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

Mournblade94 said:

No. its simply if you are running a classic D&D campaign world that is anthrocentric it is extremely unlikely monster races could function as an adventuring group that needs to interact with wider society.

A MOS EISLEY game is the assumption that all these sentient races are integrated. Maybe FR in 2020's is that, and Planescape certainly is, but Greyhawk I don't think ever had anything but an Anthrocentric world build. For me a Mos Eisley adventuring party would break the versimiltude.

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Greyhawk didn't because at the time of its publishing, Gygax, Mentzer, Cook and the like were pushing an anthrocentric viewpoint in the actual rules of the game and actively saying that there were "BIG PROBLEMS" with allowing demihuman races to flourish.

SkidAce said:

I view that wide selection as options, not necessarily (though could be) used in all campaigns.

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That is Schrodinger's Monsters, existing in a state of existence and non-existence until the DM needs to fill a dungeon or roll a random encounter. But the default assumption is that they all exist in the world even if you never encountered one. To wit, I've never used a bronze dragon, but they exist.

AstroCat said:

Funky is a positive where I come from... find your groove.

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NO. Dancing is Forbidden.

TiQuinn said:

Greyhawk didn't because at the time of its publishing, Gygax, Mentzer, Cook and the like were pushing an anthrocentric viewpoint in the actual rules of the game and actively saying that there were "BIG PROBLEMS" with allowing demihuman races to flourish.

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Humanity in ascension while Demi humans in decline (heavily fed into with class restrictions and level limits) that was lifted straight from LotR.

Remathilis said:

Humanity in ascension while Demi humans in decline (heavily fed into with class restrictions and level limits) that was lifted straight from LotR.

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And yet, Gygax would swear up and down that LotR only inspired him...a little bit. Right, dude.

Remathilis said:

That is Schrodinger's Monsters, existing in a state of existence and non-existence until the DM needs to fill a dungeon or roll a random encounter. But the default assumption is that they all exist in the world even if you never encountered one. To wit, I've never used a bronze dragon, but they exist.

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Certainly valid, but for certain campaign we develop, they may not exist. Not sure I would call it a default assumption that they exist. Many common ones would meet that criteria in a standard campaign for sure.

Paul Farquhar said:

Not true. The purpose of a rulebook is to teach new players how to play the game. And for new players "just build as much as you need for the adventure" is the correct advice.

Elaborate Tolkienesque worldbuilding is a fun activity for some, but it's a different activity to playing a game of D&D.

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Don't forget that "new players" may include people who are new to D&D but not RPGs in general, people who are new to DMing but not to D&D, people who are new to building a setting but not D&D, and people who are seasoned worldbuilders but not used to worldbuilding for D&D.

And especially don't forget that there are two parts to D&D that can hamper "build just as much as you need": The game's lore and the player's character ideas. You can start out with just your version of the village of Homlett and just enough of the surrounding areas for you to get the PCs to the next tier of play, and then one of your players wants to play someone from a far-away city or another continent or even another plane, or something else that has heavy lore attached to it. You have your tiny village of mostly humans and a few Tolkienesque species, and the party consists of a warforged, a plasmoid, two drow, and a gith. Whoops. That "build just as much as you need" didn't cover that.

So "build just as much as you need" is correct advice, but not the only correct advice. (And "do you want to limit the species the PCs can choose from, or can they pick anything they want?" is a worldbuilding question.)

Now, this hypothetical DMG could include advice on group worldbuilding activities, or on getting the players to build the lore and the world as they go along, PbtA/DungeonWorld-style, in which case "build just as much as you need" is perfect. But these rules would also have to emphasize that it's OK for players to create the lore--which has been a big bone of contention on another thread in which I'm engaged in pointless arguing re: backgrounds, with some people treating letting players make up stuff like this as totally anathema to them.

Also, top-down worldbuilding--which doesn't have to be Tolkienesque in its depth--does have many benefits. It helps with consistency and the setting's tone, which is great. Greyhawk may be much loved by some, but not everyone wants a game that's low medieval fantasy except there's a crashed spaceship. Or they may want a game that's low medieval fantasy and has a crashed spaceship and that spaceship has had wide-reaching effects on the entire region, if not the world.

TiQuinn said:

And yet, Gygax would swear up and down that LotR only inspired him...a little bit. Right, dude.

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Credit where credit is due, Gary was not a tremendous fantasy author (I've seen his fiction) but like most DMs just kinda pulled what he knew. People wanted the LotR races, so he found as many LotR drawbacks as he could to keep them from taking over the game. (Spoiler: he failed). Even Ed Greenwood used Tolkien's "Demi human in decline" story beat for so long that the 3e FRCS specifically calls out how Moradin radically increased the birth rate of dwarves and the elves returned from Evermeet to remove notion that nonhuman races were in decline (how's THAT for explaining rules changes in lore!)

But to me, the same thread that begins with "dwarves should only be able to be low level fighters and thieves" ends with "I don't want fey rabbit people in my Oerth". It just depends where you are on the thread.

Remathilis said:

Credit where credit is due, Gary was not a tremendous fantasy author (I've seen his fiction) but like most DMs just kinda pulled what he knew. People wanted the LotR races, so he found as many LotR drawbacks as he could to keep them from taking over the game. (Spoiler: he failed). Even Ed Greenwood used Tolkien's "Demi human in decline" story beat for so long that the 3e FRCS specifically calls out how Moradin radically increased the birth rate of dwarves and the elves returned from Evermeet to remove notion that nonhuman races were in decline (how's THAT for explaining rules changes in lore!)

But to me, the same thread that begins with "dwarves should only be able to be low level fighters and thieves" ends with "I don't want fey rabbit people in my Oerth". It just depends where you are on the thread.

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Unlike Gygax, Greenwood actually liked the Tolkien material so that part of the FR is better handled.

Remathilis said:

But to me, the same thread that begins with "dwarves should only be able to be low level fighters and thieves" ends with "I don't want fey rabbit people in my Oerth". It just depends where you are on the thread.

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And yet…he wrote Dungeonland and Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.