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

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Sure, come up with a cool way to introduce Dragonborn... they could be from a lost valley, or uncharted land where a ship has gone astray and landed. Any way to introduce a new entity into the setting without breaking the world. As others have noted the setting is very forgiving to funky and weird. It doesn't have to be DB were always in every town and every place because we say so. Some thought could be put into it and make it dare I say, cool... or if you don't like DB or whatever avoidable in your home game.

I’m not sure why you’re taking an aggrieved stance about the unseen 2024 sample-Greyhawk, but it truly feels like you are far closer to the stance of fans who are excited about it and how they could imagine bringing in the new elements to their campaigns.

 

[AstroCat]

No, anyone can decide what to do with them.

“Setting Integrity” is just another way of saying everyone should be playing in the same way.

It's the opposite. "Setting Integrity" means there are actually meaningful differences between different settings that make them diverse, and interesting. Getting rid of that, they are all the same and lose any significance or meaning. That's not cool to me, I want Dark Sun to play and feel very different than FR, and I want Greyhawk to feel and play different from both of those and so on. That is the interesting good stuff about the different settings otherwise it's just a math exercise... I can do that on an old school calculator.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No, anyone can decide what to do with them.

“Setting Integrity” is just another way of saying everyone should be playing in the same way.

No. Setting integrity means that a setting has a history and characteristics that are displayed in the products made for it. Once people start playing with them at their own tables they can and should be making them their own in whatever way they see fit.

Please refrain from putting words in my mouth in the future. It's rude.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I'm telling you it's the name.

So change the name: "Warforged, also known as [insert secondary name here] in some worlds, are a type of sentient construct that..."

Done.

It's no harder than recognizing that tabaxi and rakasta are essentially the same thing and don't need separate stat blocks, even if they go by different names in different settings.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So change the name. "Warforged, also known as [insert secondary name here] in some worlds, are a type of sentient construct that..."

Done.

It's no harder than recognizing that tabaxi and rakasta are essentially the same thing and don't need separate stat blocks, even if they go by different names in different settings.

I would make warforged the secondary name in the description (since it's the pain point), but sure.

Do the tabaxi go by both names in the descriptions, or are we just assuming they must be the same because they're both cat-people?

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

I would make warforged the secondary name in the description (since it's the pain point), but sure.

The Warforged name is established, so I'd say keep it as primary simply for brand recognition purposes, but honestly, that's a minor issue.

Do the tabaxi go by both names in the descriptions, or are we just assuming they must be the same because they're both cat-people?

Not noted in the existing 5e tabaxi description(s), but as pointed out earlier in the other Greyhawk thread:

Back when Dragon+ was a thing, there was an article where they talked about the tabaxi. They were supposed to be rakasta but opted for the tabaxi name because it had a toehold in Faerun already and the name wouldn't be confused with the fiend cats in the MM. So to me, that means they are the heir apparent to rakasta.

Tom Moldvay and Lawrence Schick were co-DMs before they were hired by TSR. Their home setting that they shared was known as the "Known World", and one of the species that populated that setting were the Kzinti (taken from Larry Niven's books). Moldvay worked on the Basic line and brought a version of the Known World setting to that line, starting with The Isle of Dread module and the B/X Expert Set). And in the Isle of Dread, Moldvay introduced his version of the Kzinti as the Rakastas. Meanwhile, Schick was working on the AD&D line and got his version of the Kzinti published in the Fiend Folio... under the name "tabaxi".

Tabaxi and rakasta were always functionally and thematically the same thing, just added to two different lines of D&D under two different names.

If/when 5e needs to touch on the existence of rakasta, I see no reason they shouldn't just treat it an alternate name for tabaxi.

 

[Staffan]

I care about setting integrity in general (its a soapbox of mine), and many settings I care about are owned by WotC and only they get to decide what to do with them. As I said above, I don't really care about Greyhawk personally, but the principle is the same and I do care about that.

Thing is that Greyhawk was never designed as a setting with a whole lot of integrity. It was a place where pretty much anything could and did happen. Greyhawk is a setting with about as much integrity as the English language – the only reason the old books aren't filled with planetouched, dragonborn, sorcerers, and whatever is that the books predate the invention of those things, and during the time those were invented no-one was making much stuff for Greyhawk.

This is different from a setting like Dark Sun. Dark Sun is defined by deliberate choices about what isn't there. Dark Sun doesn't have orcs, because all the orcs were victims of genocide millennia ago. And while Dark Sun predates tieflings and aasimar, I personally would feel that they were out of place there because Dark Sun has very limited planar contact (although that's a later addition to the setting).

 

[TiQuinn]

It's the opposite. "Setting Integrity" means there are actually meaningful differences between different settings that make them diverse, and interesting. Getting rid of that, they are all the same and lose any significance or meaning. That's not cool to me, I want Dark Sun to play and feel very different than FR, and I want Greyhawk to feel and play different from both of those and so on. That is the interesting good stuff about the different settings otherwise it's just a math exercise... I can do that on an old school calculator.

Unfortunately, the history of Greyhawk and its ties to Gary Gygax meant that it was replaced by Forgotten Realms. They both share the same space because the inclusion of FR was to remove Gygax’s influence from the company down to the very setting he used. TBH, I’m not sure that Gygax wasnt actually happy about this. I don’t think he ever really wanted Greyhawk to be a big deal. He never really understood the purpose of settings when he was the head honcho.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Nah

What I am saying is that a player will make a Dragonborn in Greyhawk and have characters that are not tied and have bonds to the setting. And there are drawbacks to that.

Why is this a problem of the rules, if they are willing (and the DM and the rest of the table goes along with it) to make a character with no ties to the setting, what is different from a dragonborn or a human?
Tying the dragonborn to the setting is as simple as saying that the character is descended from half dragons, or some dragon sorcerer did some breeding experiments with kobolds.
There lots of tables where the play is casual and the characters have little ties to the setting. That is a table issue, seems to me a weak reason to accept or reject a setting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Warforged name is established, so I'd say keep it as primary simply for brand recognition purposes, but honestly, that's a minor issue.


Not noted in the existing 5e tabaxi description(s), but as pointed out earlier in the other Greyhawk thread:


Tabaxi and rakasta were always functionally and thematically the same thing, just added to two different lines of D&D under two different names.

If/when 5e needs to touch on the existence of rakasta, I see no reason they shouldn't just treat it an alternate name for tabaxi.

I don't know. WotC had no issue changing high elf to eladrin in the 4e era. And there wasn't even a good reason for that. As long as you keep the same distinctive look, and make sure to mention warforged in the species description, I think branding is safe. After all, we are specifically not talking about Eberron here.