...that is nominally supported "officially" and heavily supported "unofficially"....
But now we're getting the suggestion that WotC is dropping Greyhawk as the default, and they've become increasingly hostile to overt Greyhawk support in Dungeon (Manzorian?!? Come on!)
...So, while it isn't my personal preference, I can see why they made their decision, and I can't fault their logic. I have to admit, they're doing the right thing for the hobby as a whole, even if they're not doing the right thing for Greyhawk fans specificially.
I once agreed with this. Now I'm coming to the conclusion that GH fans are a much larger base than WotC is willing to recognize. Further, they tend to be a bit older I think, and thus have money to spend on game materials.
On the other hand, GH doesn't lend itself well to successful novels, which may very well be part of WotC's marketing strategy.
Regards,
Jack,
increasingly disgrunted GH fan
I think the lack of GH novels compaired to the FR novels has impacted the world. Having played or DMed just about every Official GH module published in 1st and 2ed, I have to say that there was never any really compelling reason to locate them in any particular world. Sure, it was nice to have a shared map, but the adventures were such Stand alones, that it never really mattered what world you set them in. The same is true for the old Basic (B series) and Expert (X series) adventures.
What I always felt GH was missing was exactly what DUNGEON is providing, and that is setting specific Adventure Paths. Maybe GH needs more World-changing detailed adventures that can make players feel part of the world. The Liberation of Geoff would be a great AP that would allow PCs to specialize in Giant Hunting. The old 2ed version blew and was not realls an adventure so much as a Gazeteer.
The Defense of the Verse, Reclaimation of the Pamjari (which I never spell correctly) or some other regionally important event that was made into an AP that allowed the PCs to feel ownership of part of the world is what FR gets through its novels, I think the same feeling could be captured through APs that are exclusively GH. No watering down names to make them generic. Any one who is going to make use the adventure outside of GH can do that easily enough on their own.
Thoughts?
ASEO out
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I recall a few novels by WOTC revisiting "classic" dungeons, such as Vault of the Drow, and the Tomb of Horrors. They weren't bad one-off novels. They were Greyhawk, although they focused on character developmment, not world event development.
I have to be honest, in all this I am a ravid FR fan, and it's the only world I am inclined to run my D&D campaign in right now. That being said, I ran in Greyhawk when I DM'ed in university, so I have some fondness for the setting -- if I were to run a one-off, or a short adventure arc, I'd have no problem setting it in Greyhawk. I also play in the LG RPGA.
Now Eberron, I just don't get -- to me, it has a number of interesting ideas, but the whole package doesn't seem to gel with me. It feels cobbled together, and lacking in tone. Maybe it is because it's still new, and these things take time to develop. But to me it feels like too many nifty ideas have been jammed together simply because it's nifty. But I *really* like their outer planes set-up, and the idea of urban lower-class humanoids like goblins.
Thinking about it, it would be my guess that WOTC wants Paizo to stay away from big names like "Greyhawk" in big-line adventure paths because they *don't* want people clammoring for support product. They want to leave it nice and generic. If you set a hardcover Adventure Path in Greyhawk, you'll have people wanting details on that city, and that starts the whole ball rolling towards market fragmentation.
To my knowledge, they didn't skwak when the adventure mentions the Cairn Hills, or the like. WOTC doesn't seem to have an issue with single adventures from Dungeon set in the setting. They just want to keep Greyhawk low on the radar as a "generic" base-line setting.
Am I right on this?
Greyhawk appears to have been "discontinued" because it wasn't "sexy" enough. There was nothing about the tone or feel that said "This is different".
Just a guess here, but have you ever actually read the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer? You sound like one of the many people who formed their opinion of the setting through a means other then reading or playing it, like secondhand descriptions or a quick skimming of the rather flavorless examples of "Greyhawk" content in the current rulebooks.
It's a war-torn, gritty world with tons of political gaming potential and a unique "Gygaxian" quirkiness. Every bit as distinctive as Forgotten Realms or Eberron.
Admittedly, it doesn't help that it seems as though Erik and the rest of the Paizo crew have been strongly-encouraged (required, even?) to not use the setting lore to its full potential in adventures.
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I've set a campaign in Greyhawk, and I played there through my college years.
I love Greyhawk, but maybe I'm instead responding to that lack of "continuity" referenced above. You play an adventure, then you go to a different part of the world and you play a different adventure, and it doesn't seem as though there is necessarily much connection between them.... The world isn't static, but it isn't as dynamic as a world should be when the PCs become involved....
In any case, it is like most "homebrew" worlds I've encountered and created. It really does make a good "baseline" D&D world. At least, in my opinion. Nothing about it screams "This is different! This is unique!" Now, maybe it is because it is old enough to have inspired the other worlds, and they've taken on aspects of Greyhawk, but again, I never felt "drawn in" to the world of Greyhawk. But that's true for Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance also. I like homebrews more, usually.
What is actually happening here is just old fashioned robber baron capitalism. WotC owns all of the settings that would "fragment" the market, so unfortunately for all of us Greyhawk, Mystara, Ravenloft (the list goes on and on) fans, we just aren't going to see any new products of these settings.
It really isn't about "market fragmentation". It's about controlling the market and limiting competition. WotC seems to believe that keeping some settings off the market will force consumers to buy the settings that WotC wants to support.
This is a very bad strategy. They could have a win-win situation by licensing the settings to other companies. This way they would make a small amount of $$$ off of the settings with each sale at YLGS without a large expenditure of their own resources and they could still focus on Eberron. The onerous should be on WotC to make Eberron better than any other setting that it has to compete against. Even if it's a setting that they own and have licensed to another company.
WotC's parent company, Hasbro, has been accused of monopolistic behavior in the past. Go figure. It's how they do business and it works. It's bad for Greyhawk. It's bad for Pazio. It's bad for the consumers. :(
--Ray.
It looks like I will be saving a bunch of money on gaming books.
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For whatever it's worth, I was never a fan of Greyhawk during the 20+ years I have been playing RPGs. The main reason was apathy towards the way it was presented (shallow, I know) and ignorance. Given the way Paizo has fleshed out some of the campaign with their articles, supplements and adventures I find myself actually enjoying the setting very much. In fact I have chased down some old modules and boxed sets.
It might not be a bad thing if WoTC drops GH as the 'core' world and allows Paizo or some other company to publish for the setting.
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Until someone tells me "don't mention any Greyhawk stuff in the magazines, ever," I'm frankly not that worried about it.
--Erik
I guess my big questions, and this may be overly direct, if so I appologize in advance...
Will this give you (Paizo) a more free hand in using materials that are set in Greyhawk?
-and-
Will you still be accepting Greyhawk themed adventures/utilizing Grewhawk elements and locations? (say, what if someone were to submit a city/piratically themed adventure that incorporated the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Brazen Blades in Port Toli?)
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If you *had* been drawn in by it, you'd be more inclined to notice how specific and odd it is compared to its influences, rather than take for granted the watered-down forms Gygaxianisms take in the overall D&D culture. But the fanbase is split: for some of them, Greyhawk has a lot to do with heavy political machinations, canonical geography and characters and timeline, which is what many of the 2E books stressed.
I remember a "creative writing" assignment I had to do in 6th grade comparing apples and oranges. My major point was that for every difference, you could define 100 similarities in the common differences.
Both an apple and an orange are not a car. That is something they have in common.
Now, recognizing everything that is unique and different about Greyhawk - so what?
First of all there are plenty of "real world" aspects that managed to creep into the world. The religious background of countries like Zeif and Ket bear an uncanny resemblance to Islam. The "demi-god" that refused god-hood sounds (can't think of his name, and certainly not the spelling) is an awful lot like Mohammed. Those kinds of aspects might well be reason enough not to "release" the setting in WotC's opinion, much like Disney won't release Song of the South again.
What specific aspect is "unique". There are interesting characters, but that is true in any setting. There are interesting political motivations, but that is true in any setting, etc... Greyhawk is a good setting. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with it. I like it, and I'd like more source books for it. I'd love it if WotC licensed it to Paizo.
But, I don't think it is going to happen. If it were going to happen it would be because someone here, someone who loves the setting would say "This is what Greyhawk is and this is why it's different from any other world. This is a marketing strategy that can't fail."
But people instead seem to want to say "It isn't like other settings. If you knew it better you'd know that."
If you can't point out what sets Greyhawk apart, you can't expect someone who isn't devoted to it to do so, and you can't expect a company to try to sell it to the uninitiated.
First of all there are plenty of "real world" aspects that managed to creep into the world. The religious background of countries like Zeif and Ket bear an uncanny resemblance to Islam. The "demi-god" that refused god-hood sounds (can't think of his name, and certainly not the spelling) is an awful lot like Mohammed. Those kinds of aspects might well be reason enough not to "release" the setting in WotC's opinion, much like Disney won't release Song of the South again.
I would be inclined to disagree. Forgotten Realms features not one, but two widely-seperated "Arabian" campaign areas: Calimshan and Zakhara, and both have been mentioned multiple times in WotC's products.
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What really distinguishes any setting is the nuance of how it works and what it's like, not easily listable gimmick differences, and conveying that is far from straightforward.
I disagree.
Eberron is clearly different from other fantasy worlds. Now, I've played there, and I don't particularly like it, but it has a clearly definable nuance, as well as "gimmicks" that make it different. What's different about Eberron?
First of all, magic is filtered throughout society. While powerful mages are rare, low-level mages are relatively common, making background magic an obvious component of such a campaign, from the lightning rails to the elevators or flying cars around Sharn.
Secondly, the setting tries to capture a "pulp-noir" feel, and it provides suggestions and a consistent art style in order to attempt this.
Thirdly, it tries to increase the feeling of cinematic action. I think it does the worst job on this point, but it did introduce the mechanic of the "action point" allowing a character to succeed in a heroic situation when failure would likely have otherwise been the result....
Those are distinct differences that I can point out and you can't really refute. Yes, Greyhawk is a good campaign world with lots of options, but it isn't unique. Or, the aspects that make it unique are often found in other campaign settings in such similar fashion that render the two nearly indistinguishable.
And you can say that people who really "learn" about greyhawk will see the differences, but that doesn't matter. It's all about perception, not reality. People keep saying "Greyhawk doesn't seem exciting. It's vanilla. It's plain."
Others disagree. It doesn't matter whether it is exciting and unique - it matters how the casual observer sees it. And nothing jumps out. Every aspect of the world is "core", so is also in other campaign settings. But things that make other campaign settings different (like Kender, or Warforged, etc) aren't in Greyhawk.
It's the natural result of the development of the line, but the perception that Greyhawk isn't unique is popular enough that supporting the line seems like a bad financial idea UNLESS the people that love the world can make the case for the uninitiated that IT REALLY IS different and unique and exciting, etc.
But, I don't see it happening.
We are absolutely still accepting adventrues set in the world of Greyhawk. We've got a couple on schedule for publication in the future (not counting Age of Worms, which is very, VERY Greyhawk friendly).
Thanks for the update James! My current campain is set in GH and any adventures you folks publish for the GH setting will be well recieved by my players and I! Keep up the great work.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Will this give you (Paizo) a more free hand in using materials that are set in Greyhawk?
I'm afraid I don't fully understand the question.
Will you still be accepting Greyhawk themed adventures/utilizing Grewhawk elements and locations? (say, what if someone were to submit a city/piratically themed adventure that incorporated the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Brazen Blades in Port Toli?)
We are absolutely still interested in Greyhawk proposals. That said, it's got to be a good adventure first and a Greyhawk adventure second, but that's ideally true of any of our setting-specific adventures and articles.
We just green-lit several Greyhawk adventure proposals on Friday.
--Erik
We are absolutely still interested in Greyhawk proposals. That said, it's got to be a good adventure first and a Greyhawk adventure second, but that's ideally true of any of our setting-specific adventures and articles.
We just green-lit several Greyhawk adventure proposals on Friday.
--Erik
Care to give any hints on what they are about and their locations?
Perhaps you could give an estimate in which issues these will be, for starters?
Stefan
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I'm afraid I don't fully understand the question.
Will this give you (Paizo) a more free hand in using materials that are set in Greyhawk?
Basically, I mean would it increase your freedom in using 'Greyhawk Players' names... like Tenser, Bigby, Otto, etc., instead of proxing in substitutes (as was speculated with a Tenser/Manzorian switch)?
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Creative Director
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We can't release any details about adventure proposals we've accepted this early, mostly because a lot can happen between a proposal being accepted and the adventure seeing print in the magazine. Assuming everything goes perfectly right, it's usually about a year between proposal acceptance and printed adventure.
The "What's coming next month" columns in the letters pages of the magazines is generally as far out as we like to go when it comes to announcing articles, actually.
Thirdly, it tries to increase the feeling of cinematic action. I think it does the worst job on this point, but it did introduce the mechanic of the "action point" allowing a character to succeed in a heroic situation when failure would likely have otherwise been the result....
Just to pick a small nit... ;) Eberron didn't introduce action points. They're a component of d20 Modern, and they also appear in Unearthed Arcana. I'm not sure if UA came before Eberron or not, but I know d20M did.
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Just to pick a small nit... ;) Eberron didn't introduce action points. They're a component of d20 Modern, and they also appear in Unearthed Arcana. I'm not sure if UA came before Eberron or not, but I know d20M did.
I do know that Eberron came out just before Unearthed Arcana. Or at least, I remember starting with action points just before that book came out.
I don't really know about d20 modern, but similar mechanics exist in other games as well. Perhaps it is better to say that they introduced the mechanic to D&D, which isn't quite the same as "d20".
Perhaps it is better to say that they introduced the mechanic to D&D, which isn't quite the same as "d20".
We're going a bit off-topic here, but technically, d20 and d20 modern are not the same system. Thus, action points were introduced to d20 and D&D in Unearthed Arcana. ;)
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A creator's right to his creation needs to be respected as a matter of morality, superceding more selfish concerns.
Fortunately we are dealing with business, copyrights, and intellectual property, as opposed to morality and creative stangnancy. A creators right to his creation lasts as long as he wants to keep it, when he sells it, quite literally selling out, he forfiets that right, both legally, ethically and morally to be blunt. If Gygax wanted to keep creating GH he shouldn't have let it, or TSR, go :)
Fortunately Jacobs and Mona seem to have the passion required to reinvigorate this setting, should they be able to get their hands on it, and by belonging to Paizo as opposed to WOTC (and thus Hasbro), it will be far away from the bean counters with their synergies and holistic realignments for positive end win/win scenarios (so they can get enough bonus payments to buy their second home), and purists who resent change and progression and cannot grasp that in a capitalist society products, whether created and engineered, disappear if they are not marketable. I think we have been here before and once again D&D is not a piece of art with subjective material value (although many books typsettings and interior art is...erm, well art to be honest).
I agree that market forces can suck and screw up wondrous things but basically it is possible to operate within those constraints whilst maintaining creative integrity and remaining profitable enough to stay afloat. To suggest that creativity and marketablilty are some how mutually exclusive is churlish, likewise it is reactionary to state it, or anyone who simply understands how the world works, is selfish. Odd word to use in the same sentence as the word respect.
Once again different strokes for different folks :) Although, at the end of the day I think Yamo and I both love the GH setting (possibly evident by the strength of our feelings), although we clearly have differing opinions on what should be the next step in the evolution of this fantastic and gritty world :) Let's all just hope it turns out for the best as unless we personally get many millions of dollars I doubt we can majorly influence the end result either way. At the end of the day Hasbro's shareholders are their lord's and masters, and if someone offers enough money I doubt they will let WOTC keep it for long.
Well, I picked up Eberron the other day to see if I would like it for my possible next campaign, but I backpedalled pretty quickly. It has some cool stuff in it and if I had never played GH, I probably would try it, but the thought of a new campaign in a new world just has me running back to GH as quickly as I can.
The point's already been made by others--us 30-40 somethings have way more disposable income to spend on D&D than starving college and high school students.
WotC should take note of me and all the other "old-timers" that play D&D. While GH may be an "old" setting, nostalgia sells. Keeping GH vigorous and alive can't possibly suck money away from the other settings--I think they just think it does.
What percentage of the D&D playing population plays in Eberron? 10-15%? I don't know...it's just a guess. The same Eberron Campaign setting sourcebook has been sitting in the same spot on its shelf at my local Barnes & Noble for about a year...I know it's the same one because it has a little crease in the spine and I looked at it when I was buying a birthday present for a friend of mine in October last year. (I got him the FR Campaign Sourcebook instead)
The point's already been made by others--us 30-40 somethings have way more disposable income to spend on D&D than starving college and high school students.
They should, but you have to remember the unfortunate fact that D&D was purchased by a company that got rich quick selling Magic and Pokemon cards to kiddies, so that's the same market they're keen on selling D&D to now. It seems like no accident to me that the feat subsystem is so reminicent of collectable card game design (some feats are even designed to work in "combinations"; a concept very familiar to CCG players) and the new collectable minis and heavy emphasis on them in the rulebooks is reminicent of both Warhammer and various "clix" games. They're so used to relying on this fickle segment of the game market that they're blind to the more reliable, less "boom and bust" source of income that veteran adult hobbiests represent.
I feel it will ultimately be as much WotC's loss as ours once D&D numbers drop enough that new edition sales spikes still aren't enough to prevent Hasbro from pulling the plug on the line. The bright side is that perhaps then the D&D trademark will be sold to a company that values customers like us a bit more.
I actually don't mind the miniatures sold in the booster packs...I've always hated painting miniatures, mostly because I'm really bad at it. I've got a couple of hundred of the plastic throw-downs now and they all pack into zip lock bags in a briefcase and I don't have to worry about protecting them in individual little padded compartments.
I would love it if Greyhawk was officially taken over by Paizo, because then we could see Greyhawk specific material getting the respect it has lacked in the "official" books. I would like to see a 300+ page hard cover of Greyhawk, updated for 3.5, with Greyhawk specific monsters, prestige classes, regional feats and lots of cool, nifty new artwork and maps. Heck, I picked up Dave Arneson's Blackmoor sight unseen, because Blackmoor is in the north of the Flanaess.
...then WotC could see how badly they miscalculated their customers....., but maybe I'm just wishful thinking.
Does anyone have any new info on this? Is Paizo going to get the rights to Greyhawk? What is the future of the World of Greyhawk? If anyone can elaborate, it would be greatly appreciated.
Don't hold your breath.
WotC (which owns Paizo) already has little tolerance for overt Greyhawk content, and will certainly not permit it to compete in a meaningful way with Forgotten Realms or Eberron.
My two cents :)
Jack
Does anyone have any new info on this? Is Paizo going to get the rights to Greyhawk? What is the future of the World of Greyhawk? If anyone can elaborate, it would be greatly appreciated.Don't hold your breath.
WotC (which owns Paizo) already has little tolerance for overt Greyhawk content, and will certainly not permit it to compete in a meaningful way with Forgotten Realms or Eberron.
My two cents :)
Jack
I don't think WotC owns Paizo--they license Dungeon and Dragon magazine to Paizo, but they don't OWN it, unless I'm way off mark.
I don't think WotC owns Paizo--they license Dungeon and Dragon magazine to Paizo, but they don't OWN it, unless I'm way off mark.
WoTC doesn't own Paizo, but they do own the magazines and the content within (I guess). Apparently Paizo has the rights to republish anything within, as evidenced by the Dragon Compendium and Shackled City hardcover.
Personally, I think Paizo acquiring the rights to Greyhawk would be a godsend. I didn't get into D&D until the early 3e days, and picked up the FR books due mostly to it being the only setting I was familiar with (mostly through various computer games). It was Dungeon's "30 greatest adventures" article last year that piqued my interest in Greyhawk (though paying $30+ for the latest FR sourcebook that was nice to look at but an indescribably dull read helped too), and I've found it to not only have an incredibly rich history, but also amazing flexibility. I wish there was more to be had, and I'd really like to see Paizo's stamp on the material, but I'll keep buying Dungeon and Dragon as long as the 'Hawk gets the love.
Hunter
Well, I run a VERY long running Realms game and a moderately long Greyhawk game, and never the twain shall meet, so I'll state my opinion loud and clear.
The problem is Eberron. I love Greyhawk and the Realms both, they're very different types of worlds with different sorts of flavors.
But because I've been gaming since I was a little kid, around 9 years old, and I remember the deadly, obnoxious dungeons of days of old, where characters were eaten up like pixy sticks unless you were A) Careful and B) Smart. Characters banded to adventure together because you NEEDED TO to survive.
I really can't stand the idea of "Action Points" or a "Racially Accepted Diversity Didactic" the way that Eberron presents things. And we're not talking black vs. white here, or any sort of relationship that might exist in the real world. We're talking about goblins, ogres, and other creatures whose alignment is "Mostly Evil" being accepted in society. I long for the good old days when if you saw an orc, you killed him, and if you saw a half-orc, you STILL might kill him, especially if you were an elf or a half elf.
A lot of the newer gamers want a world where they can be truly fantastic heroes who accomplish really amazing things, but I'll take a more human world where you have to be more careful, prepare for combats and husband your resources carefully.
I love Greyhawk because it's a world with a complex political structure that often runs into itself, and the PC's must forge their way through it at times in order to locate and destroy really soulless and ancient evils.
I love the Realms because in the Realms the focus is really on character and character development, and on the human price of adventuring. Sometimes, that price is too high, and it's when characters learn that in one of my games that I feel that I'm really running the Realms.
Eberron is great if you like pulp fantasy, and while I still love Conan, King Kull, and the like, I think that creating a setting like this without the PERFECT GM for it (And thankfully, I do have one, though this guy wasn't running the game I would claw my eyes out and beg for death)is absolute folly.
But most of my problems with Eberron come down to this:
I would rather die than play a cleric in this world. I can play a cleric of ANYTHING, my domains can be ANYTHING, and I can justify anything. If I want to be a cleric of the Hearth God of Cheese, I can, and my domains can be Food and Decay! This is utterly ridiculous. Now you might say "This is a really fun character to play," but I like a little more seriousness when I roleplay than to create a character like this. Religion is poorly detailed, and effectively creates a situation where it's either Church of the Silver Flame, or "The Cheese God."
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The problem is Eberron.
You said it brother...
Eberron is great if you like pulp fantasy, and while I still love Conan, King Kull, and the like, I think that creating a setting like this without the PERFECT GM for...
But please don't insult Conan or Kull by relating them to Eberron. I mean come on, we're talking classic literary figures versus campaign world that only exists because the gods want to torment us.
Man,
I didn't even know that they were planning D&D4 , and that's my main concern right now!!!
After the quite "market troubling" advance from 3 to 3.5 , does that mean we are going to have a whole new edition soon , which means new basic books to buy , etc...?
Pff I'm not sure I'm going to buy those books AGAIN !!!
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I like the Greyhawk Setting (as I like the Forgotten Realms and Eberron ) and while I don't know anything about sale numbers, i can tell you something I experience from day to day in the german forums I read and post in: In Germany, D&D and FR are widely held for synonyms. Apart from RPGA-members (and myself), I don't know anybody who (if he or she knows it) likes or wish to support the World of Greyhawk. Forgotten Realms is what rules Germany, then comes Eberron (as far as D&D is concerned). So from a german point of view, WotC is right in their politics, even if we (especially the older players ) feel bad about it.
I also don't see the point in enmity against WotC. They have to make profits from their enterprise and I'm quite sure they gave full support to the Greyhawk Setting if they saw profit in it. But, given TSR's History (and failure),I can absolutely understand why they prefer to concentrate to a few settings and to drop support to the others.
I repeat: I like Greyhawk and I'm glad that it is supported by DUNGEON and DRAGON. But the fact is: I need two words to describe the Forgotten Realms to a new player ("Baldur's Gate" or "Neverwinter Nights") to give her a feeling for the setting's athmosphere. I need five minutes to explain, what sets Eberron apart from other D&D-specific settings. But I can easily talk for some about the world of Greyhawk, and my PLayer won't understand what makes it unique (especially with respect to the FR). And if it is a young player, chances are that he won't like what he hears (as he will probably prefer Stephen King to Bram Stoker, if you get my point, it's just a matter of style).
I didn't even know that they were planning D&D4 , and that's my main concern right now!!!
*sigh* They're not. It's all rumor and speculation garnered by individuals who think they have business sense and superior insight enought o predict Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast's immediate business plans.
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I repeat: I like Greyhawk and I'm glad that it is supported by DUNGEON and DRAGON. But the fact is: I need two words to describe the Forgotten Realms to a new player ("Baldur's Gate" or "Neverwinter Nights") to give her a feeling for the setting's athmosphere. I need five minutes to explain, what sets Eberron apart from other D&D-specific settings. But I can easily talk for some about the world of Greyhawk, and my PLayer won't understand what makes it unique (especially with respect to the FR). And if it is a young player, chances are that he won't like what he hears (as he will probably prefer Stephen King to Bram Stoker, if you get my point, it's just a matter of style).
The only thing that you needed to say about Greyhawk to define it is " it is the core-rulebook default setting." all the other political stuff is fluff. White Plume Mountain, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Horrors, Keep on the Borderlands, just to name a few, ARE Greyhawk. Several computer games are also set in Greyhawk, however none are out lately due to WOTC dropping support for Greyhawk. I will never buy or play any game that supports the Eberron setting, including computer games. I could play Steampunk if I wanted a world with techno-magic. I don't want to hop a train in D&D. Even if you use magic to explain how the train is not Tech, it still ring of tech.
I also stopped buying D&D minis when I got a warforged hero(robot). I hate the setting. If Greyhawk is coup de graced, I will probably never buy anothe WOTC product outside of the core rulebooks again, as a symbol of protest.Sorry for the long post, but I have very strong feelings about this subject.
as always IMO
FH
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The only thing that you needed to say about Greyhawk to define it is " it is the core-rulebook default setting." all the other political stuff is fluff.
To quote our beloved Erik Mona from Scale Mail of Dragon #339 (and no offense meant):
I really hate the term "fluff", because its basically a bit of derision levelled by math-obsessed nerds who think the true joy of D&D comes in min-maxing a character to gain the greatest benefits for the lowest costs.
In my opinion its the fluff that matters and that decides the overall success of a given setting. You can read the three core-rulebooks forward and backwards, but will learn near to nothing about the world of Greyhawk (apart from the world's rule system, that is). So while defining Greyhawk as the "core-rulebook setting" is definitely true, it does nothing to help my players to decide if they want to play in this world. Besides, if they are new to the game, they have no connections to the famous "white plume mountain", "the temple of elemental evil" or other adventure locations. Worse, if they had the "luck" to play through a CRPG as "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" they have got the wrong impression by a bad game (at least compared to the stars of the genre).
I don't want to defend WotC, but I can't blame them either: Given their success, they have made the right decisions at the right time. I wouldn't like them to forbid the use of Greyhawk as background setting for any adventures, but if they decide to support other (and as it seems,more successful) settings, i can live with that.