I apologize if this is a silly question, I am still relatively new to D&D and I am trying to figure out the best way to learn about Greyhawk. I am still working my way through the DMG but is there any additional reading I can do to help me learn more about the area?
What would more experienced players say is required reading after only spending my time in Faerun?
My Co-DM has been playing for upwards of 30 years and has been able to talk about how the borders of Greyhawk have changed quite significantly since their original publication.
Finally, what is everyone's favourite campaign or module from ages of "old"
Others might be able to help a little more than I can, but:
The wiki lags a little behind the latest sources, but it's pretty good as a general resource. If you want a sourcebook, the 3e Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (available on Dungeon Master's Guild for a pretty modest price, if I recall) was the most up-to-date setting guide, but some of its information might no longer be wholly on-point since my understanding is that the new DMG (which I haven't gotten my hands on yet) kind of "rewound" the setting back to what was given as the "current date" in the original '80s releases. It's still got a lot of detail and history, though, so it could be worth it?
Regardless, there's not too much continuity to worry about, especially since Greyhawk, while fleshed out in sourcebooks and adventures, never had the huge body of novels and video games that Forgotten Realms does. The setting is pretty "vanilla," in that most species, classes, monsters, and so forth that you'll find in the core rulebooks exist pretty much as-described without a lot of setting-specific changes, and Forgotten Realms outright copies many of the major non-human deities from Greyhawk, and the planes are supposed to all be the same (and in fact the "Great Wheel" layout was Greyhawk's cosmology first; FR used to use a system called the World Tree that got retconned into the Great Wheel when TSR was in a "push the multiverse" phase), so you'll see lots of familiar names like Asmodeus, Corellon, Gruumsh, Lolth, etcetera. What will be new are more the countries, history, and human pantheon, so I'd focus on reading up on those. A lot of the history centers on the Great Kingdom of Aerdy, so that might be a good place to start.
The setting is mostly known for its classic villains like Vecna, Acererak, Iggwilv/Tasha, Iuz, and so forth, along with famous dungeons like Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain. But most of those (other than maybe Iuz, a fiendish demigod who has a big empire up in the north) are pretty situational to plots directly relating to them.
Hey all
I apologize if this is a silly question, I am still relatively new to D&D and I am trying to figure out the best way to learn about Greyhawk. I am still working my way through the DMG but is there any additional reading I can do to help me learn more about the area?
What would more experienced players say is required reading after only spending my time in Faerun?
My Co-DM has been playing for upwards of 30 years and has been able to talk about how the borders of Greyhawk have changed quite significantly since their original publication.
Finally, what is everyone's favourite campaign or module from ages of "old"
Cheers!
Others might be able to help a little more than I can, but:
The wiki lags a little behind the latest sources, but it's pretty good as a general resource. If you want a sourcebook, the 3e Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (available on Dungeon Master's Guild for a pretty modest price, if I recall) was the most up-to-date setting guide, but some of its information might no longer be wholly on-point since my understanding is that the new DMG (which I haven't gotten my hands on yet) kind of "rewound" the setting back to what was given as the "current date" in the original '80s releases. It's still got a lot of detail and history, though, so it could be worth it?
Regardless, there's not too much continuity to worry about, especially since Greyhawk, while fleshed out in sourcebooks and adventures, never had the huge body of novels and video games that Forgotten Realms does. The setting is pretty "vanilla," in that most species, classes, monsters, and so forth that you'll find in the core rulebooks exist pretty much as-described without a lot of setting-specific changes, and Forgotten Realms outright copies many of the major non-human deities from Greyhawk, and the planes are supposed to all be the same (and in fact the "Great Wheel" layout was Greyhawk's cosmology first; FR used to use a system called the World Tree that got retconned into the Great Wheel when TSR was in a "push the multiverse" phase), so you'll see lots of familiar names like Asmodeus, Corellon, Gruumsh, Lolth, etcetera. What will be new are more the countries, history, and human pantheon, so I'd focus on reading up on those. A lot of the history centers on the Great Kingdom of Aerdy, so that might be a good place to start.
The setting is mostly known for its classic villains like Vecna, Acererak, Iggwilv/Tasha, Iuz, and so forth, along with famous dungeons like Tomb of Horrors and White Plume Mountain. But most of those (other than maybe Iuz, a fiendish demigod who has a big empire up in the north) are pretty situational to plots directly relating to them.
Medium humanoid (human), lawful neutral
I really appreciate the detailed replay!
I'll definitely check out the Gazetteer as a starting point to flip through and see how much of a difference between those early editions and 2024.
you have definitely given me a good direction on how to tackle all of this and I really appreciate it!