D&D 5E Greyhawk: Why We Need Mo' Oerth by 2024

[Warpiglet-7]

Despite my own access to lots of old Ravenloft material, I purchased and really enjoyed Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. It was a fresh, quality modern reboot that gave my groups a clean start unburdened by truckloads of past material, official or otherwise. We were able to make Ravenloft our own all over again, and it felt good! I’d gladly welcome the same for Greyhawk.

If that doesn't happen and I still feel the urge to campaign in Greyhawk like I did in the 80s (I'm 53), I’d do what @Parmandur suggested - I'd get the PDF of the World of Greyhawk boxed set and start fresh as if no other material existed, making the world our own all over again...

I own it and never ran it. Its worn and second hand to me…but I might sit and read it this weekend.

 

[Nikosandros]

I can attest, it is very compatible with 5E. The only thing that may need some work are the Encounter tables, and...those might be fine as is.

That's what I do for my Greyhawk campaign. All the players love the Darlene map...

 

[CleverNickName]

I'll say this much:

• I loved Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I'd buy a sequel or companion product, if such a thing was offered.
• I use the Greyhawk gods in my homebrew campaign setting because they are my favorite.
• I'm not all that excited about the Spelljammer 5E setting, the Dragonlance 5E setting, or a hypothetical Dark Sun 5E setting. But I'd be very excited about a Greyhawk 5E setting.

Still very excited.

 

[Wolfpack48]

One thing that always bothered me was that Greyhawk got deliberately squashed as part of the whole Lorraine/Gary squabble. Such personal venom that leaked onto the actual product lines and making paying customers suffer for the hate. God such immaturity back in the day. It felt like Greyhawk has suffered ever since, even with attempts to revive it.

I do believe a world made as it was intended - a sandbox for referees to add their own creativity is what will serve the revival best. Agree wholeheartedly not to try filling every single lore gap ala FR.

I always enjoyed the primordial feel of Greyhawk. As if the world were just waking up and discovering itself. That’s how I hope Greyhawk is revived.

 

[Starfox]

[...] Gygax didn't shy away from adding new and strange things to his setting. When he wanted an alien spaceship, he popped on in that had crashed on the Barrier Peaks. When he wanted walking vegetable men, he created vegepygmies. I've no reason to think that he wouldn't have eventually created cat men(Tabaxi) or dragon men(Dragonborn) and popped them into a spot he felt appropriate on Greyhawk, so I don't think that adding new races would be going against the grain of the setting.

This is the thing - Gygax would have placed dragonborn "into a spot he felt appropriate". He would not have spread them evenly across the land. For me, Greyhawk is very different in different parts. Of course you could play dragonborn out of their usual lands, but you'd be displaced, unlikely to meet many other dragonborn. The only ubiquitous race in Greyhawk is humans - everyone else live in their own small enclaves. And even humans are divided and different brands of humans dominate different areas.

I feel this is different from FR - the distances in FR are so great it hardly makes sense to have traveled from one of the countries to another before level 1. To me, this is a strength of Greyhawk, but thats my opinion, not a universal truth.

 

[Maxperson]

This is the thing - Gygax would have placed dragonborn "into a spot he felt appropriate". He would not have spread them evenly across the land. For me, Greyhawk is very different in different parts. Of course you could play dragonborn out of their usual lands, but you'd be displaced, unlikely to meet many other dragonborn. The only ubiquitous race in Greyhawk is humans - everyone else live in their own small enclaves. And even humans are divided and different brands of humans dominate different areas.

I feel this is different from FR - the distances in FR are so great it hardly makes sense to have traveled from one of the countries to another before level 1. To me, this is a strength of Greyhawk, but thats my opinion, not a universal truth.

I understand what you're saying, but the Greyhawk countries and city states aren't generally as insular as that. The 1e Greyhawk boxed set gives populations of the various states. The March of Bissel has a population of 50,000 and Demi-Humans: Some. Githzerai would have been classified as demi-humans, so you would have found some in Bissel. "Some" is classified as up to 10% of the population. Greyhawk city also had "some" demi-humans, so while not common, almost everyone would have seen githzerai wandering the city at some point.

Demi-Humans were not so rare as to constitute only displaced individuals. They were families and even communities within the human centric countries and city states. That also applied to humanoids like orcs and hobgoblins. Even within the Free City of Greyhawk, up to 10% of the population were humanoids.