I ask the question because the Planescape fans are having a (understandable) fit over the massive planar changes in 4E, as well as changes to various monsters, etc... Do Greyhawk fans feel that the 4E changes will hurt (or possibly help?) their game? Can Greyhawk work given the new "points of light" emphasis? What about the changes in Elves, making them relatives to Eladrin? Or is this no big deal here?
Will 4th edition work in Greyhawk? I think the answer depends upon one's definition of work. For some people, yes it will work because one can always take the 4th edition racial and class changes and incorporate them as they see fit. The points of light concept works the same way. If you want it, you'll adjust Greyhawk to make it fit. With that said, there are going to be a certain portion of the Greyhawk community who examine the 4th edition rules and fluff changes and decide that it will not work UNLESS they make these changes OR UNLESS they decide to ignore these concepts which do not flow with previous rule sets and views of the world. It all depends upon how flexible one is and how they envision Greyhawk.
For me, as everyone already knows, 4th edition is not close enough to Greyhawk to accept the changes. I'm not interested in making necessary changes to either adapt the new races and classes, style of play, etc. nor am I willing to ignore these things and rewrite the elements that are missing to re-fill the gaps WOTC is creating. I don't want to see Greyhawk dumped upside down, shaken out, and rearranged to fit some sort of model that WOTC has created for their creativity methods. As far as I'm concerned this model began with 3.0 and I thought that was a mistake. I'm speaking about the splat book format of spells, prestige classes, and feats taking up the vast majority of every book they published. Now their model has changed even more.
I would like to see Greyhawk left alone and personnally, I don't think WOTC is going to touch it anyway so we have little to worry about. I believe WOTC wants to retain ownership of the world yet do nothing with it. This isn't the only product they own which has been treated this way. I don't think they will license it out either. I think during the 4th edition years it will just collect dust, with the exception of being used in our homes. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
Will it work in the hands of a DM who uses GH and decides to convert his/her game to GH? Of course. A GH fan can decide what parts of 4e to change or ignore when they interfere with the setting without wrecking the setting.
Will it work in the hands of WotC attempting to square peg-round hole cram GH into 4e? No, it will not. Look at what they are doing to the Forgotten Realms to make 4e work there. With the exception of a handful of iconic proper nouns, a 4e greyhawk product from WotC will be greyhawk in nothing more than name.
Of course, some grognards say that now, but seriously, the changes being made to FR are sweeping and devastating, and that's their favored setting. There's no love for GH canon to begin with, so the willingness to radically change it will be even greater.
No thanks.
Leave Greyhawk in 4e the way it was for many years in 2e, and for the most part, 3e and 3.5e, in the hands of creative DMs and fans. Just say no to WotC 4e GH.
Grognard is a term from the french army during Napolean's time, Im not completely sure what it means in the original context. Google might turn up the answer.
Among gamers, it's generally a derogatory term for those who are stuck on older editions of the game. You can be old school and enjoy the older versions of the game, or you can be a grognard and hate everything that came after.
It's generally not "cool" to be a grognard in the gaming sense. I was using it to refer to people who blindly hate everything after gygax, or 1st edition, or 2nd edition, or whatever in greyhawk, without really having read or understood what the setting has become. They are very few, but quite loud.
Will it work in the hands of a DM who uses GH and decides to convert his/her game to GH? Of course. A GH fan can decide what parts of 4e to change or ignore when they interfere with the setting without wrecking the setting.
Will it work in the hands of WotC attempting to square peg-round hole cram GH into 4e? No, it will not. Look at what they are doing to the Forgotten Realms to make 4e work there. With the exception of a handful of iconic proper nouns, a 4e greyhawk product from WotC will be greyhawk in nothing more than name.
Of course, some grognards say that now, but seriously, the changes being made to FR are sweeping and devastating, and that's their favored setting. There's no love for GH canon to begin with, so the willingness to radically change it will be even greater.
No thanks.
Leave Greyhawk in 4e the way it was for many years in 2e, and for the most part, 3e and 3.5e, in the hands of creative DMs and fans. Just say no to WotC 4e GH.
Of course Greyhawk will work in 4e. 4e is just a game system. You might as well wonder if Greyhawk would work in Fantasy Hero, Ars Magica, or MERP, or whatever other game system you choose. The answer in regard to every game system is “yes”. Greyhawk(and any other campaign world for that matter) is about role-playing using the background information first and foremost. The game engine is simply there to quantify certain actions within the game. Game systems do not define campaign worlds unless you let them. If a game system does not represent certain required game aspects within a campaign world, either you make them up, or you use another game system better suited to how you want to represent the setting with regards to rules. As 4e is of course geared at playing traditional D&D there will be no problems of whether or not Greyhawk will fit it or vice versa. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
You are reading too much into that I think. The basic concepts are the same (character classes are still there, etc.), but not much more. The overall game experience won't change that much. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Campaign Sourcebooks always trump core rules. The FRCS has all manner of changes to the core rules. So does the Ebberon CS. A GH CS would work fine as well in that sense.
The real question is simply how super heroish "paragon" level play is. We know that epic play is beyond the pale with wierd stuff like powers that work after you get killed and other oddities. Heroic level play (1-10) should work just fine for any GH you want. If paragon play is too superheroish, then it may be hard if you are one of the grittier style GH DMs (There are plenty of high powered GH DMs, too, so...)
There will be short term issues in that the druids, monks, and specialty wizards won't be around so if those matter to your game in a mechanical sense (obviously they can be RPed just fine), then there will be a problem for a year or three until they are added.
I was so hot to get into 4th up until too many changes were discussed. I would have had to make too many compromises to how I envision GH so I decided to not go any further than 3.5. and just going to use my handy dandy not so elegant but wonderfully detailed Living Greyhawk Gazetteer.
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