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Was skimming through the 4ePHB in the store today and I noticed something in their blurb box about the history of D&D. They seemed pretty spot on about Gygax and Arneson's creation of D&D. But when they talked about the very 1st campaign settings.... Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance? Excuse me? Wasn't the 1st campaign setting Greyhawk? Where were all those classic modules set in?
Mystara was the setting for most of the old school modules.... CM, X, DA, series and so on...but then again that was just plain old Dungeons and Dragons so maybe it doesn't count.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Was skimming through the 4ePHB in the store today and I noticed something in their blurb box about the history of D&D. They seemed pretty spot on about Gygax and Arneson's creation of D&D. But when they talked about the very 1st campaign settings.... Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance? Excuse me? Wasn't the 1st campaign setting Greyhawk? Where were all those classic modules set in?
By most estimations, the first D&D campaign setting was Blackmoor, followed pretty closely by Greyhawk. In terms of which came next, you could probably make cases for the Known World (later Mystara) and the Forgotten Realms. Technically, Dragonlance was published the first Realms product, but by that time Realms articles had been a staple in Dragon magazine for some time.
1977 - First Fantasy Campaign (Blackmoor, but mostly a collection of campaign notes)
1980 - Greyhawk folio (greatly expanded in 1983)
1981 - Known World mentioned in X1
1984 - First Dragonlance module (campaign setting much later)
1985 - first Forgotten Realms module (H1: Bloodstone Pass)
1987 - Forgotten Realms Campaign Set
First Fantasy Campaign was published by Judge's Guild, so you could also make a case for City State of the Invincible Overlord (1976) being the first published setting. However, Blackmoor has kind of a special place in D&D history, as it was Dave Arneson's campaign setting, and gave its name to one of the original D&D supplements. Plus Blackmoor and Greyhawk were both going concerns by the time the first D&D books were published.
Pardon my rambling :)
Mystara was the setting for most of the old school modules.... CM, X, DA, series and so on...but then again that was just plain old Dungeons and Dragons so maybe it doesn't count.
Er, not exactly. The CM, X, etc modules didn't come out before the really old classics like G1, G2, G3, D1, D2, D3 and T1. Those were all set in Greyhawk. Mystara came later.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Mystara was the setting for most of the old school modules.... CM, X, DA, series and so on...but then again that was just plain old Dungeons and Dragons so maybe it doesn't count.
Yes, but as mentioned in the other thread, the Known World didn't exist until module X1 (Isle of Dread), published a year after the World of Greyhawk folio. B1 and B2 did predate the published Greyhawk campaign setting, but were almost entirely generic.
yeah I know but it just kills me that the Known World never gets any respect.... I know Greyhawk came first.... but without digging through my closet and counting, I wanna guess that most of the modules written in the 80s were set in the Known World rather than Dragonlance or any other setting for that matter. Its just that the Known World isn't relevant any more. If there was only a dual sword wielding Shadow Elf brooding hero.... then it woulda had a following
1985 - first Forgotten Realms module (H1: Bloodstone Pass)
1987 - Forgotten Realms Campaign Set
I've wondered about this - H1 being considered the first Forgotten Realms adventure. It's never been certain to me that the Forgotten Realms wasn't just modified to encompass Bloodstone when it first came out rather than H1 being a sort of preview. Kind of like how Kara-Tur was eventually repositioned as being part of the Forgotten Realms when it most clearly was not originally.
yeah I know but it just kills me that the Known World never gets any respect....
Probably because it didn't get the "Advanced D&D" logo on the front. ;-)
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I have written for ZG and for Dave Arneson, have had him DM for me, ran his MMRPG for two years and had the pleasure of many meals, many discussions, and some really solid DMing advice. I wrote Riders of Hak and contributed to The Player's Guide and the Softcover Campaign Guide.
Dave and Gary didn't always get along, but I KNOW that they ultimately respected each other's work and contribution to our hobby. To discount them is revisionist history and offensive to me on some basic levels.
Yes Blackmoor came first, but Greyahwk was right there with it, and I really think you cannot understand the development of one without the development of the other.
I just liken it to Star Trek after Roddenberry passed on. Some people enjoyed the new writers, some thought the vision was over.
Why is this thread in customer service?
Why is this thread in customer service?
I was expecting some kind of twist Like "Paizo to take on Blackmoor campaign setting!" or "Dave Arneson joins the Pathfinder team" everybody else is...
Here is the piece of text in question.
Before roleplaying games, before computer games,
before trading card games, there were wargames. Using
metal miniatures to re-create famous battles from history,
wargamers were the original hobby gamers. In
1971, Gary Gygax created Chainmail, a set of rules that
added fantastic creatures and magic into the traditional
wargame. In 1972, Dave Arneson approached Gygax
with a new take; instead of controlling a massive army,
each player would play a single character, a hero. Instead
of fighting each other, the heroes would cooperate to
defeat villains and gain rewards. This combination of
rules, miniatures, and imagination created a totally new
entertainment experience, and in 1974 Gygax and Arneson
published the first set of roleplaying game rules with
TSR, Inc.—the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game.
In 1977, the rules were rewritten and repackaged into
the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Basic Set, and suddenly D&D was
on its way to becoming a phenomenon. A year later, the first
edition of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS was published
in a series of high-quality hardcover books.
Throughout the 1980s, the game experienced remarkable
growth. Novels, a cartoon series, computer games, and the
first campaign settings (FORGOTTEN REALMS and DRAGONLANCE)
were released, and in 1989 the long-awaited second edition
of AD&D took the world by storm. The 1990s started out
strong, with the release of more campaign settings (including
RAVENLOFT, DARK SUN, and PLANESCAPE), but as the decade
was drawing to a close, the D&D juggernaut was losing
steam. In 1997, Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR, Inc.
and moved its creative staff to Seattle to begin work on the
third edition of the original roleplaying game.
In 2000, the third edition of D&D was released, and
it was hailed as an innovation in game mechanics. In
this period, D&D reached new heights of popularity,
celebrated its thirtieth anniversary, and published an
amazing collection of rulesbooks, supplements, and
adventures. We’ve seen D&D grow and make its mark
on popular culture. It has inspired multiple generations
of gamers, writers, computer game designers, filmmakers,
and more with its ability to expand the imagination and
inspire creativity.
Now we’ve reached a new milestone. This is the 4th
Edition of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game. It’s new. It’s
exciting. It’s bright and shiny. It builds on what has gone
before, and firmly establishes D&D for the next decade of
play. Whether you were with the game from the beginning
or just discovered it today, this new edition is your key to a
world of fantasy and adventure.
Just as a point of interest. In my copy of B1, under background notes, it says:
In the mythical WORLD OF GREYHAWK (available from TSR) the stronghold can be considered within any one of the following lands- the Barony of Ratik, the Duchy of Tenh, or the Theocracy of the Pale.
I know I bought my boxed set in March of 1979.
I believe this note was a bit of preselling their next product, which I don't think was actually out yet. The Giant/Drow series and the Tomb of Horrors were listed for sale on the back cover.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Well, since "campaign setting" isn't a dictionary term, I guess it can be defined as "a fictional world for roleplaying adventures that WOTC considers a campaign setting, i.e. FR or Dragonlance; not including Greyhawk."
I'll define "campaign setting" as an "orange."
So, carry on.
The Ancient Mystic Society of No-Homers! I fully expect a definition like that to turn up in the other thread :)
I'm shocked that they even mentioned earler editons of the game at all. Still the answer might be very simple.
Wizards might not own Blackmoor, at lest its not published right now under Wizards, and they have taken back every contract with 3PP settings, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, ect. So I think perhaps Blackmoor is independent, so they don't want to encourage the childern to think that there is anything else outthere.
GreyHawk is another matter. Wizards own them, but for some reason Gary gets very little love from them. I heard, (though I do not know for sure) that no one from Wizards attended his furneral repersenting the company or the game. Moreover and this might get many mad, please I do not mean to offend, but GreyHawk might not be a moeny maker, lest not to Wizards. Say what you want about FR and Dragonlance(love Dragonlance:) they make money.
Or at lest they did. What has happned to FR makes no sense, and Dragonlance during 3rd produced great books with Ms. Wheis (spelling?) but now I just don't know. I could see Wizards say, we feel that no one playes a Kinder or Minotaurs so we've replaced them with Dragonborn and Pigfolk respectively.
Chief Technical Officer
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Why is this thread in customer service?I was expecting some kind of twist Like "Paizo to take on Blackmoor campaign setting!" or "Dave Arneson joins the Pathfinder team" everybody else is...
Dave Arneson's Blackmoor is currently being published as a d20 setting by Code Monkey Publishing.
I do have to say, when I initially heard about this paragraph, I too wondered about the disinclusion of Blackmoor. However, looking back through Lisa's vast RPG library, I have to admit that one can argue that TSR never published it as a single product that fully describes a playable campaign setting. One could make a similar (but slightly weaker) argument for not counting Mystara.
The disinclusion of Greyhawk, though, that one leaves me scratching my head.
The disinclusion of Greyhawk, though, that one leaves me scratching my head.
It might have been an oversight... wouldn't be the first time someone at Wizards forgot about past publications in any way, shape or form.
I don't think so, however. The "smear every previous edition" add for 4e might just have been more than just an attempt at (ill placed) humor. If everything that went before 4e was/is bad it would be easier to divorce yourself of said past. The Realms, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, all booster packs... err campaign settings that will most likely appear in the future, thus transported into 4e. The Realms' past has been completely divorced from the new setting. It might just be that Greyhoawk is far too much linked to Vancian magic and stuff to be transported to 4e, which in turn would leave new players wondering what that Greyhawk thing is all about and might distract them from 4e.
Or maybe Wizards did something similar to what Ozzy Osbourne did when he removed Lee Kerslake and Bob Daisley from the recordings of Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman to avoid the continuation of an already long legal struggle? Maybe Wizards want to divorce themselves from some of its past? Which doesn't make much sense since in a recent article it was shown how easy one can convert a 1st edition module to 4e, I admit that much, but when someone messed up his lore in a FR novel, the error was fixed in GHotR.
I suspect it had less to do with ill will and more to do with previous New York Times Bestsellers lists. :|
In regards to the first Greyhawk and Blackmoor supplements, my understanding is that their content was more in the form of rules than campaign information (GH - combat rules, paladin and thief classes, new monsters and spells; BM - monk and assassin classes, Temple of the Frog adventure) so I can see those not being counted as published campaign settings. Likewise Known World/Mystara which was compiled from adventures after the fact and then only later the prospective gazeteers.
Greyhawk clearly was the first published "complete" setting with map, countries, personages, etc as the folio in 1980 and later box set in 1983. It was followed later by The Forgotten Realms in 1987 and then Dragonlance (Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home) later in 1987. While earlier information was available in adventures and Dragon articles, these were the first actual published compilations.
Am I gonna rake WOTC over the coals about this slight to Greyhawk? Not really, I long ago gave up on TSR/WOTC to do Greyhawk justice (kudos for Paizo for the ressurection in the mags though). Greyhawk lives on in my campaign.
I'm shocked that they even mentioned earler editons of the game at all. Still the answer might be very simple.
Wizards might not own Blackmoor, at lest its not published right now under Wizards, and they have taken back every contract with 3PP settings, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, ect. So I think perhaps Blackmoor is independent, so they don't want to encourage the childern to think that there is anything else outthere.
GreyHawk is another matter. Wizards own them, but for some reason Gary gets very little love from them. I heard, (though I do not know for sure) that no one from Wizards attended his furneral repersenting the company or the game. Moreover and this might get many mad, please I do not mean to offend, but GreyHawk might not be a moeny maker, lest not to Wizards. Say what you want about FR and Dragonlance(love Dragonlance:) they make money.
Or at lest they did. What has happned to FR makes no sense, and Dragonlance during 3rd produced great books with Ms. Wheis (spelling?) but now I just don't know. I could see Wizards say, we feel that no one playes a Kinder or Minotaurs so we've replaced them with Dragonborn and Pigfolk respectively.
Rob Kuntz said in a post in 2006 that money was Never the reason that Greyhawk did not see publication. Gary Gygax left TSR in 1985, and Wizards of the Coast did not purchase TSR until the early 1990's. When WoTC bought it, FR and DL were the two main products marketed, and they (not Greyhawk) could NOT cut the mustard.
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Why is this thread in customer service?I was expecting some kind of twist Like "Paizo to take on Blackmoor campaign setting!" or "Dave Arneson joins the Pathfinder team" everybody else is...Dave Arneson's Blackmoor is currently being published as a d20 setting by Code Monkey Publishing.
I do have to say, when I initially heard about this paragraph, I too wondered about the disinclusion of Blackmoor. However, looking back through Lisa's vast RPG library, I have to admit that one can argue that TSR never published it as a single product that fully describes a playable campaign setting. One could make a similar (but slightly weaker) argument for not counting Mystara.
The disinclusion of Greyhawk, though, that one leaves me scratching my head.
Zeitgeist games, which is Dave Arneson's company, holds the license for Blackmoor. Code Monkey is working with them. I've written for ZG and Code Monkey and Riders of Hak is my book.
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Wizards might not own Blackmoor, at lest its not published right now under Wizards, and they have taken back every contract with 3PP settings, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, ect. So I think perhaps Blackmoor is independent, so they don't want to encourage the childern to think that there is anything else outthere.
The IP belongs to WOTC.
Dustin Clingman and Dave Arneson announced last megaCon that their license had been extended. I don't know but I think this has gotten a little funky for them with the entire GSL/OGL thing.
Your supposition that WOTC does not want to direct folks to other product is probably reasonable.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I think WotC was referring to the first campaign setting as products - I mean full blown detailed world encompassing products. If that was their criteria then the very first was Forgotten Realms.
I'm going to nicely request you reread this thread, and suggest that in general, you should read a thread carefully before commenting. Your claim has already been addressed and rebutted in this thread and another like it. The Greyhawk boxed set was unquestionably a complete campaign setting - in fact, it was very much the model followed by the FR boxed set that came 4 years later.
I would agree the folio (1980) was a pretty minimalist setting, but that still leaves Greyhawk with a map, languages, races, country descriptions, rules, gods and more in 1983, before FR had even a single module.
Never attibute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.
It is entirely possible that something like: The first campaign settings, including The Forgotten Realms, and Dragonlance.
was edited down to fit onto the page, and the qualifier including left out, or the piece was written by somebody who just doesn't know.
It doesn't make sense for a company that is releasing a core book on Greyhawk to marginalise it.
Everyone has their own opinion of what qualifies as the moment when a line of products gelled together to become a campaign setting. But is that really the relevant issue? The problem and the outrage is simmering because Wotc is rewriting company history and in some cases bulldozing history in its games. Isn't that what Forgotten Realms fans are so enraged about? The complete mashing of twenty years of lore? Its not about whether Blackmoor came first....or if Greyhawk was the original....its about Wotc not giving recognition to beloved product lines and slighting the fans that followed them by trying to make these settings irrelevant. It's about Wotc giving recognition to FR and Dragonlance because in the eyes of the new players they are trying to recruit those settings are much more recognizable icons. I don't begin to claim I understand Wotc marketing strategies but I would venture to say the average non gamer on the street is more likely to have heard of Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms then Greyhawk. Its about name recognition.
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WHOAH! Please, sincerely, hold the phone here...
Can anyone confirm that they saw a wotc employee at E.Gary Gygax's funeral? An earlier post suggested that wotc was purposefully not present at Gary's funeral.
Every part of me want's to dismiss this comment as heresay. So I am asking PAIZONIANS to please refute this comment.
Please, can anyone confirm whether this is true? (To me this type of thing sounds just horrible, even more horrible than the types of nastiness I usually attribute to wotc...)
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Creative Director
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WHOAH! Please, sincerely, hold the phone here...
Can anyone confirm that they saw a wotc employee at E.Gary Gygax's funeral? An earlier post suggested that wotc was purposefully not present at Gary's funeral.
Every part of me want's to dismiss this comment as heresay. So I am asking PAIZONIANS to please refute this comment.
Please, can anyone confirm whether this is true? (To me this type of thing sounds just horrible, even more horrible than the types of nastiness I usually attribute to wotc...)
You'll have to ask WotC about this, not Paizo.
That said, I think the concept that WotC issued a "no go" order regarding Gary's funeral sounds ridiculous, unbelievable, and flat-out wrong. It's classic internet rumor-mongering, I suspect. I actually think the way that WotC reacted to the event was really rather touching, in fact; dedicating the 4th edition books to him, changing their website for the week or so after his death, and so on.
I think WotC was referring to the first campaign setting as products - I mean full blown detailed world encompassing products. If that was their criteria then the very first was Forgotten Realms.
I hope that Mr. Taylor has set you (Crosswired) straight on this.
Those players who did not play d&d in the 1979 to 1985 when Gygax left TSR did not witness firsthand HOW POPULAR d&d once was. The popularity of d&d today is not close now to what it was then. I seldom come across teenagers these days (I work in child/adolescent psychology, so I talk to a great many of them) who play d&d. When I was a teenager, MOST teenage males I knew played the game. TSR/WoTC have spent the last 23 years trying to recapture what the game once was under Gygax and they've never equalled or exceeded it.
Rob Kuntz stated (in a Paizo post) that TSR's decision to largely ignore Greyhawk was Entirely political and due to the animosity that the TSR brass apparently had towards Gygax, nothing more, nothing less. That folks, is why Greyhawk was seldom published for years, and what little was published was mostly of low quality (with the notable exceptions of the Oerth Journal, Carl Sargeant, and Roger E. Moore's work).
What I don't know however is why following WoTC's purchase of TSR, in the Wizards of the Coast years, Greyhawk has continued to be relegated to a 'lower' status. Greyhawk has never been seriously marketed to indicate whether or not it could equal, surpass, or fall short of the Forgetable Realms or Eberron. Obviously the folks at WoTC thought Greyhawk was important enough that they set 3rd edition and 3.5 in Greyhawk; but then did a 180 and published almost nothing in their "Core" setting afterwards. Go figure...
Bottom line. When WoTC bought TSR, only the Forgetable Realms and Dragonlance were seriously marketed at that time, and that was 7 or 8 years after Gygax had left and Greyhawk had ceased to be seriously marketed. That suggests to me that FR and DL lost money for eight years before TSR was headed for destruction, until WoTC bailed them out.
I also think its very perplexing that Greyhawk was skimmed over, especially given that even with DLA, Dragonlance didn't get that much full "campaign setting" material until later into 2nd edition, and that Greyhawk not only had the boxed set, but also a GHA hardcover just like DL did.
However, TSR was bleeding money from too many product lines. FR was still making money for the company, but it was one of the only things making money for them (the DL novels were still profitable, but not the game setting itself). This is not to say that if Greyhawk had been the main supported flagship setting of TSR that it would not have been profitable, but this isn't the route they went. There is a reason that FR actually survived into 3rd edition at all, and that is because it was the only line that consistently made money.
The only reason I wanted to throw this in is that sometimes I get the feeling that some people would like to portray the support of FR as some sort of "pet project" that TSR/WOTC kept alive despite "knowing" that Greyhawk was a superior product that would have made more money.
Had TSR never moved away from Greyhawk, it may have been their prime money maker. We don't know. Its a great setting. I just don't really want to see people drawing the mistaken conclusion that TSR/WOTC's support of FR is some kind of recurring inexplicable mistake in supporting a setting that wasn't making money for the respective companies.
The only reason I wanted to throw this in is that sometimes I get the feeling that some people would like to portray the support of FR as some sort of "pet project" that TSR/WOTC kept alive despite "knowing" that Greyhawk was a superior product that would have made more money.
Had TSR never moved away from Greyhawk, it may have been their prime money maker. We don't know. Its a great setting. I just don't really want to see people drawing the mistaken conclusion that TSR/WOTC's support of FR is some kind of recurring inexplicable mistake in supporting a setting that wasn't making money for the respective companies.
If you reject that premise (that FR was their "pet project" in place of Greyhawk and its creator), what then can you offer as a logical explanation for TSR/WoTC's shelving of Greyhawk, and their neverending support for FR?