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D&D (2024) How Does Greyhawk Fit In To The New Edition?

Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk.

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According to Game Informer — “the surprising importance and inclusions of what is arguably the oldest D&D campaign setting of them all – Greyhawk.”

So how does Greyhawk fit in? According to GI, the new 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide contains a sample setting—and that setting is, indeed, Greyhawk. Not only that, but the book will come with a double-sided poster map with the City of Greyhawk on one side and the Flannaes on the other—the eastern part of one of Oerth’s four continents.
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Even as the multiverse of D&D worlds sees increased attention, the Dungeon Master's Guide also offers a more discrete setting to get gaming groups started. After very few official releases in the last couple of decades, the world of Greyhawk takes center stage. The book fleshes out Greyhawk to illustrate how to create campaign settings of your own. Greyhawk was the original D&D game world crafted by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax, and a worthy setting to revisit on the occassion of D&D's golden anniversary. It's a world bristling with classic sword and sorcery concepts, from an intrigue-laden central city to wide tracts of uncharted wilderness. Compared to many D&D campaign settings, it's smaller and less fleshed out, and that's sort of the point; it begs for DMs to make it their own. The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed. For those eager to take the plunge, an included poster map of the Greyhawk setting sets the tone, and its reverse reveals a map of the city of the same name. "A big draw to Greyhawk is it's the origin place for such heroes as Mordenkainen, Tasha, and others," Perkins says. "There's this idea that the players in your campaign can be the next great world-hopping, spell-crafting heroes of D&D. It is the campaign where heroes are born."
- Game Informer​

 

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Oh, so you have read the chapter...?
I'm confident in the content, but you wanna bet internet somethings on it? I'm happy to. I'm very confident that it will broadly unchanged save for the removal of rough edges/stuff that doesn't fit with modernity, and very specifically that they won't have leaned into the "decline" or "mercenaries" aspects of the setting, both of which offer potential interest.
 

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Parmandur

Book-Friend
I'm confident in the content, but you wanna bet internet somethings on it? I'm happy to. I'm very confident that it will broadly unchanged save for the removal of rough edges/stuff that doesn't fit with modernity, and very specifically that they won't have leaned into the "decline" or "mercenaries" aspects of the setting, both of which offer potential interest.
No, precisely because I am not confident that I k own what they are going to do with it (aside from keeping it light).
 




Li Shenron

Legend
So now people are more motivated to buy the revised DMG because of Greyhawk?

How much did it matter to the 2014 DMG that Forgotten Realms was more or less the default setting? The last time Greyhawk was default (3e), it impacted the core books by... listing the Greyhawk deities, and pretty much nothing else. This round, at least there's gonna be two maps, and then "The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed."

There isn't usually enough room in a DMG to offer real material to create adventures that distinctively belong to a specific setting. That usually requires more than maps and lists or short descriptions: I think you need to know something about what is going on in the world, such as powers that be, organizations and key figures with their motives and relationships, maybe a bit of history.

Cleverly they choose a setting that "by design" is "much undetailed" so you pay to be told you need to do it yourself.

I think the original mistake is wanting a sample setting at all. You don't need an underdeveloped sample in 2024 in the DMG, when you can find many well developed sample settings with Google if you're interested in creating your own. They could use DMG space for more useful matters, or quit making a DMG that people buy just to have the whole set, read once, and then use it only for the magic items.
 


JEB

Legend
Tabaxi ended up absorbing Mystara's rakasta for that reason (and to fix the rakasta/raksasha naming issue).
Did they? I did that in my homebrew campaign's lore (I also lumped 3e's catfolk in there), but I didn't think Wizards had officially made the connection.
 

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
So now people are more motivated to buy the revised DMG because of Greyhawk?

How much did it matter to the 2014 DMG that Forgotten Realms was more or less the default setting? The last time Greyhawk was default (3e), it impacted the core books by... listing the Greyhawk deities, and pretty much nothing else. This round, at least there's gonna be two maps, and then "The book offers ample info to bring Greyhawk to life but leaves much undetailed."

There isn't usually enough room in a DMG to offer real material to create adventures that distinctively belong to a specific setting. That usually requires more than maps and lists or short descriptions: I think you need to know something about what is going on in the world, such as powers that be, organizations and key figures with their motives and relationships, maybe a bit of history.

Cleverly they choose a setting that "by design" is "much undetailed" so you pay to be told you need to do it yourself.

I think the original mistake is wanting a sample setting at all. You don't need an underdeveloped sample in 2024 in the DMG, when you can find many well developed sample settings with Google if you're interested in creating your own. They could use DMG space for more useful matters, or quit making a DMG that people buy just to have the whole set, read once, and then use it only for the magic items.
It doesn't change my mind; I'm still not buying it. I just find it interesting and enjoy discussing current events in gaming.
 

timbannock

Hero
Supporter
I think the original mistake is wanting a sample setting at all. You don't need an underdeveloped sample in 2024 in the DMG, when you can find many well developed sample settings with Google if you're interested in creating your own. They could use DMG space for more useful matters, or quit making a DMG that people buy just to have the whole set, read once, and then use it only for the magic items.
So much this!

If they spent that space on dungeon, wilderness, and settlement generators in the vein of Shadowdark and other books that do it concisely, and actually threw the weight of their design team (and the cash they have for art, diagrams, etc.) into it, that would be something.
 

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