One of the reasons why I enjoy WoG is b/c it's where my characters adventured when I was younger, so I have a connection, just like many of you. One of the great things about WoG is that it was large enough to do all manner of things and just vague and nebulous enough to let our imaginations explore our fictional world of fun. The last thing I have ever wanted is too much canon material. I was always afraid "the powers-that-be" would do in depth material on the various kingdoms to the point that WoG became crystallized.
Deep Thoughts......by uptognomegood. _________________ No one ever suspects the gnomes
I was always afraid "the powers-that-be" would do in depth material on the various kingdoms to the point that WoG became crystallized.
This has never been a fear of mine. I don't mind any defining of things, even after I have defined something myself, because I can simply choose to use what I want from anything new, or not. Newer material has more to do with everyone in the ever expanding gaming population who far outnumber those who were present at the birth of Greyhawk and for what material that came out for it afterwards. A veteran gamer will feel much more comfortable/confident defining things themselves due to a breadth of their experience, but a n00b will not.
Greyhawk would be much more accessible to new gamers if it were more defined, and so I welcome that. I will be very interested in reading anything written for Greyhawk in the future as I know that, ultimately, it will only impact my campaign as much as I allow it to. The whole upside of this will be getting to read about new ideas for various things, written by different people with different perspectives. Some of it I will like, and no doubt some of it I will not, but at the very least it would be a shot in the arm for the Greyhawk community as a whole. Even with that, Greyhawk would still be just be a box...with a whole bunch of things inside of it, but if people move those things aside they will see that the box still remains bottomless. And so I can only see any future, further defining of Greyhawk as a good thing. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I understand Uptognomegood's worry, but I agree with Cebrion's perspective.
I very much enjoy reading new ideas for the world I love to campaign in. When those ideas are poor, I discard them. Never-the-less, I appreciate that those ideas are being presented for my consideration.
I was always afraid "the powers-that-be" would do in depth material on the various kingdoms to the point that WoG became crystallized.
This has never been a fear of mine. I don't mind any defining of things, even after I have defined something myself, because I can simply choose to use what I want from anything new, or not. Newer material has more to do with everyone in the ever expanding gaming population who far outnumber those who were present at the birth of Greyhawk and for what material that came out for it afterwards. A veteran gamer will feel much more comfortable/confident defining things themselves due to a breadth of their experience, but a n00b will not.
Greyhawk would be much more accessible to new gamers if it were more defined, and so I welcome that. I will be very interested in reading anything written for Greyhawk in the future as I know that, ultimately, it will only impact my campaign as much as I allow it to. The whole upside of this will be getting to read about new ideas for various things, written by different people with different perspectives. Some of it I will like, and no doubt some of it I will not, but at the very least it would be a shot in the arm for the Greyhawk community as a whole. Even with that, Greyhawk would still be just be a box...with a whole bunch of things inside of it, but if people move those things aside they will see that the box still remains bottomless. And so I can only see any future, further defining of Greyhawk as a good thing.
That was a very lucid and logical reply, and I hate you a little bit for it. Seriously, I like your optimism and you make some very good points about WoG needing a shot in the arm (and it does!). My concern, I guess, is how in depth they would make it. I like maps, but I would hate to have a too detailed map. I'd like to read who the nobles of note are, but would hate to see exactly where their lands and borders are located. But again, while I fear canon for making things crystallized, I would be open to slightly stronger focus on the various kingdoms. _________________ No one ever suspects the gnomes
I am frankly thankful for the benign neglect that WoG "suffers". The level of enjoyment it provides me without the interlocutors at WoTC is immense. This neglect makes the world more mine (and yours) as, even if I feel bound by canon, I have so much space to personalize it that I do not feel bound at all.
If the IP owner decides to add more detail to the World of Greyhawk, they would probably do it the same way they did Forgotten Realms... develop it like a Miami suburb until you are building on top of the building you put up just last season. The nature of the business is that a profit can only be turned if people continually buy new products, and old products become obsolescent. If they do not "keep up" within a product generation, people are unable to meaningfully interact with those who have kept up.
I have a detailed simile with wargaming, but it just took up too much space. Suffice to say, I compare GW's
Warhammer to other gaming genres, that are far better developed for the players, and not a company's cash cow.
I love canon and detail, but I fear it because it's such a time sink to absorb everything, keep up with new products, reject what I don't like, and remember what I do like.
For twenty years I avoided the City of Greyhawk and Castle Greyhawk IMC because I've never felt prepared and ready to do them justice. I never had time to re-read all of the source material and build my own customized, perfect amalgam. For twenty years the abundance of excellent canon was an obstacle to the heart of the setting.
Obviously, not everyone is as OCD as I am, but what originally attracted me to the setting in 1994 was the lack of new Greyhawk materials. Here was a finite setting that I could truly own and wrap my head around without constantly shoveling money into new boxed sets and digesting new sourcebooks .
Cebrion wrote:
Greyhawk would be much more accessible to new gamers if it were more defined
New players are best served with an open-ended folio and quality modules. That was the recipe that started it all and it's endured.
That was a very lucid and logical reply, and I hate you a little bit for it.
Too funny. I don't mind somebody writing up any of the information you mentioned, as I am certainly not about to write it up for every land myself. That I could buy it already done has a certain level of appeal (even if I don't take a liking to every bit of it).
For the DM/players of any long-running campaign, the appeal of any new and detailed material will certainly vary depending on how much their campaign has delved into the details of the world, but even these folks should find some use in getting details of lands they have not campaigned in yet. Such new details could even serve as the springboard for the campaign to veer into new areas, simply because the DM is not *required* to write all of it up beforehand. And perhaps because the DM likes what was done with things and it fits their campaign, or fits well enough, or not much fits but at least there is a base to work up from.
And so, at the very least, any new material can serve as a simple time saver. If none of the content is seen to be useful at all, then that DM's campaign has likely been very richly developed over a long period of time, and so such new material should be left on the store shelf for somebody else to buy who hasn't enriched their campaign to such a degree. As I am sure that there are many people who have not taken the time to enrich their campaigns to such a degree (because I am pretty sure the people who have detailed everything about everywhere don't exist), detailed information on almost anything would be welcomed by most people.
What I don't see people welcoming is what was done to the Forgotten Realms. The FR setting book that was released just prior to 4E...picking it up was like pulling the pin on a grenade. Opening the book was like letting the lever go. A few seconds of reading later...BOOM!!! I think people do want new Greyhawk material...but there is a not unfounded fear that what they could be doing is picking up a grenade. To avoid that, the purpose of any new material ought to be well though out before it is left lying around on a store shelf within easy reach of the innocent.
But I narrowly avoided my point. I don't think the level of detail will ever approach what I would consider to be intrusive. The reason why is that my campaign does not now, nor has it ever very strongly focused on the most important details of the Greyhawk setting. Most of the adventures were written in such a way to avoid this as well, and it is where we see that they were not that issues can arise. In regard to those "problem" modules, people might wonder which Slave Lords remain, or if Thrommel was found, or if the Crook of Rao was recovered. Not much else is actually an issue, and even the aforementioned issues can be altered/circumvented and rendered non-issues easily enough. Did King Snurre bite it? Doesn't really matter. Did Orlane fall to evil influences? Doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Did the "Slaying" of Lolth really put a damper on all of the upper world altering plans that the drow had in place? No (namely as they didn't have any). All of these fantastic events, and the average peasant in Greyhawk is unaffected. Most PCs don't lunch with Nerof Gasgol before going out to attack a Boneheart Citadel where Kermin Mindbender just so happen to be vacationing, nor are they married to Bellisica, rub elbows with their good buddy Mordenkainen, and have a running tally of the fights they have had with Warduke. They also usually haven't built homes in every open spot in whatever city has an opens spot, nor maned everyone of their neighbors in those places.
My point is, all of the well known people and places form the backdrop of the setting, and regardless of the level of detail of anything written for the setting, everything will never be covered. There will always be room for the unknown people and places which lurk within the open spaces and shadows of the setting, and most of the time it is exactly these things that the PCs are running into in the course of their adventures. The seedy rogue or learned sage which could be found in any city, anywhere, but who didn't exist until a module or DM introduced them. The monster lair "in the hills" which could literally be dropped into any area of hills, but wasn't there until a module or a DM put it there. Etc. To me, the cool things about a setting are not the specific people and places printed in a book, but the things that are connected to them. Nobody is every going to detail all of these connected things. That is what modules writers get to take a small part in doing, and it is what DMs are going to be mostly responsible for doing. Greyhawk as a setting, even if every single bit of canon were used by a DM, will always be open enough for any DM to make it more than interesting.
and so, yes, I guess I am fairly optimistic at this point. Doesn't mean I won't launch into a rant on something at some future date though. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Last edited by Cebrion on Fri Jun 13, 2014 10:18 pm; edited 5 times in total
I love canon and detail, but I fear it because it's such a time sink to absorb everything, keep up with new products, reject what I don't like, and remember what I do like.
New players are best served with an open-ended folio and quality modules. That was the recipe that started it all and it's endured.
The upshot of Greyhawk canon (or fanon) is that it's always there when you need it. I never ran or read anything Sea Princes related until the last couple years, but then the time came around and I dug in to find all I could, making up quite a bit more after that as well.
I think Greyhawk didn't have ENOUGH regional sourcebooks to break up the content in easier to digest portions. Iuz the Evil is my favorite sourcebook for this reason. No need to search all over the myriad sources for Iuz's schemes, they're all there.
In the end players will appreciate modules more I agree. And the modules tend to have great setting canon as well. Let's hope we get to see more of those in the future! ;)
One of the reasons why I enjoy WoG is b/c it's where my characters adventured when I was younger, so I have a connection, just like many of you. One of the great things about WoG is that it was large enough to do all manner of things and just vague and nebulous enough to let our imaginations explore our fictional world of fun. The last thing I have ever wanted is too much canon material. I was always afraid "the powers-that-be" would do in depth material on the various kingdoms to the point that WoG became crystallized.
Deep Thoughts......by uptognomegood.
-I've worried that I might create something, get it going, only to find out that it was "WRONG."
As a practical matter, it's never really happened. Example: I did a lot of work on the west side of Keoland. When Living Greyhawk came along, they made it more heavily populated than I had made it, but that was OK. I can retcon that, particuallry since the players don know what I had , anyway. In some cases, it fit in nicely to what I had already created; I even had an unnamed village at the bend of the Javan. After seeing the Living Greyhawk map, it now had a name: Kilm. As for places that the PC's have been, I even had a town called "Javan Crossing," which I can assume is an alternate name for Javan Ferry. Is that "Great Minds Run in the Same Direction"? Or "Idiots think Alike"?
One small advantage I might have is that I'm still stuck in 577-579 CY. Most of the detail comes later. That way, if it does contradict what I've created for "my" time period, I can usually "make it happen." Now, going back to my Keoland example, Javan Crossing was north of Flen; I had located Flen on the river (assuming that Darlene had just done that center-mass-of-the-hex-thing again). If I have players come through, I'll have to decide whether to retcon or leave it "as is." Probably the later. Anyway, it's not the end of the world. If I post about my campaign to you guys, I just have to explain this difference so that we all know what I'm talking about.
Cebrion covered most of the rest.
Cebrion wrote:
...In regard to those "problem" modules, people might wonder which Slave Lords remain, or if Thrommel was found, or if the Crook of Rao was recovered. Not much else is actually an issue, and even the aforementioned issues can be altered/circumvented and rendered non-issues easily enough. Did King Snurre bite it? Doesn't really matter. Did Orlane fall to evil influences? Doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Did the "Slaying" of Lolth really put a damper on all of the upper world altering plans that the drow had in place? No (namely as they didn't have any)...
-Ah! Unless the DM wants them to. 585 CY could be very interesting if, instead of the Giants running into Gran March, they instead ran into the growing Empire of the Reptile God!
Cebrion wrote:
What I don't see people welcoming is what was done to the Forgotten Realms. The FR setting book that was released just prior to 4E...picking it up was like pulling the pin on a grenade. Opening the book was like letting the lever go. A few seconds of reading later...BOOM!!! I think people do want new Greyhawk material...but there is a not unfounded fear that what they could be doing is picking up a grenade. To avoid that, the purpose of any new material ought to be well though out before it is left lying around on a store shelf within easy reach of the innocent...
-Yeah. For the WoG, I'm not the only one who thinks they went overboard with The Greyhawk Wars. Alas Restenford! Conquered by... Elves?!
all the canon is exactly the reason i love greyhawk. Here's a world already created and the modules even fit into the world. And there are city's already mapped and stocked. Stocked with powerful npcs and possible intrigue. I like the history of greyhawk and hope to incorporate my players into the end game with the isle of the apes module. My plans are going to work and intertwine with the storyline already laid out for the world of greyhawk.
No kidding. Len's islands...taken out by a fog bank?! Ummm, no, I don't think so. And so, in my particular campaign, the elves still have the Spindrift Isles, and there is a magical cloud bank around them now, but it doesn't also surround Lendore Isle. And the elves still visit Lendore Isle, only more rarely. Easy fix. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
It is irrational to fear Jar Jar Binks and midi-chlorians.
And that's an excellent example.
I mean if the powers-that-be came out and said, "Hey, Iuz's forces are in complete disarray, it's crumbling around him like quicksand and several of his closest "supporters" have broken away and started fledgling kingdoms of their own, that'd be canon I could work with. Give me a "And The Vast swamp was sterilized and rid of all monsters forever more" not so much.
I guess I just don't want too much detail, but I'm an old fart. _________________ No one ever suspects the gnomes
I like something about the idea that you got people all over the world, in tune with the same campaign. Of course, there's a point where the "parallel universes" diverge. The problem is that if you wander too far off, then there's no real point of connection. "Well, IMC, Iuz turned Lawful Good when he got out Zagyg's imprisonment, and has been waging war on Furyondy because they're just not Good enough for his standards... " ;)
Cebrion wrote:
...No kidding. Len's islands...taken out by a fog bank?! Ummm, no, I don't think so. And so, in my particular campaign, the elves still have the Spindrift Isles, and there is a magical cloud bank around them now, but it doesn't also surround Lendore Isle. And the elves still visit Lendore Isle, only more rarely. Easy fix...
-Eh, a little too much for me. I'm still in Patchwall 577 there, so I've got time. ;)
After the takeover, The Living Greyhawk Gazeteer would allow for about 820 half-elves (2%; probably just about any that wanted to stay from the original population) and 410 humans (1%) to remain in Lendore, mostly "farmers & fishermen." I figure Kroten, Lo Reltarma would be almost completely cleansed, but Restenford and Lake Farmin, being on the coast, would fare better. The following could stay:
Restenford: Huts A-K (37 human adults); Cottages L-X (46 human adults); Castle (9 adult human servants), and possibly including the people in Buildings 4 (2), 27 (2), 29 (1), 33 (1), and 34 (2). The clerics in the Temple of Phaulkon, 16-17 (13, probably fewer after the raid), might be allowed to stay as well. That's a maximum of 113. Some would leave, even if allowed to stay. Besides, the numbers might be lower by 583, considering the pirate raid (Dungeon #71).
Lake Farmin (AKA Garotten): Buildings 5-11, 16-17, 21, 24, 26-28, 30, 32-35, 44, 49 (44 adult humans), and possibly 31 (2), 37 (2), 38 (2), 42 (2), 47 (2). A maximum of 54.
That still leaves a few allowed to stay from other places.
Just as a sideline, I've always wondered if there was something malicious in wiping out Len Lakofka's work; that was two very popular modules upended.
I don't know the answer to that, but I agree that there seems little reason to sort of bury those two adventures in the way they did, or for the elves to even need Lendore Isle. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I don't know the answer to that, but I agree that there seems little reason to sort of bury those two adventures in the way they did, or for the elves to even need Lendore Isle.
-There was a strong hint in Dragon #65, describing an incident with a (shipwrecked?) merchant and his bodyguard ca. 578 that something was going to happen in Lendore Isle, but the intimation was that it would be Medegia, the Lordship of the Isles, or both. Of course, Medegia was dealing with Osson's boys riding through that year, and Duxchan had a coup d/etat.
Maybe it was just another part of the "What else can we blow up?" mentality in FtA.
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Seriously, I like your optimism and you make some very good points about WoG needing a shot in the arm (and it does!). My concern, I guess, is how in depth they would make it. I like maps, but I would hate to have a too detailed map. I'd like to read who the nobles of note are, but would hate to see exactly where their lands and borders are located. But again, while I fear canon for making things crystallized, I would be open to slightly stronger focus on the various kingdoms.
Too funny. I don't mind somebody writing up any of the information you mentioned, as I am certainly not about to write it up for every land myself. That I could buy it already done has a certain level of appeal (even if I don't take a liking to every bit of it).
