as you wish. There is no right or wrong era to play in, and there is no right or wrong way to make use of the information- there is only YOUR way. Imagine that, and it’s all Greyhawk.
What I see there is nothing but a larger scale summary of everything, with no new development.
That plan would just stuff a dozen books into one book. Unless you have an unreasonable expectation of a 1,000 page book, there simply would not be enough space in a regular product to include all of that. Either the descriptions will be clipped to less than what they were in the original folio, or new development will be impossible.
I would rather have a completely new book.
I liked the comment about settings being static and campaigns evolving. After watching WoTC mess with my plot lines one too many times I made my own setting and have used one incarnation or another since late 2e.
Modules were great back in the day when you could drop them in, now they are too bogged down in the political effects on an existing world/city that doesn't exist in half our settings.
Modules were great back in the day when you could drop them in, now they are too bogged down in the political effects on an existing world/city that doesn't exist in half our settings.
Yes, that is exactly how I grew up with Greyhawk. The module suggested where it could be located, and the DM placed it onto the board. For us older fogies, Greyhawk was like a colorforms playset. The basic map is the same, but where you place the pieces is entirely up to you. That is why this setting still works for me. This is why I enjoy the LOOSENESS of the Greyhawk setting over the cumbersome Faerun setting.
Yes, that is exactly how I grew up with Greyhawk. The module suggested where it could be located, and the DM placed it onto the board. For us older fogies, Greyhawk was like a colorforms playset. The basic map is the same, but where you place the pieces is entirely up to you. That is why this setting still works for me. This is why I enjoy the LOOSENESS of the Greyhawk setting over the cumbersome Faerun setting.
Is it just an old fogey thing? I loved that about Greyhawk when I was first playing with in in 1986 or 87.
I can't handle how busy Faerun is. I have absolutely no interest in it.
I realize that they make more money from busy settings that require tonnes of books, but I like Greyhawk as a less explained setting.
I like lower magic, less political intrigue, and more unexplored areas on the maps. I would prefer the borders to be fuzzy and a trip across the country to be a dangerous undertaking.
If GH was more popular, with novels and all, you'd hear the SAME complaints.
I'll tell it to them again then using an analogy. "I'm a devout Catholic, but I refuse to go to my local church unless the Pope himself *personally* shows up to conduct the service!" compared to “I’m a devout Greyhawk fan, but I won’t buy anything Greyhawk unless it is written *personally* by EGG!” EGG is sort of the Pope of Greyhawk, and has been very forthcoming with fans of the game, but it is more than unlikely he will be pursued to contribute to any new Greyhawk material. If the Greyhawk IP was in my hands, would I make an effort to involve EGG? By all means, but it is not, and there seems to be no intended cooperation between EGG and WotC(nor any desire for there to be) so far as I can tell. After more than 20 years of EGG not being directly involved in the development of Greyhawk, people still cling tenaciously to this very unrealistic dream. Talk about setting yourself up for disappointment. Best to accept it(after 20+ years!) and move on.
***You seem to not understand that including information on a town is not the same as including information on major developments to the setting caused by the change in era.
How will you fit Drax the Undying into 576 CY?
How will you fit Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil into 576 CY?
How will you fit civil war in the Hold of the Sea Princes and Keoish conquest of Westkeep into 576 CY?***
Drax isn't "Drax the Undying" in 576 CY, so why would he become that in an earlier era? I would think that would be blatantly clear.
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil obviously doesn't fit into 576Y, as that is the era of the Temple of Elemental Evil. You seem to want to pick an adventure that was built purposely around a specific time, with time sensitive information in it. Choose another adventure that is not so obviously dependent on the occurrences of a previous adventure that took place 10 or more years before. Your choice of RttToEE seems purposely obtuse.
Civil war in the Hold of the Sea Princes hasn't happened yet in 576 CY, so why would it be put in that era, and not in the era in which it occurs?
Future *events* would not be placed in past eras. Basic material on the campaign world itself(i.e. maps, towns, geographical information, information on long standing organizations that has been developed long after other 576 CY era information) is easily placed in past eras(when such things are said to have existed anyways). You don't take future events and fit them into a different era, as that is not what they are a part of to begin with. Such things are put in their own era. Perhaps you'll understand the meaning of this better now.
***And there is LG material that can be incorporated because WotC does own it. While I am sure you have no problem casually dismissing it, the people who wrote it and the people who like it will not let it go so easily.***
From the very quote you responded to is t his bit:
“As you know very well, there are ownership rights issues regarding almost all of the LG material, therefore it is mostly relegated to being “material from somebody else’s campaign”. So, sorry to say, most of LG material(as great as some of it may be) is a non-issue due to the legal ramifications, but we already knew that too.”
Yes, most the material is untouchable, but not all. I did specifically mention the Core material previously, which I believe is WotC IP, but maybe you didn’t see that, or just purposely wish to twist what I wrote through omission. Perhaps now you will see how it looks like you are purposely being obtuse? People would be very unrealistic to think that anything that WotC doesn’t own the rights to should be published as part of any new material, no matter how good it was. I simply make the assumption that people realize that the inclusion of ALL LG material is impossible(due to the legal reasons involved), and therefore is an unrealistic outcome. It is all well and good to say you want something, but it is not reasonable to expect what is not possible.
**You are ignoring that people have stated that issue as why they will never purchase anything new written for the setting.***
They have to be ignored. Just because Bob who lives in a shack in the woods wrote his 5,000 page Manifesto-Gazetteer on the Land of Black Ice, this fact is not going to influence whether or not the IP holders should write that material for every single other Greyhawk player who has not done so. If somebody has a Campaign in Furyondy and they have detailed all of the Seven Families, the lands etc, that doesn’t mean that WotC shouldn’t develop Furyondy. Is somebody going to mad that their material will be invalidated by such new material? Why should they be? Their material is not invalidated at all *for their own campaign*. Once again, this is an unrealistic to demand that all new material unequivocally fit everyone’s’ campaign.
***What I see there is nothing but a larger scale summary of everything, with no new development.***
it is an overview book. Such books don’t have lots of room in them for development, but there would be some. That is not the goal of such a book anyways, they being more about being informative. The goal of major development would best be served in supplemental books, where things can be gone into in more detail. I’d also think that this campaign setting book should be about 300 pages, not 160.
Either Greyhawk will get the volume of products that Forgotten Realms and Eberron gets, or it will get few or none at all(and fall back into obscurity). It is not the most palatable thing to consider, but it is the reality of things.
I'll tell it to them again then using an analogy.
You need to use that analogy on yourself.
That "solution" was presented as something that would make everyone happy.
It will not.
That is the critical thing.
Drax isn't "Drax the Undying" in 576 CY, so why would he become that in an earlier era? I would think that would be blatantly clear.
Then it needs to be clear that such a project will not provide for using all of the development in every period, which is how it was presented.
Perhaps now you will see how it looks like you are purposely being obtuse?
Or perhaps you will see how it looks like you are just making general statements to present the proposal as the ultimate solution to all problems, yet are forced to admit that it is not the grand resolution you presented it as when looked at closely.
They have to be ignored.
I said that awhile ago. You said you had a solution that would make everyone happy.
it is an overview book. Such books don’t have lots of room in them for development, but there would be some. That is not the goal of such a book anyways, they being more about being informative. The goal of major development would best be served in supplemental books, where things can be gone into in more detail. I’d also think that this campaign setting book should be about 300 pages, not 160.
I already have an overview book.
I have several overview books.
I do not need another one.
The setting does not need yet another one.
It is time to skip the overview book and go directly to the primary development book.
I'm glad to hear that you have a sourcebook already. Hopefully you make good use of it within your campaign. I understand that you do not care for this proposal and that is your right as well as anyone elses. Such a book could serve as a sourcebook for those who do not have one considering all the previous books are no longer in print.
Should we be blessed with another Greyhawk book, whether it be a sourcebook or primary development book, modules, or any other Greyhawk material it would be, I believe, be in the best interest of the majority to support any kind of Greyhawk project you feel comfortable with. As always, most of the Greyhawk community is open to additional suggestions from players and DMs such as yourself and those that frequent both this site, canonfire, and others with similar goals.
It is unrealistic to expect everyone to support one single idea. For those that do support this project I will continue to strive for further design development to me made, along with an appropriate number of authors, researchers, artists, and cartographers in order to make such a book available to the Greyhawk community.
I would like to thank you for you support of discussion regarding this topic and the best wishes to your campaign. Should you ever feel the need or desire to participate in this project, one of your own, or an idea presented by others I would be most pleased to hear of your ideas and progress. As stated, any Greyhawk material which brings in new fans I would like to think is welcomed by all, be it yours, mine, or ours.
Best wishes and Good Gaming!
On another note, I don't understand the perspective of folks who say they want minimalist Greyhawk. I understand what type of material they want, but I don't understand why they think WotC would even remotely consider spending the time, effort, and money to produce a minimalist product range when their goal is to have their product ranges make money(which is really the bottom line). For Greyhawk to be viable in this regard, it needs to be done full-bore. There is no room for half-assing it. Stockholders are not very ammenable to such things.
Either Greyhawk will get the volume of products that Forgotten Realms and Eberron gets, or it will get few or none at all(and fall back into obscurity). It is not the most palatable thing to consider, but it is the reality of things.
If all products play the same, then the market is left with a false choice. Different segments of the market want different things. You could keep doing detailed settings, but you eventually water the market down. This is why I believe that a few some-assembly-required settings would do well.
I agree that too many products for too many campaign settings can water down the impact of everything. We've already seen that when TSR has their whole jumble of campaign worlds running rampant at roughly the same time. The result was that they couldn't do all(or any) of them the justice that such projects deserved. The material to date that has been released for both the Forgotten Realms and Eberron has been far from inundating in my view, and at least for the Forgotten Realms it is all going to get trashed anyways from what is hinted at in the final pages of the Grand History of the Realms. Time for a whole new range of books I guess. And the machine keeps churning out the product...
There needs to be a general setting book, irregardless of what solution is finally decided upon. It doesn't matter what you or I have. Any new products will be focused at a new audience, as well as the old one. New players do not have the same things we have.
I see your point of view as being very viable; I just am not to keen on it. The Greyhawk setting has been spiraling into a FUBAR state for some time now, being nudged along here and there by a lack of foresight. I’d just rather not see it turned into something unfamiliar, or worse yet, something almost unrecognizable. I see one very palatable(to me at least) solution so far. Why don't you go ahead and explain your idea in some greater detail, and provide a couple simple examples of what you'd like to see. That might give myself and everyone else a better idea of what you propose.
As to a 4e solution to Greyhawk, seeing what is planned for the Forgotten Realms makes me cringe. I think we are in agreement there. They even have Cyric getting imprisoned in Tharizdun-like fashion!
I can see it now...Tharizdun gets loose. He kills most of the gods, especially any gods of magic. As since the magic system is changing, no magic gods can live to preserve the old way of things. Oh, and I almost forgot- all of the mages who use the old magic system suddenly explode into meaty chunks, as we can’t have anybody who remembers how things used to be, now can we?(Yes, its fluff made to legitimize game mechanic changes!
) Then of course Tharizdun runs rampant all over Oerth before finally getting taken down in some way. He may be dead, locked away once again, or just diminished to "merely" a greater god of evil, but held in check at least. The World of Greyhawk is a shambles ready to be rebuilt in a completely new image, which will decidedly not be Greyhawk as we know it now. Yay! Greyhawk lives! 
Yes, that last bit was sarcasm. ;)
It moves the setting backward not at all. It merely includes all eras of the setting and presents a very distinct inclusion of moving things forward in “Greyhawk: The Present Era”, without taking any drastic measures such as altering any "canon" material, and while also presenting the different eras in which to play Greyhawk to players completely new to the setting. You can use all of the information from the eras and play in the forward moving "Greyhawk: The Present Era"(where setting advancing new information would be presented), or not, as you choose. This just gives everybody very clear and delineated options for playing in what era they want to. It doesn’t preclude setting advancement, thus your statement about a lack of setting advancement is completely erroneous. . . . ALL past material would be incorporated, with the aim of being inclusive while still moving forward from the present time onwards. . . . The proposed plan preserves the info for each era, but does make a point of adding to each of them from what came after(as it is applicable), and then some. . . . So, you see that all of the information from each era is presented separately, but dovetailing onto each proceeding bit. The Classic Era is the base material, and everything adds to it from there.
Future *events* would not be placed in past eras. Basic material on the campaign world itself(i.e. maps, towns, geographical information, information on long standing organizations that has been developed long after other 576 CY era information) is easily placed in past eras(when such things are said to have existed anyways). You don't take future events and fit them into a different era, as that is not what they are a part of to begin with.
it is an overview book. Such books don’t have lots of room in them for development, but there would be some.
This is all pretty much right on the money.
576 CY is just the baseline. Brought into the baseline data are the sorts of detail Cebrion mentions - towns etc. - NOT events. Future events are dealt with in era specific sections appropriate to the events, not in 576 CY.
Similar to the idea of advancing the timeline, the "present era" looks forward, not in a hard and fast way but in terms of general trends, recognizing that there are only 160 pages, hypothetically, to work with. The exact CY date of the "present era" remains to be determined and, as such, could well advance the timeline significantly, while not disturbing what came before for those who want to play in an earlier era.
To be clear, I am all for advancing the timeline - I think it must be done - but I think the way outlined allows it to be done without disregarding those who feel differently. I think the "rebooting" proposed is a compromise between those who want a static or past GH and those who want a great leap forward in the timeline. Of course, some folks can't or won't like to compromise.
Something that should not be lost is the notion of "reimaging GH" where the Battlestar Gallactica model is the one most offered up in illustration. I think this _MUST_ be part of the process. This happens in lesser and greater fashion.
Simply a rehash, however comprehensive or well done, is a nonstarter IMO because canon is such a mishmash. There will have to be some picking and choosing within canon to produce something internally consistent and coherent. When the picking and choosing among canon tidbits gets underway, there will be opportunities to reimagine GH in a "lesser" fashion. Who gets this job? Who gets to play GH god? Who gets to say what goes? Obviously, whomever is on the design team.
At the same time, the "present era" will be entirely new material. This is where most of the reimaging will occur, IMV. Who gets this job? Who gets to play GH god? Who gets to say what goes? Obviously, whomever is on the design team.
The real sticking point as I see it would be the available page count. Not everything will fit in 160 pages so some hard choices will have be made about what is included, what gets scant mention and what is mentioned not at all (hopefully to await presentation in future books if the first is successful). If the page count were doubled to 320 pages, obviously much more could be included. Wotc would get the call on page count. With the 160 page count, the assigned designers would then have to make the hard choices.
I wouldn't be surprised at all to see articles in Dragon on-line featuring references to Greyhawk, though it probably won't feature any solely Greyhawk specific articles(unless they have to do with some future Greyhawk product perhaps). I hope to be pleasantly surprised from time to time, but I'm not counting on it. I'm not sure if I will subscribe to this on-line content, as not only has the price not yet been set, we still don't have an accurate idea of the amount of content that price will give us. I'll make a decision on it after it has been up and running for a few months.
Sam: I've acknowledged plenty of times that there is no perfect solution. I just think that this proposed solution would satisfy the majority(but never all- that's impossible) of current players by preserving what is familiar to them rather than to undertake a more drastic solution. As I said before, it will be like ripping off a band-aid. Best not to drag it out, and simply get it over with quickly for once and for all. It is impossible to please everyone 100% anyways, but that is no reason not to do it.
Yes, it is like a band-aid. The problem is, that proposal is like slapping another band-aid on top of the five that already exist because they have become old and worn, thinking it is better to try and keep them all in place.
It is not.
There needs to be a general setting book, irregardless of what solution is finally decided upon. It doesn't matter what you or I have. Any new products will be focused at a new audience, as well as the old one. New players do not have the same things we have.
There needs to be a new book.
Whether that covers the entire setting, or only some section, should not be taken as automatic.
I see your point of view as being very viable; I just am not to keen on it. The Greyhawk setting has been spiraling into a FUBAR state for some time now, being nudged along here and there by a lack of foresight. I’d just rather not see it turned into something unfamiliar, or worse yet, something almost unrecognizable. I see one very palatable(to me at least) solution so far. Why don't you go ahead and explain your idea in some greater detail, and provide a couple simple examples of what you'd like to see. That might give myself and everyone else a better idea of what you propose.
Sometimes you need to go for the unrecognizable.
Right now, the Greyhawk setting is too recognizable to its fans. The only people who are impressed by anything are the newcomers, and too often they believe some other setting did it first, while the long term players get distracted with edition wars, author wars, canon wars, and plain simple interpretation wars. And of course there are the hopeless cliches and increasingly weak in jokes among the names.
Ultimately, to get beyond all of that Greyhawk must either be left behind or reworked. I suggest reworking it.
As to a 4e solution to Greyhawk, seeing what is planned for the Forgotten Realms makes me cringe. I think we are in agreement there. They even have Cyric getting imprisoned in Tharizdun-like fashion!
Actually, while I initially reacted with horror to the reported scope of the FR revisions, upon reflection I realized that is precisely what GH needs. Not the copying of GH elements, but a thorough reaming out of the old order and the creation of a new one.
I brought this up in the chatroom a few days ago:
One of the biggest plot elements of Greyhawk is the presence of Iuz - an evil demipower living right in the middle of the map.
On first thought, this is a great plot device. What could be a bigger challenge to the PCs than having to outmaneuver a deity?
But when put into play, the problems multiply rapidly. If Iuz has that much power and no other deity can directly intervene, how can he be stopped? Look at City of Skulls. A major element is completing the adventure without making Iuz aware of the situation, as he can and will simply put a stop to the whole thing if he does come to know what is happening. Indeed, in the hands of a less than elegant DM, Iuz becomes a justification for never letting the PCs win.
DM: You can liberate the Horned Society lands, but in the end Iuz reconquers it.
Player 1: What if we just fight him and defeat him?
DM: He is a deity. You can not do that.
Player 1: Then what is the point of trying?
Player 2: I told you we should have just played MechWarrior.
But how could anyone deal with such a problem?
Among the other changes in From the Ashes is the entry for the Soul Husks. What do they do? It never says it for sure, but it suggests they are the source of power for Iuz being a deity. Destroy them, and he becomes mortal.
Is this an atrocity against the setting? Does it prove how horrible a writer Carl Sargent is?
Or does it show the way to how the setting should be developed, with issues like Iuz resolved once and for all, and the campaign moving forward to new enemies and new challenges?
The does not need Tharizdun to destroy everything, but it would be well served by having Iuz removed by adventurers fighting through to and destroying the Soul Husks. That would be a great place to start with a new setting book.
Y'know, a few years back, there was an article in Dragon that attempted to update the WoG setting not just to 3rd ed, but to a later date. It was called "Greyhawk 2000" (by Phillip Athans), and while I personally found it horrific in the author's ignorance of some of the base 'natural laws' of the setting, it had some decent (I won't go so far as to say 'good') ideas, at least as far as the geo-political aspects.
Before I get flamed, let me say that yes, there are some things in that article that were patently ridiculous as far as the Greyhawk world-setting goes.
(Magical dwarven rail-guns [Dimensional Accelerator rifles] and gunpowder weapons? Divine decree negates gunpowder from operating, so why develop such an idea [esp. when only the White Paladins can use them, in the first place] when that niche can be filled with a repeating crossbow with the Speed and Quick-Loading magical abilities [and adding the Exit Wound ability would turn a mid-level warrior into the equivalent of a modern merc with an Uzi]? )
(Or the "E98 Devil Raptor", a magical fighter jet [with heat-seeking missiles
]? We already have something like that in place, the Mosquito two-man fighter from the Spelljammer boxed set, no psuedo-Top Gun BS needed...)But, it is a good way to look at a redesigning of a setting; although mr. Athans' article seems a tad more Urban Arcana than Greyhawk, it's a good way of looking at the setting with fresh eyes...
And personally, I like your getting rid of ol' baggy-pants Iuz better than most other proposals I've heard so far.
I feel like an idiot for asking because I suspect the answer is well known.
Given that Greyhawk was written before that group was organized, I think it exceptionally unlikely that the Scarlet Brotherhood was inspired by anything it, or anything similar.
Hmmm, well ... I guess the Gary-Gygax-time-machine myth has been largely discounted so okay.
Still, there are a lot of similarities ... they are both racist and fascist organizations that attempt to disrupt governments from within through infiltration and terrorism.
The Scarlet Brotherhood are bad guys who deserve a serious beating.
You need to use that analogy on yourself.
That "solution" was presented as something that would make everyone happy.
It will not.
The sad and simple fact is, nothing published in the future for Greyhawk will satisfy everyone.
Sometimes you need to go for the unrecognizable.
Right now, the Greyhawk setting is too recognizable to its fans. The only people who are impressed by anything are the newcomers, and too often they believe some other setting did it first, while the long term players get distracted with edition wars, author wars, canon wars, and plain simple interpretation wars. And of course there are the hopeless cliches and increasingly weak in jokes among the names.
Ultimately, to get beyond all of that Greyhawk must either be left behind or reworked. I suggest reworking it.
Alternately, I think one of the weaknesses of the setting as it exists in 2007 is that it is too recognizable to non-fans, in a sense. A lot of what those who know of but choose not to use GH is misinformation, for sure, but those stereotypes, true or false, must be addressed if the setting is to grow.
Stereotype: GH is boring, generic fantasy.
New GH material needs to show how this isn't true. Showcase the Olman and Touv. Showcase the Scarlet Brotherhood as an interesting villain. Showcase Iuz as a Tolkien-esque villain (more thoughts on Iuz in a moment.). Then, on the other hand, show people that the stereotype is true, in a good way. Showcase the lack of railroaded metaplot development via novels (as some folks complain about FR and Dragonlance being). Showcase the lack of gunpowder tech and weird 'steampunk' elements (that some folks complain about Eberron and to a lesser degree, FR, having). Showcase the fact that any and all core D&D ideas and material is at home in GH, and that with some work, the missing elements from other settings and genres can be added, since the relative generic nature of GH, compared to other settings, provides a nice baseline campaign for the DM and players to customize, without being hindered by WotC's custom elements.
Stereotype: GH is low magic/low fantasy
The accuracy of this point can be debated for years, but I sum it up like this when comparing the settings:
GH is low to medium fantasy, not low magic. Magic is just as powerful and mysterious in GH as it is in any setting. The Twin Cataclysms are an obvious example, as is the Crook of Rao Flight of Fiends. Magic items are rampant in all published GH adventures. Most, if not all, of the 'named' spells in core D&D were authored by GH mages, and likewise, most of the 'named' magic items and artifacts in the core game originate in GH. The thing is though, unlike Eberron, FR and to a lesser degree, Mystara and Dragonlance, magic is somewhat an elitist pursuit, not everyone has it, especially not every minor NPC one encounters outside of the adventure proper. This is a good thing, even if you prefer a magic heavy campaign. It's far easier to add magic items or spellcraft to the NPCs you feel should have it, than to have to strip it from every Tom, Dick and Harry the published setting gives it to, in order to balance things from a game mechanics perspective.
Stereotype: GH is the RPGA's playground, I can't be bothered with joining that group in order to get the info I need to play it at home.
Obviously, to GH fans, that's an absurd idea, but it is surprisingly common. While thi issue will undoubtedly be less of an issue in 4e, with GH as a RPGA flagship campaign going away, GH development needs to make it perfectly clear that GH and LGH, while similar and compatible, are basically two separate things.
Now, going back to Iuz for a moment to illustrate a point. If developed and used in a creative fashion, Iuz can become a great setting element, as I suggested earlier, in a manner evoking Tolkien's Sauron. The goal of such development must have one single, eventually attainable goal, that being his defeat at the hands of epic, heroic PCs. Unused as he is now, beyond providing some backstory elements for the flagship NPCs of the setting, or developed in a Villain in the Machine approach where he is either never meant to be defeated, or defeated by NPCs while the PCs watch, he's a burden to the setting, and should be removed. So in essence, use him or lose him. Same goes for the Scarlet Brotherhood, Vecna, Rary, etc.
Villains aren't the only personages that need to be reexamined. FR is notorious (accurately or otherwise, I honestly think this criticism of FR is exaggerated a lot) for using 'puppetmaster' or 'celebrity' NPCs. GH does the same thing, quite a bit. Mordenkainen and co are fine as PC patrons once in a great while, but when they are painted as the movers and shakers of events in the setting, that PCs must tag along for the ride with, they become a weakness. Going back to the Crook of Rao and the Flight of Fiends, when a major campaign development like that is to be made, make an adventure of it, let the PCs do it! Legends of the heroes of the setting are a good thing, but there needs to be opportunity for the PCs to join their ranks and perform epic heroic deeds themselves, rather than just running mundane errands for the NPC masters and watching the big events from the cheap seats.
Still, there are a lot of similarities ... they are both racist
The SB should be depicted as vile scum, but that is one element that, IMO, should be avoided, especially in a human on human context.
Compare the SB to nazis, you risk having the material offend Jewish (and possibly others) players.
Compare them to the KKK and you risk having the material offend Black (and others) players.
Rather than take a lazy approach that just says "these guys are gh's version of --insert real world scumbag group here--", I'd rather see a creative, unique version that doesn't rely on real world bigotry to make the SB nasty.
...but it would be well served by having Iuz removed by adventurers fighting through to and destroying the Soul Husks. That would be a great place to start with a new setting book.
I agree with that completely, and this would be a great development for thesetting. Destroying the Soul Husks in my mind wouldn't make Iuz mortal so to speak, just reduce him to the having the crutch that all other demon lords(I equate him more with a demon lord than a deity) basically have- being able to be "permanently" killed on their home plane. As the prime is Iuz's home plane, he would remove himself from it to the Abyss, where he has allies and can at least feel somewhat more safe. Then, just like all of the other beings similar to him(deities, demonlords, etc.) he will be removed from the Prime and be working to influence it as do the others.
You don't need a massive format change to accomplish this though. This is the type of thing I envision for the "Present Era" material.
The SB should be depicted as vile scum, but that is one element that, IMO, should be avoided, especially in a human on human context.
Compare the SB to nazis, you risk having the material offend Jewish (and possibly others) players.
Actually, a friend of mine (and fellow Greyhawk gamer) Timothy Urban often used the 'kung-fu Nazis' as a reference to the Scarlet Brotherhood (along with the 'Harlot Sisterhood'), and he's Jewish, so he evidently doesn't find it offensive.
Actually, a friend of mine (and fellow Greyhawk gamer) Timothy Urban often used the 'kung-fu Nazis' as a reference to the Scarlet Brotherhood (along with the 'Harlot Sisterhood'), and he's Jewish, so he evidently doesn't find it offensive.
Ah yes, and as serious and profound as such a campaign sounds, I assume this friend can be counted on to speak for all Jewish players...
Without derailing the thread too much, comparing the SB to nazis is quite effective to getting the point across to new players but in the end there is alot of room to make this group more diverse and interesting. I would ask does allowing players to be SB monks or merely affiliated like in Paizo's Adventure Paths make the SB less offensive to players and does it risk glorifying this groups ideals?
To me, PCsin D&D are supposed to be heroes. While Paizo's material doesn't always take this route, I'd prefer that future GH leave the SB as villains and not give options for PC affiliation with them.
It's easy enough for a DM who doesn't paint the SB as utterly evil, or groups that enjoy an anti-heroic style of play to adapt things like monks to the SB organization, but I really feel the published material should leave them as evil villains.
Ah yes, and as serious and profound as such a campaign sounds, I assume this friend can be counted on to speak for all Jewish players...
No, but it's no more
than your implied assertion that it'll offend every person of the Jewish faith/ethnic origin.No, but it's no more
Are you purposely reading that into what I wrote just to argue, or is your reading comprehension really that bad? I said,nor implied, no such thing.
Anyone trying to claim, as you seemed to be doing with your little story about your friend, that humorous (kung fu nazis...harlot sisterhood...) treatment of nazis is perfectly acceptable and runs no risk of offending, among others, Jewish players, is living in a dream world.
Your statement that I quote here is more of a childish lashing out at someone who didn't fawn over your attempt at humorous dismissal of a serious point than any real rebuttal of what I said. If you want to discuss it in a mature fashion, I'm open to that, but if you want to post more childish drivel, you can be very sure that I know where the report post button is.
But, now I'm sorry for bringing it up. Given that 3 or 4 seemingly intelligent individuals can't post one reply without misinterpreting or misrepresenting how could the SB be presented in a way that doesn't offend? Should they be?
IMO, IMC -
1) the Scarlet Brotherhood are irredeemable villains,
2) any "alliance" with the SB will ultimately see the SB betraying anyone who allied with them - its a matter of when, not if,
3) the SB are racist to the absolute core; racism defines who the SB are, how they see themselves and what their goals are,
4) in their racism the SB are Nazi-like to include genocide, selective breeding, medical/magical "experimentation" on living sentients, slave labor camps and occult trappings, mixed in with the monk, assassin, thief heirarchy,
5) the SB are not like the KKK, that "honor" is reserved for another group of less obvious Suel-supemicists.
Never have I had anyone take offense at this depiction. I guessing that is because my SB are very clearly villains with an agenda and modus operandi that is easily and immediately definable as evil with a capital "E." I'm also guessing that I'm aided not a little by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas whose Indiana Jones demonstrates Nazi's make for outstanding and epic villains. I would resist any attempt to make the SB redeemable or other than as Nazi-like as they appear (breeding programs, racial superority etc.).
I would see them either removed from the setting, having been outed in FtA, or returned to their prior role as a secret empire of powers behind thrones.
4) in their racism the SB are Nazi-like to include genocide, selective breeding, medical/magical "experimentation" on living sentients, slave labor camps and occult trappings, mixed in with the monk, assassin, thief heirarchy,
I'm also guessing that I'm aided not a little by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas whose Indiana Jones demonstrates Nazi's make for outstanding and epic villains.
In the context of this debate, I think it is important to note that in the Indiana Jones movies thus far, the Nazis display almost none of the elements you mention in point #4.
Indy's Nazi villains:
Are obsessed with collecting occult/religious artifacts
Threaten torture to get their way (Note that the torture is always threatened or implied, never shown, as opposed to the Thugee in IJ2)
Burn books
Lie and Cheat to get their way
Lucas and Spielberg obviously realized that was enough to show that in their milieu, the Nazis are villainous scum. Despite the shoddy excuse for new monsters that SKR used the SB breeding programs for, I really feel that description of anything more vile than Lucas style villainy is overkill. Hinting at it is fine, graphically depicting it is not.
And as I was trying to say all along, downplaying the human on human bigotry is a far less (potentially) offensive way of showing the SB are evil. Human on non-human bigotry is just as despicable in a standard fantasy setting like GH, and much less objectionable.
Personally I find the "Nazi" SB a rather simple minded and lazy approach; there are many layers to the SB. To downplay the obvious stereo-types I emphasize the hyper-nationalism as the motive for the SB rather then the fanatics. I view the SB more as an intellectual nation of plotters rather then evil homocidial mad men.
As for the discussion to reboot GH; while interesting, I still fail to see how "rewriting GH history" will appeal to new players. New players in my experience could care less about a settings history much less be attracted because of it. This idea will only anger the veterans as everyone seeks to protect their little piece of canon history.
If you want to entice new blood; concentrate on the present, it does seem full of possibilities and if you want to iron out canon inconsistencies move the timeline forward.
Geography including known details regarding cities, towns, facilities, mines, keeps, etc.
History for each kingdom, including historic figures and deities
Addendum of rules, magics, monsters, PCs, feats, skills, etc that are specific to FR
A robust index to help find everything!
Publish it both in paperback, and online
We are simply not going to get everyone to agree on how the history of FR has progressed - drive as much consensus as possible, lock it into the official 'history' published in the book, and then let us add on to it.
I also found the Players Guide to FR very helpful because there's alot of data in the CS that you just don't want players to know right away (otherwise all suspense is lost), so a players guide seems reasonable. Perhaps you could split it up so there's a PGFR and a DMGFR, where the information in the DMGFR supplements (Doesn't duplicate) the info in the PGFR.
Beyond that, whatever format is adopted, it would be nice if it were consistant across all the realms - same kind of information for a Dragonlance guide, or a Ravenloft guide, etc.
After that, I'd like to see modules. Somebody please update and re-release "against the giants"!!!
/Thef
mind the flames...
Anyone trying to claim, as you seemed to be doing with your little story about your friend, that humorous (kung fu nazis...harlot sisterhood...) treatment of nazis is perfectly acceptable and runs no risk of offending, among others, Jewish players, is living in a dream world.
That's not what I was saying at all, but you seem to be implying in turn that folks like Tim cannot have a sense of humor, and that to imply otherwise relegates me to trolldom and a worthy candidate for the 'report' button.
To wit: the Nazis were scum, pure and simple. The Scarlet Brotherhood echo them in many, MANY ways, including their penchant for:
A) a conviction that they are the 'Master Race'
B) a desire to enslave the other human races (except for their longtime rivals, the Bakluni, who they wish to utterly exterminate)
C) a desire to wipe out all 'inferior' races (elves, dwarves, halflings, etc)
and
D) a Mengele-type practice of trying horrific experiments to produce the ultimate soldiers and slave-races.
The Scarlet Brotherhood, like the Nazis, practice hate.They tell themselves cunning little lies to justify their actions, but they are cut from the same cloth. The KKK are a pack of inbred fools, plain and simple, the Nazis were, for the most part, educated people who should have known better, and in my opinion, relegates them to actual evil, not ignorance (willful or not) like the KKK.
As for Tim's sense of humor, OR my own, remember, LIFE IS TOO IMPORTANT TO TAKE SERIOUSLY. If you really, really want to be offended over something, that's your perogative, but you seem to be getting worked up over very little. Are you sure you didn't come into this looking for something to get offended over?
Report me if you like, but you will notice that I've made no such threats your way. If you DO want to discuss this in a "mature manner" as you say, please, follow your own advice.
The SB can work again like that with some groups... mostly those that don't know much about Greyhawk!
Cheers!
That said, I'd like to think that we could all support a "Rumors of the Flannaes" section that DID highlight the major plotlines of the last 8 years, and that basically presented itself as "not necessarily what happened, just what that drunken sot of a bard said in the tavern last night". That way, we'd all know what happened, but more "purist" players wouldnt feel beholden to use it if they felt it harmed the setting in some way.
You nailed it. Doing it the way you describe preserves original canon, yet gives a nod to Living Greyhawk, and in fact gives a bit of license to modify the setting a bit to conform with the better parts of the Living campaign. I like it.
Tartessos aka Malachias Invictus