What I find interesting is that some of the designers did hint at the actual existence of the previous iterations of the setting (Dominic d'Honaire's cameo in Dementlieu, the domain remnants in Klorr), and at least one domain (Valachan) was written with the idea that it had explicitly been the older version at one point. The final product basically reduced these to Easter eggs in a brand-new setting, of course...
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D&D (2024) Greyhawk Confirmed. Tell Me Why.
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
I'll just say that having an example setting where a party of 4 can have species and classes from the PHB and over half of characters having no lore links to the setting due to species/class choice is a dangerous game.
I mean that the #1 reason DMs ban races and classes.
I mean that the #1 reason DMs ban races and classes.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Canon is a baseline to spring from, a history that lends substance and reality to the imaginary world. Why have a setting at all if nothing happened in it outside of the PCs actions? And Ravenloft is so much more than that spotlight-hogging vampire.
The only thing good about WotC's recent work on their own settings (excepting Planescape) is their subsequent release on the Guild, where people who don't have shareholders can work on it.
What in the world does “dangerous” mean in this context?
Which is a substantial benefit. So even if you dislike WotC’s offerings, you can find someone else’s work.
Literally in the game sense.
No links to the setting and being seen as weird fresks in universe is a speed running to "violent murderhobos sick of disrespect"
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
That is a DM problem, not a setting problem. If the DM is going to go out of their way to make their character feel unwelcome and abused by NPCs for not fitting in their idiosyncratic demographic model, that should have been settled in a session zero where the DM made it clear they were going to be a jerk for those choices.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
The hilarious thing to me is, if you apply the same time gap to things that would be "classic rock" from the perspective of someone listening to music at the time, there's absolutely no shock. A band that formed in 1992 is 32 years old this year. 32 years before 1992 is 1960. Chubby Checker's cover of The Twist (AFAICT the most famous version of the song) came out in 1960. I guarantee you, anyone who was an eager fan of bands formed in the early 90s would have seen Chubby Checker as "classic" music at that point. The cutoff seems to be about 25-30 years; a track or album that lasts that long in the public eye has become classic.
Or drive? Cars still have radios. Not sure why that even needs to be said, tbh.
Absolutely. Both Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett did televised versions of Sherlock Holmes, but IMO the latter is quite clearly the definitive TV adaptation. Meanwhile, with the end of David Suchet's run of Hercule Poirot, we've got a new adaptation in town. I haven't seen enough of it to know whether it's good, but it's gonna have a damned hard time matching the Suchet version.
Earlier is not necessarily better, and later is not necessarily better. Thinking earlier is always better is fawning traditionalism; thinking later is always better is chronological snobbery. We can, and should, do better.
Alternatively, the fact that genres defined by old-ness grow with time, because more things become older the more time passes, means that our expectations of fixed and eternal categories were already busted to begin with. XM allows far greater specificity because it doesn't depend on appealing to a broad and evolving audience.
Personally, I think it's a reflection of cycles of violence, and how those cycles spiral out of control--even when the young try their hardest to break that cycle. (After all, Romeo tried to refuse to fight Tybalt, and only killed him after he killed Mercutio.) "These kids are idiots" is certainly part of it, but the (family-)institutionalized hatred is the other critical part. In the absence of such entrenched hate, Romeo and Juliet could have been effectively the Tudors of Verona--but the body count is because of fanning the flames of hate, not because of teenagers who can't keep it in their pants.
....but...but it literally talks about "every vow you break" and "every smile you fake" and...and it's... Like how can anyone listen to this and not realize it's a goddamn stalker? What? How can you listen to the song and not hear the words???
Given we still read works more than a century older on the regular, and the most famous works of a century before that are still part of pop culture today, I sincerely doubt this will happen before 2250. Hell, we still make works based on Gulliver's Travels, "A Modest Proposal" remains an incredibly important work of English satire (to the point that it is still referenced by title alone today), Robinson Crusoe is still a viable reference for "deserted island"-type stories, and even some less-well-known works still hold influence today, like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or Rudolph Erich Raspe's The Adventures of Baron Münchausen (Terry Gilliam's 1988 film adaptation thereof remains an old favorite of mine.)
If a work of only modest influence can survive 200 years and still get a (relatively) faithful adaptation in new media, I don't think we've got any reason to fear Tolkien will vanish for a long time yet; the books are only 70 years old now.
This makes no sense. One has no relation to the other.
It's a setting problem if the setting goes out it's way to give the Players no link to it and have no bonds and ideals within the structure of the setting their own self.
It's a set up to make the DM's job harder.
The same way the 2014 DMG's abysmal organization (which WOTC admits) sets up the DM to not have proper understanding of the DM side of the game without prior experience or external aid.
Greyhawk is a great legacy setting. But it's literally giving DM's more work for nostalgia points.
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