Now that WotC has purged it and EGG is no longer around to supervise it, does anyone know if there are any plans for another publisher to pick it up..?
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Not sure if it is official or not, but I have heard that WotC is planning on doing a Campaign Guide and Player's Guide for all of their Campaign Settings. At the very least, this would be Greyhawk and Eberron after FR.
My understanding, and interpretation of the original announcement of the potential other settings books, is that they were NOT admitting to doing a Greyhawk one, but more along the lines of "Are you going to do a Greyhawk setting" and then "We'll be releasing other setting books." I don't recall them giving Greyhawk a thumbs-up at all, just more WotC double-talk that others have taken as a default concession.
Personally, I wouldn't expect it at all. I think anyone pining for a Greyhawk setting had best start scanning eBay ...
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I'm happier with that occuring, rather than having a whole generation of gamers miss out on the rich history of one of the Original Campaign Settings.
I've mentioned this before, but after 4th Edition was announced, I picked up the 3rd Edition Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (with authors including none other than Paizo's Erik Mona and SKR) for $1.
I would have paid $10 just for the fold-out map!
Well, if I read the harsh criticism of the new FRCS for 4e, and this criticism is deserved, it is probably better that they don´t publish a new campaign guide for GH - this could be similar to a sequel to an old movie fondly remembered, yet the sequel upsets the memory. (for me, this holds true regarding Star Wars) Perhaps it is better to retain it as a fond memory...
Stefan
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Well, if I read the harsh criticism of the new FRCS for 4e, and this criticism is deserved, it is probably better that they don´t publish a new campaign guide for GH
I'm not an FR fan, but I'm also not an FR foe. Just color me casually interested and we'll leave it at that.
That being said, I felt the Campaign Setting was grotesquely lacking in content. I guess it lives up to WotC's newly-embraced "minimalist" approach to gaming content, but when I read the guide I didn't get a feel for FR. Mind you, this is coming from someone who has only a passing knowledge of FR, and quite frankly, after reading it, I really have to say "So what?"
A lot of folks are hoping that the PG will contain more content, but my personal belief is that it will not. I think it will discuss a few elements, but overall I expect it to be as empty and devoid of character as the CG was.
I definitely have to say this - I read the review for the FRCG as linked from the ENWorld site and I have a hard time painting the CG in such glowing praise as that writer did.
I want to like 4E. I want to be a WotC fanboi. It just seems, however, that the more they put out the more soul-less it feels, like all the joy and discovery is gone.
You may be right - maybe I don't want to see a Greyhawk campaign setting.
Reading my post again, I noticed an error that needs correction: I wanted to say about the criticism of the FRCG, that _if_ the criticism is warranted, then it would probably better if no GHCG is published. As it stands now, it implies that the harsh criticism is indeed warranted, what was not what I intended to say.
I cannot tell if the FRCG is indeed as bad as some posters put it, as I haven´t even seen one. Judging from the voices on it I read up until now, however, I gain the impression that it is indeed lacking. (Not that it would matter to me, as I´m neither into FR nor into 4e. I play in FR now and then, but that´s it.)
I really think by now that GH is better left as it is, and not "fitted" to 4e, as this would probably bring major changes to the setting.
Stefan
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My understanding that Paizo (and several other major 3PPs) have approached WotC several times to try and purchase GH and each time been turned down.
Also I understand that when asked WotC have always said that other campaign settings may be released in future (for 4e) but that the first two will be FR and Ebberon, and they've implied that the GH setting may be one of these at some point.
My personal belief is that WotC have no interest in reviving GH themselves as it would detract from their current core settings, and that it's far to valuable to be sold or licensed to a 3PP (it would be of much greater value to Paizo or Necromancer than it is to WotC) -- it would compete to much with FR/4e if there was an official GH/3.5 available.
I suspect that Paizo (as a company, I'm sure Erik would happily sell somebody's left eye and hand for it) may be significantly less interested in GH now than they would have been 18 months ago.
Also, I suspect there could still be one or two potential legal deathtraps around it -- nothing specific, but given its history ...
I don't expect to ever see any official GH material produced, other than WotC chucking around a few random proper nouns and pointing to it as evidence of their GHlove.
Greyhawk will never die, though. I taught a 17 year old high school kid to play D&D two years ago, running him, his GF, my sister-in-law and my wife through a very short Perrenland based campaign.
He's now deployed on a U.S. Navy frigate and running a GH campaign with over a dozen active players, based on the original boxed set he picked up somewhere.
Greyhawk will never die, though.
Greyhawk will never die, though.
QFT - double, just in case.
...running a GH campaign with over a dozen active players, based on the original boxed set he picked up somewhere.
Hmm... can anyone compare the old GH box to the new FR book? I don´t want to start a "World War", I would just be interested how these products compare if held side-by-side.
STefan
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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... I'm sure Erik would happily sell somebody's left eye and hand for it...
I volunteer my left hand. Someone else will have to come up with the eye.
I'm having a hell of a time convincing my kid to set our next campaign in Golarion. He loves Greyhawk the way I loved Greyhawk.
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I'm having a hell of a time convincing my kid to set our next campaign in Golarion. He loves Greyhawk the way I loved Greyhawk.
It may be that this could be a real (though perhaps not significant) issue. A lot of people became fans of Paizo based on the quality of GH material they (both as a company and individually) produced in Dragon & Dungeon, and for WotC.
Consequently I suspect there may be significant overlap between GH- and PF-people, with a notable proportion of GH-people thinking about importing PF material into their GH campaigns rather than switching to PF.
Fortunately Golarion's a very GH-friendly setting, and I imagine that switching & shifting between the two would be a lot easier than with, say, FR.
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I wish there was a big ole Greyhawk book.
What's lemonade from lemons though; due to the scarcity of background material, it's like you have to peruse old tomes/Dungeon mags/internet sights. You have to consult sages and whatnot. It's a cryptic research project, not a pretty package with a bow.
And you STILL have to pull half of it out of your back pocket, so.....it's YOURS even though it's a campaign setting. I know you CAN do that with other campaigns, but in Greyhawk, I feel you almost HAVE to do that.
I'm doing Saltmarsh right now...though I tapped Sam Weiss for his take on the Keoland and the Sheldomar Valley, and perused numerous internet sites and whatnot, I can say with a certainty that MY Saltmarsh, though taken straight out of the DMG II,...;) doesn't look like anybody else's Saltmarsh. That comforts me, somehow.
I think it's unlikely WotC will do any Greyhawk products. It's the ultimate "grognard" setting and appeals to a gamer demographic that WotC just isn't much interested in anymore.
They'll never sell the IP, because Greyhawk is a "trademark farm"... many proper names from the setting remain in spell and magic item names and so forth.
Licensing it out might be a possibility, but WotC doesn't seem to be open to that kind of thing anymore. Even if they did, they'd only license it to someone who would convert it to 4e.