Today, I woke up to the news that Greyhawk will be included in the new Dungeon Master’s Guide as the sample world.

I think this is awesome. (I also am very, very hopeful it means that Greyhawk opens up for the DMs Guild).

The original release of Greyhawk was very bare bones. This was intentional. It was a springboard that DMs could set their existing campaigns in, and provides inspiration for what might lie outside the borders of the small town and dungeon the DM has.

And, honestly, this is exactly what the DMG needs. Not too much detail, but just enough to provoke the imagination of the DM. When you look at the 1983 boxed set and 1980 folio, there’s stuff in there that isn’t necessary. (Gygax is more interested in troop numbers than D&D players typically are). But then you have the history of the world, recent conflicts (Elemental Evil), and other things that provide inspiration for games.

I’ve been running games in Greyhawk for a very long time now; I was playing there even longer ago. When I run a campaign, I take the basics of the 1983 boxed set, look to see if there’s anything from later publications (like the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer) that I can use, and synthesize something new. It starts in published Greyhawk, it becomes MY Greyhawk.

(There’s a lot of the LGG I just discard. It doesn’t fit with my world).

Does Wizards need to do much more with Greyhawk than a slim presentation of a campaign world in the DMG? I would say not. (Allow DMs to show their creativity on the DMs Guild!) When you compare it to a place like the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk is always less detailed – and that’s its strength. I want both approaches. I want more detailed settings for some games, and less detailed settings for others.

Knowing that there’s a nation called Iuz, and that the evil demigod leader of that realm contends with a good realm known as Furyondy opens up many an adventure possibility. To the east is the fading, corrupted land of the Great Kingdom. What treasures and horrors lie within its borders?

Not everything needs to be detailed to the nth degree in this presentation, just enough to allow DMs to build from there.

But why Greyhawk? Because it’s medieval Europe, to a large extent. You know, an actual setting that resonates with a lot of players because it’s based on something real.

(Same as Harry Potter takes known tropes and then does new things with them).

The more you move away from familiar concepts, the harder the sell is for a setting. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be amazing, but for the most popular Fantasy RPG, you want a starting point that more people can understand.

The advantage that Greyhawk has is that it is less developed. You can go back to the basics of the 1983 boxed set and then let people loose to do what they will with it. (I have a sneaking suspicion is that its nations are a lot easier to explain than those of the Forgotten Realms). It has classic dungeons to point out, but otherwise gets out of the way.

“Generic fantasy” is, in this case, an advantage.