Following on from my intro to Greyhawk, I present encouragement for people to play and run the setting, no matter how new they are.
“I want to play Greyhawk, but I don’t know it well enough.”
Yes, you can, because yes, you do. Well, presuming you bother to acquire and read at least one of the setting books. Those of us started with the Folio 40-odd years ago had all 32 pages of it to cover the entire setting. A few also had some articles in Dragon Magazine, but those took time to arrive. We might have had a couple of the early adventures as well. That was it. Sure, 45 years later some of us have a collection approaching a thousand pages – at least those who bought every sourcebook, module, and issue of Dragon. If not, that page count drops off rapidly.
Everyone who has been playing Greyhawk since the Folio days and is now a grand loremaster started from that scanty base. We ran campaigns and created new material for years while the rest of the material arrived in dribs and drabs. Was it all good? Not a chance! Anyone honest will admit that many of their early efforts were less than average and far from spectacular. We still did it because we wanted to play the setting. Like most things, you get better with practice, sometimes aided by the new material available. Other times, you revise old material or reject new material because it is not compatible, which is another important skill.
What if you ask a question or make a comment and somebody sneers at you for not knowing some obscure bit about the setting? Simple – ignore them. I guarantee you they do not know every single little factoid no matter how much they want to show off, and doubly guarantee that they have more than a few things in their campaign that ignores lore they do not like. The fandom does not need gatekeepers, and the best thing to do is give them all the lack of attention they deserve.
What then of acknowledged or self-proclaimed loremasters like myself? (I leave it to you to decide which of those I qualify as.) That depends. If you are interested in additional information, most of us, including myself, will happily share what we know with you. If you like the information, use it. I have changed more than enough not to take it personally if you want to ignore a bit of published material that I like. If not, you now know something you are doing different and can prepare for any future issues that may cause. Just bear in mind that like any fans, we can and will ramble on endlessly if you give us the chance.
So again – yes, you do enough about the setting even with only one setting book; and yes, you can run the setting with just that. Extra stuff will mostly help, but you do not need everything to start. If you get things later and they contradict what you have done, it does not matter. You can use it and change what you have done or reject it and keep going with your version, which is just as good as anyone else’s version. Now get to doing it! I want to read some of your ideas and stories.
...“I want to play Greyhawk, but I don’t know it well enough.”
Yes, you can, because yes, you do. Well, presuming you bother to acquire and read at least one of the setting books. Those of us started with the Folio 40-odd years ago had all 32 pages of it to cover the entire setting...
For those who started with D&D 3, you start already knowing something about a lot of the deities. I didn't have that in 1982.
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