Most of the name changes are in keeping with alternate names listed in the original sourcebook- the "Tiger Nomads" is what Common Tongue speakers called them, but they called *themselves* Chakyk, for instance. The one change that stands out to me as bizarre is to the Plains of the Paynims- I don't recall ever seeing the new name in any source material. I assume the Caliphate of Ekbir was changed to a sultanate to avoid boneheads drawing a comparison to ISIS. Surprised to see the Shield Lands still exist- I thought they were destroyed in the Greyhawk Wars...? Ultimately, I don't have high hopes for this version. WotC previously made Greyhawk the "default" setting in 3rd Edition, and they showed no aptitude for the setting. Gary Gygax, as a Medieval history buff, loaded his setting with Earth analogs, and none of that came across in the WotC depiction. Now that D&D has moved even *further* from Gygax' vision (every third PC nowadays is either a Tiefling or a Drow and NPCs are *not* allowed to respond negatively to them, for example), I seriously doubt any of the core spirit of the World of Greyhawk will survive.
I don't get why people always complain about the racial diversity of characters at their table. If you don't want a bunch of tieflings, dragonborn, and Drow, just TELL your table that they can't have those! The DM should have utter and complete control of which races and characters classes fit into the particular campaign, and the players have to choose from that list.
@@danielgoldberg5357Because by normalizing what previously wasn't, saying those things now seem as restrictions. The more it continues to go in that direction, the more said DM is 'going against the norm' by restricting what the players usually expect to have access to.
@@maeth4534 I can see that. My DM allows for a lot of diversity, but he has the final say if something is too far out of bounds. That being said, we're all older guys and we're playing a Planescape campaign, so we're more traditional in our choices than maybe a green haired 20 year old girl, but at the same time Planescape allows for a lot of flights of fancy.
@@powergamingwiththedoctor I may be wrong, but everything I've been able to find so far seems to indicate WotC have rolled the timeline back to ~576CY. It seems it might be they're retconning the Greyhawk Wars into "Aint no such thing", or they're setting things up to republish a version of 'From the Ashes'. Either way, (assuming I'm right) it seems like an odd choice.
Just take my money and give me the map already! 😆
Nice refresher course. Thanks.
I wanna see one day, a modern take on Birthright and Red Steel.
I guess that depends on what IP WoTC owns.
They own it all dude. Lol what are you saying?
@@coldstream11 They don't own everything. The Gygax estate (particularly his daughter) still own a considerable amount of material.
Most of the name changes are in keeping with alternate names listed in the original sourcebook- the "Tiger Nomads" is what Common Tongue speakers called them, but they called *themselves* Chakyk, for instance. The one change that stands out to me as bizarre is to the Plains of the Paynims- I don't recall ever seeing the new name in any source material. I assume the Caliphate of Ekbir was changed to a sultanate to avoid boneheads drawing a comparison to ISIS.
Surprised to see the Shield Lands still exist- I thought they were destroyed in the Greyhawk Wars...?
Ultimately, I don't have high hopes for this version. WotC previously made Greyhawk the "default" setting in 3rd Edition, and they showed no aptitude for the setting. Gary Gygax, as a Medieval history buff, loaded his setting with Earth analogs, and none of that came across in the WotC depiction. Now that D&D has moved even *further* from Gygax' vision (every third PC nowadays is either a Tiefling or a Drow and NPCs are *not* allowed to respond negatively to them, for example), I seriously doubt any of the core spirit of the World of Greyhawk will survive.
It is most likely pre-Greyhawk Wars
I don't get why people always complain about the racial diversity of characters at their table. If you don't want a bunch of tieflings, dragonborn, and Drow, just TELL your table that they can't have those! The DM should have utter and complete control of which races and characters classes fit into the particular campaign, and the players have to choose from that list.
@@danielgoldberg5357Because by normalizing what previously wasn't, saying those things now seem as restrictions. The more it continues to go in that direction, the more said DM is 'going against the norm' by restricting what the players usually expect to have access to.
@@maeth4534 I can see that. My DM allows for a lot of diversity, but he has the final say if something is too far out of bounds. That being said, we're all older guys and we're playing a Planescape campaign, so we're more traditional in our choices than maybe a green haired 20 year old girl, but at the same time Planescape allows for a lot of flights of fancy.
@@powergamingwiththedoctor I may be wrong, but everything I've been able to find so far seems to indicate WotC have rolled the timeline back to ~576CY. It seems it might be they're retconning the Greyhawk Wars into "Aint no such thing", or they're setting things up to republish a version of 'From the Ashes'. Either way, (assuming I'm right) it seems like an odd choice.
aerdiraak poses a problem to 50 years of canon (yes, i play in greyhawk since the late 70s) ...
You do play the Circle of Eight!
Indeed you can.