D&D General [+] Tell me about Greyhawk

[Distracted DM]

See, this is how you sell it!

I'm constantly confused by how people try to sell Greyhawk with how generic and boring it is and how it doesn't have any of the races people like when there's a cowboy god, a desert full of mutants and a wizard conspiracy going on.

When you put it that way, Greyhawk is probably better played with something like Dungeon Crawl Classics rather than DnD5e
I don't run or play in Greyhawk, I mostly have an interest in it because of its historic place in the hobby.

 

[overgeeked]

I like Greyhawk because of some of the gonzo stuff in it- it's also the place that gave us St. Pelor, the guy from our earth.
But most importantly it gave us the black n white tv cowboy deity, Murlynd.

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Greyhawk taught me that there's a home for very weird and strange stuff in D&D, and that occasionally dropping bits n pieces of it in your otherwise western fantasy game can make things interesting.

Wild. Even back-in-the-day, Greyhawk was sold (to me at least), as the toned-down, grounded, more purely medieval fantasy setting compared to Mystara's utterly mad gonzo fest. Naturally I gravitated to Mystara because of that. I'll definitely have to dive into Greyhawk.

 

[Reynard]

Wild. Even back-in-the-day, Greyhawk was sold (to me at least), as the toned-down, grounded, more purely medieval fantasy setting compared to Mystara's utterly mad gonzo fest. Naturally I gravitated to Mystara because of that. I'll definitely have to dive into Greyhawk.

I have the same experience. I was always under the impression that things like Barrier Peaks were in Greyhawk by default, not that Greyhawk really leaned into that stuff.

 

[Distracted DM]

I have the same experience. I was always under the impression that things like Barrier Peaks were in Greyhawk by default, not that Greyhawk really leaned into that stuff.

In the other thread about Greyhawk folk were talking about how it was a kitchen sink, I don't know if they really realized the stuff that was dumped into that sink at the time

It's not "everything in 5e D&D has a place in Greyhawk," it's more "things that are not really considered a part of classic DnD fantasy are already in Greyhawk."

Honestly keeping that in mind is the best sell for adding stuff like Dragonborn etc to the setting. "Yeah, you're a mutant from the wastes."

I do hope that the 5eRevised DMG includes some of the gonzo stuff, to show people what can be a part of a DnD setting.

 

[billd91]

Wild. Even back-in-the-day, Greyhawk was sold (to me at least), as the toned-down, grounded, more purely medieval fantasy setting compared to Mystara's utterly mad gonzo fest. Naturally I gravitated to Mystara because of that. I'll definitely have to dive into Greyhawk.

It's not like everything is gonzo. It's just that pretty much anything that was gonzo in D&D was happening in Greyhawk because it was the original, default, published campaign. That did include the crashed extraterrestrial craft in the Barrier Peaks. And it also included the gunslinger Murlynd. But it's also important to note that those would all be one-offs (if the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks hadn't been published and thus became a potential fixture in everybody's Greyhawk). In theory, it also includes the funky artifacts like the Machine of Lum the Mad and Heward's Organ.

This isn't to say that people can't introduce gonzo stuff in Greyhawk, it's rather to point out that the gonzo tends to be idiosyncratic to the group running/playing in a Greyhawk campaign and there's nothing inherent in Greyhawk to prevent you from being as gonzo as you wanna be. It can contain multitudes.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

If I were to describe Greyhawk, I'd say it's a block of marble that you can sculpt into what you want. The setting, at its best, is a loose framework that inspires with a few succinct details. It is also arguable the most D&D-ish setting of all the D&D settings - the game's core tropes and Greyhawk's core tropes are mostly one and the same.

By contrast, I see the Forgotten Realms as a painter's palette. The DM can swipe a dab of The Harpers, a blob of Citadel Adbar, some Cult of the Dragon purple, and then get to painting their own scene.

Wild. Even back-in-the-day, Greyhawk was sold (to me at least), as the toned-down, grounded, more purely medieval fantasy setting compared to Mystara's utterly mad gonzo fest. Naturally I gravitated to Mystara because of that. I'll definitely have to dive into Greyhawk.

Back in the day, I hated mixing sci-fi and fantasy (I wouldn't fall in love with Barsoom until my mid-twenties, and then it as all over), so I tended to ignore and play down the gonzo elements of both. My impression of Greyhawk was mostly that of the city itself, gritty and urban. Mystara for me was Tolkien mixed with a bit of fairytales and Arthurian lore.

 

[Reynard]

Mystara for me was Tolkien mixed with a bit of fairytales and Arthurian lore.

That strikes me as a really weird take on Mystara, at least as it was introduced in BECMI. Maybe the 2E stuff was more down to earth?

 

[Blue]

Yes, people keep talking about "generic fantasy", but - for me - what is interesting in a setting is not whether it has blue dwarves and flying purple elves, but the specifics of it, such as the nations, the cities, the factions, etc. etc. And I find the specifics of Greyhawk very interesting indeed. Just reading the original material, I get every time plenty of ideas about intrigues and conflicts in which the players characters could get involved for good or for ill.

For me, after playing for 40 years, I'm all for blue Dwarves. One of the things I loved about Eberron is that it took all of our options, and made them fresh again. Aussie Dino-riding Halflings - as just one of the two major halfling cultures. Gnomes that controlled the finances. Goblins as not-always-evil playable race (which has caught on to mainstream that now it's considered standard). Races that weren't monocultures. Undead ancestor worshiping elves.

I'm not disagreeing with any of the things you are saying about Greyhawk - that's another way to make things interesting! (And also one Eberron took advantage of, with the Last War, the Five Nations and their tensions, the Dragonmarked Houses across all the nations as a different set of dynamics, the Lords of Dust, etc.)

 

[overgeeked]

Back in the day, I hated mixing sci-fi and fantasy (I wouldn't fall in love with Barsoom until my mid-twenties, and then it as all over), so I tended to ignore and play down the gonzo elements of both. My impression of Greyhawk was mostly that of the city itself, gritty and urban. Mystara for me was Tolkien mixed with a bit of fairytales and Arthurian lore.

I absolutely love mixing sci-fi and fantasy. Always have. I love the gonzo. That's why I love Mystara. The weirder the better.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Mystara for me was Tolkien mixed with a bit of fairytales and Arthurian lore.

With the Hollow Earth, goblin cowboys with magic missile six shooters, Atlanean super wizard nations, airships. those super racist orcs, three different dinosaur islands and giant robot fights.

People tend to forget that D&D came into being during a time when there wasn't a really solidified 'fantasy' genre. It was all speculative fiction where fantasy and sci-fi and horror were all a roiling mess just waiting for nerds to separate and ruin them. D&D at its roots were more Thundaar than Conan with things grudgingly stolen from Tolkien because they players demanded it.