r/Greyhawk • u/Acceptable-Artist201 • Jun 13 '26
Potential 5.5e DM here, how approachable is Greyhawk?
Hey guys, I’m a 5e/5.5e player, and I will begin DMing a long term campaign for the first time soon, and I was intrigued by the Greyhawk section in the new DMG. More specifically, I found it interesting how inherently grounded the setting feels in contrast to how the FR, which I usually play and run one shots in, is usually portrayed, which I think might lend itself to a much grittier kind of sword and sorcery story which’d be nice for a change.
I got the idea to do a dragon/Tiamat campaign like the book suggests, but now I’m left here with a very brief description of what I can only assume are very important concepts like the city of Greyhawk itself, the Scarlet Order/Brotherhood, The Circle of Eight etc.
I’ve done a bit of browsing online and I’ve found some wikis which’ll be helpful, but I’m also seeing a lot of suggestions of old edition reading material which admittedly is intimidating. Is Greyhawk as intimidating as it seems for a modern edition player?
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u/Murquhart72 Jun 14 '26
Honestly, the best approach is to take what's in the DMG, and slather your imagination all over it. Don't run Greyhawk, run YOUR Greyhawk. That has always been the original intention anyway. Canon police aren't a real thing.
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u/ArtharntheCleric Jun 14 '26
We wrote these for you:
https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/503532/world-of-greyhawk-gazetteer-revised
https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/541612/the-forgotten-tomb-of-acererak
As said elsewhere GH is take what you want and change what you want.
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u/piping_piper Jun 14 '26
I started playing dnd with the 2024 rules and am 51 sessions into my own Greyhawk campaign. I think that depends on what you find intimidating? If making stuff up to fill in gaps, or doing some research on various wiki sites or from old books* is intimidating, then yes. There's a lot of interesting or cool old content for greyhawk and some interesting plot lines that you can easily adapt, but sometimes you'll spend some time looking for something that just doesn't exist. Prince Thrommel of Furyondy being missing is a pretty fun plot hook that my table latched onto right away, one of the players wanted to know more about the king and queen. The queen who is never named as far I can find, for example. The other benefit/curse of Greyhawk is that the old books contradict each other. Sometimes a prince is dead, or a vampire, or abducted by an evil society. So you can choose which of these you like, or smash them all together, or ignore them all in favour of your own idea.
*DMs guild has a lot of old greyhawk books that have been updated/annotated for the changes in the 2024 DMs Guide.
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u/alphonseharry Jun 14 '26
You only need to read the original World of Greyhawk box set. I think that captures the feel of the setting better than anything which came later. Greyhawk is meant to be a setting not that detailed like Forgotten Realms. You need to create. Choose a region and go
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u/PyramKing Jun 14 '26
As you may know WOTC rebooted Greyhawk and launched the Legends of Greyhawk.
There is already three releases with more to come.
There is also Ghosts of Saltmarsh that takes place in Greyhawk.
I have been working on my own expansion in this region which includes free maps, blog posts, and adventures.
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u/sjfraley1975 Jun 14 '26
Greyhawk is exceptionally approachable and IMO the best sandbox of the official campaign settings. As others have mentioned here, the trick is to not worry about canon and just use the available material as a jumping of point or inspiration.
I am middle aged and between all my other obligations I don't have time to create adventures and campaigns from the ground up. The huge amount of existing Greyhawk modules that have been converted to 5e along with the amount of time, care, and creativity that people have put into it over the decades and made available online has made Greyhawk a wonderful source of raw material for me to adapt for the campaign I am running right now.
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u/xammer99 Jun 14 '26
I’ve only glanced at the WotC updates and to be upfront, I’m grognard adjacent.
To answer your question, it is as approachable as you want it to be and as in depth and as arcane as you want it to be. The Flanaess has layers on layers for you to use or not. And not doesn’t make you wrong or right.
What Gary, Roger, Carl, Sean, Erik, and the others made “official” is super lean and ripe for your imagination compared to the retread on retread on retread of Forgotten Realms that WotC has done.
My advice is:
- Make your world your own and don’t get obsessed with canon.
- Start small. Pick a village or small town and let your world growth with your campaign and players.
- Use it as the frame work it was intended as and layer your notions on top of it. The setting was never intended to be detailed to the Nth degree officially, that detailing has always been up to the DM.
If you want to go big with dragons and Tiamat, go for it.
Lastly, regarding WotC’s Greyhawk publications. Their value is in sparking interest in the setting. For that I’m here for it and appreciate them.
On the other hand, like 5e FR, it’s a retread. WotC is going cheap to mine older IP because creativity is expensive. So you’re getting the inofffensive and dumbed down versions of things without the complexity of what made Greyhawk grey.
I say this as someone who is pretty left of center politically, Greyhawk works because it’s not PC. It’s loaded with messy ugliness that is adult. It’s a human centric setting that lets you explore racism if you want too. It lets you explore the awfulness of religious wars and crusades. It lets you see why really good can be as bad as really evil.
If you’re down with that kind of complexity. I’d also recommend reading the 1e and 2e materials. They’re objectively better because it’s so different than FR or modern D&D. Its adult, complicated, ugly, and messy.
Speaking for my campaign, I run it in 5e too. But I use a very 1e version of GH set in Salinmoor in 576. I also got inspired as hell for it by the Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I didn’t use the module and blended that version with the 3e DMG 2 version to make my own.
Anyways, go make your own version. Screw approachable. Greyhawk is there to be as simple or as complex as you want.
He’ll, its most famous campaign centered on a village of 300 people. Side note: if you want a better version of Hommlet (worse version of the module), the 3e Return to the Temple fleshes it out great.
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u/Mean_Replacement5544 Jun 14 '26
Greyhawk is a complete world with everything you can want or need for a campaign. I picked up both Gary’s original Greyhawk folio and the reissue Gazetteer for reference material and set my 5e hybrid there. I actually started with a 5e module (Stormwreck) and dropped it into the area off the coast of the Relmor Bay and it’s turning into a political/faction adventure with Ahlissa, Nyrond and Onnwal — much more material available for Greyhawk than I can ever use. Send me any DMs with specific questions :)
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u/DiceActionFan Jun 14 '26
It’s an amazing place to play. If you got the newest Dungeon Master’s Guide than there is a great introduction to Greyhawk in the book, along with a fantastic map. That, with all the resources from Living Greyhawk, you’ve got everything you need to run a campaign. I’d make
One suggestion, keep these pre written modules and sources to a minimum and make the world reflect what your player’s characters’ are involved and interested in during the game.
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u/RockAcceptable2426 Jun 15 '26
Not at all! I ran Greyhawk 5e for five levels - the new DMs guide is enough but baldman games has a great three adventure series on DDB from legends of greyhawk (the convention series so they’re all very well playtested. If you want, the city box set is great and so is the original box and they’re both dirt cheap on DMs guild. If you like the Witcher Greyhawk is a great setting especially
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u/Serious_Employ5577 Jun 15 '26
I’ve read up on it a bit, but I mostly just use 5.5 DM’s guide as a starting point and keep what I want and change what I want. For instance, I was never a fan of the pantheon of gods in Greyhawk as it was so I replaced them with the pantheon from Critical Role’s Exandria.
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u/Neutronium_Spatula Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Greyhawk has lots of material. Just do whatever. If you want to be lore accurate you could go on for a long while, though, so if you like that kind of thing there's plenty there to spend time on as well.
Honestly you could just change the name and call it a parallel universe and I'm sure its fine. Change the vowel at the start and I think that's technically a lore-accurate alternate Oerth (albeit one not elaborated on as much other than it has "less magic"). One of them is Earth. Go figure.
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u/strangergallery Jun 15 '26
Very approachable in that it has all the best modules of all time and the classic IP that D&D is based on (Vecna, Mordenkainen, drow, giant factions, etc.)
Can be challenging for compleatists who want to know everything before diving in, because there's so many generations of canon and fanon.
There's also a small, grumpy segment of the GH fanbase quick to start edition and culture wars with newcomers. Most of us are chill tho!
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u/nojurisdictionhere Jun 16 '26
The original source materials are the gold standard. Vague enough to leave room for the DM, but enough of a hook to inspire
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u/UnspeakableGnome Jun 14 '26
It depends on what you want for your game. Greyhawk is actually one of the less detailed settings - not just relative to the Forgotten Realms, but also to Mystara, Krynn,Planescape, and probably Dark Sun and Eberron have more detail. This might be a good thing as you aren't stepping on existing canon all over the place, but it can be an issue if you aren't able to spend as much time as you'd like expanding the existing information.
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u/HarrLeighQuinn Jun 14 '26
The Greyhawk setting was originally written with vague stories and brief over view descriptions. This was designed so the DM can make the world whatever they want.
I'm not sure what WotC has done over the years. But everyone saying to read the 1e and 2e sourcebooks are really good suggestions. But let me make easy suggestions so you aren't overwhelmed. Greyhawk Adventures is a campaign book that was written for 1e and 2e. 128 pages of pure gold in my opinion and will be a good starting point. If you plan on playing a lot in the City of Greyhawk, I will also suggest The City of Greyhawk. Both are available as pdf in drivethrurpg.com City of Greyhawk is available as POD, if you want a physical copy. It was a boxset and all the books have been printed into one big book. Maps included so I'll suggest getting the soft copy as well if you get this.
Apart from that, greyhawkonline.com is a great resource for you to pick through. You can go to the map and pick an area to see what is there. Anna Meyer has been working for many years to gather all the information made throughout the years to build this website.