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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[Yaarel]

Given that it’s an entire chapter of a 384 page book I think 32 or more is entirely reasonable

Could be. Some of this page count will probably be guidance suggesting how the DM can create a new city.

 

[Von Ether]

You'd never properly fit Faerun in a single chapter of the DMG, they went with a lore lighter setting for the DMG, which means it would have to be either Greyhawk, Birthright, Isle of Wyrms, or an MtG setting like Eldraine.

Or the best part of 4e, the Nentir Vale, which was also a Points of Light setting. Isle of Wryms? Do you mean Council of Wyrms?

I can understand the that kind of treatment for a small fishing village. But we're talking about an entire campaign setting, a world with 40+ years of gaming history.
I can't imagine it being anything other than a disappointment - a crumb of what we've been wanting for 20 years.

I'm guessing their goal is to provide a jumping off point vs a gazetteer. And those 40 + years of lore was sporadic, not contiguous like FR.

The OG Folio was 32 pages, and 1E books had lower word counts per page, so assuming Chapter 9 is about the size of a 2014 DMG Chapter, they could fit the whole original Setting as presented, frankly.

Exactly.

Fingers crossed they open the setting up on the DMs Guild, where everyone can really go to town.

That might be the real secret sauce WotC is looking for. Get a share of that OSR money. Speaking of gaming revisionism, though, I'd might be more inclined to run GW as B/X than AD&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For the Forgotten Realms setting of planet Toril ...

All of the content from the continent of Flannaess on Greyhawk Oerth can locate in the Toril continent of Ancharome, namely the fantasy versions of northern USA and Canada, north from Maztica.


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Nice! Reminds me the Warhammer world map. Cool stuff!

 

[Parmandur]

Given that it’s an entire chapter of a 384 page book I think 32 or more is entirely reasonable

For reference, here is the ToC for the 2014 DMG:

So the 9 Chapters average about 30 pages each, eith tge Treasures Chapter being an outlier breaking the curve at nearly 100.

OK, so, here is the outline of the new DMG as described by Perkins:

• Chapter 1 -- basic concepts
• Chapter 2 -- Advice, common issues
• Chapter 3 -- Rules cyclopedia
• Chapter 4 -- Adventure building: including a template on how to build a single Adventure with at least one example
• Chapter 5 -- Campaign building: including a template on how to build a Campaign from a string of Adventures, and a sample Campaign
• Chapter 6 -- Cosmology
• Chapter 7 -- Magic items
• Chapter 8 -- 'A surprise': we have subsequently learned that the DMG has a full usable Setting, probably located here [Greyhawk...Confirmed?!?]
• Appendices -- maps, lore glossary, including a fold-out poster map

The Glossaey formatting suggests they will save space on an Index, for that matter, so that leaves a lot of room per chapter at 384 pages.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I wonder if this means we will get a Castle Greyhawk mega dungeon finally.

 

[Blue]

I doubt they will ignore the Forgotten Realms, but it is worth noting that they have e eased off of the FR one the past half decade.

I don't agree. They haven't done more than one setting book for any setting in 5e, so while "coming out with it first!" means they haven't published it recently, that's not a tell at all. And if you look at published adventures that weren't tied to a new setting (like Light of Xaryxis for Spelljammer) then we have more FR in the past half decade than any other.

 

[Yaarel]

I wonder if this means we will get a Castle Greyhawk mega dungeon finally.

If not in the guide, the Castle will probably show up in an Adventure soon?

 

[pawsplay]

Reasons this makes sense, in no particular order:

• Original D&D setting, so the 50th anniversary nostalgia factor is there
• Existing fanbase who have been out in the wilderness ever since Living Greyhawk went away
• The much more toned-down variations of ancestries map well to the toned-down ancestries in the 5e revision. There are only like three or four kinds of elves in Greyhawk, and none of them are winged or half-demon.
• Iuz the evil overlord, so they can tap into epic high fantasy a bit
• Provoking the curiosity of younger players, who may have heard of but never experienced it
• Easing Forgotten Realms fatigue
• The D&D movie wasn't a runaway success, but they may want to leave some room for the marketing guys to look into other ways to promote the FR property
• Easy mining of classic adventures without having to shoehorn them into FR, or leave them floating without setting details (like Saltmarsh)
• As noted, lots of blank map space, and lack of meta-events to deal with
• By definition, is pretty congruent with a standard D&D cosmology. Even FR had to stretch to fit, and Mystara would be much harder.
• With Paizo leaning hard into their own vision for Golarion, it makes sense for WotC to lean into their most classic of D&D properties, the most Gygaxian, the most chromatic, the custardiest setting.
• Provides a soft launch before potentially opening up DM's Guild to Greyhawk
• Since FR is the most supported published setting, with a long and storied development history, Greyhawk is a better example of "how to construct a campaign" from a tutorial perspective.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't agree. They haven't done more than one setting book for any setting in 5e, so while "coming out with it first!" means they haven't published it recently, that's not a tell at all. And if you look at published adventures that weren't tied to a new setting (like Light of Xaryxis for Spelljammer) then we have more FR in the past half decade than any other.

Baldur's Gate: Descent to Avernus, Rime of the Frost Maiden in 2020, then a 3 year gap until the Shattered Obelisk. Candlekeep Myateries is nominally set in the FR, but barely. But still, 4 books in 5 years isn't that much when you look at their total output in the same timeframe.

 

[teitan]

Ok. So… Greyhawk and the Cartoon Party? I’m so sold on 2024.

Aaand the LJN characters on the cover!

Called it on Greyhawk though.