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| #1zombiegleemaxJun 29, 2005 20:18:36 | Fellow Greyhawk comrades, In a few months from now, I will be starting a new Greyhawk campaign. I am a DM of 23 years experience, and I have not run anything but home-brew campaigns since, well, 1st ed. Greyhawk about 18 years ago! I've been doing a lot of research these past few weeks, and I must say that there is a wealth of info out there on the net that I hadn't anticipated. Particularly, the sites of Grodog and Canonfire are great! Largely, however, I'm not very fond of the treatment that Greyhawk received during 2nd ed. years, particularly the Sargent materials. Not my cup of tea, is all. I want to begin a new Greyhawk campaign, and I may do it starting with one of the two adventure paths in Dungeon -- Age of Worms or Shackled City. They both seem a fine way to introduce my players to Oerth. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Mona and company, it seems that Greyhawk has somewhat come full circle, back to the flavor of Gygax. I would like to embrace this type of Greyhawk. For my campaign I want a fresh and simple world, varied in cultures and environments and NPCs, but I don't want to get into some of the complex histories involved. I want a simplified Greyhawk, a Greyhawk foundation that I can form into my own without looking over my shoulder at the varied, and stylistically conflicting "canon." I want Gygax-style Greyhawk. Plain and simple, but d20 3.5. So, with all that in mind, my friends, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice as to where I should begin, what resources I should peruse. I'm not averse to using any 1st or 2nd ed. materials for resources. Love the Saltmarsh in the DMGII -- that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Loved the 1st ed modules, too -- which ones should I get? Not sure I'd run them, but I'd pilfer them! Thanks! --Ghul |
| #2grodogJun 29, 2005 21:06:08 | Hi ghul---I've been doing a lot of research these past few weeks, and I must say that there is a wealth of info out there on the net that I hadn't anticipated. Particularly, the sites of Grodog and Canonfire are great! Thanks for the compliments, on both counts: while I'm not very active on CF! at present, it's still the best GH site out there! I want to begin a new Greyhawk campaign, and I may do it starting with one of the two adventure paths in Dungeon -- Age of Worms or Shackled City. They both seem a fine way to introduce my players to Oerth. From the way that the AoW path is starting out, I would personally recommend going with that AP instead of the SC AP: AoW is more grounded in GH than SC was, and also looks cooler in general IMO. So, with all that in mind, my friends, I'm wondering if anyone has any advice as to where I should begin, what resources I should peruse. I'm not averse to using any 1st or 2nd ed. materials for resources. Love the Saltmarsh in the DMGII -- that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Loved the 1st ed modules, too -- which ones should I get? Not sure I'd run them, but I'd pilfer them! I think we would need to know more about what you're trying to do with the campaign in order to make relevant recommendations, ghul. What do you have in mind for your version of GH? |
| #3zombiegleemaxJun 30, 2005 1:01:24 | Well, if you want a Gygaxian GH then you probably DO want to discard a lot of 2e material. Most of it really fostered role-playing and backstory more than dungeon-crawling and puzzle-solving. However, I can recommend checking out the adventures Greyhawk Ruins and Die, Vecna, Die! They provide some interesting background but mostly they are just great adventures with lots of dungeon and castle looting. Personally, I find 3.5 to be more Gygaxian than 3.0, which was tremendously more Gygaxian than 2e. The focus is more on combat and tactical situations, which I like to an extent, but I always get a hankering for more RP. Honestly, the 2e sourcebooks are my favorite GH resources because they provide so much back-story and focus more on political intrigue than adventuring. But that's just my style. Your mileage may vary. |
| #4qstorJun 30, 2005 9:28:15 | If you're going to use the Age of Worms, I would pick up Greyhawk the Adventure Begins or the old Greyhawk City boxed set as they give a lot more detail on the surrounding lands around the Cairn Hills. The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is a good in print resource too. The Adventure Begins and the LGG aren't grounded in Gygax's greyhawk though but more into the 3e late 2e "current" year of CY591. Mike |
| #5ElendurJun 30, 2005 9:49:10 | Probably the best way to get "Gygaxian" Greyhawk is to run adventures written by him. T1-4 is often mentioned as a good self contained campaign. Personally I'm running B2(not Greyhawk, but written by Gygax), A1-4, and the GDQ series. If you don't want to go old school I think the Age of Worms is going to be a great series. It appears to be self contained enough that you won't need much extra setting info(though a setting book like LGG wouldn't hurt). |
| #6zombiegleemaxJun 30, 2005 10:02:15 | I am running a new Greyhawk game too! I am mixing 1st-3rd edition things together. I ran a few of the early 3.0 Dungeon adventures and think that I will run the Isle of Dread before the party embarks Against the Slave Lords and then onto the Giants. |
| #7zombiegleemaxJun 30, 2005 21:00:33 | I think we would need to know more about what you're trying to do with the campaign in order to make relevant recommendations, ghul. What do you have in mind for your version of GH? Grodog, Thank-you for the speedy reply. For a starting point, I'll begin with what I'm *not* looking for in my Greyhawk campaign: *** Long and convoluted politcal histories that betray some of the authorial tug-of-wars that Greyhawk suffered following Gygax's departure from T$R. I admire the efforts of the Wizards team that decided to make Greyhawk the base template for DnD. But I have a couple quibbles. It was an early product, and the 2.0 influence remained. Allow me to explain: While Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is a quality product full of useful information, many of its entries are largey comprised of the long and often convoluted histories of Greyhawk. For example, you can pick any nation of decent size, and the LGG will go on to detail who conquered whom and when, and how it shaped this one to become that one, and so on, and so forth. I believe the LGG is one of the finest products available for Greyhawk 3.0/3.5, and I tip my hat to the authors, all of whom made an inspired effort to tie many loose ends together into one tidy encapsulation. But it isn't exactly what I'd prefer. 3.5 DnD and recent Dungeon Magazine pieces rub me the right way. What I'd prefer: *** A streamlined Greyhawk, simple and to the point, yet full of that Gygaxian flavor we all adore. Something more on the lines of the original boxed set from '83. *** DMGII, The Saltmarsh entry. It's perfect. Here you have a fully realized town setting that you can plop right into your campaign, smooth and seamless. It exemplifies the kind of resource I'm looking for to flesh out my campaign model. Deep in its own right, yet self-contained and useable. Bravo! *** I'm looking for products, resources, and adventures that are more self-contained; resources conducive with a fresh, event-based Greyhwak campaign. City of Greyhawk boxed set sounds like a good suggestion. *** I suppose I want "generic" Greyhawk, for lack of a better term -- settings, places, monster ecologies, characters, gods, events, maps, intrigue, mystery -- stripped down to its funnest level. Allow me to fill in the plots; likewise my players. *** I want to lay it all before me and work up a campaign model that is fun, fast-paced, and player-friendly -- make it for my players as satisfying as reading a good book or catching a fun flick. Conclusion: *** I want to pick a spot and build my own Greyhawk from the ground up, and I think "Age of Worms" may be my answer. But what other resources can and should I investigate? *** I'd like to avoid materials that delve into the more esoteric histories and subplots that relate to confusing political complexities that I don't want to have to incorporate -- for fear of boring my players to death, or worse -- losing their attention. Final comment: *** When I read what Mr. Mona posts and writes in his publications, I find my self nodding and saying, "Hell yeah, this guy is making Greyhawk right." Grodog, I hope that makes a little more sense. I thank you, and the community of this forum, for taking the time to consider my post and replying. Excelsior! --Ghul |
| #8zombiegleemaxJun 30, 2005 21:26:55 | Probably the best way to get "Gygaxian" Greyhawk is to run adventures written by him. T1-4 is often mentioned as a good self contained campaign. I'm not aversing to going old-school, but I think I've grown with the times in my game, and issues of logic often bother me in a lot of the old dungeon ecologies; how is it that all these predators can co-exist in one dungeon? Do adventurers come by that often for them to prey on? I like the Necromancer Games motto: "Third edition rules, First edtion feel." Or some such. I want the old Gygax flavor in my Greyhawk, but I don't think I'm prepared to look back at 20 year-old modules to do it. But I'm not against it. Thanks for the advice, all! --Ghul |
| #9zombiegleemaxJul 19, 2005 9:37:32 | I'm looking at starting this campaign as well, I've never played in Greyhawk so I'm really interested in its geography. Where is Free City, where is Diamond Lake in relation that sort of stuff. Is the LGG full of cartography? Is there an online map of Greyhawk? |
| #10carlancoJul 19, 2005 12:55:49 | I'm looking at starting this campaign as well, I've never played in Greyhawk so I'm really interested in its geography. Where is Free City, where is Diamond Lake in relation that sort of stuff. Is the LGG full of cartography? You can try looking at the maps section on Canonfire! There you'll find great maps specially those of Eric Anondson (sp?) and Yabusama. Saludos, Gabriel |
| #11AmarilJul 19, 2005 13:26:49 | I'm looking at starting this campaign as well, I've never played in Greyhawk so I'm really interested in its geography. Where is Free City, where is Diamond Lake in relation that sort of stuff. Is the LGG full of cartography? The Free City of Greyhawk is the same as the Free City in the Age of Worms. Both it and Diamond Lake are smack in the middle of the Flanaess (south of the Nyr Dyv, west of the Cairn Hills, east of the Gnarley Forest, and north of Wooly Bay). The best map of Greyhawk to date is the four-peice map from Piazo.com http://paizo.com/dungeon/products/issues/greyhawkmap The LGG discusses races, regions, nations, deities, environments and organizations, and it comes with a foldout map of the Flanaess. The map from Paizo is far better, though. |
| #12ripvanwormerJul 19, 2005 17:46:02 | There are lots of maps of the World of Greyhawk online. On this page, for example, or this one. Just google "Flanaess," "Oerth," "Greyhawk map," etc. As Amaril said, the Free City of Greyhawk is in the center of the Flanaess, below the lake called Nyr Dyv and the Cairn Hills. Here is a detailed regional map of Greyhawk City, Diamond Lake, and so on. |
| #13grodogJul 21, 2005 2:15:41 | Grodog, Well, I'm a bit slower in replying this time.... What I'd prefer: If you're looking for GH at its most generic, then you probably want the 1980 folio instead of the boxed set, or it's more contemporary successor, the D&D Gazetteer: http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/3e/gaz.htm That's a stripped-down version of the LGG; you'll also want the Dungeon issues with the new GH maps, since they're much better than the maps in LGG or the 3e Gaz above. Grodog, I hope that makes a little more sense. I thank you, and the community of this forum, for taking the time to consider my post and replying. Sure, I hope that helps. If you're looking for additional plot ideas and details, then I would also recommend Ivid the Undying, which is a) free, and b) chock full of good ideas (even if I don't like exactly how it and FtA mangled the Great Kingdom). There are also lot of throw-away ideas in the old sourcebooks and modules that you can spin entire campaigns off of (like Erik Mona's "River of Blood" RPGA module, which is related to S2 White Plume Mountain, or how various Sargent adventure seeds were expanded from FtA in the Greyhawk 98 resurgence). Something else to consider is marrying non-GH material to your campaign: there are a LOT of d20 modules and settings on the market, and you can do all sorts of interesting things with GH by combining it with something else (like a Midnight/GH crossover set in the Shield Lands or in the Great Kingdom, for example). Gygax's upcoming Yggsburgh regional setting is generi-Hawk, and might fit your needs as well (see details on the Troll Lord Games site). |
| #14zombiegleemaxJul 23, 2005 8:47:56 | If you're looking for GH at its most generic, then you probably want the 1980 folio instead of the boxed set, or it's more contemporary successor, the D&D Gazetteer: http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/3e/gaz.htm That's a stripped-down version of the LGG; you'll also want the Dungeon issues with the new GH maps, since they're much better than the maps in LGG or the 3e Gaz above. Well, I'm working on the maps -- have two of the four, and I have the LGG and the DnD Gazetteer already. I also have the 83 boxed set from when I was, well, a 12-year-old DM. And then of course there is all the "core" info in so many of the 3E books. Organizing a campaign for which there is no current and detailed 3.5E index can be challenging. Sure, I hope that helps. If you're looking for additional plot ideas and details, then I would also recommend Ivid the Undying, which is a) free, and b) chock full of good ideas (even if I don't like exactly how it and FtA mangled the Great Kingdom). Yes. I plan to use a lot of my 1E and 2E materials as resources, and I think one of the finest resources turns out to be my back issue collection of Dungeon Mag. Really, there are a lot of adventures you can plug into any setting. Problem is, there were so many good adventures that would require conversion -- it's easier to just use the stuff from when Dungeon went 3E. Most likely, I'm looking at Cauldron as an AP setting, the hard cover of which looks like a lot of fun. Something else to consider is marrying non-GH material to your campaign: there are a LOT of d20 modules and settings on the market, and you can do all sorts of interesting things with GH by combining it with something else (like a Midnight/GH crossover set in the Shield Lands or in the Great Kingdom, for example). Gygax's upcoming Yggsburgh regional setting is generi-Hawk, and might fit your needs as well (see details on the Troll Lord Games site). Yes, I'm all over the new Gygax materials -- even if they are a little pricey. Also, the modules by Goodman games are a lot of fun. Right now I have my current game (not the GH one I'm building up for) in the Sphinx Queen module and it's been fun so far. The riddling is particularly fun, and my Rogue is really getting his work cut out for him with trap finding, disabling devices, and the like. I also wonder how people have integrated Blackmoor into their games. Thanks for all the valuable ideas. --Ghul |
