*POLL* Do You Feel Greyhawk is a Dead Campaign Officially?

[SHARK]

Greetings!

It is my feeling that Greyhawk has long been dead as an official campaign world. Yes, it has been supported in the magazines, and with an occasional adventure, but not much more. Compared to the support that Forgotten Realms recieves, Greyhawk gets next to nothing, and this has been true for many years. The latest developments do not persuade me that Greyhawk will continue to be largely beaten down, ignored, and buried as an official campaign world by WOTC.

Your thoughts?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

NB: I posted this thread at EN-World here:http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204620

Which was in partial response to discussion in this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204558

Looking at the current poll results there in the EN-World thread, well....:D

God, isn't this stuff fucking *obvious*?????

[TiQuinn]

It's barely supported due to the fact that so many names and places associated in the past with Greyhawk still get used today and occassionally expanded upon, so it's not difficult for a DM to use new supplements and adventures in the setting. However, it's not really due to any deliberate action on the part of WotC. Greyhawk is hardly ever mentioned by name, and you really have to extrapolate to use the material to build on the setting.

[francisca]

I think it's dead, but don't care. I'm still happily using the 83 boxed set, and pretty much ignore everything after. And not for some Gygaxian fanboi reason, either. I just think it is just enough background for me to put on the anvil and fashion into my own campaign. Canon be damned.

[Limper]

I think it's dead, but don't care. I'm still happily using the 83 boxed set, and pretty much ignore everything after. And not for some Gygaxian fanboi reason, either. I just think it is just enough background for me to put on the anvil and fashion into my own campaign. Canon be damned.

What did you think of the From the Ashes line? I liked it but it got cut short on the quick.

[francisca]

What did you think of the From the Ashes line? I liked it but it got cut short on the quick.

Sorry, no opinion. Never bothered with it. I owned it for a bit, then sold it off because I never used it, and it was fetching a good dollar on ebay.

I've read some of the arguments/counter arguments online about it, but I generally just rolled my eyes and wrote it off as fatbeard/fanboi-ishness.

[Limper]

Sorry, no opinion. Never bothered with it. I owned it for a bit, then sold it off because I never used it, and it was fetching a good dollar on ebay.

I've read some of the arguments/counter arguments online about it, but I generally just rolled my eyes and wrote it off as fatbeard/fanboi-ishness.

It was well done... IMO. All the crap that made no sense in the earlier versions was corrected and the nasty god rules nations expanded greately as they were suddenly able to take over the neighboring wealthy country who's standing army was 200 guys led by a 3rd level Theif.

Well done and fairly realistic handling of it.

[Dr_Avalanche]

Until something like a comprehensive setting box/supplement is published, I don't know if it can be considered supported, but at the same time if they're doing some stuff for it, I can't call it dead either...

[Snatch]

Until something like a comprehensive setting box/supplement is published, I don't know if it can be considered supported, but at the same time if they're doing some stuff for it, I can't call it dead either...

It's an undead setting?

[Phantom Stranger]

It was well done... IMO. All the crap that made no sense in the earlier versions was corrected and the nasty god rules nations expanded greately as they were suddenly able to take over the neighboring wealthy country who's standing army was 200 guys led by a 3rd level Theif.

Well done and fairly realistic handling of it.
I agree and I think it's also barely supported. FR is pushed the most and will continue to be.

[Janos]

I agree and I think it's also barely supported. FR is pushed the most and will continue to be.

Eh, at one time I think that was true, but they've barely published for FR since 3.5 and most of it was really mixed quality. Eberron is the new cherry and is getting heavy publication time and development.

[ColonelHardisson]

I picked the fourth option, withered and dead, mostly due to the fact that for whatever reason, WotC, continuing the tradition set by post-Gygax TSR, does not mine the original source(s) of Greyhawk info. Yeah, I'm talking about EGG himself. Plus, after talking to grodog - as fine and cool a guy as I've met - I'll include Rob Kuntz in there.

Maybe it's because Gygax was burned badly enough by his ouster from TSR that ill-will still lingers. Maybe it's because WotC refuses to meet his price. Maybe both reasons, or some other reason or reasons that haven't been touched on. Regardless, the guy created the setting. I think he'd have some insight into it that would be worthwhile.

That's not to say that the work done with Greyhawk by others is worthless. Some of it is quite cool. Despite the drubbing he gets, I dig Carl Sargent's work on stuff like Iuz the Evil and City of Skulls. But I didn't much care for the way the setting was essentially demolished in From the Ashes. Still, I view FtA as an "alternate timeline" for Greyhawk, so I don't wail and gnash my teeth about it like others. Subsequent work by guys like Erik Mona has shown that Greyhawk could still have relevance, but the material that is Greyhawk-specific slowed to a trickle, and essentially dried up. Expedition to Castle Greyhawk was a glimmer of hope. It looks cool, but...really, this isn't the Castle Greyhawk others and myself have waited 30+ years for. It seems a creditable attempt at what some think the castle was like, but Gygax and Kuntz are the only real sources of original information for that D&D testbed. I've been waiting for the campaign site that seemed to be the source of much of D&D's early "mythology." I want the castle as Gygax and Kuntz ran it.

Yeah, I know, it seems senseless that Gygax essentially did nothing towards making a published version of the castle until fairly recently. So I blame him quite a bit. His excuse has been that he wanted to preserve the mystery of the place for his home campaign, and that much of the material is made up of notes done in the kind of shorthand that I imagine most of us use for our own adventures and campaigns. Plus, my own guess is that there isn't a whole helluva lot written down - it's just my own guess, but I bet Gygax did a lot of improv when DMing. Whatever the reason, people have been asking for the damned thing since the 1970s! Why not put together what there is and let people have it? Make up a new bunch of dungeons and other kinds of adventures for your home campaign - like Spock said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Now that he's finally doing it for Troll Lords, the thing going under a pseudonym. Kuntz has been producing some modules that were basically levels of Castle Greyhawk through his own Pied Piper Publishing imprint.

So, after that rambling post, I'll say again that I think Greyhawk is a dead setting. I don't think that's a bad thing. "Dead" in this case means "unsupported" which, in modern gamer parlance, simply means there will be no further published products for it after WotC's CG, Kuntz's PPP modules, and Gygax's Castle Zagyg for the Trolls.

[shabois]

WoTC sees Greyhawk as that old TSr setting they want to avoid like the plague. That's why they created Eberron so they could have their own original setting to sell stuff for. I have mostly run FR over the years. I think Fr swept away Greyhawk and now Eberron is the new shit. BUt I have to say even though I run FR as a GM, the campaigns I have most enjoyed over the years as a player have been in Greyhawk. My group now plays Iron Kingdoms, which I think is a great setting.

[Dacke]

Eh, at one time I think that was true, but they've barely published for FR since 3.5 and most of it was really mixed quality. Eberron is the new cherry and is getting heavy publication time and development.
2007 Eberron releases: Dragons of Eberron, Eyes of the Lich Queen, Forge of War, Secrets of Sarlona (4 books).

2007 FR releases: Cormyr, Shadowdale, Anauroch, Expedition to Undermountain, A Grand History of the Realms (5 books)

2006 Eberron: Dragonmarked, Faiths of Eberron, Player's Guide, Secrets of Xen'drik, Voyage of the Golden Dragon (5 books)

2006 FR: Dragons of Faerûn, Mysteries of the Moonsea, Power of Faerûn, The Twilight Tomb (4 books).

2005 Eberron: DM Screen, PC sheets, Explorer's Handbook, Five Nations, Grasp of the Emerald Claw, Magic of Eberron, Races of Eberron (5 books plus the accessories)

2005 FR: Champions of Ruin, Champions of Valor, Waterdeep, Lost Empires of Faerûn, Sons of Gruumsh (5 books).

Seems pretty even to me. Some of the Eberron stuff might seem "heavier" than the FR stuff (e.g. Magic of Eberron, Faiths of Eberron), but that's because they did that stuff for FR before Eberron was published.

[Bagpuss]

Do folks really care about campaign world support?

Seems to me that folks that do homebrew adventures are likely to do homebrew campaign settings as well.

Folks that use published adventures get much of what their players see of the campaign world via the adventures.

I've running Savage Tide at the moment and it could be Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk or even my own setting, it's just a generic fantasy world at the moment. I added the Shifters and Changlings from Eberron, but it's not set in any of the published worlds.

[francisca]

Do folks really care about campaign world support?

Seems to me that folks that do homebrew adventures are likely to do homebrew campaign settings as well.

Folks that use published adventures get much of what their players see of the campaign world via the adventures.



Well, I've mostly been a homebrewer as a DM. Outside of the B modules, the current campaign I have been running (using U1, U2, A1, T1-4, G123, D123) contains the most published adventures I've ever used by far. But, I wanted to run a classic 1e GH game, so it's a good fit.

Most of my campaign settings have been homebrew (3 of them) and made from scratch. It's fun, but sometimes, I don't want to do that. I like a campaign setting that acts as a springboard for me, which for me, is best exemplified by the 83 GH boxed set. It just clicks for me. It's just enough without being too much. DCC #35 seems to fit in this category as well.

But, no, really. I don't care about support. A nice map and 32 - 128 pages of background is just fine with me.

[Sobek]

You got my opinion at ENWorld.

I think Greyhawk should be lain to rest. It's partly too fragmented, partly too reliant on Gygax's writing style for romance.

[TiQuinn]

You got my opinion at ENWorld.

I think Greyhawk should be lain to rest. It's partly too fragmented, partly too reliant on Gygax's writing style for romance.


Gygax's attention whoring and the folks who follow him around like puppy dogs are the ones who keep Greyhawk in the past, IMO. I also liked some of Sargent's stuff, and I still like the setting for nostalgic reasons, but when you read about people debating whether something IS Greyhawk or something ISN'T Greyhawk, all with a particularly snide and condescending attitude, it's off-putting.

[Sobek]

Here's the entirety of what I posted on ENWorld. I don't feel like being taken out of context:


This is one poll where I really needed the "other" option.

Greyhawk is sub-optimally supported and not dead, but it should be. Don't get me wrong -- I really liked Gygax's creation.

It's not that anymore, though. At this point, there is no way to turn out a version of the setting that would please enough of the die-hards to be profitable or sustainable.

The beauty of 1E Greyhawk wasn't in any particular genius in the design of the setting, though it was well done. The lure was in EGG's writing style and the way he used the Greyhawk flavor to make the 1E books come to life. 1E AD&D had an implied setting that was neither too distant, nor too dominant. Part of that balance came from the non-advancing timeline, archetypal concepts, and historical feel of the writing. You could not do the same thing with either FR (timeline advances and often requires too much backstory) or Eberron (too alien and too much backstory).

Greyhawk didn't work as the implied setting for 3E for several reasons. One is that there was legacy ideas that didn't translate well. Take Wee Jas, for example. In the 3E PHB and based on the default rules for undead, Wee Jas made a lot of sense for necromancers (divine or arcane), but the grognards knew that she hated undead. That's too much for a one-off in the PHB for a generic deity.

Another is the writing style used. The Knight Protector of the Great Kingdom class was pretty generic and easily adapted to another setting. Although there was mention of the Great Kingdom, there wasn't anything actually interesting or compelling to it. It just didn't resonate. EGG had a way of dropping a couple of tidbits that didn't take up much space, but sucked you into another world. The Binder section of Tome of Magic is the closest I can think of in 3E, though there was some posibility in the Tome of Battle, too. Though neither really measured up, I hope WotC continues to try in 4E.

Greyhawk should be left to die. I hope there is no 4E version. I hope they don't license it out. If it does happen, I want to see the 1983 box updated and nothing more. Just give the 1E or earlier grognards a way to use the new rules in the old setting.

What I'd rather see is WotC come up with a new implied setting for 4E. Not a setting search or anything hard and fast (at least at first). Just open up the option for writers to add a bit of fluff to their rules descriptions in a way that doesn't involve repeated use of the "iconics" or saying, "for example". The back story for the Duskblade is a good example, too, though I'm not a fan of that particular class. If people get really interested in the implied setting, then WotC can organize it and publish it just before rolling to 5E or in 2013, whichever.

[Janos]

Seems pretty even to me. Some of the Eberron stuff might seem "heavier" than the FR stuff (e.g. Magic of Eberron, Faiths of Eberron), but that's because they did that stuff for FR before Eberron was published.

I'm not a huge Eberron fan, but what's the breakdown of adventure to support book ratio? Half of the FR books from 06, and 4 of 5 from 07 are adventures.

Folks that use published adventures get much of what their players see of the campaign world via the adventures.


I don't think that's true at all. I've done as many module adventures from published sources (including other campaign worlds) in Homebrew games as I've done homebrew adventures in published settings.

[doc]

I personally think that both Gayhawk and the realms are past due to be shelved, or at least let rest for awhile. Eberron is good , but a totally new "official" campaign world is overdue, one that'll fit the 4e view of things. (whatever that is)

[Dacke]

I'm not a huge Eberron fan, but what's the breakdown of adventure to support book ratio? Half of the FR books from 06, and 4 of 5 from 07 are adventures.
One of the Eberron books each year is an adventure. It should be noted that the FR adventures (at least this year) are big affairs (160 pages for Cormyr, Shadowdale, and Anauroch, 224 for Undermountain) whereas the Eberron adventures have been pretty small (128 pages for Eyes of the Lich Queen, 32 each for the other two).

[Sobek]

I personally think that both Gayhawk and the realms are past due to be shelved, or at least let rest for awhile. Eberron is good , but a totally new "official" campaign world is overdue, one that'll fit the 4e view of things. (whatever that is)

Heck, yeah. Of course, I predicted that it wouldn't get supported past the initial release, which I found totally lackluster.

[doc]

I believe the only reason they wanted another campaign worl is a new setting for the novels

[Kim]

I'm still happily using the 83 boxed set, and pretty much ignore everything after.
It's the beautiful maps.

Colorful adventures just ooze right out of those hexes.