MShipley88 wrote:I used the 2nd edition rules when they came out. I never warmed to the 2nd edition modules or publications. I hated the art and I didn't like the feel of the new products. They lacked the character of the originals.
Also, I never felt the charm of the Forgotten Realms.
I'm going to throw the most horrific blasphemy at you that you will ever hear an old school guy spout: Forgotten Realms had the World of Greyhawk neck and neck for imagination and depth...for the first few years, until
FR turned into a bloated, self absorbed parody of itself. This was mostly brought about by the novels, I believe, and the flogging of characters such as Elminster, Drizzt, etc. Also a culprit was the horrible lack of decent modules or adventures set in the
FR, the significant crawls that really put their stamp on the setting like the
GDQ1-7,
T1-4,
S1-4 or even A1-4 did for WOG. The first I blame on the marketing machine of TSR, which in retrospect could do logically nothing else but promote the few popular characters of it's setting. The second I blame on the launching of Dungeon magazine, which featured dozens of adventures each year and effectively drained the need to publish stand alone Forgotten Realms modules or adventures.
However, the original box set, and the first five supplements, were SHEER BRILLAINCE. The
FR box set was everything old timers had always wanted out of the WOG. The WOG had a sort of distance between the material and the player...
IMO this is the result of
EGG's background in miniature wargames. Descriptions of countries, leaders and personalities are usually nothing more than dry, impersonal stats, numbers and facts. Look at the country descriptions, most are merely lists of troops and population. There is also a "sameness" about the material...not present in the
FR's mishmash of cultures/locales including Celtic (Moonshaes), traditional kingdoms (Cormyr), Dalelands, desert/arabian nights settings (Amn/Calimshan), Egyptian (Old Empires), etc. Through the first boxed set and the first few supplements (FR1 Waterdeep, FR2 Moonshae, FR3 Empires of the Sands, FR5 Savage Frontier) you get a feel of the vastness and depth of the material, and are left wondering "Why didn't
EGG ever release a supplement detailing The Great Kingdom? The Bandit Kingdoms? Keoland?" Ed Greenwood reminds me so much of
EGG in his prime, both can write a paragraph on some locale and leave about 5 great idea floating around there just begging to be used by the
DM. It's really a tragedy that the World of Greyhawk never got the
FR treatment...How much would you give for "WOG" series the equivilant of the "FR" series? Ah, I can see it now:
WOG1 The City of Greyhawk and The Cairn Hills
WOG2 The Kingdom of Furyondy (including Shield Lands and Veluna)
WOG3 The Great Kingdom (including Ratik & Bone March)
WOG4 The Yeomanry (including Hold Sea Princes)
WOG5 The Heartlands (Bissel, Geoff, Gran March, Sterich)
WOG6 Ulek & Keoland
WOG7 Theocracy of the Pale (including Tenh)
WOG8 Lands of the Evil North (Iuz, Horned Society, Nomads, Blackmoor)
WOG9 Barbarians of the North (including Hold of Stonefist)
WOG10 Urnst (including Nyrond)
WOG11 Bandit Kingdoms (including Barrens)
WOG12 The Scarlet Brotherhood (including Sunndi & the Great Swamp)
WOG13 The East (including Ket, Perrenland, Zeif, Ull, Ekbir and Tusmit)
WOG14 The Wild Coast (including the Pomarj)
WOG15 The Sea of Dust (including Dry Steppes)
With a lineup like that, there never would have even been a need for the Forgotten Realms....and we'd all be the richer to this day!!!
My group, that had been playing since the late 70's, had absolutely no attachment to the WOG, and the switch to the
FR was not a problem. As a matter of fact, with the release of From the Ashes and additional supplements, I attempted a "new" Greyhawk campaign, which was met with sheer indifference from not only my original group but any newcomers we got to join our group. I began to realize my attachment to the WOG was nostalgia and unfortunately wasn't felt my anyone else I gamed with