D&D (2024) How Does Greyhawk Fit In To The New Edition?

According to Game Informer — “the surprising importance and inclusions of what is arguably the oldest D&D campaign setting of them all – Greyhawk.”

So how does Greyhawk fit in? According to GI, the new 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk. Not only that, but the book will come with a double-sided poster map with the City of Greyhawk on one side and the Flannaes on the other—the eastern part of one of Oerth’s four continents.

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Even as the multiverse of D&D worlds sees increased attention, the Dungeon Master's Guide also offers a more discrete setting to get gaming groups started. After very few official releases in the last couple of decades, the world of Greyhawk takes center stage. The book fleshes out Greyhawk to illustrate how to create campaign settings of your own. Greyhawk was the original D&D game world crafted by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and a worthy setting to revisit on the occassion of D&D's golden anniversary. It's a world bristling with classic sword and sorcery concepts, from an intrigue-laden central city to wide tracts of uncharted wilderness. Compared to many D&D campaign settings, it's smaller and less fleshed out, and that's sort of the point; it begs for DMs to make it their own. The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed. For those eager to take the plunge, an included poster map of the Greyhawk setting sets the tone, and its reverse reveals a map of the city of the same name. "A big draw to Greyhawk is it's the origin place for such heroes as Mordenkainen, Tasha, and others," Perkins says. "There's this idea that the players in your campaign can be the next great world-hopping, spell-crafting heroes of D&D. It is the campaign where heroes are born."

- Game Informer​

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[RedSquirrel]

Because having a fold out map inserted into a hardcover book is grognard catnip. I can't help it. It is an addiction that I picked up at a young age.

Forgive me for just catching up on the thread, but ...

YES! This is SO MUCH it.
If you give a brand-new DM a map ... they're going to want to use it.
I think the biggest idea is that if a new DM picks up the map and plays it, in ten years or so, when new young designers are entering into the industry and getting the new jobs, they're going to have a particular nostalgia for the setting they started with, and that's gonna be likely to be Greyhawk.
And, in the long run, that's probably the best thing that's ever happened to Greyhawk fandom ... introducing it to a new generation of gamers, and letting them all experience it anew, just like we did when we were their age.

 

[Von Ether]

Ah Mystara, the Original "animal headed races" campaign setting..

Right? Which confuses me why 5e has Gnolls and not Lupins.

 

[Von Ether]

Forgive me for just catching up on the thread, but ...

YES! This is SO MUCH it.
If you give a brand-new DM a map ... they're going to want to use it.
I think the biggest idea is that if a new DM picks up the map and plays it, in ten years or so, when new young designers are entering into the industry and getting the new jobs, they're going to have a particular nostalgia for the setting they started with, and that's gonna be likely to be Greyhawk.
And, in the long run, that's probably the best thing that's ever happened to Greyhawk fandom ... introducing it to a new generation of gamers, and letting them all experience it anew, just like we did when we were their age.

Well from what I have seen in other fandoms, including Battletech for the longest time, is that old fans don't like new fans. At some point, a lot of fans seem to slide into different phases the longer they are in a fandom.

• Eager recruit
• Evangelist
• Cynic
• Gatekeeper
  
  At some point a cool new thing evolves into a safe space to a club and then an echo chamber.

 

[Mournblade94]

Everything in Spelljammer is a retcon.

My only argument would be Ed Greenwood wrote FOrgotten Realms lore for Spell jammer.

 

[Mournblade94]

Right? Which confuses me why 5e has Gnolls and not Lupins.

Gnolls aren't canine they are more closely related to weasels.

Edit: I meant Hyena. ANd gnolls based on Hyena...

 

[Cergorach]

...old fans don't like new fans.

If you generalize, group A doesn't like group B, then you might have a point. But in my experience, it's Individual A doesn't like individual B, but is fine with individual C. If Person A dislikes all people in group B, that's a problem with Person A and not of the group you chucked him in with...

I like a lot of my old D&D (2e) and Battletech (2e) fluff stuff, often more then I like the 'new' fluff stuff (D&D 4e+ and Battletech everything clickytech+). That doesn't mean I dislike everything, I just prefer one over the other, often because I have and there are more books/fluff from the older era. That has nothing to do with the people playing whatever version of the game. The game mechanics are often better/streamlined, just the fluff around it and the options it has (get your Aasimar/Thiefling off my PHB! Those things belong in my Planescape! )...

I'm passingly familiar with Greyhawk, but I have most of the 2e FR stuff. Having FR as the 'default' setting in 5e was always a bit weird... But now having Greyhawk maps in the PHB... Extremely weird!

 

[AshurTheBear]

The 5E versions of Dragonlance, Planescape, Ravenloft & Spelljammer have each pissed off a contingent of players because they weren't exactly like the material found in each of their original books. But in order to know that the 5E versions were not the same as the older versions, each of those players would have had to own the material from way back when. So if you owned the old material and preferred the old material, you didn't need the 5E version in the first place!

No one who is a Greyhawk fan should want the 5E24 DMG for its Greyhawk material. There's not going to be anything in the book that will be useful to you, other than it possibly getting opened on DMs Guild or you want the huff of nostalgia seeing 21st century art and maps styles. But the actual nitty-gritty of the setting? You should have been using the World of Greyhawk boxed set you own this entire time, because the 5E24 is going to change a crapton of stuff that most modern gamers just wouldn't be thrilled about seeing from what was going on back in '80.

Big Greyhawk Fan - not expecting anything, but hopeful it'll open up Greyhawk to DMs Guild as you said. That's my sole hope.

 

[Stormonu]

If you generalize, group A doesn't like group B, then you might have a point. But in my experience, it's Individual A doesn't like individual B, but is fine with individual C. If Person A dislikes all people in group B, that's a problem with Person A and not of the group you chucked him in with...

I like a lot of my old D&D (2e) and Battletech (2e) fluff stuff, often more then I like the 'new' fluff stuff (D&D 4e+ and Battletech everything clickytech+). That doesn't mean I dislike everything, I just prefer one over the other, often because I have and there are more books/fluff from the older era. That has nothing to do with the people playing whatever version of the game. The game mechanics are often better/streamlined, just the fluff around it and the options it has (get your Aasimar/Thiefling off my PHB! Those things belong in my Planescape! )...

I'm passingly familiar with Greyhawk, but I have most of the 2e FR stuff. Having FR as the 'default' setting in 5e was always a bit weird... But now having Greyhawk maps in the PHB... Extremely weird!

The Clans ruined Battletech! (sorta, I stopped playing Battletech shortly after the clans came out - for unrelated reasons, picked up with Clicktech for a while)

Yeah, from my own experience people get comfortable with things being a certain way, then get aggravated when someone pushes their way in, declaring that the old stuff was bad and needs these new updates and retcons to keep it fresh. It's not just restricted to RPGs. Thing is, everyone has a different opinion on what old stuff was bad and what new stuff is really good and mostly it just creates animosity from the way its handled.

As always, I'll take from the new stuff they publish and incorporate or discard any new components as I see fit. There'll probably be at least some interesting tidbits if they get into details on Greyhawk.

 

[Stormonu]

Right? Which confuses me why 5e has Gnolls and not Lupins.

5E's original monster line-up seemed to be trying very hard not to have creatures that overlapped/were too similar (grippli and grung, tasloi and goblins, etc.).

Lupins are more a Mystara thing though, so IF they ever do that world maybe we'll see them there.

Though, Greyhawk does have Beastmen - though they're described as more feline than canine.

 

[Remathilis]

5E's original monster line-up seemed to be trying very hard not to have creatures that overlapped/were too similar (grippli and grung, tasloi and goblins, etc.).

Lupins are more a Mystara thing though, so IF they ever do that world maybe we'll see them there.

Though, Greyhawk does have Beastmen - though they're described as more cat-like than canine.

View attachment 363640

Tabaxi ended up absorbing Mystara's rakasta for that reason (and to fix the rakasta/raksasha naming issue).