Living Greyhawk Journal #0

In the halcyon days of 2nd edition, the RPGA set their games in Ravens Bluff, a city of the Forgotten Realms. With the onset of 3rd edition, they are switching to Greyhawk, bringing back the original D&D fantasy realm (with Gary Gygax's full approval, of course). This opens up a much wider area for adventuring (a continent vs. a city), so any kind of adventure is possible. This is a very good idea, since not everyone wants to do urban-style adventuring all the time.

The LGJ is intended to be an ongoing RPGA publication discussing the new setup for the Association's adventures and adding to the Greyhawk campaign for regular gamers as well. I'm not sure if this was available on store shelves or if it was strictly available to RPGA members at the time. But I did get a copy of it along with the Boxed Set, so let's see what we have.

So, this is a 'sneak preview' issue, only 12 pages in length. It introduces the 'Living Greyhawk' setting, which is a shared-world campaign with thousands of active players. The implication is that the actions of groups might actually shape the future development of the campaign, although I can't see how that would work with so many gamers.

The next section talks about the campaign regions. Since the LG campaign is literally international in scope, they have divided up Greyhawk into different regions corresponding to different parts of the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. And your character is from whatever region corresponds to your real-world address. Okay, then. And if you travel to a convention that's in another region, your character goes to that region with you. And you can only order scenarios from your region; if you're in California, you can't order a scenario for the Ontario region. I'm not sure I'm liking this aspect.

We're then informed that yes, the LGJ is exclusive to RPGA members and actually comes with your membership on a bimonthly basis. And it's $20 US to join. Well, it's not exorbitant. Oh, and in November the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer will be available, detailing the setting in 192 glorious pages. Over 60 nations, dozens of deities, and tons and tons of adventure hooks await. I should note that scattered around the page are teasers for what I assume were LG adventures available for ordering.

The next page explains how to create a compatible LG character. First of all, they use a 28-point buy system for ability scores, with higher numbers costing quite a few points to get. You can get a pretty decent character for this system, though, better than the standard 'default' array in the PH. All races and classes are available. However, you can't be evil. Or rather, your character can't be evil; if that's your style, who am I to judge? But all LG characters are either good or neutral, and clerics can choose any non-evil deity from either the PH or the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. You can choose your characters age, although age modifiers to ability scores are not used. And you start with maximum gold for your class, which is nice.

You also get max hit points to start, and every level advancement gives you half your maximum hit points plus one point (so a sorcerer would gain 3 hp, adjusted for Constitution). Skill and feats, for the most part, are unchanged from the Player's Handbook, except you can't actually use Item Creation feats or the Alchemy and Craft skills until they figure out campaign rules to allow them. That...seems odd. They are effectively useless feats and skills, then.

You can buy whatever equipment you want, except no special, superior, masterwork, or magical items are available to buy; they can be found in adventures, though. And keep track of your encumbrance.

Next is the part I really don't like: Home Regions. Your character is required to be from a particular region depending on where you live, And if you don't like that region and choose another one, you actually suffer from 'out-of-region' penalties for playing that character in your home region. If you move, your character moves with you. And you can't be from the City of Greyhawk or Iuz. There may be other regions that are off-limits, but my Greyhawk-fu is very rusty.

The reason I don't like this is simple: You are stuck in a particular spot on the map regardless of where you would like to adventure. My region (both here and where I used to live) is Ket. I have no interest in adventuring in Ket; I want to adventure in Furyondy. And if I had lived twenty minutes west of where I did live in Ontario, I would have been able to do so (that's Michigan's region). But I didn't, so I couldn't. Or, if I want to be in Keoland, I'd have to be in New Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania. If you're a Brit, you were stuck in Onnwal. This is not my idea of a fun system; why am I being forced to play in a region that doesn't interest me? And remember, as a DM you can only order adventures set in your region. I wouldn't have lasted six months in the RPGA under those circumstances.

Alright, that got my blood up a bit. Let's move on. The next and main article for this issue is about Greyhawk's legendary Circle of Eight. This article covers the group's history from when it started as a typical adventuring band (including such luminaries as Robilar and Riggby the cleric), to its current state as a society of world-affecting wizards. There's the usual litany of disputes, betrayals, and breakups that mar any group's history, and Mordenkainen is the only character to be a part of the group since its inception (Tenser and Bigby were both there from the start, but they died. And got better, because wizards).

The history is interesting in that it references some older, pre-3e products. Specifically, the Temple of Elemental Evil (1e), and Vecna Lives, Rary the Traitor, and The Return of the Eight (2e). I'm quite familiar with the Temple, having bought it way back in the day, but I'm not up to speed on the others. I do know that Vecna Lives starts with one of the most notorious TPKs in history, where the players get to play the Circle of Eight and get absolutely nuked by Vecna in like six rounds or so. Then they get to start the adventure with their regular PCs, who of course aren't on par with the Circle. No tension there, none at all.

After the history is written out, we get the personalities. These are brief descriptions of the wizards who comprise the current Circle. Some of them are familiar (their names have been attached to magic-user spells since the original Player's Handbook for 1st edition), but there are four new ones. Alhamazad the Wise from Ekbir, Jallarzi Sallavarian from Urnst, Theodain Eriason, and Warnes Starcoat are the newbies, but they are on a par with the other members (Mordenkainen, Bigby, Drawmij, Nystul and Otto). Of note, Otto is a multiclassed wizard/cleric of Boccob (15th/3rd levels); the rest are just straight wizards. Jallarzi is the only one under 17th level (except Otto, but multiclass makes up for that); Mordenkainen's level is simply listed as 20+. HP, alignment, and ability scores are listed for each wizard, but that's it; no feats, skills, magic items, spells, etc. Just background information. This makes sense, since there's no reason for characters to know that Bigby has a cone of cold spell as well as his famous interposing hand prepared.

That takes us to the back page, which is called 'Dispatches'. It's 'News from Around the Flanaess', otherwise known as adventure hooks. There are six given, each in a different region. I'll merely note that none of them are set in Ket...

So that's the taste of what is to come with the Living Greyhawk setting. As I said, I wouldn't have done well with this, being restricted to where my character can be from or where they can adventure. Sure, I could say 'my character goes from Ket to Onnwal, but my DM can't get adventures set in Onnwal unless he's got a UK address. Not good. But, the article on the Circle was quite good and full of useful info, so it's not a complete waste.

Alright, that's about it for the printed material for August 2000. There are still a couple of maps to get in a couple of days, but otherwise that's it. Oh, there was an online article set in the Forgotten Realms called 'Realms by Night', but it's just a fluff piece that is continuing on from stuff that was written during the 2e era, so I won't be going over it here.

I do have something of an idea percolating in my head for what else I can do with this project, but I'll have to see if time permits me to work on it tomorrow. Until next time, though, keep on gaming.