Canonfire!

Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:01 am What age are Greyhawk Fans?

I was wondering if Greyhawk fans are only older-types who remember the good old days and see Greyhawk through nostalgic eyes like me, or if there are some younger fans who are attracted to the setting? And if so what is the attraction - is it because it is the original D&D setting or some other reason. I've tried to add a poll to this.

Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:02 am

Look like the poll didn't work. I had an option for 'Older than 40' but it does not appear. Perhaps if you are older than forty tick the 30-40 box.

Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:48 am

Had to click the 30-40. Actually 50

Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:14 pm

I am 51.

I have been playing since 1981, when I was 12 years old.

SirXaris
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Tue Feb 02, 2021 4:14 am

Well I'm 49 and have been playing since I was around 10. I'm seeing a theme in the three ages so far. I think there must be a long of nostalgia tied up in Greyhawk. So I was curious if there are any younger fans out there. Perhaps the question might have been are there any younger people still playing RPGs? I think there must be some, but I assume a lot have been lost to computer games these days.

Tue Feb 02, 2021 8:02 am

Looks I am in good company with SirXaris (hello, 'old' friend!).

I am in the above 40 bracket as well. I started playing 1st edition when I was about 11 yrs old back in the early 80's. I picked up Greyhawk in middle school (that's when the change to 2e occurred) and never abandoned it (or 2e!) since.

-Lanthorn

Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:19 am

I'm 38, so I might be a kid by Greyhawk standards. I first started contributing to Canonfire when I was 20, so there's that too.

As to what the attraction of the setting is for me, it may have to do with the 1st Edition books being some of the first RPG materials I read when I was even younger than that. Gary Gygax's words fired my imagination in a way I can't fully describe even today. Greyhawk was also more in line with (and may have shaped) my tastes in RPG settings, having a lot less power creep than the Forgotten Realms.

I also found the tone of the setting that Gygax's words suggested (often grim and unpleasant in a swords and sorcery genre, but paired with a sense of determination and strength that keeps it from being totally Sargent-style grimdark) immensely appealing. I don't know how much of it was Gygax's intent and how much of it was my reading things into his words (the sci-fi and Western references were certainly not part of that feeling, and ones that I exclude from my version of Greyhawk) but in either case it made me think this was an ideal place to write my own fantasy stories.

Finally, Greyhawk's being a fantasy North America rather than the traditional fantasy Europe meshed with my non-RPG interests in real world history. You had the fantasy equivalents of the First Nations (the Flan) having to deal with the incursion of the fantasy equivalents of Western and Northern Europeans (the Oeridians and the Suel) into their homelands and the massive social changes that came into their wake.

Tue Feb 02, 2021 3:18 pm

It's kind of hard to do an online poll because people under forty don't use message boards and people under thirty don't use facebook!

Most of my players are in their thirties and early forties now. Two are still in their twenties. I'm forty.

The younger D&D players I know (early-mid twenties) just play whatever Wizards' newest book is at the store. So they know Mordenkainen and Acererak, but those are Forgotten Realms now.

Hopefully Wizards will revive 4e soon so we can get another OSR surge ;)

Wed Feb 03, 2021 8:20 am

I'm forty-seven and I am odd because I am new to D&D, and even newer to Greyhawk. D&D was always in the periphery of my childhood but never had a a group of friends to play with in a serious way. I finally started playing 3.5 a few years back and since the "default campaign setting" for 3.5 was Greyhawk, it got me interested in it. Now I am collecting all the Greyhawk stuff I can find and starting to DM a 3.5 Greyhawk campaign soon.

Wed Feb 03, 2021 10:13 am

I'm 37 and, likewise, got my start with GREYHAWK simply because I started with 3.5e and it was the default setting, making it easier to get into; it also helped that, at the time, I had a custom character I made in SoulCalibur III, Quintessa, who was a fair-skinned human sorceress with platinum-blonde hair, violet eyes, and was vain, conceited, selfish, self-centered, &c. — making her fit in perfectly among the Suloise people when I brought her over to D&D.

Although since those days Quintessa's exposure to the Soul Gem has left her with snow-white hair, alabaster skin, and ivory eyes alight with the azure glow of a permanent arcane sight, but considering the Suel having a disproportionate amount of albinos… so, in other words, having a pre-existing character that I was able to fit into GREYHAWK really helped, especially when I later came up with unique spells that bare her name and began to study Suloise history to further her motivation — to become the first Suel Mage of Power in a millennium.

Wed Feb 03, 2021 5:20 pm

I'm 50...this week...didn't tick the box for 30-40.

I started with Red Box Basic in 5th grade. When I started making high school friends, two guys said we should play first edition and one of them gave me the Greyhawk Boxed Set. That was 1986.

I last played with them last night (Curse of Strahd 5e on Roll20).
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Thu Feb 04, 2021 2:44 pm

Sat Feb 06, 2021 11:03 pm

I can't choose two options Laughing

(I'm 30, so do I pick "20-30" or "30-40"?)

Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:21 pm

Same pattern. 48 yoa; started in early 80s.

Mon Feb 08, 2021 8:54 pm

I am told that you have left out a needed "Old AF" option, but then many "Old AF" people might not even know what "Old AF" means...

So, can somebody help me out by telling me what "Old AF" means? Razz

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Tue Feb 09, 2021 7:48 am

I'm 49 and started in the early 1980's. Old but not as old as that Great Wyrm edmundscott!

Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:53 pm 1970

I'll be 51 this year.

Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:57 pm I was going to suggest re-doing the poll...

But it's not necessary, I see there is only one vote for less than 30 here. LOL

Greybeards endure.

Wed Feb 10, 2021 11:11 pm

I'm 47 and have been GMing games set in Greyhawk on and off since 1987 or so (the first campaign setting I ran a few years prior to that was the Known World/Mystara, since I first played through all of the B/X modules).

Greyhawk is my favourite setting second only to FFG's Midnight (keeping fingers crossed that Edge Studio doesn't mess up the upcoming reboot of Midnight). What keeps bringing me back is Greyhawk's rich geo-political context and history, and how despite that richness there still seems to be plenty of space for DMs and players to make their own mark on the world. Conversely, I don't find the politics/history of the Forgotten Realms nearly as interesting or even believable (yes, I know that we're discussing fantastical worlds). It doesn't hurt that many D&D/AD&D "firsts" also occurred in Greyhawk, before any other TSR/WotC setting.

And then there is the nostalgia factor, and the fact that I have yet to run the vast collection of Greyhawk adventures I've amassed over the years. While I have not run any post-Wars scenario yet, I absolutely love Carl Sargent's works and think he was one of the best writers to have ever worked on Greyhawk products and D&D more generally... I think the grimdark vision he brought to From the Ashes is what eventually led me to dive into Midnight (which is even darker and more desperate), and hopefully I'll be able to run some Greyhawk war era scenarios someday (life and lockdowns permitting).

EDIT: I did not tick off a box in the poll.

Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:16 pm

Where is the 40+ option you ageist!! :)