geneweigel wrote:
Greyhawk history in a can: 1) Castle and Crusade Society, a wargaming group, member Gary Gygax calls his group's part of the greater C&C wargaming kingdoms map by the name Greyhawk (D&D co-author Dave Arneson's Blackmoor is here as well) 2) Birth of D&D - Gygax, author of Chainmail integrates house rules to Chainmail system made by Arneson. Gygax develops a supplement for Chainmail called Dungeons and Dragons. Playtesting and development is done in the rapidly growing World of Greyhawk. 3) Behind the scenes, through tragedy and compromise the D&D game becomes a success story. The Strategic review becomes Dragon magazine. Various supplements are released some with hints at a world called Greyhawk. 4) AD&D is introduced and with it the adventures hint at a World called Greyhawk. 5) 1980 the long awaited Greyhawk campaign setting premieres. Details on countries and various other aspects. Dragon Magazine articles by Gygax support this publication with deities and details of countries. Robert Kuntz, Gary's long time friend and co-DM of the Greyhawk campaign, is "given" the eastern continent of the World of Greyhawk to develop and Len Lakofka, optional rules contibutor to Dragon Magazine, is given the southeast seas to develop. These are featured briefly in a series of articles called Greyhawk's World. 5) 1983 a revision of the 1980 campaign is put into a boxed set is expanded to include many of the magazine features. Various adventures become more and more notable as being set in Greyhawk. Two Greyhawk adventure novels by Gygax are pure AD&D making its contemporary (Dragonlance) in regards to AD&D content seem irrelevant in comparison. 6) The business side of D&D falls apart, a hostile takeover cuts Gygax off from his Greyhawk projects. The contents of his office are locked by the new TSR. 7) Gygax continues his Greyhawk series of novels as the Gord the Rogue series and the new TSR continues Greyhawk without him. 8 ) Besides Greyhawk co-DM Robert Kuntz doing two sections of a supermodule called Fate of Istus everything else after Gary left is sloppily contradictory. There are certain folks who call orignal GH by the word canon (I call them canon-thumpers) and they try to integrate the later material by inserting the "canon". I consider this ludicrous because there is no "canon"! Greyhawk is a certain style and it doesn't even matter if you have a nice continuity. Without the style you don't have Greyhawk. What they've called Greyhawk since Gary left just isn't Greyhawk. It may have an appeal to some newcomers but it is totally divorced from the style. And that's Greyhawk history in a can.
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