Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-History of D&D 4e

Thu Jun 05, 2008 4:41 am History of D&D 4e

Hi

Just got my hands on the new books and have started to read and came across a side article in the first chapter stated "The history of D&D".

It biefly dscribes the background and inventors as we have so often read before. Here is an interesting part of the text:

"In 1977, the rules were rewritten and repackaged into
the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Basic Set, and suddenly D&D was
on its way to becoming a phenomenon. A year later, the first
edition of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS was published
in a series of high-quality hardcover books.
Throughout the 1980s, the game experienced remarkable
growth. Novels, a cartoon series, computer games, and the
first campaign settings (FORGOTTEN REALMS and DRAGONLANCE)
were released, and in 1989 the long-awaited second edition
of AD&D took the world by storm"

Not a word about Greyhawk, they seem to deliberately omitt the original campaign setting instead showing off FR and DL as the first.

It looks like we can have "our" setting in piece after all.

//Anna

Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:19 am

Who knows what is to come, however, I think we will be left to our own for a while. I just wish WotC would sell the rights to Greyhawk to either Paizo or Troll Lord Games.

Actually, I think not mentioning Greyhawk is a huge rewrite of the history of the game itself. Is there any mention of the Greyhawk NPCs in spells, etc.? For example is there still a Tenser's Transformation spell etc. or did they rename these to more generic titles?

Thu Jun 05, 2008 8:28 am

Fine by me! Years of canon could be wiped out if they decided to do anything with the setting. It is a little bit irritating that they should ignore Greyhawk although in fairness, the Greyhawk supplements were never as detailed as the later game worlds; maybe they mean the first game worlds that we gave a crap about marketing?

I'd quite like it if we could collectively start to put our heads together to work out what divine feats should be doled out for the clerics of greyhawk gods. I've been quite unimpressed by the 'flavour' given to priests of Kord and Pelor. I haven't grumbled over clerics this much since the whole 'clerics of Heironeous use longswords now' (not in my campaign!) debacle. The problem is that the traditional powers were what would now be considered 'cross role' powers.

I will give it some thought when I get my books tomorrow.

Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:56 am

Selling the rights to Paizo or troll lord games is a dream, but not something likely to happen anytime soon probably never.

There are lots of “hidden” Greyhawk references like gods and spells. Bigby’s hand spells, Otilukes’s spheres and Evard’s tentacles are there among others.

Paul you are into my line of thinking precisely, as long as they ignore GH we don’t have to contend with a whole bunch of “new canon” to adopt or disregard.

I also agree with you on creating a collective project to make GH 4e house rules, something worth looking into when we have digested the rules some more.

//Anna

Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:18 pm

I hope this is an omission by oversight rather than intent. If it is the latter it clearly shows that there has been a deliberate vendetta against GH by WOTC. Not that we don't suspect that already.
_________________
Agape,

Julian<div><br /></div><div><br /></div>

Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:06 pm

Well, I think it has been obvious by the way the WOTC marketing machine has worked their magic that Greyhawk is being shelved. Even in the new Dragon there is a mention of D&D's beginings - Gygax campaign is never mentioned by the name Greyhawk. Living Greyhawk is no longer - its Living Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk is not in the list of settings on the Wizards site (only Eberron and FR).

I don't know if that's for it to be eliminated permanently or just for a new big release in a few years. I do know it saddens me. I'd rather see the setting supported and out there, even if it had things I didn't like. I can always remove those - and do. Heck, my Greyhawk has a LOT of differences from "canon" Greyhawk. But that's a tale for a different post. ;-)

Long Live Greyhawk!

Fri Aug 01, 2008 10:07 pm

I dislike their transparent attempts to sweep GH under the rug while still plundering its best elements. But then again I did wish all thru 3.x that GH wouldn't be the default world anymore.

Fri Aug 01, 2008 11:51 pm Calm Down, My Friends

Hey, guys. Let me see if I can shed a little light on this non-issue. The underlying fact in that sidebar from the 4E Player's Handbook is that Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance were conceived and articulated before the rules of D&D were created, published and mass-marketed.

Greyhawk was born as a result of the development of the rules, during and after the design of the earliest D&D and AD&D systems. The book Thirty Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons, which is a D&D retrospective published in 2004 discusses this very topic in some detail.

Another issue here is terminology. The 4E Player's Handbook sidebar is talking about "campaign settings," not "guides" to a setting. The much beloved 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set is a guide to the setting, not a full-blown campaign setting like Forgotten Realms' 1987 "gray box" and its successor setting products. Yeah, it's just semantics, but I hope that makes sense.

So, I don't think there is any intentional slight or purposeful disrespect to the World of Greyhawk. Given the brevity of that sidebar, there was not much room to explain Greyhawk as a developmental element of the evolving rules. Neither was there room to define distinctions between a guide and campaign setting.

Don (Greyson)

Sat Aug 02, 2008 2:15 am

It's the best excuse I've seen so far as to why it was written that way, but it still won't alleviate the slight IMO. It's like describing the history of Star Wars by leaving out New Hope. It just can't be done without it being blatant!

Wed Sep 24, 2008 2:36 pm

I too own the books and throughout the pages they do mention some modules and adventures that are clearly Greyhawk classics. Other than that I do believe they are trying to de-emphasize the setting for some reason or another. I don't believe they will be re-introducing the setting for 4e anyhow. The new jacked up, shook up, de-fluffified Realms is their new GH due to popularity and money making. It's a travesty either way meaning a jacked up realms or a screwed up history of D&D with so many re-conceptions!

Pure poppycock!

Mad

Oh well my Greyhawk lives regardless.

Jim

Thu Mar 05, 2009 2:30 am New Content

I'm a big module lover so I'm just bummed there won't be anymore official new content coming out for the WOG in issues of Dragon or Dungeon magazine. I got my hands on the whole Age of Worms and Savage Tide quest lines and I thought they were fantastic. I'd have liked to see what the rest of Oerth looked like 'officially' when they fleshed out the rest of Oerth. They were beginning to do it with Savage Tide and Cauldron, turning the Amedio into a colonial jungle frontier with a very 'Pirates of the Carribbean meets King Kong' feel so it. I only hope some enterprising folks decide to keep the ball rolling on their own and generate new material to prevent our beloved Greyhawk from stagnating.