Yes, I know Fate of Isius marks the upgrade into 2nd edition rules but there were many good supplements that I count among what came afterward fleshing out Oerth like the Scarlet Brotherhood or even Risen From the Ashes. So my question is where do others mark the boundaries from the good old Greyhawk that entertained us either in Gary's Boxed Set or even the Folio and the Decent into the Depths of what has now become unrecognizable.
Greyhawk's published version reached its apex from 1979 to 1985. The publications of T1, the Village of Hommlet and T1-4, Temple of Elemental Evil make convenient bookends for this period.
~Scott "-enkainen" Casper
Yak-Men wonder what kind of bookend holds up the Codex of Infinite Planes...
I am faithful to First Edition. When the Second came out, it was fairly compatible. I took what worked and dropped any changes I didn't like.
My take on the modules/accessories is pretty much the same. If it works and I like the flavor, use it! I don't see any reason to just not use a product because of when it was published. Use it if it's good. I'm not a Third Edition fan, but I've used material and ideas from that for my campaign.
Yes, I know Fate of Isius marks the upgrade into 2nd edition rules but there were many good supplements that I count among what came afterward fleshing out Oerth like the Scarlet Brotherhood or even Risen From the Ashes. So my question is where do others mark the boundaries from the good old Greyhawk that entertained us either in Gary's Boxed Set or even the Folio and the Decent into the Depths of what has now become unrecognizable.
The differences between 1st and 2nd edition AD&D are relatively easy to paper over, so I don't have much trouble converting the 2nd edition material to my current 1st edition campaign (although when 2E came out, I jumped on the bandwagon and was quite pleased).
Certainly anything that has been produced for 3.x falls into your "unrecognizable" category, even on the level of individual dungeon locations. However, I would have to say that the Greyhawk Wars/FtA release really marked the change between the "good ol' days" and the current reality.
Not only were specific details which were essential to the political and social balance of the milieu changed beyond all recognition with a single stroke (the Great Kingdom, Geoff, Bandit Kingdoms, Shield Lands, Horned Society, Scarlet Brotherhood, the Circle of Eight, etc. etc. etc.), but the entire "feel" of the campaign changed as well. It went from the balance between Good and Evil (with a heavy Neutral presence, as we saw in some of the Gord novels) allowing for more freedom of action on the part of players (and DM's!), to a much darker-feeling "evil is about to conquer the world unless you act" theme. Just look at the nature of the adventures and plots before and after the Wars; dungeon crawls with localized effects where the goal is to either pillage a dungeon or stop a local threat, to adventures where you need to stop Iuz from conquering the world, or Vecna from conquering the world, or the Scarlet Brotherhood from conquering the world, etc.
This is not to say that I dislike GW/FtA per se. It was what it was; a successful effort to re-launch the setting by completely changing its focus, in keeping with the then-design philosophy that modules featuring smaller and more local plots were not popular compared to world-shaking plots. Game play had shifted from the ordinary dungeon crawl to the Good vs. Evil theme, and TSR decided the setting should change with it.
Personally, I happen to prefer the non-Oerth-shaking style, and that's why I tend to stick with the earlier modules. Naturally, I still have everything ever printed, for background if nothing else.
The main problem I had with 2nd edition is that every mediocre campaign Idea seemed to get it's own campaign world (ie. spelljammer,al quadim, Ravenloft,dark sun etc) and third edition seems to want to continue this thread. Be honest did we ever need Greyspace or Birthright? I say no, they should have left us with Krynn,Oerth and the realms and left it at that.
At that time, TSR was publishing almost any idea(good or bad) that anybody had. You will note that it was around this time that the really accomplished staff artists started to jump ship. They saw the writing on the wall, and I have that straight from the lips of one of them. Too many settings led to a half-assed standard( or less ) with regards to what support most of the settings received.
Birthright was creative, even decent, but not needed. Greyspace/Spelljammer- not needed. Planescape- not needed. Ravenloft- not needed. Dark Sun- not needed. A single sourcebook for each of these would have been OK. Dragonlance- well heck, it did so well they might as well do the campaign world. Too bad that it ended up buried in with the huge mix of other things. I personally didn't care for it , but enough others do/did.
Three full campaign settings(Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance) could have been supported well, but not EIGHT.
And that doesn't even include Mystara and the other non-AD&D things. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I completely agree, I have the misfortune of having played Al quadiam and dark Sun for and extended period of time in a group I was in , and it was quite possibly the worst roleplaying worlds I have ever entered ( that is saying alot considering I played most of the White Wolf storyteller games)
For me, with one exception, Greyhawk became unrecognizable and messy around 2001 or 2002, when Paizo took over Dungeon and Dragon magazines. The Greyhawk material in the magazines since then is pretty much useless to me.
Rob's Maure Castle articles are the exception, especially with guys like Scott doing AD&D1e conversions of them.
I think you'll find that a lot of people on canonfire don't share the opinion of other communities that greyhawk somehow went to pot after AD&D1e, or after Gygax lost creative control of the setting. _________________ Salud, Maria
Olmanifesto, my Amedio blog:
http://olmanifesto.blogspot.com/
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