Greyhawk VS Forgotten Realms 

I played Greyhawk so much I could almost draw the map from memory. I can't for the life of me remember anything about Forgotten Realms map.

I think the clear area means a grasslands you can generally fill out with whatever you want. You can put new lakes, rivers, or whatever you wish there. Even swamps or some big trading town. Potentially "non-harmful" or at least creatures that can not truly kill you unless you design it that way. While non-clear areas has determined NPC types.

I think clear may imply areas dominated by farmland with small villages. I think I had a later set of maps. I don't remember "clear" but I do remember large areas that were seemly intended to represent rural areas between major towns that weren't quite wild. It makes sense that not every village, farm, or small forest only a few miles across is on the map.

Gary Gygax a history buff and worked on tabletop wargaming before Dungeons and Dragons. Probably why Greyhawk maps look more realistically drawn for a fantasy setting.

When it comes to the Faerun clear areas, if you see the 5th edition map, it's all hilly terrain. If you want a real life example, the coast of southern California or central Chile can be good examples of this kind of terrain with dry, infertile land crossed by sporadic woods and fertile valleys. The recent videogame seems to depict the area around Baldur's Gate as a zone with Mediterranean climate; as someone who grew up in this sort of biome, I can say there are woods, but they are not very dense, and most of the ground is covered in thick bush, very prone to wildfires; forests indicate the presence of either subterranean waters or streams, and would be rapidly cleared for farmland; this seems to be the case at least with Baldur's Gate, as the terrain around the north-east of the city, named the Fields of the Dead, is used for agriculture. I imagine there are woods, but they are very small patches divided by bushy terrain and what little water sources exist are occupied by farmers. Most of the terrain would be difficult to traverse on foot, so explorers would be advised to hug the existing roads. It also seems to be a way to say to the DM "you can invent anything here, go nuts"; that said, realistic geography is not the strong point of the Forgotten Realms. Also, you're right there should be a big logging town near the forest south of Baldur's Gate, the problem is the map doesn't show any minor water sources, like streams, so you'd have to invent one in order to move the logs to the coast. The mountains also make no sense, they seem to be randomly placed around the map instead of forming around clear ridges or chains.

We started with Mystara but moved on to AD&D and used GH. But it was more like using the map of the world with information light for the kingdoms as we sort of made it our 'homebrew'. GH was easy to do that. FR on the other hand, was info overload and was extremely high magic. There seemed to be a lot less freedom to to homebrew with so many books and supplements. Not one corner could be carved out to call your own. Too many players new too much to really create mystery. But FR became the goto so we were sort of forced into it, especially after they screwed up GH in Living GH. And almost the same in FR with the Spellplague. My soft spot for Mystara has had me thinking a lot about adapting it to be used with newer rules. It is actually a great setting.

I read alot of Dragonlance as a kid since my dad owned the books, but I didn't get into D&D until long after I was playing online games if werewolf the forsaken. Neither Greyhawlk or Forgotten Realms spoke to me so we started out with Eberron (it also avoided the 'I know all the characters in this setting ' problem I knew I was going to have with my friend who is so into Drizzit and the rest any remote reference to Toril has them comparing everything to the books - but also it's kept Dragonlance from being that same way with me personally too.) The fact it's a Wide Magic as opposed to High magic made it different enough to jump into for other people in my group who've never heard of the other settings or weren't interested in D&D because it was exclusively set in a medieval society after playing something more modern. It's given me a hood balance to run both and cater to a wider interest in my player goup.

Do a Ravenloft Vs. Dark Sun video, if you ever have time

I will always be Team Greyhawk, that is where is ran a campaign(based on an area from 2 of my favorite modules) and it isn't as magic heavy as the Realms!

Under Illefarn was the introduction of the Forgotten Realms, N5 is definitely 1st Edition, one can easyly identify it by the border on the cover and the code N5, it was part of the 1st Edition N-Series, like Forest Oracle, Treasure Hunt etc. 2nd Ed. modules of the early years had a blue colored logo, with 2nd Edition in it. In later years the Advanced in the Logo became smaller, and they stopped adding 2nd Edition and did away with the blue color. - btw, some 1e Adventures were republished at the end of the 90s by Amigo Games when they did a new german edition of AD&D, which came as boxed sets instead of hardcover books. I have those (I am from Germany...) Greyhawk is my campaign setting of choice because it is versatile, I don't have to bother about canon and lore-specialist among my players, who know everything about the realms and its history, especially a certain drow ranger... I also prefer Greyhawk because it is more sword & sorcery, I have much more creative freedom and it is more fantle-ages like than the Realms. Those are more on the renaissance/early modern age side. The pantheons of Oerth are easier to handle for me, and the From the Ashes set has a full set of speciality priests. I like the pre-Times of Troubles/Avatars realms very much - as a player. With the Time of the Avatars, the Realms were groundshakingly altered for the first time. The death of Mystra was a cataclysmic event I did not like very much. Whenever I DM in the realms, it is pre-Times of Trouble, because they retain their open-ness. In 1987, there had not been so many Drizzt-references, and I can ignore the more modern lore, canon and fluff. btw, I own a french copy of the 1e Campaign Setting. It was much cheaper than the english or german boxed set and I could easily confuse my players by "Oh, me? My name is Eglisorme, I am looking for adventurers to handle a modest mission for me..." They never got they had just been talking to and hired by Elminster ;)

It's funny, I discussed this w/a friend recently. I'm backward in that I started D&D around 89/90 w/1e FR and that was most of the 1e/2e games I had until 3e w/Greyhawk. The FR 2e map was what we used the most and it seemed to fill in much of that empty beige space w/some color and locations that we could get more use from than 1e. But after a while I couldn't keep up w/FR lore due to work & college. I found Greyhawk less stressful since I didn't have to contend w/player setting knowledge. Even after trying to run 5e FR from the 1e box set it was still a problem for numerous players who couldn't separate the novels from the game I ran. If we are talking about maps I am more fond of the Known World/Mystara because it has smaller, more contained areas. Large mountain ranges give natural borders to keep certain creatures or nations in their place while allowing adventures to move adventure style quickly (like a week of travel from Arabian Nights to Viking Sagas). Numerous lakes, rivers, forests, etc give it a slightly more natural environment feeling though it 'seems' thrown together. And even if you don't like the compact of nations in SE Brun you can head north into the sparse and wild Norwold. The maps for this on Pandius & Thorfmaps are varied, from pretty empty to decently loaded. This area allows you to expand your imagination w/out too much background (players started New Blackmoor there in one campaign).

I bought all sorts of stuff for Forgotten Realms, but I always used Greyhawk. I did drop things into my game that I liked from FR, though. heh It's all plug-and-play, as far as I am concerned. ;-)

"clear" is the absence of deep forest, mountains or deserts. Its any mixture of steppes, cultured land with villages, lightly forested areas, brushland, moors, semi-arid, grasslands, etc... The forests that are depicted are the deep, dense old forests. The "clear" areas contain plenty of trees and wooded areas. They are just not the most dominant feature. Yes. There should probably have been a distinction between several clear subtyoes for cuktured land, stepoes and lightoy forerted areas. But Greyhawk is a simple suggestive map that leaves a lot of freedom outside some primary features (mountain ranges, important dense forest realms, etc...).

"Clear" terrain was borrowed from wargaming. Notably the hex & counter wargames which include large paper maps somewhat similar to the one in the Forgotten Realms box (albeit with hexes superimposed most of the time). That's how such terrain was often labeled in those, "Clear" or "Open" on their Terrain Effect Charts and the same buff color was fairly standard. It was for calculating travel rates and, in the case of wargames, combat modifiers for battles. I recall the FR box also contained the clear plastic hex overlay for similar impromptu hex utilization. "Clear" just means terrain that is more grassy/plains than dense forest/hill/mountain. Usually not intended to be a huge flat & open steppe but rather a varied mix of rolling terrain interspersed with copses and lines of trees and such in between open terrain. Just longer vistas compared to the areas with thick forests, compact hils/ridges, and mountains. In other words, just a vague designation you would fill in, as you needed, on the more intimate scales. It was just easier to paint or place the buff color across large stretches - much less labor than drawing and painting a lot of little bits in. I hadn't realized it could be confusing, back in the '80s when the FR set came out, as I had become interested in such wargames at the same time as RPGs and recognized what they were going for on the map due to that experience. I suppose the creators presumed it was common knowledge amongst gamers at the time. Which was an oversight.

You should look at a town before making assumptions though Bauldrs Gate was not a logging City it was the trade center and all the small towns that brought there wears there are not on that map to allow you as a DM to add them. But Grayhawk is my preferred setting especially with all the Gazetter books that have you so much history and background for each of the lands!

Different strokes for different folks. The Forgotten Realms inspired my imagination way way more the Greyhawk ever did. The detail in the Realms campaign is a bonus. Remember the detail presented is up to the DM. Use as much or little detail as you prefer. Book bloat...omg yes but not required.

Super interesting perspective on different game worlds! I would say it isn’t actually so much about GH vs. FR but also homebrew and the matter of a game master’s philosophy on world building. How large and fleshed out do you want your world to be, when you begin playing? Are you fine with procedural generation session by session as Runehammer would advocate for? Must it make geopolitical, theological and historical sense? Do you account for the influence of supernatural phenomena with a hard or soft magic system or not at all? And so on. I’ve only been a GM in D&D for a couple of years and it’s been an interesting learning and self exploration curve. This video has actually helped me to formulate my idiosyncratic world building preferences more clearly. Thank you very much for that! My conclusion is this: I’m very open to different settings and find Greyhawks slightly bleaker atmosphere intriguing, but so far I’ve almost only played in FR (growing passion for Darksun aside) and I like many things about it, but some stuff is just so stupid and uninspired. I have done a looot of homework and learned everything about the parts of the world relevant to my campaign. (Unlike writing my own stuff I can learn about FR while doing chores) Having a fleshed out (although not necessarily thought through) world is a boon to me. I’d have the creativity and ambition for homebrewing everything, but I don’t have the time to do it up to my own standards. I want stuff to make sense, I want a plausible bigger picture politically, I want a pantheon of quarreling deities etc. At the same time I tried to listen to those interviews/seminars Ed Greenwood is giving on his lore and it feels so bad every time. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what creeped me out, but you’ve said it right. Ed thinks people will fall in love with his baby as much as he as a proud father understandably did. Which is certainly even true for many people. But I find it very limiting and boring to take his holy cow at face value, instead I’m happy to save time, build on his work, be inspired by it, discard or adapt what I find lacking and make it my own.

Those FR books are in great shape! Mine are very worn. 🙂

Greyhawk is hands-down my favorite of the two. I hate dealing with all the wannabe Drizzts and Elministers we got stuck with thanks to the FR novels.

Other than the hexes, the map terrain of both worlds looks very similar- forests included. Are those "clear" areas called something different in Greyhawk? And your boxed sets look to be in mint condition! Wow!

As worlds, compared to the Legendarium (Middle Earth) they both suck, but Greyhawk is way more fun as a RPG setting, it has that loose vintage feel somewhere between Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, The Hobbit and the Old American West. Love it. Forgotten Realms is white toast, so flavor-free.

Cosidering that GH was the first and what almost everything is compared to, yes it has become the generic setting.

Hmm...I vote Eberron or Midgard?

Greyhawk is better almost every way except that FR had the wisdom to put a large sea in the middle so that players had a reason to go on voyages to get across the map quickly. Too bad it made the continent look like a donut.

Team Greyhawk 😁

My view magic doesn't explain everything it never should! Clerical magic wielders should be a strict minority and explainable such as needing a sponsor so it resembles the warlock patron minimally. Thye come to the attention of a sponsor say a celestial archon serving their deity who helps them achieve that link to their deity and that the majority NEVER achieves that resulting jealousy and a clerical clergy that are most non-casters who fro the most part make up the hierachy and only VERY rarely does an actual caster ascending that hierarchy as it interferes with their duties. Yet to see how that would work, but if it feels more accurate!

Greyhawk for the win. The design of the Forgettable Realms is so lazy they had to use half of the Greyhawk gods! FR is a pathetic and weak substitute for a fantasy setting. No contest .

Greyhawk feels very generic and ‘mudcore’ to me, so I naturally gravitate towards the higher fantasy of Forgotten Realms.