View over the Milieu 06 - World of Greyhawk 

It is truly something special.

I am trying to resist a "grinding in Geoff" pun, but it raised a smile. I know it was unintentional, but thank-you for that! Out of interest, what was it that attracted you specifically to Geoff as a setting?

Thank-you. I suspect the Darlene map launched more than a thousand home campaign worlds!

Hah! That analogy would have made me spit my tea if I was drinking any at the mo! The Realms used to have a designated homebrew corner for DMs to develop for themselves. But then TSR developed it. So so much for that idea...

Funny, I actually liked that anything could happen within the map. You have everything from Mongol-like plains, Viking-like barbarians, evil empires, city states, jungles, ocean areas, etc. I used to love having my players randomly roll starting hexes. I'd then give them a week to prepare characters for that area and spend the week researching it (and real world history it was based on) and just going with it. I'd blow up a 30-mile hex into five mile hexes and then start them in a made-up town, village, boat, caravan, etc. in that area. I must have started a hundred games (got to love those 1980s summers when you are 12 or 13) that way.

It sounds like you started in what's left of the world, let alone Quag 😱😳 Deity-level post-apocalyptic madness - sounds great 🙂

It's not bad... I'm old-school, so see more scope in the original Saltmarsh modules. But, I'll give the new one it's due - it is among the better of the official 5E adventures.

Sometimes detail is fun. Take Glorantha. However, when I run games in Glorantha, I'm always bloody scared of getting something wrong (some RuneQuest players have encyclopaedic knowledge). Glorantha thus becomes fun to read, bloody nervy to run. Possibly a similar experience you have with 40K?

Indeed, especially through the 70s and 80s when it was closer to the development of D&D itself.

I hope your character makes it through, suitably well-rewarded!

I think that's a philosophy that many RPG settings miss. Sometimes, less is more.

That's a good point. That whole world building philosophy of "create as needed". It does make it somewhat compartmentalised - that's even more illustrated by the alignment map.

Thank-you! I'm mostly homebrew, but certainly a modder when in Greyhawk (and other published works). For me, Greyhawk, Glorantha, and the Wilderlands inform my homebrew in a "this is how it should be done" way 🙂

Yes... They left that to Living Greyhawk, by and large.

I mentioned this fact to someone unfamiliar with ttrpgs a couple of months ago and they looked at me like I was insane. I wonder what it is about reading and drawing maps that fascinates the geek mind …

@@MisterWebb For me at least, maps cause me to imagine myself at the place depicted. I am also very tactile, and models, miniatures, paper books, and maps are real, physical artifacts to touch. Touch makes things "real" for me.

@@anna-elizabeth I have made ancient-looking maps (stained with tea) for my players - having this kind of aide can build immersion, although I don't go in for models or minis so much.

Maps are awesome - and the evolution of maps, real-world and gaming - is fascinating. I should do some map videos.

It's perhaps that artistic depiction of data coupled to a sense of immersion a good map can bring to a game. I'm now trying to case my mind back over the decades to try and remember if I was into maps before RPGs, or vice versa...

The beauty of RPGs is that we can mix, match, and cram anything we want anywhere we want! I hope you enjoy your return to Greyhawk when you get it running 🙂

Yeah, perhaps I should have delved into the adventure paths. For me, they didn't have much of an impact on GH specifically, and felt more "handwave GH, but present generically" than actually having a GH foundation. They also tied into my least favourite style of play - episodal railroads. 4E and 5E haven't really touched GH. I know adventures such as Saltmarsh are nominally set there - but, again, it's more on a generic scale. Those I purposely omitted, by and large.

@Willy Muffin Yah, the railroading aspect is not great, but it was interesting. As for the later stuff in 4e and 5e, there seems to be some rehashing of some classic themes such as Elemental Evil etc.

@@TheAndrian463 Ah, yes. And ported them all to the Realms (Tomb of Annihilation, Princes of the Apocalypse)! I think only Ghosts of Saltmarsh retains its at least nominal Greyhawk setting. C'est la vie.

Well, the biggest collection of modules was the early 2000s era Living Greyhawk campaign. They divided the countries up into real world regions which each given the ability to make modules. So, you'd have over two dozen regions, each making 8-12 adventurers per year, for five years, plus they had several dozen adventures set in common places like Greyhawk. Some regions weren't English speaking, but still... we are talking hundreds and hundreds of 4 hour 3/3.5 modules and many had long running plot lines.

@@BW022 Unfortunately, most of those were not on general release - very, very few were made available outside of the Living Greyhawk organised play. A handful of the Castle Greyhawk ones were, but added even more inconcistency to the Greyhawk Ruins/Expedition dichotomy. Living Greyhawk was a reasonable idea on paper. I'm not convinced it particularly succeeded - especially given the region enforcement (in the UK, we were limited to releases for Onnwal, for example). It was a great addition to the RPGA scene, but not particularly useful beyond that. I do lament the demise of the RPGA, though. I got a lot out of my time in it.

So I have read - but only the material they have. Looks like reprints of Yggsburgh and The Hermit are on the cards. No mention yet of the Upper Works. It will be interesting to see if there's any material on the lower dungeons around for new publications rather than reprints.

It's good that all that licence mess has finally got resolved 🙂

Those were good words to use on the page. Get the reader all comfy by the fireside from the outset 🙂

There were attempts... I found them half-hearted.

Eventually! It is one of those largely forgotten gems.

The Arduin Grimoire gets a backhanded compliment from Gygax in the DMG magic item ‘The Vacuous Grimoire’.

Thank-you 🙂

It is on the list.

That sounds like someone trying to voice complex vowels and going "oh sod it!" 😉 "Oh-Erth" sounds more evocative to me!

@@WillyMuffinUK I dont mind either tbh. The Dm and others at my play through in the US use the "Oath" pronunciation which really weirded me out as I used O-Earth but all the Yanks I meet seemd to be saying Oath... maybe I heard it wrong total potability. how is is said in the audio books? Do you know?

@epone3488 I don't think any of the Greyhawk novels are on audio books - none I've seen. It's common, though. For example, old King Æthelred is often just "Ethelred" - but then Æthelstan is often just "Athelstan" - so... I just put it down to "it's whatever you feel most comfortable with". And I know it's not Œerth... but it should be! As should Gygax's Dangerous Journey's world should have been Æerth - but... I guess Gygax doesn't love diphthongs as much as I do 🙂

Maybe! Plenty of other odds and sods in the works, though.

I think that might ruin some of its charm. However, the Argan Argar Atlas exists for Glorantha, which is the nearest thing to a road atlas for a fantasy world I can think of, and that's pretty cool. With both the Forgotten Realms and DragonLance having received the Karen Wynn Fonstad treatment in the 1980s, it's a shame they didn't commission her to do Greyhawk, too. However.... TSR politics at the time and all that...

Yeah, there are some unwise choices in those books.

Perhaps. A gaming world does tend to live or die on its game support, though.

@@WillyMuffinUK yeah, I think the main issue is lack of support & just not getting as much detail as the Forgotten Realms. I have friends that have played since 2e & they love the realms but are convinced Greyhawk is a low magic setting.

@@CrashWeezerman Try telling Mordenkainen that! 🤣

Exactly

Mileage in everything varies. For me, it didn't compare to releases for Glorantha and the Wilderlands that predated it, and it really should have.

@@WillyMuffinUK fair enough

I don't see CS as fundamentally D&D. A setting that used the D&D rules as a framework to describe it, initially at least, sure. But when you read the JG material with a "spot the off-piste concepts" eye when core D&D is concerned, there are many. CS and Wilderlands is it's own thing. (I'd actually go further, and say it suits the RQ rules better than D&D, but that's another story altogether that will have to wait for the Wilderlands Milieu video).

@@WillyMuffinUK Would need some serious work to use for RQ seeing as all the stats given are for D&D, not complicated if you know both systems perhaps but repetitive and time consuming work that's going to slow gameplay a lot if you don't do it all ahead of time which will take ages 🙂 What are some of the 'off-piste' concepts that you had in mind? I may just never have noticed them as being such simply because I got it early after my D&D books as a kid so it all rolls together as the same thing in my mind. It was written specifically for retail as a D&D supplement from a time before TSR started doing their own modules and supplements. [my copy even had "approved for use with AD&D" plastered over the front, lined over with black marker because it was printed before they lost the licence (or right) to do that and was shipped after] I only had CS though, never got around to grabbing a copy of Wilderlands.

@@pelinoregeryon6593 Given that the stats in the original JG Wilderlands books are very minimal, it doesn't require serious work at all. Coupled with the fact that there's an almost 1:1 correlation between RQ base stats and D&D - yes, you'd need to know both systems, but it's pretty easy. The "off-piste" elements can be found within some of the Ruins & Relics entries across the Wilderlands series - very much hint at a more science-fantasy base than the swords and sorcery one that underpinned D&D and Greyhawk. In that regard, it has more in common with Blackmoor than Greyhawk - and Blackmoor sort of attaches to the Wilderlands maps. Yes, the Wilderlands material was produced under an approval agreement with TSR, but that has no bearing on what I'm stating. Put it like this. With Greyhawk, you need nothing more than the core books to "accurately" depict the world. The core books say nothing about modern or futuristic weaponry - but caches of such things can be found within the Wilderlands and Blackmoor. The core Greyhawk races are the core D&D ones - those from the Wilderlands require further definition, because they wander off the core D&D line (Atlanteans, Viridians, etc. are not adequately covered by core D&D races). You need to adapt the core D&D rules to the Wilderlands setting - you don't need to adapt the D&D rules to Greyhawk; Greyhawk is already there (even in the naming of spells). It's not a surprising thing, though. Gygax wrote Greyhawk, Gygax wrote (especially) AD&D. That the two pair up better than other settings is a pretty natural thing. BTW, track down the rest of the Wilderlands stuff. The CSIO is only the tip of the iceberg! It is a very cool setting.

@@WillyMuffinUK Fair comment about the sci fi elements I suppose. You don't really see much of that in CS, I might have noticed it more if I'd ever got my hands on the Wilderlands Some might point at Expedition to the Barrier Peaks in response I suppose, but it's a module rather than core GH and it was really only ever meant as a one shot and an advertising aid for convention release, to introduce some core concepts of the precursor of their Gamma World game to players, so not really canon for GH. "track down the rest of the Wilderlands stuff" 👍 I fully intend to .. but then I've been intending to for something like thirty years now 😁 I do much prefer the CS map style to most (if not all) TSR / WotC produced city maps though, their ones are nearly all just too clean and tidy in their layouts to be convincing as real naturally evolved medieval cities, while CS is gloriously cramped and cluttered, far more convincing.

@@pelinoregeryon6593 No argument there - I absolutely love the Wilderlands maps, cities and all.

To be fair, "canon" in gaming only describes the narrative and material the publisher is expected to follow. As even Gygax said, individual games should freely turf out or add in anything they like. "Shouldn't at least review it" - no! Could be useful, may be things you'd enjoy in there, but there is no onus on DMs to use, read, and absorb anything. To paraphrase a renowned Glorantha saying - Your Greyhawk May Vary. With fsn material, it's exactly the same - moreso. Use, abuse, or ignore at will. Yes, I glossed over certain modules because they are, in my opinion, not good. Lastly... there's a reason why I don't mention that map in either Greyhawk video 😉 Maps need to be usable...

I'd love a video on From The Ashes area greyhawk I think Sargent's work is wonderful but I also understand the importance of DM using what they want to color any world in which they wish too, and hell If we can have 9 hells with 666 ( or unlimited number of) flavors or take a Portal from from Mr. Cooks Planescape setting or crack an opening to any dimension in space while Spelljamming, the limits of any home brew or cannon adventure are at our fingertips, at the farthest reaches of our mind's imagination.

@@mychaellee6317 Indeed - and our imaginations don't need to be fettered to a published world. I did a companion video to this summarising Sargant's era: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-enrulnGTAPo.html

In a video about Greyhawk?! Each world has (or will have) it's own.

@WillyMuffinUK Blackmoor is in The World of Greyhawk. It's also the location of Arneson's game.

@@TheEldarGuy It's a separate setting. The Blackmoor of the World of Greyhawk is... let's say a passing reference to Arneson's Blackmoor. It's been attached to a couple of settings. The First Fantasy Campaign (JG) attaches it to the Wilderlands. The "DA" (for David Arneson) modules attach it to Mystara's past (Basic D&D's Known World), with time-travelling PCs going back to The Temple of the Frog et al. I.e., Greyhawk isn't the only world with a tentative Blackmoor connection. It's also been released (as an independent world) under D20 et al. To cover it within a Greyhawk video, given the relatively tiny space labelled "Blackmoor" on the GH map that bears little relationship to Arneson's setting, would not be doing it justice.

Can you elaborate? I'm trying to make sense of what you're saying!