I'm not even gonna start cuz everyone who posts here probably loves what Greyhawk has become.
All I'm asking is... Since Greyhawk always has and always will be the default standard setting used in the core books (classes, races, gods etc.) is there any chance there is going to be a less complex version of Greyhawk???
Sort of a Greyhawk Companion For use with the Core books for newbie gamers etc.??
After looking at the LGG i get the feeling that old school dungeon crawling and adventuring in Greyhawk has been replaced by political powergames and the all important regional division stuff handled by the RPGA.... I'd rather play Civilization on my PC then!
It's been a while since I played in Greyhawk last (about 1992 i think) so I was wondering if some of you "youngsters" could fill in a very confused Greyhawk old timer. I have the LGG with me but after reading it, I'm more confused after each reading. So I won't buy it unless someone can explain to me how the LGG works with the old school greyhawk!
Please....
I never posted on the Greyhawk board before cuz I'm a die hard Dragonlance fan, but recently my nostalgia overwhelmed me as I played numerous greyhawk based games.
to name a few:
Scourge of Worlds - Interactive DVD
D&D Heroes - For Xbox
and
Temple of Elemental Evil - for PC
I remembered the old days when we played in Greyhawk
and I wanted to revive some of my old campaigns.
I remembered a city called Thuderrift that was pretty much what Greyhawk city is now, but once I got my hands on the LGG i didn't recognize anything at all.
Maybe WotC threw out all the old GH stuff and made up their own version for the LGG or something.
Anyway I'm just a guy who remembers one version of GH that I loved and now I sit with the LGG and stare at a GH that I can't begin to understand or make any kind of sense of.
So I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me out by explaining a bit about the basics of greyhawk. Cuz right now I'm prone to taking the LGG and using it for firewood and make up my own version of Greyhawk the way I remember it.
And I'm quite serious about this!
So please no BS replies!
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=153526
Greyhawk is dynamic and changing. It has not been static over the last twenty-five years. The LGG is a survey that brings interested parties up-to-date on the course of events in the Flanaess. And the LGG does a fantastic job of doing just that.
If you are looking for new, commercially published Greyhawk adventures, you will have to wait with the rest of us. Or make some adaptions and changes to extant adventure material from the past and from other publishers. Keep your nose in Dungeon and Dragon magazines, too.
If the LGG is supposed to be something that allows all DM's across the globe to play in the same world, then why aren't there any more locations and quest ideas in the LGG?
What I'm missing in the LGG is a chapter on legendary sites and locations, quest ideas, all the stuff that us old boys crave. Sure the political stuff is nice to have cuz it brings more life to the world and you can always choose to ignore it. But I consider it a demographic encyclopedia and not a setting sourcebook.
I need a map with locations on it for good adventuring and stuff like that.
EDIT:
It's just that with the new RPGS Living campaign stuff it feels like, if I make up my own stuff, I'm gonna break the darn setting or something.
Originally posted by Eylwn Highmoon
I remembered the old days when we played in Greyhawk
and I wanted to revive some of my old campaigns.
I remembered a city called Thuderrift that was pretty much what Greyhawk city is now, but once I got my hands on the LGG i didn't recognize anything at all.
I can't recall the place name Thuderrift existing in Greyhawk. Maybe you are looking for Thunder Rift?
Thunder Rift was an old-school D&D module from a few years ago, so was probably set in the Known World/Mystara. Could this be what you are looking for? Maybe your old DM used this as part of his Greyhawk campaign?
Anyway, don't get to concerned with following canon (or the Living Greyhawk campaign) in your home game. Make up whatever you want, just so you have an enjoyable game.
Could you tell me more about Mystara and Thunder rift?
I'll go search the web too.....
cursed be my lacking memory!
Originally posted by Eylwn Highmoon
I swear I just saw a lightbulb hang over my head there! The Mystara stuff sounds very familiar... maybe my old DM mixed the two settings or something....maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree!!! Thanx for the heads up!
Could you tell me more about Mystara and Thunder rift?
I'll go search the web too.....
cursed be my lacking memory!
Sorry - I don't own Thunder Rift and I'm not an expert on OD&D. I just remember the cover from a few years back.
There is a Mystara message board here in the Other Worlds section. People there will probably know about Thunder Rift.
I agree with what Greyson and Brom said about the LGG!
As for Greyhawk..... I'll just use what is in the LGG and then make my own Greyhawk around that.
Originally posted by Brom Blackforge
Anyway, don't get to concerned with following canon (or the Living Greyhawk campaign) in your home game. Make up whatever you want, just so you have an enjoyable game.
Now that's worth quoting. I emphatically agree with that sentiment, Brom. Nice one.
As for the RPGA LG campaign, it is just that, a campaign run by the RPGA. If you play in it, you play the adventures prepared for it by the RPGA, with no side treks of your own, according to the rules the RPGA has for the campaign, with no modifications of your own. If you don't want to play by those rules, then whatever the RPGA does is utterly irrelevant to your campaign, as whatever you choose to do with Greyhawk on your own is always going to be utterly irrelevant to the RPGA. (Unless you decide to submit it to them and they decide to use it.)
Concering Thunder Rift, I happen to have the full run of material for it. It was part of a short lived, alternative campaign revival of the Basic-Expert D&D line.
The flaws of the products were the size (16 pages), the font and layout (which meant those 16 pages were effectively 5-6 pages of real material), the cost of the stand up figures included in each product (which meant TSR was likely losing a considerable amount on each module), the maps (which were of poor quality in terms of contrast, but printed on high quality paper), and the fact that the setting was headed for the trash bin already.
The quality aspects of the products was the design staff, which included Colin McComb for the setting, Slade, Ken Rolston, and Graeme Davis doing modules (along with William W. Connors, Tim Beach, and Julia Martin, and Bruce Heard as product manager. The story was also rather intriguing, if bizarre, from a conventional campaign standpoint. Still, I liked it, and used it, along with the FastPlay material, and a few other bits and pieces, as the basis for a campaign at one time.
Go here, you'll be far more welcome...
My write ups from the campaign I mentioned are there.
And stop by for our weekly chats.
Greyhawk tanked because the intensely defensive (and shrinking) fan base apparently preferred reading a fantasy world version of The Economist and wasn't interested in listening to the dire predictions of people who noted that most gamers would never actually buy products that were little more than updates to previous products.
Everyone may now go ahead an flame me. After my encounters with you all on my other thread I realized the truth of why Greyhawk is functionally dead as a serious campaign setting and my only consolation is that you're all too wrapped up in your delusion to see it.
It's not Greyhawk, it's the Grey Waste. The life was sucked out of it by endless revisitation of the mundane aspects of life.
Greyhawk tanked because of the constant negativity of people towards any product that didn't meet some obscure, and typically contradictory, set of standards, set by a series of self-appointed guardians of Greyhawk canon. More, many of their complaints were filled with a pie in the sky nostalgia that led directly to the endless series of "Return to" modules, since it was the old modules that were held up as paragons of design, and thus had to be guaranteed star products.
Had those people been less insistent that doing the Giant series again would be perfect, or that every plot thread in FtA be followed up on by people who had no idea what the original author intended, we would have had a much better series of modules, and the setting would have done much better as a full line.
1: The old-school dungeoncrawl fanatics who loved it when Greyhawk was just a pile of dungeons waiting to be plundered.
2: The politically fanatics who like the new reyhawk where everyone is at war with everyone and dungeons are no more cuz we allready robbed them all.
I discussed this with my buddy MadMaxim last night and he was definately leaning towards the second camp. I understand that a setting needs to evolve or it dies. Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms evolved and they are both great settings. But what I don't understand about Greyhawk is why it had to change so drastically?
As you said, the locations chapter was cut by WotC, but that effectively leaves Greyhawk incomplete. I don't mind the complex politics (I play DL for crying out loud...it's nothing BUT politics!), but as they cut the locations and dungeon aspect, they loose all the die hard greyhawk fans who consider Greyhawk an old school dungeon crawl setting.
I'm not a fan of published adventures as my players usually read them as well, so that kinda spoils the fun. So if I'm new at Greyhawk (which I consider myself to be since I don't recognize anything but Greyhawk City) How would I go about finding out some of the hot spots in Greyhawk? Some nifty locations to build a camapign around.
Don't tell me that every dark lord with a citadel has been slain and burned to the ground and that every last dungeon in Greyhawk has been plundered and now serves only as a museum of ancient studies. I was hoping to find some of that in the LGG, but since it's not there, where would I go about digging up that stuff?
Or should I just take Greyhawk as is in the LGG and sprinkle some locations on the map as I see fit? Placing an evil citadel with monsters and a powerhungry wizard just outside of Verbobonc seems a bit off to me....
If they would just bother to compile a decent GHCS instead of that RPGA stuff, then it'd be much easier and everyone would be happy.
While they prefer to blame Greyhawk's decline on "lack of corporate support", the reality is that a corporation will support just about anything that makes them money.
So Samwise, while Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms may have conformed to an obscure and typically contradictory set of standards, but they appealed to people looking for a fantasy setting.
Greyhawk has become so absurdly political that you almost don't even need monsters. You could replace the orcs of the Pomarj with barbarian humans, and even do the same with Iuz's forces, and the whole thing would run almost exactly the same. The game has become more about whether Nyrond and Northern Aerdy are going to get into a fight over old Almor than about advenurers seeing magical places and fantastic creatures.
Granted, there is most definitely an audience for that kind of gaming. But it is a very small audience. Like many others I was derisive of all the people that went running to Dragonlance when it came out (the first big successor to Greyhawk). But the reality was that it was a campaign setting that was more adventurer-centric than the military/merchantile focus that had risen in Greyhawk.
The Greyhawk audience has nobody to blame but themselves for the decline of their campaign setting. Anyone that dared to suggest that the status quo was anything less than wonderful was met with hostility by die-hard Politicos who seemed to revel in the decline of the setting as long as it remained their's and their's alone.
Originally posted by Brom Blackforge
Oh, now come on people! Any setting can have as much or as little political intrigue as you want. It's all up to the DM. By the same token, any setting can have as many or as few dungeon crawls as you want. Eylwn, if you want to use Greyhawk as presented in the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer but you want to throw in some dungeon crawls, go ahead and do it! No dungeon lies empty. If a group (or groups) of adventurers have already been there, then chances are that some of them died there and left all their belongings to rot with their corpses. Not to mention their unquiet spirits that have now risen as ghosts to haunt the place. Or how about the denizens of the Underdark moving in after the previous residents were vanquished? The world need not be static. I don't buy into the idea that all the dungeons have been cleared, and there's nothing left to the World of Greyhawk but politics.
Hear, Hear! Psyonicx is largely full of baloney. GH is no less friendly to basic adventuring and more friendly to politics than any other setting or than it ever was. There were some published materials that had a grand political focus in the aftermath of a Flanaess-wide war, but you're free to focus or not focus on that at will. The LGG is, really, little more than an updated version of the GH Folio that appeared in the early 1980s with some additional bits fleshed out here and there. Some political relationships have changed as well in the aftermath of war... and that's about it. The setting is every bit as conducive to random adventuring as it ever was.
If your impression of the direction GH has taken is based on the relative lack of adventures being published compared to the early days, I can empathize with that... but would also point out that there are very few adventures being published right now for official campaigns period. The days of TSR publishing mostly adventures stemming from the development days of GH are long gone (though, of course, you can still play them... experiment with updating them for 3rd edition rules). Your best bet for that kind of thing is Dungeon magazine or 3rd party producers (as long as you adapt a little to fit GH as you see it).
Your mission, and the mission of everyone here who like to play in GH, is to take the setting as you've got it published and play it as you see fit and have the most fun. I'm running a game right now using the LGG and the GH Folio, set before the big war, with significant departures from published materials. I plan on using some of the events published in the war as part of my ongoing timeline, but that choice is mine to make in the interests of having a game fun for me and my players.
Your second category is illusory. It is based on the premise that people who like the setting books that have come out don't want the dungeon crawls. This is what Psionycx is trying to force on people. The problem is, there is nothing to support this. Everyone I've seen who praises FtA, Marklands, Iuz the Evil, Rary the Traitor, the unpublished Ivid the Undying, and the LGG are all equally eager in wanting to see modules produced as well.
We are not a "politico" faction.
We are simply fans who take what we can get.
I am a total loss to understand this absurd assertion that just because we don't condemn the LGG we somehow oppose the publication of any adventure modules. It directly contradicts the statements of people like myself.
Worse, it demeans the setting and damages the efforts of people to get anything else published, particularly in an era when WotC has stated openly that they don't want to publish any more modules. So when they see people asserting that the majority of Greyhawk fans want nothing but modules, and that only a very few want "political" books, which are the vast majority of the sourcebooks that have been put out for FR and DL over the years, what else would happen but the setting to receive absolutely no consideration.
And if the fans who will accept anything, including sourcebooks that just contain "politics", come off as a bit hostile, it is understandable. We might be able to convine WotC to put out something - anything! - but others would rather just complain about not having modules presented to them on a regular basis.
As for compiling a GHCS instead of that "RPGA stuff", everyone would not be happy. There would be thousands of LG fans who would no longer have a campaign to play. Dismissing their wants because they don't coincide with yours is the problem, no matter what form it takes.
The "mass" of "political" products is an illusion. I showed that in the other thread by listing the products.
The concept that the game can't be run with the few ideas in those sourcebooks is likewise false. A DM is supposed to be able to create his own adventures.
But people would rather believe in those misperceptions than support the setting. I can't understand why.
Besides, if they put in a chapter on mysterious places in the LGG, then all the people who whine about new products (anything after '85) would say that the mysterious places aren't mysterious enough or that they were in a previous obscure product or some crap like that. They don't realize that some people (like me) don't have reams of old material to mine for these "rehashed" ideas and that giving an overview in a product that is supposed to cover the whole setting is what the authors should be doing.
Hell, look at the FR box set from 2nd edition and the FRCS...several areas remain re-hased, only areas with huge novel plots that wrecked them were politcally updated...you know why? Because you don't get any new fans by saying "take your old set...and add this stuff to it!" because the new fans don't have the old stuff.
In other words, they'll never give you anything at all with your attitude and you need to put up with SOME re-hash unless you want the setting to die out as no one will get into it.
PS. Politics are considered since they have a greater tendency to change, like I said on the other thread...pick a mysterious place like the Sea of Dust or whatever, advance the setting 300 years...it'll still be there, but will Furyondy? and even if Furyondy is still there, the king would've died long ago...who's in charge now? You see what I mean? Politics are fluid, mysterious places are pretty much there period.
Have we seen a Faiths of Oerth book? No. Have we seen a Monsters of Oerik book? No. I could keep going...but I think Ive made my point.
Wizards of the Coast has the same Pavlovian Idiot mentality as many other companies that have put their heads in the sand and continually claim that only one thing sells when they have made almost NO attempt at selling their other settings. If you dont support a product...it wont sell. If you throw all your weight behind one product...it will most likely sell. Thats called MARKETING!
And lets get straight to the point, they arent above publishing dribble-
Arms and Equipment
Epic Level handbook
and other such guff modules, City of the spider queen being the biggest waste of money yet.
To be honest, I'll quite happily buy GH material that is produced by someone else, who, I dont care. So at least lease the licence so that someone with an intrest could produce the material, as is we're running on the quality dribs and drabs from Dragon and Dungeon mag's with GH specials in them. (bless Mr Mona) and its getting pretty slim to make up the rest.
At the moment we're looking down a 10yr game thats covered slightly under 50 years game time, me and the GM looked through the list of NPC's that held high positions in various areas across the continent. Dead, dead, dead, still kicking, dead, old and dribbly, dead... dead...
*sigh*
Lots of work to be done there. Admittedly the world is much changed from what was in the origional books, mostly through the PC's meddlings but new ideas would be very welcome for inspiration.
I have no favorites, I'll use whatever comes and take what I want from whoever, in the current position we cant really be too fussy unfortunatly.
As tough as it is, I wouldnt play in any other realm.
Tried FR, it just dosnt mate-up to what level of 'power' we like to play at (lmiddling) and I got over being a munchkin years ago, you cant entertain me with kewl powers, feats and another sourcebook about the Gnomish plumbers of the underdark to hold the intrest.
I mean, TSR the bastards tried that years ago, as much as they hated the game and made me hate it for some years its not a lesson they seemed to have learned at Wotc either as much as they'll deny it.
Many I know that were playing Greyhawk in the past did not use Greyhawk Wars or Up From the Ashes. They felt it was too disruptive to their campaign. Then slowly they incorporated some of the changes and left others out. Now many of them use most all of the changes in UftA as background in their campaigns.
New material would be appreciated by just about everyone even if you choose not to use it. It might get someone else's imagination going and then *blammo* another GH fan and another potential customer for the NEXT GH item which YOU might like and want.
I purchase things hoping that my $ will get the ball rolling for another major publication. A hardback book (better than that horrid 1st/2nd edition thing I hope
) would be great even if the material wasn't only to get people's attention back to GH. The old material doesn't last a week in my FLGS when it does trickle in. People snatch it up like it was gold, even the crap. Why, because there is simply nothing new to buy.I'm ranting and will now shut up.
But, let's stop for a moment and examine the notion that politics heavy Greyhawk is "new school"....
Who is responsible for starting the focus on politics and detailing the relationships of nations in times of war and peace in Greyhawk?
Who first gave us a campaign setting that included (along with a handful of little adventure ideas, which the LGG does have, btw, just not as fleshed out as those in the original setting, but there are a lot more of them) the nobles, military statistics and political notations about the nations?
Who spent dozens of Dragon magazine articles detailing the political and military machinations of the nations in the Great Kingdom region of the setting?
Anyone?
That's right! E. Gary Gygax!
Ever since it was first published, Greyhawk has been a setting of political and military conflict! Gygax created it that way, and the newer material should be seen just as his material was, backdrop information that the DM can use to make the world his adventures happen in as detailed or undetailed as he likes.
I for one believe that with a richly developed setting, it becomes far easier to craft adventures that fit together and fit into the setting consistently.
One example of a little plot hook/political intrigue from the LGG turning into an adventure:
Ooh, Resbin Dren Emondav, Marchioness of Sterich, is ruling in the absence of her missing husband, Marquis Querchard. Querchard, if you'd believe the rumors of drunken storytellers, is imprisoned in the dungeon beneath Krelont keep (the Marquis' castle in Istivin)....Oooh! Krelont Keep has a dungeon, and Sterich was just liberated from the giants! There's hints of Drow and some sort of 'taint of the abyss' in Istivin too! I'm sending the poor fools into the bowels of Krelont dungeon to get some answers, at the behest of Marchioness Resbin, or perhaps in service of some rival noble who is looking to discredit the marchioness by proving foul play on her part in the disappearance of her husband?
Far, far superior adventure hooking than the original trip to Istivin in the GDQ series (where, if you'll recall, Mage Lashton shows up, gives the orders and the party is on their way, with no real motivation or weaving of a mystery before hand.
Any DM worth his weight in dice can craft a dungeon crawl, or adapt one of the myriad adventures for D&D3e or D20 into Greyhawk, what the LGG aimed to do, and did well, was provide a nice summary of the setting and update it to reflect changes both in the setting, and in the game.
1) I believe that Greyhawk (GH) is an excellent campaign setting because its elements inspire DMs to imagine their own campaigns.
1a) However, sometimes some of us worry about complying with the latest products. Sometimes, we lose confidence that our own creations are as valuable (for us and players in our campaigns) as anything published. Why we "lose confidence" may be beyond the scope of this thread -- although if you have ideas to share, please do so.
2) Being a fan of (GH) since my childhood, I thoroughly enjoy the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (LGG). My appreciation of the work is informed by having been a member of the online community of GH fans for a year or two prior to its publication. I recognized in the LGG the culmination of tremendous and admirable fan efforts (and a whole lot of inside jokes).
2a) However, I recognize that the LGG is fairly critiqued for lacking accessible layout design (and relatively poor graphic design). Thus fans who charge the LGG as too much like an encyclopedia make a valid point.
2b) However, the LGG contains many adventure seeds. Beyond the brief "Conflicts and Intrigues" paragraphs of each country's entry, the histories are filled with locations and ideas for adventure (as is every chapter -- especially 6 and 7 -- "Power Groups" and "Greyhawk Gods," respectively).
3) From the standpoint of a normal fan, the perennial lack of GH publication seems akin to "the chicken and the egg." Do corporations not adequately produce and market GH, or do GH products fail to profit the company adequately?
3a) However, despite our inability to know the "true history" of GH from the standpoint of the companies that have owned it, that history exists. Corporate decisions were made that significantly affected not only GH but also the entirety of D&D (and other RPGs). By sharing information, fans can piece together this history and thereby attempt to comprehend accurately the contemporary situation.
4) Finally -- and this may relate to point 1a -- I believe that the enjoyment many people derive from playing GH campaigns is profoundly related to our early experiences playing xD&D. Even new fans tend to learn of GH via old ones, who express opinions that may be marked with nostalgia but undeniably also contain a bit of magic...
Well said, GH is what you make it. Believe it or not so is every other campaign setting. Whatever system or campaign world you started with will always hold a place in your heart.
Originally posted by Tizoc
2a) However, I recognize that the LGG is fairly critiqued for lacking accessible layout design (and relatively poor graphic design). Thus fans who charge the LGG as too much like an encyclopedia make a valid point.
As the saying goes though, one man's trash...
The lack of shiny graphics and innovative layout is what some fans, myself included, love about the LGG. When I first picked up my copy, I distinctly remember thinking to myself (in light of the overly graphically intense other recent offerings from WotC) "wow, look at the word count here! this thing's loaded with actual material!"
Originally posted by Tizoc
1a) However, sometimes some of us worry about complying with the latest products. Sometimes, we lose confidence that our own creations are as valuable (for us and players in our campaigns) as anything published. Why we "lose confidence" may be beyond the scope of this thread -- although if you have ideas to share, please do so.
I'm not sure it's a matter of confidence. I think the problem with having a subsequent product conflict with your campaign is that it makes the product harder to use. (That's not to say that you can't; even if the Wars didn't occur in your campaign, for instance, there's bound to be plenty of material in From the Ashes and the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer that you could incorporate or mine for ideas.)
A related issue is the drive to stay as close as possible to published canon. A common response is, "Why bother? You can do whatever you want - make it up!" While that's true, it is still useful to know the details of canon. First, if something has already been established, you don't need to make it up. Building on established details can lead to a richer setting in your game (since you don't need to do it all yourself). Second, just making up your own details can water down (or remove) the Greyhawk characteristics from your campaign. (Suppose, for example, that you don't know anything about Mordenkainen except that he's a wizard, so you decide that he's an essentially bookish person who keeps to himself, and that the Circle of Eight is just a group of wizards who get together every Godsday for coffee. Then discuss your campaign with other Greyhawk fans.) I'm sure there are other reasons I could cite for wanting to follow canon, but I don't think they involve a lack of confidence in one's own creative ability.
At the risk of an overly broad generalization, I think that D&D players are generally pretty creative people. If we weren't, we wouldn't play a game where most of the action takes place in our heads.