Creative Director
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Well, Age of Worms was written to fit into FR and Eberron as well, so it's not that much Greyhawk-ish by nature.
Actually, no.
Age of Worms was VERY MUCH written to fit Greyhawk. That it fits into FR and Eberron after a bit of work is a result of the fact that Forgotten Realms and Eberron have a lot of things in common with Greyhawk, mostly as a result that all three settings were built using the same core rules.
But as one of the two primary architects of Age of Worms, I can confirm that building it to fit into Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, AND Eberron was never really part of our design goals. It was built primarily to be a Greyhawk adventure that could be converted into Eberron or Forgotten Realms. There's an AWFUL lot of Greyhawk continuity and lore and world-expansion in the adventure...
...regardless of the fact that Wizards of the Coast wouldn't let us use three names in the adventure path... "Greyhawk", "Tenser," and "Bucknard." We could use all the other proper nouns and names we wanted, but for whatever reason, WotC felt that using those three would make it feel TOO Greyhawky and would scare off customers or whatever.
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Creative Director
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I put Golarion slightly higher on that list mostly just because we have a lot more high-level content in Golarion than Greyhawk... including REALLY wild areas like the Worldwound or the Eye of Abendego or Nex or Geb.? I wouldn't say that. There are a LOT of high-level areas, if you go by Carl's version the Ashs era. And you guys DID add a ton with Age of Worms >;)
We did a lot with it in Age of Worms... but those high-level areas were not really that DEFINED as high-level areas until we started developing areas to be high level. Historically, even areas like Iuz weren't "high-level," per-se, with adventures taking place in there rarely... if ever... breaking the 12th level mark. (Can't remember what level "City of Skulls" was for... but it wasn't THAT high level, IIRC...)
Well, City of Skulls was for levels 10-12, but those were 2E characters, no? Level 10-12 could kick the ass of most demons.
I expect a 3.5/PF rewrite of those modules would be something much more dangerous.
It WAS a 2E module, right? things get hazy after all these years, but I seem to recall a multi-classed f/mu elf out to slay all the orcs he could as one of the included PC's...
===Aelryinth
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Creative Director
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Well, City of Skulls was for levels 10-12, but those were 2E characters, no? Level 10-12 could kick the ass of most demons.
I expect a 3.5/PF rewrite of those modules would be something much more dangerous.
It WAS a 2E module, right? things get hazy after all these years, but I seem to recall a multi-classed f/mu elf out to slay all the orcs he could as one of the included PC's...
===Aelryinth
They were 2E characters... but there were high level 2E adventures. Whether or not you could kick the ass of most demons is irrelevant to this discussion.
Oh, it was more germane to the point of that 1E and 2E, 10-12 WAS high level. 15+ was generally overkill. There were very, very few 'normal' modules that required you to be high level to succeed, until 3E modularized stuff.
No con to hp back then! Monsters died a LOT easier...
==Aelryinth
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Creative Director
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Oh, it was more germane to the point of that 1E and 2E, 10-12 WAS high level. 15+ was generally overkill. There were very, very few 'normal' modules that required you to be high level to succeed, until 3E modularized stuff.
No con to hp back then! Monsters died a LOT easier...
==Aelryinth
Actually, in 1st edition, the concept of "20th level being the highest level" didn't even exist. The point at which various classes stopped getting new stuff varied from like 10th level to 17th level... it was all over the place.
Yeah, Isle of the Ape was a clear illustration of that. 19th level cleric, 18th level wizard, 17th level fighter, 16th level ranger, 15th level rogue, and 14th level druid as usable NPC's. But, that was perfectly fine, as all of those were incredibly effective against rote encounters at that range.
however, the array was seldom even balanced by xp...the NPC's in the Bloodstone Pass series were always about the same level, although the rogue should have been waaaaay ahead of everyone once 10th level came and went.
There weren't too many others that operated in the 15th+ range. Since there was nothing except better gear to increase Melee damage, once you got past 13th, the only real difference between melees was their gear (AC limits on foes meant higher THACO didn't mean much). Spellcasters, however, kept getting new toys. ANd more spells.
===Aelryinth
however, the array was seldom even balanced by xp...the NPC's in the Bloodstone Pass series were always about the same level, although the rogue should have been waaaaay ahead of everyone once 10th level came and went.
Y'know, it always kind of baffled me that old D&D adventures weren't advertised for a specific XP range rather than for a level range. Saying an adventure was for characters with 15,000xp rather than level 7-9 (to make up some numbers) would've let some of those classes take advantage of their faster progression.
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...regardless of the fact that Wizards of the Coast wouldn't let us use three names in the adventure path... "Greyhawk", "Tenser," and "Bucknard." We could use all the other proper nouns and names we wanted, but for whatever reason, WotC felt that using those three would make it feel TOO Greyhawky and would scare off customers or whatever.
Why did it always seem like Wizards was ashamed of Greyhawk? The optimist wants to say it was so people would stay out of Living Greyhawk's playground, and the pessimist says it's because Greyhawk novels never sold as well...
Regardless, the Greyhawk flavor was always one of my favorite parts of the Dungeon APs.
Greyhawk is a 'patchwork' world. EGG liberally borrowed from all sorts of eras and cultures in making it. It was grim and gritty, heroes died, and it was 'old school'.
If you're going to change the game and its focus, you need a clean break somewhere. Oerth was one of the things you had to move away from. Nobody wanted the flavor of Greyhawk broken out in the crowd, and forcing unwanted change upon the milieu when the original owner was still around and any of HIS words would be taken as gospel above the current company...not a good move.
Hence the move to FR and the endlessly creative Ed Greenwood, always happy to provide current material. I would like to point out that Ed Greenwood and his players still play a 1E game themselves...
:)
===Aelryinth