Classic D&D Version of Greyhawk

Recently I've been wondering what a published Gygax campaign would have looked like if he actually took his original campaign and committed it to paper. Obviously the map produced by Darlene is close, but not actual to what was described in the text of all the things I have ever read. The scale of the hexes is a bit weird too, since it seems that AD&D influenced the size of the hexes to match the distance an unburdened human could travel in a single day (30 miles). Most hex maps produced for older campaigns seemed to base everything on a world hex of 24 miles across, broken into smaller bits as convenient. Using 30 mile hexes is difficult to reduce very far without hexes being broken into fractional miles.

Rumor has it that the original campaign took place on a slightly exaggerated map of North America. Florida would have been the Tilvanot Peninsula (home of the Scarlet Brotherhood), New England the Great Kingdom (and presumably Rauxes = New York City or perhaps Washington D.C.), Nyrond would be the Midwest, the Nyr Dyv would be Lake Superior (almost identical in shape on all maps of Greyhawk), and the Rocky Mountains would be the Hellfurnaces and Crystlamist Mountains. This would make California and Nevada the Sea of Dust, and the northeast portion of maritime Canada as the Thillonrian Peninsula, home of the Suloise barbarian nations. Blackmoor was on this map as well, located somewhere near Hudson Bay and the northern islands of Canada. I know that the original campaign was vastly different in layout since the introduction given in T1: The Village of Hommlet does not match the geographical layout of the Velverdyva River and the hills of southern Verbobonc on the main map. The distances given on the map are too large to match what was stated. The map in T1-4 shows the Temple of Elemental Evil so far from the village of Hommlet that it would take days to a week for any threat to make it there, unlike the "so close and dangerous" description of T1.

I think that the Greyhawk depicted in the Gord the Rogue novels penned by Gygax himself is true to his original vision of Greyhawk. The details he provides on the city could only have come from a mind that determined their properties long ago and had become familiar over time revisiting the same locations over and over again in the game. To be sure, some things probably changed over the years in his own campaign as he adapted new players and new play styles, tinkered with rules and substituted house rules or tried out suggestions from other Dungeon Masters. I myself have done this and developed a form of AD&D that is close, but in no way follows the rules as written all the time.

My current project involves creating a new City of Greyhawk Supplement to the Classic D&D line of products, using the details provided from the Gord the Rogue novels. I know that these were written in the age of AD&D, but I prefer Basic/Expert D&D with some modifications. For example, separating race and class is more useful to me. Also, better defining the roles and spells of the campaign world and allowing monsters to have classes if humanoid. For example, I like the concept of orcs and goblins being able to advance as fighters, thieves, witchdoctors and shamans. Each would have their own level limits of course. Using the deities of the Greyhawk World adds more depth to the clerics. Changing alignments to Good, Neutral, and Evil also better defines the use of some spells (like Dispel Evil, Detect Good, and Protection from Evil). There really is no need for sub-classes in my opinion - but the Paladin, Druid, Monk, and Assassin are actually part of the Greyhawk world. A druid is nothing more than a Neutral cleric with restrictions and some magic-user abilities thrown into the mix. The paladin is little more than a Fighter/Cleric. The Monk is a Cleric/Thief. And the assassin is a Thief who uses poison to effect, can assassinate as well as backstab, and is considered a master of subterfuge and disguise. Now the Bard is another matter entirely, sort of a Druid/Fighter/Thief on steroids with its own abilities. Original D&D did a poor job of explaining these sub-classes; AD&D nailed them in their roles. Assuming one uses paladins, they must remain of Good alignment and follow a code of ethics. They may get some clerical abilities (protection from evil aura, immunity to disease, ability to cure by touch, etc.), but should not themselves be better than a Fighter or a Cleric. I liked the idea that they do not turn undead, but instead Dispel Evil (perhaps once per day) beginning at 9th level or so. Also the fact that they can call a warhorse of divine powers is a cool notion. Druids would give up the ability of turning undead to gain power over animals similar to turning/controlling and based off Hit Dice. Spells would have to be somewhat modified for this to happen. Perhaps three separate lists for a Cleric, Druid, and Anti-Cleric (Good, Neutral, and Evil clerics). Spells would substitute for those not needed by the Druid - for example, Faerie Fire could replace Detect Evil. Maybe a more generic version of the spells could be developed to better represent all three types of clerics (i.e. Detect Alignment, Protection from Harm, etc.). A Monk could be represented by a cleric that has abandoned the use of weapons and armor to perfect the Self, thus relying more on internal abilities than external powers. Such a character would use faith and will to heal himself, remain healthy and immune to some magical effects, and strike with hands and feet as a person would strike with a weapon. I think such a person would rely heavily on Wisdom, using the Wisdom modifier in place of Strength for unarmed strikes. Also Dexterity should still apply unless a minimum is required to apply for the class. Again, I'm simply trying to produce an alternative to the same Cleric class - not sure though that this one could be easily reproducible without reverting to AD&D stats and abilities. The Mystic in later version of D&D was close, but drew too heavily on Asian themes for me.

So there you have it. I'm also hashing out something for the Rhennee bargefolk and for gnomes as well, although I don't think either of those races will be available for PCs.

Return to 2nd Edition AD&D

Lately I've been going over all my relevant bookshelf material, trying to box away things I no longer need out to reference. Last night I came up to 2nd Edition AD&D materials and hesitated. I haven't played this version in over 12 years and don't think I ever will again. I sold off most of the splatbooks a few years back at Council of Five Nations and kept only the core book materials. I opened the Player's Handbook and started re-reading....

I had forgotten how far from D&D they had tried to go. Removing half-orc as a race, adding new level limits and class options, renaming classes, making the bard class a part of the game but eliminating monk and assassin, and adding in the precursor to the skill system in 3.0 called non-weapon proficiencies. Only now am I seeing that most of what I hated about 2nd edition was the fact that it WASN'T D&D as I knew it. Yet, in some ways, it harkened back to simpler times of Classic D&D when all the rules fit nicely into one rulebook under 200 pages.

The assassin and monk classes were added by Dave Arneson through his Blackmoor supplement and, although TSR had the rights to Gygax's materials, I'm not so sure about Arneson's. Perhaps that's why these two classes disappeared from 2nd edition altogether. I think it was just that they really had no place in a game in which the players were supposed to be heroic (not to mention the backlash against D&D in the early 1980's from religious groups). So mysticism and brutalistic backstabbing were removed from the game. This left little incentive for making evil characters except for priests and thieves.

Renaming the classes was more or less the least important change made. The main classes kept their flavor regardless. Now we had the Warrior, Priest, Rogue, and Wizard as class groups, with the iconic classes of Fighter, Cleric, Thief, and Mage as prime examples. Paladins, Rangers, Bards, and Illusionists were still intact, but the Druid became an example of a specialized priest. I liked some of the changes made to the Priest class, but the Specialist Wizard classes could have been better thought out. Thieves also suffered a bit in their execution. Bards were a mess - not really able to do much very well and sort of an added class for nostalgic reasons. The classes added by Unearthed Arcana were so broken that they were removed and placed back in as Class Kits in the splatbooks. The 3rd edition Barbarian makes much more sense and could work in a 2nd edition sense. The Cavalier was never a good idea - more of a cultural choice than a class choice since it was dependent on social station, something that never applied to player characters.

The Monster Manual was a complete mess. Although making each monster have its own page in a binder may have seemed like a good idea at the time, it led to a lot of lost monsters and broken half-filled binders that were too big to carry safely to the game. I preferred the later Monstrous Manual with it's normal book binding.

The thing I hated the MOST about 2nd edition was the institution of the Forgotten Realms as the main campaign of the game. I actually liked the 1st edition version of it better than the Drizz't dominated, drow heavy world (with all the family names stolen directly from D3 - Vault of the Drow, a GREYHAWK based publication written by Gygax). The blatant crunch of all things D&D into this world made it more of a mockery than a valid campaign setting. Even the "resurrection" of the Greyhawk campaign left me wanting, since the concepts eliminated a lot of the previously published materials and removed Iuz as the main campaign nasty, and raising the lich Vecna to replace him in importance (a creation of Brian Blume, I believe, and never a part of Greyhawk). The horrors perpetrated to the Greyhawk campaign were written by a number of authors who either never read Gary Gygax's novels and modules, or simply wanted to make something completely different. It showed the lack of creativity that they simply didn't make a NEW world instead of polluting Greyhawk with such horrible plots and NPCs.

Still, the ruleset was robust and capable of supporting hours of game play with only some preparation time necessary to pull it off. I found adlibbing to be extremely easy in this system, so much so that I could weave an adventure with little more than a map, a vague idea of what I needed to happen, and feedback from the players. That was a happy time for me!

So perhaps I can go back into the 2nd edition books and pull out some gems to use, or perhaps run the game again using the bare bones engine and see about a direct conversion from 1st to 2nd, or from Basic/Expert to 2nd. A game consisting of nothing more than Fighters, Priests, Wizards, and Rogues appeals to me, but of course I would use only Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, and Humans as the character choices without the half-elves or half-orcs. I never agreed with half-breeds being a viable character choice.

2nd edition has enough customization built in to it to allow each base class to seem very different. Using Specialty priests, wizard school specialization, thief ability point selection, and fighter weapon specializations really allows each player to go in the direction they desire. Paladins could be war-like priests, rangers could be rogues or fighters with bow specialization, illusionists and druids are simply versions of the wizard and priest classes, assassins are simply evil thieves that strike from the shadows and use poison, etc. Using the unarmed combat system from 3rd edition would allow for monk-like fighters to exist, or even monk-like priests (which existed in Greyhawk as worshippers of Xan Yae and Zuoken). Yep, this could work very well! Great, another distraction....