aurdraco's page

Is Greyhawk usable with non-WoTC properties?

The adventure doesn't contain any Greyhawk IP. I do reference my time as a Triad member of the Bandit Kingdoms region during Living Greyhawk in the intro. My other book, BDKR1: The Unofficial Living Greyhawk Bandit Kingdoms Summary, is a catalog of the BK's adventures during LG and did survive a WoTC DMCA notice (as I knew it would). Perhaps you are thinking of that book?

Scorf, my book, "BDKR1: The Unofficial Living Greyhawk Bandit Kingdoms Summary", is now available for sale. In it, you will find the information you are looking for.

Good gaming!

https://www.createspace.com/3808908

I never had a problem with this. In all of the fantasy I have ever read this is just the way it has always been. Spellcasters are ALWAYS more powerful than non-spellcasters as far as sheer power goes. For it to be otherwise would not be true to the genre. I think the balance of power is pretty close to what it should be right now. The Conan's and t he like still have tricks up their sleeves that are not necessarily sheer power that help them come out on top despite the odds. Having said that though the other classes are definately no slouches these days when it comes to damaging potential. If you want a character that can do everything well... play a spell caster. That is what magic is for.

Charles

One good fantasy example I can think of where the high level melee type can hang with his high-leveled caster friend is Tomas from Feist's "Magician" series. Early on in the series, after Tomas gains the Valheru's powers, Macros, an epic caster in the series, could easily squish Tomas. However, later in the series, as Tomas grows into his powers, it becomes more and more clear that he is just as powerful as Pug (Macros' successor), having quite a few nifty spell-like abilities at his disposal in addition to his combat prowess and resistance to magic. Tomas had essentially taken up the mantle of a demi-god and was wearing artifacts (his armor, etc.), so he's kind of cheating since he's not really a normal mortal anymore (then again, neither was/is Macros and neither is Pug).

One thing I really like about Feist's magic system is that different beings use different kinds of magic. Macros lived with a dragon to learn how it used magic, he couldn't just research it and add the dragon's spells to his spellbook when he leveled. Tomas, as a Valheru, has magic that neither Pug nor Macros can duplicate. Pug had to live with the eldar elves to learn some of their magic, etc. I wish D&D did more of this instead of just having big spell lists open to any caster of that class (i.e., spells could have a "racial" material component. Component: V, S, M [1 can of Dr. Pepper], R [dragon]. Obviously, as a DM, I can choose to do this on my own, and I will).

Marshals. They completely messed up how the minor and major auras should have worked (minor auras are way too powerful). In Living Greyhawk, my PC ended up with a unicorn cohort. I gave it a level of marshal for fun. With a 30 Cha, that could have been a +10 to initiative if I had really wanted to be cheesy (instead, I gave it the master of tactics aura and let my TWF improved crit [rapier] sneak attacking rogue/templar mutt do silly damage when flanking the BBEG. At least this way my PC still had to get into danger to use the marshal's bonus).

I also ban Occult Slayers because they do not have an "ex-Occult Slayer" write up. I tend to ban anything that has restrictions in the fluff text but no rules to back those up. Too many players argue, "but the class doesn't say my PC can't accept healing/buffs from my cleric friend! My PC hates all mortal spellcasters, except him!" despite that being what the class is all about.

I also ban almost everything that bumps initiative. When we gave the Bonehearts all the LG legal spells that could bump their initiatives from the SpC and other sources, it was just silly. I think Cranzer ended up with a +26 initiative, and we didn't even give him a Marshall mook.

Raymond E. Feist's _Magician_. The BEST fantasy book of the modern era, imo. Also, it's huge (600 plus pages). In the US, it's sometimes sold as two books, Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master. I'd get those before buying the Author's Preferred Edition hardback. You should be able to find them at any decent book store. If you like it, there are a ton of sequals (A Darkness at Sethanon is pretty damned good).

If you like Gibson, go grab Philip K. Dick's _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep_ (aka Blade Runner), or any of his other works.

If you are into Star Wars, Zahn's trilogy that is set after Return of the Jedi is the way to go.

(edited)

Realistically, I don't think that Wizards of the Coast were intending to make much from sales of 4E campaign settings anyway, given the schedule of 'three books only' (one for players, one for DMs, and one adventure) for each setting, although I'm unclear (not having any RPGA experience) what effect the 4E 'living' campaign ostensibly being set in FR would have on saleable material in circulation for 4E FR.

We were always told that LG had a very small, if not negligable, impact on the sales of WOTC products, despite its massive popularity. I find this hard to believe. LG's play numbers, over 8 years, were high enough that when the players purchased books, they probably impacted the sales in an appreciable manner, albeit a small one. Also, LGCS revisions, notably Chris Tulach's, opened up as Core/Open many splatbook items, ostensibly to help sell books. These options certainly did not improve or protect the flavor of Greyhawk or the campaign, imo.

Casey
former BK Triad

In addition, you might want to email Crieghton of the LG Circle. He probably has Bigby statted out for use in Living Greyhawk modules, or knows which region to contact to get those stats.

I believe that Eric Menge, formerly of the LG Geoff Triad (probably the LG region that most developed fey), wrote an article re: the fey and the Seelie and Unseelie realms for WOTC (possibly published in Dungeon or Dragon magazine, or in the Oerth Journal). If you can find it, there should be some good stuff in it.

For a fey leader, are there verdant prince's in 4.0? Maybe you can adapt one from 3.5. While a verdant prince's 3.5 powers are a bit goofy, imo, they are the spitting image of what a fey lord might look like (apparently the writers of Hellboy 2 somewhat agreed). Give him a couple of joystealer, redcap, and treant guards/servants (along with other fey as desired), and he'll be good-to-go.

An LG mod, Iuz?-?? Mad House by Britt Frey featured an intelligent CN house that liked to mess with people. It only tried to kill occult slayers, as it was built by Zagyg. If you have a copy of that, you might mine it for ideas.

So it sounds like only on Faerun do the terms "drow" and "dark elves" have different meanings.

They also mean different things on Krynn in the Dragonlance setting. Dark elves on Krynn are elves who have been exiled by other elves (such as Dalamar). They do not have black skin nor are they subterranean (although I believe some of the Elmore artwork gave Dalamar very dark skin due to the confusion re: dark elf vs. drow). In the _Annotated Chronicles_, Weis and Hickman talk about how the terms "drow" and "dark elf" hadn't been codified yet when they started writing.

/rereading the _Annotated Chronicles_ at the moment, or I wouldn't have remembered that

aurdraco wrote:

They needed to advance the timeline so that the new administrators and authors of LFR (as well as future novel authors) would not have to memorize tons of FR canon, a lesson they probably learned from LG.

Quite frankly, if the new admins and authors were unwilling to or felthat it was too much work to learn the canon, they probably shouldn't be appointed as the admin or author. Isn't that a bit like assigning someone to teach microbiology even if they don't want to study biology first? Seems like irresponsible business sense to me.

just 2cp

In theory I agree, if being an LFR admin/author was a full-time paid research position (imagine going to university to earn a degree in Realmslore with a focus on Thayan Politican Science just so you could land a gig at WOTC writing for FR). However, the reality is that there is far too much canon material to expect an UNPAID author/admin, who is only producing 4 mods a year for his region, to memorize all the FR canon. Even narrowing it down to just the areas specific to their region would take a year of research (except for the "new" regions, like the dragonborn area). As most (and probably all) of these people have real-world jobs and families to occupy their time (I know that Konrad and Travis do, two of the admins for the TX/OK/etc. region), it's simply not possible. Also, canonphiles do not always make the best admins or authors.

No, at most the admins/authors should have a working knowledge of FR canon. More importantly, they should know where to look to get more information (products from past editions of the games, canon resources online, etc. In LG, for the Bandit Kingdoms, the old _Iuz the Evil_ sourcebook was invaluable, but that didn't mean that I had it memorized). Honestly, I'd guess that about 80-90% of the LG players that I met had very little Greyhawk canon knowledge prior to playing LG. If my predecessors had trotted out Iuzian priests in purple robes in year 1 of LG, I doubt few players would have blurted out, "But they are supposed to be in white bloodstained robes!" at the gaming table. Hence, the need to get canon 100% right is pretty small. The goal, imo, should be to get the overall _feel_ for the region correct and let the little details get sorted out over time. As time goes by, the admins and authors will do more and more research about their region, which _should_ improve the "canon-ness" of their mods.

Imo, the best that the new LFR staff could have hoped for re: canon research would have been for WOTC to publish a Living FR Gazateer prior to the start of the campaign that summarizes each region's important elements (similar to the Living Greyhawk Gazateer but more thorough. In a perfect gamer world, the LFR admins would be full-time paid employess who were given two years to write a gazateer entry for their regions prior to the start of the campaign. However, their salaries would have been prohibitively expensive to WOTC [someone ask the RPGA people at WOTC how much they make and you'll see what I mean]). While such a new FR sourcebook is forthcoming, I imagine that writing one with nearly a clean slate (due to the timeline advancement) was seen as far less arduous/costly than writing one that focused heavily on canon material and picked up where the last FR products (be they novels or modules) left off. After all, I bet that WOTC isn't assuming that every LFR player will know FR canon. Now, they don't really even have to worry about it.

People should also keep in mind that the Faerun timeline was advanced because WOTC is starting the Living Forgotten Realms campaign later this year at GenCon. What Living Greyhawk was for 3rd edition, they hope LFR will be for 4th. They needed to advance the timeline so that the new administrators and authors of LFR (as well as future novel authors) would not have to memorize tons of FR canon, a lesson they probably learned from LG. Imo, this is a mistake, as playing in the time of the end of the current canon is what probably attracts a good many people to a living campaign. Living campaigns, theoretically, are supposed to allow players to have some impact on the future canon. By jumping forward hundreds of years, WOTC has created a rift between "old" FR canon and whatever canon LFR will create, if any (I doubt many of the results from Living Greyhawk will ever be incorporated into Greyhawk's canon on purpose unless someone who was once a LG triad or Circle member ever becomes the content manager for future Greyhawk materials, regardless of publisher).

Also, WOTC advanced the timeline to give them space to add in things like the dragonborn nation, make "fixes" to various FR nations, peoples, etc.

BTW, I agree with people who say that WOTC should have left Faerun alone and should have created a new world to be 4th edition's Core world (thank the FSM it wasn't Eberron, though). To me, there are three major classic canon D&D worlds: Oerth, Toril, and Krynn. I don't really much care what anyone does to Eberron, Mystara, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, etc., but I would prefer if they adapted new editions of D&D to the big three instead of adapting the big three to D&D.

Personally, I've run and played in a lot of games in which Spellcrafting to cast defensively (or, Concentration as it was) was an auto-success. And to tell you the truth, I didn't mind it. There is nothing worse than being the group's cleric, running up to heal your bud and screwing up the spell beause of an AOO. I think the mechanics are just fine if casters basically never provoke AOOs for spellcasting.

I agree as long as the caster isn't attacking someone right next to them. However, I like the idea of a scaled check, using BAB to modify the DC to represent an intelligent bad guy's ability to guage when he could interrupt your concentration, when the caster is trying to slap a spell on an enemy who threatens him. Imo, it should be harder to avoid an AoO for casting when trying to slap-and-tickle (not in the good way) a 20th level fighter than a 1st level commoner.

I really enjoyed the Living Greyhawk book that was put out a few years back. There was a brief write up of each nation with a bit of history, some court intrigue and future ideas for adventure. It is probably out of print. Wonder if it is available as a pdf? You could also check out the LG websites for the different regions for specific info on the area you like. I found lots of good stuff about Veluna and Geoff there. Will these sites have to shut down with 4E?

Living Greyhawk released the various Triads from service at the end of June, 2008, with the official end of the campaign at Origins this year (mods can still be ordered until Dec. 31st). I can't speak for the other regions' websites, but after LG's demise was announced last year at GenCon, we quit worrying about keeping our website up. Instead, we are hoping to create an archive for future use by Greyhawk canon enthusiasts (an update of the Gazateer's entries, complete with maps, 3.5 stats for major NPCs and monsters, etc.).

For the person looking to run a new Greyhawk campaign, you can still find an absolute ton of canon material online via canonfire.com (including Eric Anondson's awesome maps of various regions of Oerth), Ebay, the Oerth Journal (which Mona used to edit, iirc) and other old, archived sites. Really busy DMs can have fun converting old modules (G1-3 Against the Giants, etc.) into 3.X scenarios for their home campaigns and will have plenty of material to flesh out the campaign (plus, players under 30 have probably never played Secret of Bone Hill, Vault of the Drow, Against the Slavers, etc., or other old Greyhawk mods unless they played the Kenzer updated versions).

The beauty of Greyhawk, imo, is that there is so much old material that you can adapt what you want and ignore the rest. Like fighting giants? Focus on Geoff. Like elves? Highfolk. Like fighting demons? Furyondy/Shieldlands/Bandit Kingdoms. Anti-devils? Fight the Horned Society. Chaotic Neutral/Evil insanity? Stoink. Religious oppression? The Pale. Mercantile and aquatic adventures? Dyvers. Iggwilv? Perrenland. Wheels within wheels? The Free City of Greyhawk. Etc. Plus, if you really want some ideas, you can probably contact each region's retired Triad members and ask them a question or two (one of my colleagues used to ask Gygax questions from time to time and we would try to incorporate what he told us in the background of our BK adventures).

Also, if you have players that actively played Living Greyhawk, they will probably happily dive into a home-brew Greyhawk campaign even if set in a new region of Oerth.

Jason Bulmahn was a member of the Circle (Iuz Metaregion) for the LG campaign (he was Chris Tulach's predecessor). This must be why I like Pathfinder so much.

Casey
former BK Triad member and new fan of Pathfinder