I was wondering about what is for you there, the main theme of a Greyhawk campaign. I mean should it be focused on the war between Iuz and the "good guys" or on sometihing else?
I try to combine as many elements in the campaign i am playing now, but I am curious to know how do you make them coexist in the same game. My vision on Oerth is that there are many bad guys (Iuz, Scarlet Brotherhood, Cults of Nerull, Humanoids, Devils, Demons, etc..) that are figthing eachother to get power on it, and a very minority of good guys trying to keep alive. Actually in my game evil is probably much more powerful and present as in a standard GH, as i like to give it a little VILE touch ;) .
I hope my english to be clear enough.
Your comment about the good guys being a minority reminds me of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," and the overwhelming odds facing Frodo and the Fellowship when they set out for Mordor. It is, of course, a very effective technique for creating dramatic tension if your good guys look like they are doomed to be destroyed by the evil hordes.
I would guess that who your main bad guys are depends upon where in Greyhawk your characters are playing. If you're anywhere near Iuz's realm, he needs to loom large in the campaign, but if you're quite far away from him, then he may not have any impact. I'm not sure if there would be one bad guy that would necessarily serve as a focal point of Greyhawk in general.
About who should be used as the Bad Guy, I did mean to know how would you relate the enemies between themselves? I see actually Iuz very similar to Sauron, as he is a Demigod (Saruman is a Maiar) and he feels the Flanaess, perhaps Oerth (not just his own empire) as his own realm. Just is clear enough that Devils, many Demon Princes (with their hordes of demons), Scarlet Brotherhood, the cults of Nerull, Incabulous and Erythnul (at least that's what i guess, any other point of view?)are not on his side.
And again, I see it very hard to think that Iuz or the Scarlet Brotherhood (and others too) would just care about the lands around them. In my campaign, all these evil forces are balancing eachother with intrigues, battles and power games (with the Nyr Div area as the center of these games) often getting the help of the forces of good (as Furyondy, Church of Pelor and Rao etc..) with corruption, deception and conviction.
No one person or god or faction ever rules absolutely or for very long. It is the nature of humanity, the dominant force in the world, to change. Examine any history and you'll see that nations change allegiences, borders move forward and backward, whole kingdoms are absorbed or demolished, people are enslaved, wars erupt constantly and religions sway back and forth between dominance and disintegration.
That is Greyhawk, IMO. It's a living, breathing world full of conflict. There's never a dull moment. Conflict is what drives ALL stories. Drama, comedy, romance, mystery... all revolve around conflict of one sort or another. That is what makes Greyhawk interesting to me and that is what seperates it from the chaff. Unlike in FR, where everything goes right and there's always a happy ending and even the bad guys are kinda nice, in Greyhawk, you can have a very, very, very bad day. Not everything is garaunteed to turn out all roses. And even if it does, who's to say you like the smell? The Pale may one day dominate all it's current neighbours and rule in the golden light of Pholtus for a thousand years, bringing with it enlightenment, prosperity and benevolence to all those who walk in that light. But would you be happy in a nation ruled by clerics of the stern one?
Just because something is good or evil, doesn't necessarily mean it's desirable/undesirable. There is no black and white in Greyhawk, as they say.
This is why I like the additions of the Greyhawk Wars which many people don't like. To me, it brought the setting alive. Some claim that it made things more black and white and to an extent, I agree, but I think any DM who can't muddy the waters with such a vast amount of material, is truly lacking in the skillz department.
Anyhoo, my current game, which I hope to make regular, is set in the area around Tenh/Pale/Banditkingdoms/Stonehold. In my world, the Pale has plans of expansion and there are certain people who are willing to do almost anything to make it happen. The PC's have just been hired by one such individual. With the PC's aid, the Pale will annex Tenh and resettle it with Tenh refugees, the converted ones of course, in key positions of power and make it a palitinate of the Pale. They'll do this somewhat unwittingly at first and later will have the opportunity to rail against the Pale or aid them. It's all very complex and has a dozen other threads running through it which will eventually include Delglath and the absorption of Nyrond into the Pale, with Almor as part of the New Great Kingdom, under Delglath's reign of course
At least... that's what is going on in the background and will happen if the PC's don't intervene to change things
The Pc's in my campaign love Veluna because they believed it was safe now Veluna will be the center of attention. I might even have Perrenland join forces with Ket allowing both nations to expand.
If Ket loosens control of it's borders The Paynim Tribes will unit and over run Ket and some of the Bissel states.
My theme is out and out war. Hey if ancient civilizations did'nt conquer other nations then we might be speaking Egytian or Latin right now.
Originally posted by tgsantini
Do any of you know the real reason behind WOTC not putting out real Greyhawk material
Mainly, because FR has a proven track record. FR sells well, and has done so for a decade. Greyhawk floundered in the early 90s, and even the late 2e revival got only a lukewarm reception. This is due in large part to TSR not understanding the original allure of the setting. It is also due to the fact that TSR killed any real chances of the bare bones down and dirty style campaign settings like Greyhawk being popular with the newer generations of gamers by so ruthlessly promoting the heavily detailed, story heavy settings like FR and Dragonlance. A lot of newer gamers seem to want a world presented to them 'turnkey', where only minimal investment of time is required to whip up a campaign storyline and begin play. Greyhawk, being adventure heavy but story light, doesn't do well for those fans.
The problem is, Greyhawk was designed at a time when heavy role playing and story development was backseat to high spirited adventure and (let's face it) hack and slash romping through dungeons. Due, most likely, to Gygax's growing role as a businessman and then his untimely departure from TSR, Greyhawk went a long time with no real development beyond a steady stream of simple, story light adventure modules. By the time the tastes of gamers began to shift to high immersion storytelling in the early 90s, TSR seemed rushed to bring Greyhawk up to speed, and despite fine work (IMO, YMMV) by Dave Cook and Carl Sargent, it hobbled the setting. TSR followed that 'rebirth' with a series of products of varied quality (sadly, one of the best of the lot, Ivid the Undying, never saw print, and was only released in online, unformatted form, by TSR as part of the hype preceeding the relaunch in 1998). Longtime Greyhawk fans were divided and didn't provide the sales numbers TSR wanted, so the setting died.
About that time, the world was going through the first widespread stages of internet access, and despite some debacles caused by TSR's ill concieved attempts to protect their copyrights, a loyal (stubborn, opinionated and often divided, but surely loyal to the setting) community of fans started forming around the setting. Folks like Gary Holian, Fred Weining, Steve Wilson, Nathan Irving and Erik Mona (at that time, just a starry eyed punk college kid with a knack for research and fact finding in obscure Greyhawk texts, not the polished industry pro we know and love today :D ) began a movement that eventually led to the relaunch in 1998. Despite the best efforts of those guys, and TSR folks like Lisa Stevens, Roger Moore and Sean Reynolds, the relaunch failed to reunite the Greyhawk community (torn asunder by both disagreements over the wars/no wars greyhawk setting and, sadly, petty infighting between the movers and shakers of the community) and, more importantly, failed yet again to bring a lot of new fans to the setting.
Then came 3e D&D, and news GH would be the core setting once more. Also, WotC, having recently acquired TSR, announced that the RPGA would launch a huge new Living Campaign that would develop Greyhawk. Again, there was a lot of excitement, but the divisions remained, and in fact grew, since now we had yet another Greyhawk 'version' to argue over
Yes, Living World (now Living Greyhawk) captured a lot of fans, but my theory on this is that they are fans of the RPGA style play, and shared world campaigning, for the most part, and not loyal Greyhawkers. Having been active in the online Greyhawk community for 3 or 4 years now and become somewhat friendly with guys like Holian, Mona and Weining, I can attest that the old divisions are alive and well, and regrettably, I would predict that any relaunch of Greyhawk as an actively supported campaign setting would fail. Some of the fans would love it, some would hate it, but more importantly, a lot wouldn't buy it. Based on conversations I've been part of with Erik Mona, and things I've seen said by Gary Gygax and Sean Reynolds, I think WotC agrees with my prediction, and rather than risk a financial failure in reviving the setting, have left it in the capable hands of the RPGA and in a nominal role of being the core setting mainly to appease older fans and remain tied to the game's 'roots' while focusing their attention, and money, on more successful settings like FR and the new one coming out next year (whatever it's called, sorry, I haven't kept up, I'm a die hard GHer, new settings often fall beneath my radar).
Perhaps someday the fan efforts of people like the ones working on Greyhack, Living Greyhawk, Canonfire, or Greyhawk: Into The Flanaess! (the new site concieved by folks here in this forum) will bring enough cohesion and interest back to the setting to make it seem attractive to the folks at WotC, but until that day, we must accept the quality of the LGG and the handful of other Greyhawk scraps WotC has given us recently and embrace the work of other fans.
The big attraction to Greyhawk, for me, is the fact that there is no one grand theme dictated to us. Originally, the setting was just a map and some sketchy notes on various places, people and gods to wrap around your ongoing string of dungeon bashing adventures. As players and play styles grew, many of us starting fleshing the thing out, and naturally, no two players had exactly the same idea about how things should be.
TSR tried to give us a little direction with Wars/From the Ashes, painting a picture of a world crawling back from the brink of self destruction and struggling to find a balance between the forces of good/evil, law/chaos, nature/society, etc. Some of us liked that direction, others didn't, either way, we kept developing our own ideas about the world.
The LGG shows you what Erik, Fred, Gary, Roger and Sean thought Greyhawk should look like. Countless websites and forums like this show you what other people think. Find a theme you like from that selection and run with it, or pave your own road. That's the beauty of Greyhawk, no rules, just right!
Mmmm, I have the sudden craving for a steak and a bloomin' onion...
:D