It is my favorite setting for that very reason. You, as the DM, were expected to make the setting your own. You could run a pre-published adventure, but it was expected that individual campaigns would have individual adventures free of an overbearing influence which might not conform to your players viewpoint. If your players don't want to face political intrigue, avoid the Great Kingdom. If they just want to hunt some evil monsters, The Pomarj, and by extension, the Wild Coast, Gnarley Forest et. al., make a good hunting ground. In short you could use whichever part of the setting is most useful to the type of players and game you have. Want a Holy Crusade, The Pale is there for you, want to fight world class evil, Iuz beckons. it is much easier to make a section of Greyhawk shine when your players know so little about it. I agree about Ed Greenwood, I initially liked the Forgotten Realms boxed set but then splat book after splat book appears detailing every inch of the setting and you have players who, understandably, love the setting arguing over every detail that you might want to change for your game. Long live Greyhawk!
Old-school Dungeons and Dragons settings like Greyhawk were made in the era when role-playing games still encouraged immigration and creative writing skills. 5E era role playing is borderline social choose your adventure books.
I bought another RPG called Forbidden Lands, which was great. I pretty much ignored the history, which was around sixty pages of straight text. I wanted to use a module, that looked like fun, but it required reading the history. It felt like a homework assignment. Less is more.
That was always one of Greyhawk's strengths. It gave the DM enough to get started but enough space to fill in the gaps with their own creations. I much prefer that style over settings that have every minute detail filled out.
When you mentioned the boxes of details that Ed Greenwood created for the Forgotten Realms it made me think of Tolkien and how he had a lot of notes fleshing out his world of Middle Earth (often becoming part of the posthumous publications). But the difference is that D&D is a game where the players thru play are supposed to participate in creating the story and background. When I was in high school (in late eighties/early nineties), I ran a Mystara campaign using the BECMI sets and all the background books related to that setting. Looking back I think I made some mistakes in my campaign because sometimes I was too afraid to have the players change the world because those changes might contradict the next background book that came out!!
Tolkien Did have a ton of depth in his world, but he was also a sparsity writer and did not intend for all his notes and backstory research to become additional volumes. The Silmarillion and up was Chris T and now Hollywood writers who have a profit motive to fill in gaps, however poorly. But that's not Tolkien. He hated all the non-canon works and cinematic expansion. John was very much in line with GGrogs sentiments here, is my feel after much research.
As a relatively new dungeon master I really appreciate this video and I'm excited for running greyhawk in the future. I painted myself into a corner trying to adhere to every source book and detail in the forgotten realms when running a game set and the moonshae isles. I've learned from that experience and look forward to showing and not telling my players about the world of greyhawk when we play there in the future.
One of the reasons I like Greyhawk is that it sets a picture and that's it. I didn't even mind the LGH Gazetteer as even that was still rather light (a page or two) on an entire kingdom. I knew when I DM'd FR modules, I'd get players who knew a ton of FR lore and it was annoying. Even in Greyhawk, I'd have LGH folks and you just set it in another kingdom and you were good as gold. I found the best way to DM players in Greyhawk was to use the same approach. Don't info dump, just give each PC a motivation and get them going to with encounters/plot -- typically in a semi-isolated states -- rural, cave, sewer, etc. where the PCs don't worry about kingdom things until after the initial session or two when they gel/bond. After that, I still don't info dump ahead of time but bring it up in encounters/descriptions/interactions based on the players background. For example, if players are dealing with a Wolf Nomad and one of them is a Wolf Nomad, then I'll reveal what a symbol, horse, or colours on the person might mean. If a high-folk elf is discussing Iuz, maybe I'll let them know about fighting in the Vesve and how Iuz is.
Good stuff! Agree that the ability to fill in the blanks made Greyhawk special. It was an idea you could make your own. Where others seem like making it your own is strongly discouraged.
Spot on. When we were first doing WoG, Gary and I worried that even that was about twice as much detail as we used as DMs, and thought it might be overkill. D&D existed for years assuming DMs would not only create their own scenarios, but their own world settings, and might be insulted that we were spoon-feeding them numbers and details. :)
I find it very interesting, because Greyhawk, as the first RPG setting that I was introduced to as a kid, fascinated me. Each little reference made it clear the depth and breadth of the story that lay behind the handful of sentences. There was history there (shaped in part by EGG's campaign, of course, so it was genuinely built), and they left me wanting _more,_ to know every little bit of detail that lay behind the stories. So in that respect, it's probably people exactly like me who drove the shift in setting publication, because it was people like me who'd read an article in Dragon Magazine by Ed Greenwood about, say, seven magical swords from the Forgotten Realms and their history, and who got incredibly excited when TSR licensed and released the Realms because I'd get to read about all those details. My love of fantasy worldbuilding that I've put into my own campaign worlds dates back to those first days with Greyhawk and the excitement I felt when I could design my own maps and cultures and nations and histories. But the thing is, I've never run a campaign in a published setting. I approach Greyhawk, the Realms, and any other setting from the point of view of a reader, not a player. As a reader, I want detail beyond belief because I'm interested in reading the story and also because the more details, the more chance I can find something to cannibalize. But if I was a DM running a campaign in that world, I would vastly prefer the minimalist approach because it would give me the chance to build _without_ having to tear down or ignore the "official" world to make room.
This is exactly why I’ve loved Hyperborea. The world and its people and history are broadly laid out in the Referee’s Manual, but specifics in the setting are presented in each of the adventure modules. Blanks and vagueness were intentionally left in to make the world your own though.
Well, my theory on why the turn happened is because as the hobby grew the majority of it's participants, both players and DMs were less and less erudite, so they didn't know how to connect the dots that were shown to them and instead opted for being told everything down to the minutest detail.
Great information, very detailed briefing & (deeper) history of Greyhawk. Keep these videos coming!!.... Also.. noticed the Svengoolie shirt... great taste!!🙂 Keep aiming high!! (old USAF slogan there).
You're right on like always! Now when I was a younger less experienced DM I really liked Mystara because it had tons of details and NPCs ready made. But I loved playing in Greyhawk as a PC!!! I loved all those classic modules....The Village of Hommlet, the Lost Caves of Tsojcant, The Forgotten temple of Tarizdun ect...ect Later I would run Forgotten realms because RA Salvatore pulled me into it. But now that I'm an older more seasoned DM all I run is Greyhawk. I mean some of our Elven mages still teleport to the Elven school of Magick in Alfheim (Mystara) for instruction, but other than that it's a real joy to have so much virgin land to adventure around in Greyhawk.
I also like a setting with less baked in details but not so I can fill everything in but so I can leave space for my players to inspire me and to come up with their own ideas and details. It's very much a more 13th Age approach to giving a skeleton and making it a cooperative effort to flesh everything out. It really helps players be more interested and involved in the game world.
I was just barely on the periphery of the Living Greyhawk shared campaign. It ran thousands of adventures by tens of thousands of players over eight years, so it was a massive success. But my memory of that era is that 'canon' events of so many different events was best kept at the discretion of individual tables. Otherwise, elevating to 'canon' a lot of the details generated in the massive shared world would pre-empt the choices available to all of the tables out there. I think it was obvious in those days, as badly as one might crave a definitive canon, it was a sacred thing best left to the purview of individual tables. This recollection is reinforced by, only a couple years ago, comparing notes of my childhood version of Greyhawk with another table. Amazingly, the different events weren't terribly different, I think owing to the real-life inspirations Gygax used. He wasn't shy about importing geography and cultures of real places. I suspect many tables still retain very detailed versions. I was impressed with the many Forgotten Realms books and sold as many as I could. They were great products. I could never get attached to the setting myself. My childhood was rooted in Greyhawk and that was that. I never though much about it until this video. This video sort of explains WotC's restraint in filling out the Greyhawk properties, beyond the core books. Keep in mind, they seem to want to save themselves the cost of hiring writers and designers to build out details. At the same time, they need to sell some sort of product, so they are soliciting a hire to purloin player-generated properties, in a way that makes them money. I doubt that want to encourage player autonomy, though, so they need to run any purchased content through a digital version of the game. I think we can all see their thinking: to save their own costs and grow the game as a video game. SO is there any opportunity to finally flesh out a Greyhawk canon in this; or is the timeline of Greyhawk best curated by individual tables of, by now, several decades of maturity? I cannot really decide. I know I have a few decades worth of personal Greyhawk content; but I seriously doubt mine is better than anyone else's. It would be a shame should all that made-up lore just be dumped in a bin when we kick the bucket. But is mine worth marketing or publicizing? I just don't think mine is outstanding. A bit of it I include in my homebrew modules. I think that sort of indulgence should be sparing, just enough to explain the backstory of the key kingdoms. Do we all know the history of the Circle of Eight? I think, judging by myself, only enough to want to create sagas of my own characters. Its about inspiring, not essential lore and not to be slavishly woven into every game session. The point of the game is that players make their own fates and stories, not to re-enact some putative simulation of a perfect series of vignettes and cameos. We definitely don't want to intrude upon the freedom of players, to write their own player's destinies.
Excellent video as always. I'm definitely in favor of the sparce approach, that's why I absolutely love the world of Greyhawk campaign setting whether it's the folio or the Gold box because it gives the DM just enough information and background to the setting without overwhelming the DM and leaving the rest for the gamemaster and players to make the world their own.
Glad you're onto other content again, I had to skip all 4 of the Tsojcanth videos as I'm presently part of a group running through that adventure. I am not keen on spoiling anything for myself beyond what I already consider common knowledge. I'd be interested in more deep dives into the other classics though until I can go back and watch those.
I like having plenty of elbow room to get creative in a setting, just having enough detail to get the ball running so I can start building from there. That is why I like TLGs AIhrde Setting (Which is Greyhawk adjacent) Chenault provided a detailed history, but the "current day" setting is fairly sparse and open to customizing it as you see fit. They continue to put out expansions covering different regions, but the descriptions are fairly brief, giving you a basic idea of what the city is like, its population, a vague notion of who rules it, and any cultural type of information that might be somewhat important. Its not a lot, but its just enough. And with Greyhawk being similar? there is so much I can borrow from there that plops down easily into my Aihrde game. Like reshaping Temple of Elemental evil to fit with the history of airhde, it works perfectly.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, that was one of the features of AD&D that I loved, up until 2nd edition hit the shelves. Then it was purely about profit and generating splatbooks to increase revenue for post-Gary TSR.
I have my world, where the players know what is in The World Beyond, but I don't go further than large cities and crossroads towns until the players decide to move about. So far they have kept largely in the capitol of the northern lands, not far from a certain large many-leveled dungeon. 😁 They have met other adventurers from further south and north, but haven't gone further than a day or two travel from the main city. I'll build more to suit physically if and when they branch out and leave. This may not be anytime soon since they have started buying property in town 🤔🙄😁. Love the video as always!
Great video, thank you. I for one prefer the idea of relatively sparse outlines as found in the World of Greyhawk gold boxed set. However, once people start taking canon seriously (perhaps too seriously?), filling in the gaps themselves does not seem good enough: they need to know what should be there. After all, they don't want to appear ignorant when someone contradicts them.
DMG 5e section on currency: the Forgotten Realms city of Waterdeep has a special flat crescent platinum coin with electrum inlay that is worth 50gp in Wayerdeep and 30gp elsewhere. Greyhawk encounter table: 3d6 Blue Bugbears. That’s all it says, you figure it out. Love it!! 😃 Let’s bring back imagination!
Some people have difficulty with ambiguity and uncertainty. I think the FRealms was comfortably padded for folks as it developed. Wild woods (GH) vs the burbs (FR). Lol I like the blank spots on the map myself; it screams discovery and adventure. FRealms was excellent though before it collapsed under it's own weight.
I feel like this video is more about evocative broad strokes vs deep detail. "Showing vs telling" is traditionally a reference to diegetic visuals and action vs exposition and narration.
I've called it the design of being "Open-Ended" instead of "all-wrapped-up" rather than "Show vs tell" but either way you say it, it's a very important design concept/theory. Like, having an arrow at the top of the cover-map of "White Plume Mountain" that reads, "To the Lair of Dragotha" and of course saying only that so-and-so is 'here' and has the ambition to do 'x, y, & z' is all so much more open-ended and thus, PLAYABLE, than the Forgotten Realms design concept of "We have to detail and create a stat-block of every fourth blade of grass because if we do then we will sell far, far more products." .... Ultimately, though, I think it's a mater of years and years of publication. I mean, Gygax did the Gold Box and not much else since Kevin Blume and later Lorraine Williams rubbed him out of TSR. Carl Sargent's work was probably four times the word count of Gygax on Greyhawk and wrapped up a few things but again, most of it is open-ended. The LGG by the Paizonians (Erik Mona & Lisa Stevens) is very open-ended, and its design purpose is to be the starting board for RPGA games. But I wonder how open-ended Greyhawk canon would have continued if Gygax had kept control of TSR after Don Kaye's tragic passing and later the buyout from the Blumes by Lorraine Williams. Like, if Gygax had done four more Gold-Box-Like publications in the 80s and six or more in the 90s, would all the extra word count have wrapped up much of the canon, or would there still be tons of open-ended material? It's always been a fun conversation for me that I enjoy discussing with other gamers. Anyway, LOVE the video!
I miss it too, mostly because if I make something up (or at least have to rationalize it to myself), then I remember it and I don't feel like it's a slog to memorize this encyclopedic glut of information...that feels like work.
I think Greyhawk was a scaflting in print more because of it being spread at cons and word of mouth more so than any purposful design. For example, in the Temple of Elemental Evil, there is a room where angels come to trick the party and the only clue they are about to pull something I'd the iconography belongs to an evil god, which the module does not explain the players and the gm just have to know it is an evil God by name. Greyhawk was the trial because they did not know the setting would be something others would want to play in or sell. The Gazateer series and dragon magazine filled had these sorts of details while Greyhawk was kicking. It was always kind of a thing that spread through word of mouth for that detail.
I agree so much that I usually DM a homebrew world. But after finding this channel and feeling some nostalgia (I started playing in the 80s) I’ve been thinking about dropping the city of greyhawk into my world or just saying here’s a new continent - oh look it’s greyhawk. I know you’ve done videos comparing greyhawk to other settings. Do you have thoughts on plopping greyhawk into another setting?
They created Grayhawk and its associated products the way they did because they genuinely cared about the setting. Not like today where money-grabbing revisionists motivated for other reasons who don't create but copy or cherry-pick other people's work then have the balls to publicly disgrace the creator from which they plucked. GREYHAWK LIVES!!!
7:51 "I prefer the sparse approach, because I want to fill in all those details" Yes, well, you have been a Master Dungeon Master since high school, with preternatural abilities to (1) unspool a dramatic RPG narrative properly paced, (2) invent new, creative elements, and (3) project successfully through inuendo the existence of more complexity and a more complete world beyond the players' already known locations. So of course! Others need the crutches!
You are very on base, good sir. It was always the same way with my gaming room. We used 2E as simply the starting point, the home base, and just went off wildly from there. Here's a question for you. When I was a kid I got a ttrpg set from the dollar store. Didn't even know what it was when I was buying it. But I can't for the life of me remember the name. It featured, I want to say giant but maybe not, cyborg animals. Ring any bells?
Sounds like it could be Gammarauders. Not an RPG, but a board game, and quite a fun one at that. Sort of set in the Gamma World post-apocalyptic setting. boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1408/gammarauders
Some people are very imaginative and want the sparse, some people are more of a reading crowd and they prefer the deets. As to why it transitioned away from sparse, I conjecture several reasons, one being that job creation intersected with the notion of only having one one world per game with TSR. So DnD became focused on only Forgotten Realms, and every inch of it was colonized by TSR DnD writers.
Call me lazy, I think I would prefer to have all the work done for me, 30 years ago, and today. Especially if I pay for it. ;) Although hunting down historical details in various modules is kind of fun, discovering Easter Eggs about a premade world, it'd be nice to have them all in one place. A box of some kind.
I did a 5ed run through of Temple of Elemental Evil a few years ago (we didn’t quite finish). While negotiating with the Water Temple High Priest, my halfling thief accused him of working for Iuz. Two of the other players asked “who?”, then continued on as if I had said nothing. It was great. Our DM had no lore dumps in the beginning. Most of the political stuff was missing. A storm sorcerer was on a mission from his god, & hired the party in Hommlet to help him. The rest of the story was up to us.
DMG 2024 includes about 30 pages of the Greyhawk setting! I just saw it in a video on it today. Thank you you for your overview! The desciption from the official UA-cam DMG 2024 video described the choice of Greyhawk similarly - DMG 2024 paints a picture but it up to the DM running the setting to fill in the details (along with the players). BTW - Would Svengoolie inhabit the Tomb of Horrors or is there somewhere else he could appear in your Greyhawk setting?
It is my favorite setting for that very reason. You, as the DM, were expected to make the setting your own. You could run a pre-published adventure, but it was expected that individual campaigns would have individual adventures free of an overbearing influence which might not conform to your players viewpoint. If your players don't want to face political intrigue, avoid the Great Kingdom. If they just want to hunt some evil monsters, The Pomarj, and by extension, the Wild Coast, Gnarley Forest et. al., make a good hunting ground.
In short you could use whichever part of the setting is most useful to the type of players and game you have. Want a Holy Crusade, The Pale is there for you, want to fight world class evil, Iuz beckons. it is much easier to make a section of Greyhawk shine when your players know so little about it.
I agree about Ed Greenwood, I initially liked the Forgotten Realms boxed set but then splat book after splat book appears detailing every inch of the setting and you have players who, understandably, love the setting arguing over every detail that you might want to change for your game.
Long live Greyhawk!
Old-school Dungeons and Dragons settings like Greyhawk were made in the era when role-playing games still encouraged immigration and creative writing skills. 5E era role playing is borderline social choose your adventure books.
I bought another RPG called Forbidden Lands, which was great. I pretty much ignored the history, which was around sixty pages of straight text. I wanted to use a module, that looked like fun, but it required reading the history. It felt like a homework assignment.
Less is more.
I enjoy all of Greyhawk Grognard videos 🎉🎉
That was always one of Greyhawk's strengths. It gave the DM enough to get started but enough space to fill in the gaps with their own creations. I much prefer that style over settings that have every minute detail filled out.
Dungeon World Principle 1: Draw maps, leave blanks
My first adventure I ever created when I was a kid was Journey to the Draconsgrab Caves. I based it off of one small location on that Greyhawk map.
When you mentioned the boxes of details that Ed Greenwood created for the Forgotten Realms it made me think of Tolkien and how he had a lot of notes fleshing out his world of Middle Earth (often becoming part of the posthumous publications). But the difference is that D&D is a game where the players thru play are supposed to participate in creating the story and background.
When I was in high school (in late eighties/early nineties), I ran a Mystara campaign using the BECMI sets and all the background books related to that setting. Looking back I think I made some mistakes in my campaign because sometimes I was too afraid to have the players change the world because those changes might contradict the next background book that came out!!
Tolkien Did have a ton of depth in his world, but he was also a sparsity writer and did not intend for all his notes and backstory research to become additional volumes. The Silmarillion and up was Chris T and now Hollywood writers who have a profit motive to fill in gaps, however poorly. But that's not Tolkien. He hated all the non-canon works and cinematic expansion. John was very much in line with GGrogs sentiments here, is my feel after much research.
As a relatively new dungeon master I really appreciate this video and I'm excited for running greyhawk in the future.
I painted myself into a corner trying to adhere to every source book and detail in the forgotten realms when running a game set and the moonshae isles. I've learned from that experience and look forward to showing and not telling my players about the world of greyhawk when we play there in the future.
As any "Old School" DM will tell you; They're merely SUGGESTION books, not "rule books." You make the rules. 🍻
@@anthonyhargis6855 I wonder how much of Greyhawk will spelled out in the 2024 DMG, maybe GG will give us his 2c.
@@Malachai75 🤷♂
One of the reasons I like Greyhawk is that it sets a picture and that's it. I didn't even mind the LGH Gazetteer as even that was still rather light (a page or two) on an entire kingdom. I knew when I DM'd FR modules, I'd get players who knew a ton of FR lore and it was annoying. Even in Greyhawk, I'd have LGH folks and you just set it in another kingdom and you were good as gold.
I found the best way to DM players in Greyhawk was to use the same approach. Don't info dump, just give each PC a motivation and get them going to with encounters/plot -- typically in a semi-isolated states -- rural, cave, sewer, etc. where the PCs don't worry about kingdom things until after the initial session or two when they gel/bond. After that, I still don't info dump ahead of time but bring it up in encounters/descriptions/interactions based on the players background. For example, if players are dealing with a Wolf Nomad and one of them is a Wolf Nomad, then I'll reveal what a symbol, horse, or colours on the person might mean. If a high-folk elf is discussing Iuz, maybe I'll let them know about fighting in the Vesve and how Iuz is.
Good stuff! Agree that the ability to fill in the blanks made Greyhawk special. It was an idea you could make your own. Where others seem like making it your own is strongly discouraged.
Spot on. When we were first doing WoG, Gary and I worried that even that was about twice as much detail as we used as DMs, and thought it might be overkill. D&D existed for years assuming DMs would not only create their own scenarios, but their own world settings, and might be insulted that we were spoon-feeding them numbers and details. :)
I find it very interesting, because Greyhawk, as the first RPG setting that I was introduced to as a kid, fascinated me. Each little reference made it clear the depth and breadth of the story that lay behind the handful of sentences. There was history there (shaped in part by EGG's campaign, of course, so it was genuinely built), and they left me wanting _more,_ to know every little bit of detail that lay behind the stories. So in that respect, it's probably people exactly like me who drove the shift in setting publication, because it was people like me who'd read an article in Dragon Magazine by Ed Greenwood about, say, seven magical swords from the Forgotten Realms and their history, and who got incredibly excited when TSR licensed and released the Realms because I'd get to read about all those details. My love of fantasy worldbuilding that I've put into my own campaign worlds dates back to those first days with Greyhawk and the excitement I felt when I could design my own maps and cultures and nations and histories. But the thing is, I've never run a campaign in a published setting. I approach Greyhawk, the Realms, and any other setting from the point of view of a reader, not a player. As a reader, I want detail beyond belief because I'm interested in reading the story and also because the more details, the more chance I can find something to cannibalize. But if I was a DM running a campaign in that world, I would vastly prefer the minimalist approach because it would give me the chance to build _without_ having to tear down or ignore the "official" world to make room.
Excellent presentation. Thanks.
This is exactly why I’ve loved Hyperborea. The world and its people and history are broadly laid out in the Referee’s Manual, but specifics in the setting are presented in each of the adventure modules. Blanks and vagueness were intentionally left in to make the world your own though.
Well, my theory on why the turn happened is because as the hobby grew the majority of it's participants, both players and DMs were less and less erudite, so they didn't know how to connect the dots that were shown to them and instead opted for being told everything down to the minutest detail.
"Erudite?" I'm calling that "political correctness." LOL
As a "Boomer," in my day, we just stuck a "Dunce cap" on them. ROFLMAO
I’m the same way, GG. I enjoy adding my own content and get inspiration from others to flesh out those details.
Great information, very detailed briefing & (deeper) history of Greyhawk. Keep these videos coming!!.... Also.. noticed the Svengoolie shirt... great taste!!🙂 Keep aiming high!! (old USAF slogan there).
You're right on like always! Now when I was a younger less experienced DM I really liked Mystara because it had tons of details and NPCs ready made. But I loved playing in Greyhawk as a PC!!! I loved all those classic modules....The Village of Hommlet, the Lost Caves of Tsojcant, The Forgotten temple of Tarizdun ect...ect Later I would run Forgotten realms because RA Salvatore pulled me into it. But now that I'm an older more seasoned DM all I run is Greyhawk. I mean some of our Elven mages still teleport to the Elven school of Magick in Alfheim (Mystara) for instruction, but other than that it's a real joy to have so much virgin land to adventure around in Greyhawk.
I also like a setting with less baked in details but not so I can fill everything in but so I can leave space for my players to inspire me and to come up with their own ideas and details. It's very much a more 13th Age approach to giving a skeleton and making it a cooperative effort to flesh everything out. It really helps players be more interested and involved in the game world.
I was just barely on the periphery of the Living Greyhawk shared campaign. It ran thousands of adventures by tens of thousands of players over eight years, so it was a massive success. But my memory of that era is that 'canon' events of so many different events was best kept at the discretion of individual tables. Otherwise, elevating to 'canon' a lot of the details generated in the massive shared world would pre-empt the choices available to all of the tables out there. I think it was obvious in those days, as badly as one might crave a definitive canon, it was a sacred thing best left to the purview of individual tables.
This recollection is reinforced by, only a couple years ago, comparing notes of my childhood version of Greyhawk with another table. Amazingly, the different events weren't terribly different, I think owing to the real-life inspirations Gygax used. He wasn't shy about importing geography and cultures of real places. I suspect many tables still retain very detailed versions.
I was impressed with the many Forgotten Realms books and sold as many as I could. They were great products. I could never get attached to the setting myself. My childhood was rooted in Greyhawk and that was that. I never though much about it until this video. This video sort of explains WotC's restraint in filling out the Greyhawk properties, beyond the core books. Keep in mind, they seem to want to save themselves the cost of hiring writers and designers to build out details. At the same time, they need to sell some sort of product, so they are soliciting a hire to purloin player-generated properties, in a way that makes them money. I doubt that want to encourage player autonomy, though, so they need to run any purchased content through a digital version of the game. I think we can all see their thinking: to save their own costs and grow the game as a video game.
SO is there any opportunity to finally flesh out a Greyhawk canon in this; or is the timeline of Greyhawk best curated by individual tables of, by now, several decades of maturity? I cannot really decide. I know I have a few decades worth of personal Greyhawk content; but I seriously doubt mine is better than anyone else's. It would be a shame should all that made-up lore just be dumped in a bin when we kick the bucket. But is mine worth marketing or publicizing? I just don't think mine is outstanding. A bit of it I include in my homebrew modules. I think that sort of indulgence should be sparing, just enough to explain the backstory of the key kingdoms. Do we all know the history of the Circle of Eight? I think, judging by myself, only enough to want to create sagas of my own characters. Its about inspiring, not essential lore and not to be slavishly woven into every game session. The point of the game is that players make their own fates and stories, not to re-enact some putative simulation of a perfect series of vignettes and cameos. We definitely don't want to intrude upon the freedom of players, to write their own player's destinies.
Have you seen any of the Greyhawk in the new DMG? I'm unsure off it after Dragonlance and Spelljammer.
Svengoolie shirt! LOL
Excellent video as always. I'm definitely in favor of the sparce approach, that's why I absolutely love the world of Greyhawk campaign setting whether it's the folio or the Gold box because it gives the DM just enough information and background to the setting without overwhelming the DM and leaving the rest for the gamemaster and players to make the world their own.
Less detailed Greyhawk Campaign Setting + Vintage Conan the Barbadian Comic Book = Next Session!
Glad you're onto other content again, I had to skip all 4 of the Tsojcanth videos as I'm presently part of a group running through that adventure. I am not keen on spoiling anything for myself beyond what I already consider common knowledge. I'd be interested in more deep dives into the other classics though until I can go back and watch those.
I like having plenty of elbow room to get creative in a setting, just having enough detail to get the ball running so I can start building from there.
That is why I like TLGs AIhrde Setting (Which is Greyhawk adjacent) Chenault provided a detailed history, but the "current day" setting is fairly
sparse and open to customizing it as you see fit. They continue to put out expansions covering different regions, but the descriptions are
fairly brief, giving you a basic idea of what the city is like, its population, a vague notion of who rules it, and any cultural type of information
that might be somewhat important. Its not a lot, but its just enough. And with Greyhawk being similar? there is so much I can borrow from
there that plops down easily into my Aihrde game. Like reshaping Temple of Elemental evil to fit with the history of airhde, it works perfectly.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, that was one of the features of AD&D that I loved, up until 2nd edition hit the shelves. Then it was purely about profit and generating splatbooks to increase revenue for post-Gary TSR.
The spare prose approach, done well, also respects the DM’s time in addition to allowing space for creativity. DCC does this well IMO.
I have my world, where the players know what is in The World Beyond, but I don't go further than large cities and crossroads towns until the players decide to move about. So far they have kept largely in the capitol of the northern lands, not far from a certain large many-leveled dungeon. 😁 They have met other adventurers from further south and north, but haven't gone further than a day or two travel from the main city. I'll build more to suit physically if and when they branch out and leave. This may not be anytime soon since they have started buying property in town 🤔🙄😁. Love the video as always!
Great video, thank you. I for one prefer the idea of relatively sparse outlines as found in the World of Greyhawk gold boxed set. However, once people start taking canon seriously (perhaps too seriously?), filling in the gaps themselves does not seem good enough: they need to know what should be there. After all, they don't want to appear ignorant when someone contradicts them.
Right on target, as usual
DMG 5e section on currency: the Forgotten Realms city of Waterdeep has a special flat crescent platinum coin with electrum inlay that is worth 50gp in Wayerdeep and 30gp elsewhere. Greyhawk encounter table: 3d6 Blue Bugbears. That’s all it says, you figure it out. Love it!! 😃 Let’s bring back imagination!
The Gold Box was perfect. After maybe one module to see how it was done, all homebrew after that.
Some people have difficulty with ambiguity and uncertainty. I think the FRealms was comfortably padded for folks as it developed. Wild woods (GH) vs the burbs (FR). Lol I like the blank spots on the map myself; it screams discovery and adventure. FRealms was excellent though before it collapsed under it's own weight.
I feel like this video is more about evocative broad strokes vs deep detail. "Showing vs telling" is traditionally a reference to diegetic visuals and action vs exposition and narration.
The more I play, the more I appreciate being given the bones instead of the full flesh.
I've called it the design of being "Open-Ended" instead of "all-wrapped-up" rather than "Show vs tell" but either way you say it, it's a very important design concept/theory. Like, having an arrow at the top of the cover-map of "White Plume Mountain" that reads, "To the Lair of Dragotha" and of course saying only that so-and-so is 'here' and has the ambition to do 'x, y, & z' is all so much more open-ended and thus, PLAYABLE, than the Forgotten Realms design concept of "We have to detail and create a stat-block of every fourth blade of grass because if we do then we will sell far, far more products." .... Ultimately, though, I think it's a mater of years and years of publication. I mean, Gygax did the Gold Box and not much else since Kevin Blume and later Lorraine Williams rubbed him out of TSR. Carl Sargent's work was probably four times the word count of Gygax on Greyhawk and wrapped up a few things but again, most of it is open-ended. The LGG by the Paizonians (Erik Mona & Lisa Stevens) is very open-ended, and its design purpose is to be the starting board for RPGA games. But I wonder how open-ended Greyhawk canon would have continued if Gygax had kept control of TSR after Don Kaye's tragic passing and later the buyout from the Blumes by Lorraine Williams. Like, if Gygax had done four more Gold-Box-Like publications in the 80s and six or more in the 90s, would all the extra word count have wrapped up much of the canon, or would there still be tons of open-ended material? It's always been a fun conversation for me that I enjoy discussing with other gamers.
Anyway, LOVE the video!
I miss it too, mostly because if I make something up (or at least have to rationalize it to myself), then I remember it and I don't feel like it's a slog to memorize this encyclopedic glut of information...that feels like work.
I think Greyhawk was a scaflting in print more because of it being spread at cons and word of mouth more so than any purposful design. For example, in the Temple of Elemental Evil, there is a room where angels come to trick the party and the only clue they are about to pull something I'd the iconography belongs to an evil god, which the module does not explain the players and the gm just have to know it is an evil God by name.
Greyhawk was the trial because they did not know the setting would be something others would want to play in or sell. The Gazateer series and dragon magazine filled had these sorts of details while Greyhawk was kicking. It was always kind of a thing that spread through word of mouth for that detail.
I agree so much that I usually DM a homebrew world. But after finding this channel and feeling some nostalgia (I started playing in the 80s) I’ve been thinking about dropping the city of greyhawk into my world or just saying here’s a new continent - oh look it’s greyhawk. I know you’ve done videos comparing greyhawk to other settings. Do you have thoughts on plopping greyhawk into another setting?
“Grey in the Hawk” Nightscreed.
Oh that takes me back.
They created Grayhawk and its associated products the way they did because they genuinely cared about the setting. Not like today where money-grabbing revisionists motivated for other reasons who don't create but copy or cherry-pick other people's work then have the balls to publicly disgrace the creator from which they plucked. GREYHAWK LIVES!!!
Adventure hooks and rumors you might hear from NPCs vs. encyclopedic background setting information
Been gaming for over 40 years. Much prefer the sparse approach as you mention.
7:51 "I prefer the sparse approach, because I want to fill in all those details" Yes, well, you have been a Master Dungeon Master since high school, with preternatural abilities to (1) unspool a dramatic RPG narrative properly paced, (2) invent new, creative elements, and (3) project successfully through inuendo the existence of more complexity and a more complete world beyond the players' already known locations. So of course! Others need the crutches!
You are very on base, good sir. It was always the same way with my gaming room. We used 2E as simply the starting point, the home base, and just went off wildly from there.
Here's a question for you. When I was a kid I got a ttrpg set from the dollar store. Didn't even know what it was when I was buying it. But I can't for the life of me remember the name. It featured, I want to say giant but maybe not, cyborg animals. Ring any bells?
Sounds like it could be Gammarauders. Not an RPG, but a board game, and quite a fun one at that. Sort of set in the Gamma World post-apocalyptic setting.
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1408/gammarauders
Some people are very imaginative and want the sparse, some people are more of a reading crowd and they prefer the deets. As to why it transitioned away from sparse, I conjecture several reasons, one being that job creation intersected with the notion of only having one one world per game with TSR. So DnD became focused on only Forgotten Realms, and every inch of it was colonized by TSR DnD writers.
Another being the advent of the computer and ease of generating new material becoming a constant quest for content creation.
Call me lazy, I think I would prefer to have all the work done for me, 30 years ago, and today. Especially if I pay for it. ;) Although hunting down historical details in various modules is kind of fun, discovering Easter Eggs about a premade world, it'd be nice to have them all in one place. A box of some kind.
I did a 5ed run through of Temple of Elemental Evil a few years ago (we didn’t quite finish).
While negotiating with the Water Temple High Priest, my halfling thief accused him of working for Iuz.
Two of the other players asked “who?”, then continued on as if I had said nothing.
It was great. Our DM had no lore dumps in the beginning. Most of the political stuff was missing.
A storm sorcerer was on a mission from his god, & hired the party in Hommlet to help him.
The rest of the story was up to us.
Do you run greyhawk in Ad&d and if so, which edition?
I prefer 1st, although I've done 5th recently too, to playtest some things.
Do you run a game, Joe?
At the moment I'm between games, but I do run games at conventions. I'm hoping to get a regular game going again next year.
DMG 2024 includes about 30 pages of the Greyhawk setting! I just saw it in a video on it today. Thank you you for your overview! The desciption from the official UA-cam DMG 2024 video described the choice of Greyhawk similarly - DMG 2024 paints a picture but it up to the DM running the setting to fill in the details (along with the players). BTW - Would Svengoolie inhabit the Tomb of Horrors or is there somewhere else he could appear in your Greyhawk setting?