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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[Micah Sweet]

I expect Greyhawk to stay a mostly humanocentric setting with human dominated kingdoms but plenty of room for not human PCs. In 1e Greyhawk a dwarven PC is not out of place even though the Greyhawk setting had exactly zero named dwarven kingdoms among the 40+ kingdoms.

I don't expect to see default art where a bar is Mos Eisley diverse non-human dominated (unless it is in a humanoid dominated area like the Pomarj, Iuz, the Bone March, etc.) but PC race stuff fits right in.

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I don't know, I would have said the same thing about Ravenloft once...then VRG happened.

 

[Remathilis]

Hindsight being 20/20, GW would have been a perfect setting for the free Basic Rules PDF. And perhaps GW will make more sense with their next entry level box product as the pregens will probably be the classic 4 races, 4 classes.

At this point, I'd rather run GW with B/X rules to reinforce the vibe. -- After I got a Mystara campaign out of my system first, though.

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

 

[reemul]

Why bother? The big fans of Greyhawk - the RPGA and Living Greyhawk/Living City players - were treated so badly in the run up to D&D 4 that they are never coming back. All those grognards with adult money to burn on RPGs are gone, never to give WotC another nickel. If they still care about the setting, they're happily playing in it using an older ruleset and with no intention whatever to get into the "customer as commodity" micro-transaction hell of One DND.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The big fans of Greyhawk - the RPGA and Living Greyhawk/Living City players - were treated so badly in the run up to D&D 4 that they are never coming back. All those grognards with adult money to burn on RPGs are gone, never to give WotC another nickel.

I helped run the Shield Lands triad. I have bought nearly all of the WotC 5E books.

I will buy the 2024 books.

 

[Parmandur]

I helped run the Shield Lands triad. I have bought nearly all of the WotC 5E books.

I will buy the 2024 books.

Don't try and confuse with inconveniently nuanced facts or reality!

 

[Umbran]

Why bother? The big fans of Greyhawk - the RPGA and Living Greyhawk/Living City players - were treated so badly in the run up to D&D 4 that they are never coming back.

Wow, how cynical that sounds.

This isn't a full setting product to satisfy "big fans". It is an example, a taste so that folks who haven't done up a setting before can see the basics of how it is done.

Greyhawk was pretty bare bones in its original incarnation, and it is a nice nod to the classic for the 50th anniversary. That's all. Don't read too much into it.

 

[Yaarel]

1e Greyhawk is still near its wargame origins.

The setting invites empire building and free world liberating, like a game of Risk or a Game of Thrones.

 

[Yaarel]

We don't really need a 3rd kitchen sink setting though so making GH mire distinct via vibe is one way to do it

I agree, there is less need for a "third kitchen sink setting", in addition to Forgotten Realms and Eberron. Despite Greyhawk originating as a kitchen sink, it might be interesting to focus on the features it had during the 1980s. But it is impossible to return, and in some circumstances less desirable. The attempt to translate 1e into 5e is arbitrary.

Choosing which species are present in the 5e version of the Greyhawk setting is already awkward. Even if a DM decides, "only Human, Elf, Dwarf, plus Halfling", there are many uncertainties.

The "Elf" is already every kind of Elf, from High to Grey to Drow to Wood to Grugach, all playable. Are Grey Elves the same thing as 5e High Elves, or are Grey Elves the same thing as 5e Eladrin Elves? Greyhawk distinguishes between Grey Elves and its subculture "Faerie". Do these Faerie inhabit the Feywild? So there is a Feywild plane with Fey Crossings? Are Faerie those Grey Elves who inhabit the Feywild, or are Grey Elves those Eladrin who inhabit the Material? Are Grey and Faerie actually two separate cultures, one Material and one Feywild? Whatever Grey Elves are, is that what Valley Elves are too? The Astral Plane exists, so do Astral Elves exist as well? Even to say, "Elf only" for Greyhawk, is a surprisingly complex series of arbitrary decision points.

This quandry of how to translate legacy Elves is part of the reason the 5e 2024 Elf species needs to be a single design that is highly flexible. Elf species, player picks three spells, done. With one Elf design to rule them all, every "kind" of Elf is simply a magical culture. The Drow Elf cultures comprise individuals who often pick the Darkness spell, but other choices are possible. Focus on a specific culture, and why many individuals adopt a certain spell.

All of the Greyhawk Half-Orcs, are 5e Orcs? Probably? 5e Orcs are Humanoids with free will. So there are factions of Orcs who do Evil and other factions of Orcs who do Good? The Half-Orcs come from loving multispecies couples? Players who play a 5e Half-Orc can choose whether to use the 5e Human stats or the 5e Orc stats.

Are there Half-Dwarves in 5e Greyhawk? Human-Dwarves? Halfling-Dwarfs? Is the "Stout Halfling" with "dwarven blood" the same thing as a Halfling-Dwarf person? So, player building a Stout Halfling can use 5e Dwarf stats or 5e Halfling stats?

Whether Dragonborns are playable is almost besides the point.

Part of the solution is, dont worry about the entire continent of Flannaess or the rest of planet Oerth. The DM only needs to focus on one specific region, such as the Free City of Greyhawk. Worry about what is going on locally there. Anything else can stay in the periphery until the players adventure there. Then keep track of what the players encounter, where.

There is no going back to 1980s 1e Greyhawk. How does 2020s 5e Greyhawk go forward?

 

[MNblockhead]

Why bother? The big fans of Greyhawk - the RPGA and Living Greyhawk/Living City players - were treated so badly in the run up to D&D 4 that they are never coming back. All those grognards with adult money to burn on RPGs are gone, never to give WotC another nickel. If they still care about the setting, they're happily playing in it using an older ruleset and with no intention whatever to get into the "customer as commodity" micro-transaction hell of One DND.

I was there in the 80s. Your words better describe T$R than WotC.

The former seemed to print as many cease and desist letters as they did game material. The later is putting out a generous SRD in Creative Commons and distributing third-party material in its primary storefront. If you had consumer culture and corporations, you have a lot of company. Limit your spend to small publishers or take advantage of a lot of the free and pay-what-you want TTRPG material that is readily available. But trying to slam WotC by hearkening back to some halcyon past is based on a false premise. D&D is much better off under WotC's stewardship.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Why bother? The big fans of Greyhawk - the RPGA and Living Greyhawk/Living City players - were treated so badly in the run up to D&D 4 that they are never coming back. All those grognards with adult money to burn on RPGs are gone, never to give WotC another nickel. If they still care about the setting, they're happily playing in it using an older ruleset and with no intention whatever to get into the "customer as commodity" micro-transaction hell of One DND.

Man you could not be more wrong.