D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.

[Kurotowa]

Legacy. You may think a new direction is necessary to attract and keep newer players, but legacy is a strong attraction. I know when I started D&D I didnt want it to fit my perception of what was hip, I wanted to know its history.

D&D is, after all, still a geek hobby. There are a lot more people willing to identify as a geek now, you can fly your geek flag a lot more openly, but it's still a geek thing. And geeks love their history.

There's a push and pull at work here. Old and out of touch is bad, but attempts at artificial hipness and tone deaf pandering are just as bad. People want something with a deep history and rich lore, but updated for modern sensibilities and all the best new features.

That's why you see old properties being constantly reimagined and recycled. It uses the established history to build depth and legitimacy, but ditches the parts that have aged poorly in favor of a fresh take.

 

[Gradine]

It stands!

I mean, I've certainly played with quite a few of them in my days

 

[Mortellan]

This is a hand grenade into the Greyhawk community...

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Why Greyhawk? Because of nostalgia. And tradition.

Personally, my favourite settings are others, but I slightly prefer Greyhawk to the Forgotten Realms.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would consider the issue of tieflings (and that particular justification) as less about tieflings existing in Greyhawk as much as being accepted seamlessly within polite society - the Great Kingdom and Iuz NOT being polite society. There'd be room for a lot of understandable mistrust from the locals outside of those particular regions.

You two are going to make me want to run a campaign set in the former Great Kingdom if you keep this up.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

This is a hand grenade into the Greyhawk community...

Everything is a hand grenade into the Greyhawk community.

"They're ignoring us again! Those bastards!"

"They're paying attention to us again! Those bastards!"

 

[Charlaquin]

Yeah, my experience is that even Zoomers (who are, again, aging out of the target demo for D&D) are not that into Harry Potter. That's an Elder Millenial thing, and fading.

Fading because the author is hellbent on destroying the goodwill of the very audience her books appealed most to. We were too young to notice the blatant fat phobia, low-key antisemitism, and general milquetoast pro-establishment political stance when we first read them, and were so enthralled by the world and fond childhood memories to be too critical of them once we got older. But, once she took the mask off, the spell was broken and we all collectively realized they were never really as good as we had built them up to be in our own heads.

 

[Charlaquin]

So what we are saying is that there are going to be some very, very unhappy greynards?

What else is new lol

 

[Paul Farquhar]

So, I was very, very wrong.

Yes. Everyone told you that.

So: "told you so".

 

[Charlaquin]

I thought that that couldn't possibly be true, but A:TLA really is older than I thought it was, huh. In fairness, I discovered it a bit late.

I suppose it also depends on how you define “raised on.” I was in 8th or 9th grade when it first aired, which is arguably a bit older than its target audience. But, I’d still count it among formative media for me and my demographic.