Greyhawk update/designer’s notes

Hey-o!

So back in January I announced that I was working on some 5E Greyhawk products on the off chance that Wizards of the Coast would eventually open up my favorite setting to designers on GM’s Guild. No, this isn’t some announcement that they have done so. I just want to give a quick update and let you know about the approach I’m taking.

Specifically, I’ve been working on what was the Players Guide to Greyhawk, because the rest all hinged on having Greyhawk-specific 5th edition material to make it all work. Unfortunately, that turned out to be too large a task for a single book.

So now, what was the Players Guide to Greyhawk is going to be three different books.

Most of the crunchy bits will be in the Player’s Guide. The class options, the backgrounds, the spells, factions, etc. There will still be plenty of color, but this will be where the majority of the rules-heavy stuff will be found. All new, but a lot based on things from the earliest days of Greyhawk and the 1st Edition rules. Because I’m a 1E nerd, and proud of it.

The DM’s Guide, on the other hand, is going to feature the new monsters (mostly drawn from the Greyhawk Adventures book and the Monstrous Compendium Greyhawk volume) and new magic items (again, mostly from the GA book). But the majority of it is going to give history and the current state of the Flanaess circa 576 CY; the same era as the original Folio and Gold Box editions. It will have all the information in those books, plus a lot more gleaned from all the other products that have come after; history, NPCs, etc. from various adventure modules, sourcebooks, boxed sets, articles, and some more outré sources that I think you’ll find pretty cool.

I was going back and forth between just having a brief entry for each country, and going on a full-bore in-depth recitation based on the sources, and have decided to go with the latter. It won’t be completely comprehensive (the book would be a thousand pages) but it’ll cover everything the DM needs to get things going in 576.

And the third will be something I’ve been writing about for years; the Great Greyhawk Campaign. It would have all the information a DM needs to take the Greyhawk setting forward in time up to 591 CY, a full fifteen years of game time. And in so doing, it would allow the DM to set his or her game in those other periods that have been extensively covered in the past; 585 CY (From the Ashes), or 591 CY (Living Greyhawk Gazetteer).

So anyway, that which was one is now three. It’s really no more work for me than I had originally envisioned (other than maybe the GGC book), but as I go through the sources, it’s really just a question of putting the information in the right place.

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And hey! Don’t forget that the GM’s Day sale is still going on, and you can find almost everything from BRW Games on 30% off; if you ever wanted to check out Adventures Dark and Deep, Castle of the Mad Archmage, or nearly anything else, now’s the time!