Troll Lord Games

Gyagxian era? Greyhawk wars? From the Ashes era? LGG era? Inquring minds want to know!
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ITs really Gygaxian era combined with my homegrown decisions over the years/decades. But its still Gygaxian at its roots/heart.

I've got to go with FtA. It has enough of my own mixed in with it, but I liked the whole FtA era.

Blasphemy eh?

DangerDwarf wrote:
Blasphemy eh?

Nah. Heresy, though.

I used the GH Wars and FtA stuff, but my own way. To the point where anyone who is a purist wouldn't recognize it or acknowledge what I have done as "canon". My version were way toned down in scale and impact on GH.

I guess I tried to keep it more in line with what I thought EGG would have done. Using what he wrote in the Gord books as my template for the scale things would have occurred in.

DangerDwarf wrote:
I've got to go with FtA. It has enough of my own mixed in with it, but I liked the whole FtA era.

Blasphemy eh?

I've been interested in F:TA since I first saw it in a TSR catalouge and read something about it in Dragon years ago. I've just been unable to snag a copy off ebay yet.

I actually started GH with the LGG and then got lucky enough to get a folio and boxed set later on. While I like EGG's work there are things about the later stuff that was good.

So, I decided to homebrew alot of it together to form my own version which was the intent of the setting anyway.
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From The Ashes.

I can;t for the life of me figure out why people who consider themselves "Gygaxian" 'Hawkers hate this era in the campaign's history. Look, take a look at our own world in the 1920s, 30's and 40s. The world was changing with each and every day. the old powers were in decline, and the new powers were rising, this culminated in a big honkin' war that changed the face of much of the earth.

Why can't this happen with Greyhawk?

I understand why TSR did this to the setting, to sell books. Fine. Regardless of what you might think of the Sergant era of Greyhawk, they hired on a ~dedicated writer~ who took on the assignment with enthusiasm, and very good writing. Yeah, the guy made a few mistakes... so what. Correct them and move on' it's your world anyway. Right?

Carl Sergent brought a sense of realism, and elements that we could identify with our own history. Sergent's writing was quite dry, but that led to the sense that Greyhawk could exist in some other time and some other place. His writing remind of us of a history book, serious, factual and precise.

For these reasons, I love the From the Ashes era. I see it as part of the natural, historical progression of a progressive era in the fantasy RPG market.

Remember, it's your world anyways. Take the good, cut away the bad. But if you are looking for a "down-to-earth", yet fantastical setting, FROM THE ASHES is a great setting to read up on.

...................................................Omote

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You know you people that have that set make me sick. Mainly cause I want one...
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What's the Story on Greyhawk Adventures? I want it to complete my 1e hardbacks but I also wonder how mucgh useful stuff is in it.
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Julian Grimm wrote:
What's the Story on Greyhawk Adventures? I want it to complete my 1e hardbacks but I also wonder how mucgh useful stuff is in it.

I always thought it was kind of weak. It' got 12 of the deities with information on their portfolios, avatars, and clerics. Each deity has a new spell included for their clerics as well.

There's a section on Monsters of Greyhawk with 13 new monsters. I've never actually used any of them.

There's a Hall of Heroes that lists a bunch of NPCs and their stats. I think this is the coolest section. It has the Mage of the Valley, which I thought was pretty cool.

There's a section of magic spells. They are all categorized by name: Bigby, Drawmij, etc...

There's a magic item section. Again, I've never used any of them.

There's a geography section that discusses some interesting areas like the Sea of Dust. It's ok, but nothing seemed real inspired.

There's several 2 page adventures.

Then like 10 pages of the book are wasted on a section about 0 level characters.

Man, that come off pretty negative. It's a decent book I guess... but it always seemed to stay on my shelf. I found much more use out of the World of Greyhawk and City of Greyhawk boxed sets.

The Dragonlance Adventures book, however, I thought was much more awesome!

Omote, why do some "Gygaxian Greyhawkers" hate Wars and FtA? In a nutshell, some hate post-Gygaxian Greyhawk because it represents the shadow of the POG/Witch/Bitch, a person who believed herself superior to gamers, and wanted to "show us how to run a business". She did too. She ran it into the ground.

Greyhawk was always intended to be a framework. A world that could be made a DM's own. Gygax's World of Greyhawk was a world where you could always see something new. Despite being a framework, Greyhawk had life, because of the DM's that made it so. Sargent's work was soulless, and bereft of life. Plus, the war itself was totally unnecessary, except to destroy the world Gary built.

Simply put, it's much easier for me to make changes on an unblemished cavas than to attempt to paint over a crappy piece of art. Gygaxian Greyhawk is the unblemished canvas.
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My small homage to E.G.G.

WoG Boxed Set and WoG Folio + the GH modules works for me.
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Traveller wrote:
Omote, why do some "Gygaxian Greyhawkers" hate Wars and FtA? In a nutshell, some hate post-Gygaxian Greyhawk because it represents the shadow of the POG/Witch/Bitch, a person who believed herself superior to gamers, and wanted to "show us how to run a business". She did too. She ran it into the ground.

Greyhawk was always intended to be a framework. A world that could be made a DM's own. Gygax's World of Greyhawk was a world where you could always see something new. Despite being a framework, Greyhawk had life, because of the DM's that made it so. Sargent's work was soulless, and bereft of life. Plus, the war itself was totally unnecessary, except to destroy the world Gary built.

Simply put, it's much easier for me to make changes on an unblemished cavas than to attempt to paint over a crappy piece of art. Gygaxian Greyhawk is the unblemished canvas.

See, I knew nothing of this until I finally got online a few years ago. This is also one of those thing I wish I never had learned either. In a nutshell it happened before my time and knowing it now there is nothing I can do about it. All learning about this did for me was taint some pleasent gaming memories from that era. Something I've decided that piece of history will not do to my love for the game.

What the Grogs forget is that there are a large number of fans that never got to see Gary's version. I thought I never would until I was lucky enough to get one off ebay.

Seems that as I get older I like Grodog's GH Philosophy better than anyones.
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Julian Grimm wrote:
What's the Story on Greyhawk Adventures? I want it to complete my 1e hardbacks but I also wonder how mucgh useful stuff is in it.

I like Greyhawk Adventures. Especially the spells. There are a lot of "practical" spells in there that I always thought were too neglected because of the "adventurer mindset", even though there are plenty of adventurer type spells in there as well.

Lots of other tidbits from here and there I liked to use. Hmmm. I should pull out my copy and start using it again. Besides, I've always liked the cover. It always gets my imagination going when I look at it for a couple of minutes.

I've played both pre and post war Greyhawk and while I enjoy both, post war seems to fill more of my GH campaigns. I understand that the wars weren't necessary, but then again what world supplements are?

I like the influx of refugees into areas less affected by the war. I like that a portion of Ulek is occupied by orcs from the Pomarj. I like a lot of what was done and think that it was a decently done timeline advance. It gave me hundreds more adventure hooks.

Wanna see a bad advance in a timline? Check out Dragonlance. Makes FtA seem like a masterpiece. I love DL, but it was a poorly done advancement.

I've never owned much Greyhawk stuff. I've got the World of Greyhawk Folio as well as the Greyhawk adventures hardback. Then I've got a bunch of the classic mods. Good 'nuff for me!

Love the stuff I have though but mostly adapted it for other stuff.

Moriarty the Red
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Julian Grimm wrote:
What's the Story on Greyhawk Adventures? I want it to complete my 1e hardbacks but I also wonder how mucgh useful stuff is in it.

In my opinion?

Meh.

There's a few interesting sections but overall I think it could have been better. You can generally pick it up for pretty cheap though.

Thanks for the GA feedback. I'll probably pick this up on the cheap just to have it. There may be something I can mine out of itfairly easy.
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DangerDwarf wrote:
I've played both pre and post war Greyhawk and while I enjoy both, post war seems to fill more of my GH campaigns. I understand that the wars weren't necessary, but then again what world supplements are?

I like the influx of refugees into areas less affected by the war. I like that a portion of Ulek is occupied by orcs from the Pomarj. I like a lot of what was done and think that it was a decently done timeline advance. It gave me hundreds more adventure hooks.

I'm leaning the same way. One reason is to save wear on my originals. I recently found my Folio was a first print so it's been retired and my boxed set is still good and I want to keep it that way.

I'm possibly going to my LGG for gaming use and between the orginal stuff and the new stuff I see nothing lacking in spirit of GH. Yeah there's some things I don't like but they are fixable and I can always default back to my originals for something I don't like.
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Julian Grimm wrote:
I'm possibly going to my LGG for gaming use

Yeah, I use my LGG at the table and general reference. Mainly because its alot cheaper to replace than my box sets.

None. I don't have a fondness for Greyhawk, other than the city itself, and a few tidbits here and there, which are culled from as many resources as I can find on the subject, like the Scarlet Brotherhood. I just have a preference for non-medieval style game worlds.

To me, it's my own home version of Greyhawk. Mainly because it's an odd mixture of Gygaxian pre-wars material, stuff from post-war publications (not so much From the Ashes but more from modules and supplements like The Marklands, Iuz the Old and especially Ivid the Undying) and from the LGG Gazetteer. I usually integrate everything that I like and which seems to fit into my own personal vision of Greyhawk which has become a very unique place because of that.

I voted Gygaxian, but I think Gygaxian and "home version" are one and the same category, in this case. Way I see it is this: Gygax gave us (the DMs of the world) a big tool box with some nice tools in it. The rest was up to us, and it still is. I use the '83 boxed set as a foundation, the primary resource for my campaign. Everything else I use is either my own, borrowed in part from subsequently published materials, or even derived from fan-created materials. Of course, Yggsburgh is shoehorned nicely into my Greyhawk 576 CY campaign.
--Ghul

Traveller wrote:
Omote, why do some "Gygaxian Greyhawkers" hate Wars and FtA? In a nutshell, some hate post-Gygaxian Greyhawk because it represents the shadow of the POG/Witch/Bitch, a person who believed herself superior to gamers, and wanted to "show us how to run a business". She did too. She ran it into the ground.

Greyhawk was always intended to be a framework. A world that could be made a DM's own. Gygax's World of Greyhawk was a world where you could always see something new. Despite being a framework, Greyhawk had life, because of the DM's that made it so. Sargent's work was soulless, and bereft of life. Plus, the war itself was totally unnecessary, except to destroy the world Gary built.

Simply put, it's much easier for me to make changes on an unblemished cavas than to attempt to paint over a crappy piece of art. Gygaxian Greyhawk is the unblemished canvas.

Rhuvein wrote:
WoG Boxed Set and WoG Folio + the GH modules works for me.

Ghul wrote:
I voted Gygaxian, but I think Gygaxian and "home version" are one and the same category, in this case. Way I see it is this: Gygax gave us (the DMs of the world) a big tool box with some nice tools in it. The rest was up to us, and it still is. I use the '83 boxed set as a foundation, the primary resource from my campaign. Everything else I use is either my own, borrowed in part from subsequently published materials, or even derived from fan-created materials. Of course, Yggsburgh is shoehorned nicely into my Greyhawk 576 CY campaign.
--Ghul

These three quotes sum it up for me. I was looking online for a list of "why Greyhawk?" file that I downloaded a few years back, but alas I cannot find it and the computer on which it was saved crashed over a year ago. It goes into detail why pre-GW Greyhawk is preferred, because unlike Forgotten Realms the PC's are the heroes, not the big NPC's errand-runners. Also, there are no "pop-tart" baddies who pop up to make trouble. Iuz and the like are always there in a constant tension.

I use post-Gygax era GH to fill in some holes (mostly the pantheons), but for the most part I don't use it. I fill in the blanks using the books Rhu lists as my inspiration to flesh out more myself.
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"Galstaff, ye are in a cornfield, when a moustachioed man approaches. What say ye?"

"I shun him."

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"Knowledge, logic, reason, and common sense serve better than a dozen rule books."

-- E. Gary Gygax

Home version, called Aquaria... the continent east of GH, across the Solnor.

Official GH per Gary (I still have his scribbled note of approval), but so obscure that nobody's aware of that fact. ;>

Several Big Names from GH do make appearances, tho, and the GH historical timeline overlaps with Aquaria, so I carefully account for such influences. And the Aquarians do have regular trade with GH, thus the PCs can go visit if they choose.

As far as POGgish things go, I have some design problems with Wars and FtA but no serious objections. otoh and contrariwise the so-called Greyhawk Castle was rubbish, imho. :/

FM

Howdy Frank!

I use Aquaria too since I figure the ones that helped shape it are more canon than anything. That castle mod was horrid. Greyhawk Ruins was usable as ideas but not as the true castle IMNSHO.
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Franklincense wrote:
Home version, called Aquaria... the continent east of GH, across the Solnor.

Official GH per Gary (I still have his scribbled note of approval), but so obscure that nobody's aware of that fact. ;>

Several Big Names from GH do make appearances, tho, and the GH historical timeline overlaps with Aquaria, so I carefully account for such influences. And the Aquarians do have regular trade with GH, thus the PCs can go visit if they choose.

As far as POGgish things go, I have some design problems with Wars and FtA but no serious objections. otoh and contrariwise the so-called Greyhawk Castle was rubbish, imho. :/

FM

Hello, Frank! Where could one find more information on Aquaria? Pardon if the answer is as plain as daylight.

Happy gaming,

Zudrak
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AD&D, Amish Dungeons & Dragons.

"Galstaff, ye are in a cornfield, when a moustachioed man approaches. What say ye?"

"I shun him."

-----

"Knowledge, logic, reason, and common sense serve better than a dozen rule books."

-- E. Gary Gygax

I chose Gygaxian, though it is melding into my own. I just didnt care for the other time periods.

Julian Grimm wrote:
I use Aquaria too...

Interesting; where did you find anything about it?

Zudrak wrote:
Where could one find more information on Aquaria?

It's very obscure and only mentioned once, in print, as the background to RPGA AD&D1e modules R3 and R4, Egg of the Phoenix and Doc's Island. (And in the 'combined' version in TSR's "I" series, where Jaquays changed a lot of the major elements. So my attitude about that is a lot like Gary's attitude toward GH stuff published after he left...)

Aquaria began in 1976 as my home campaign in Philly. I restarted it in Lake Geneva, and then restarted again online in May 1992. We still play online every week. (So v1 1976-79, v2 1980-86, v3 1992-2007.)

Quote:
Interesting; where did you find anything about it?

Not that you asked me, but I got stuff about Aquaria straight from you, Frank. Have not given it to anyone else, but I do say that I like most of what's there. A lot more detailed than I normally get, but then I haven't used the same setting for some 30 years.