Tieflings: They will be tied to the corruption of the Great Kingdom and its cavorting with devils, making them relative newcomers to Greyhawk. Tieflings are most common in and around Rauxes. As they are most prominent among princes and their aristocratic families, they have largely been able to escape being treated with scorn and maintain their positions of influence. However, outside the Great Kingdom they are pretty much associated with the corruption that has permeated the Aerdy and are typically treated with scorn.
Dragonborn: They are native to the peninsula of the Nippon Dominion and Erypt. Warbands have spread across the Sea of Dust and the Dry Steppes. Baklunes commonly hire them as mercenaries, especially Zief. Baklunes traveling into the greater Flaneass often take a few dragonborn mercenaries with them for protection, so they are known wherever Baklune merchants and nobles may travel. Of particular note are the bands that Rary has been relocating to the Bright Desert. Mordenkainen is puzzled as to why Rary is doing this, but not yet suspicious.
Eladrin: They are mostly on their otherworldly realm with a presence in the Flaneass limited to various fey realms. Those traveling outside of fey realms will likely be mistaken as elves.
Loss of gnomes as a player race: In some 2 decades of gaming, I have only seen one gnome character, and he only survived two or three adventures. As such, losing gnomes as a player race does not bother me in the slightest. They will remain NPCs in the Flinty Hills, Kron Hills, and wherever.
Loss of half-orcs as a player race: Half-orcs have been very popular in my group over the years. If someone wants to play one, they can use the mechanics for a human (or orc if there are rules for playing such in the monster manual). As I have never given half-orcs a position of prominence in any region, a de-emphasis of them should not affect any geopolitics.
Differing classes and class abilities: Assume this is how things have always been. Setting NPCs have never been important to me anyway, but in the event stats for one becomes necessary, the NPC will be reworked under 4e rules using previous stats as guidelines.
No monks: This hits the Scarlet Brotherhood hard. I simply will not include the Brotherhood in the campaign until such time as monks are a playable class.
No druids: I have never been a big fan of druids, and so, have never given them much geopolitical influence. Once rules for druids are released, their influence will be re-examined.
No barbarians: While barbarians are an important factor in a great many areas, the Fighter and/or Ranger classes can probably double wherever needed.
No bards: I have never used a bard as anything other than a frumpish fop, and some generic NPC can fill that role just as well as a bard. While I have played a few over the years, no player has ever been one while I have DMed, so its loss should not be noticed.
Warlords: Spectacular, a non-magical class that can lead troops. They will be common in armies everywhere and a great many rulers will have Warlord levels if stating them out becomes important. They are assumed to have always been around.
Warlocks: I don’t really know what to think of them at this point.
Paragon/Epic paths: I don’t really know what to think of them at this point.
Different cosmology: I have never been much for traveling the planes. The 4e structure of the multiverse will be assumed to have always been the way things are. The Feywild and Shadow-whatever feel like a better fit to the various fading lands than the Great Wheel cosmology anyway.
De-emphasis of alignment: I am probably more excited about the de-emphasis of alignment than any other aspect of 4e. The black-and-whitish nature of alignments always conflicted with the real politick I prefer. It will no longer be as hard to justify, say, King Belvor making a secret agreement with the Horned Society to raid the uppity Shield Landers rather than Furyondian lands.
4e demons and devils: The differences between the demonic presence in Iuz and the devilish presence in the Great Kingdom seem perfectly in line with the 4e vision of these two fiends. Succubi tempting mortals in the Great Kingdom seems more appropriate than them tempting mortals in the lands of Iuz, thus moving them to devils sounds jim dandy.
Different monsters in the Monster Manual and their different abilities: I love to tie the history of each monster into the history of the Flaneass. My current works on them date back to 2nd edition and the Monstrous Compendiums and does not reflect my changing preferences since that time. Thus, my homebrew monstrous histories are in bad need of being revamped anyway. Emphasizing the 4e Monster Manual is a good catalyst to get this project going.
Time frame: Since From the Ashes has been released, I have not run a campaign prior to the Wars. Going into 4e, the time frame will be pushed back to 576 CY and the ’83 boxed set will be my primary reference. Populations in the ’83 set will be considered as hides with the exception of cities/towns which will be considered to be actual population figures. I find using hides to be easier in world design than using real population figures.
Gods: The myriad number of demi-human/humanoid pantheons will not exist. The specific Greyhawk gods will be tied to demi-humans/humanoids just as strongly as they are to humans. As I view all Greyhawk gods as having ascended, with most having been mortals at some time, many of the Greyhawk gods will be demi-human, humanoid, or monstrous in appearance – though with many more humans than any other race, the human racial distinctions remain important. Each area will have its own pantheon wherein the typical person in said region venerates all of the gods in the pantheon of its region. Clerics and paladins may either be dedicated to one specific god or may be dedicated to the veneration of all the gods of their particular pantheon. Cathedrals and churches are typically not dedicated to any one god, but rather, to the region’s pantheon. Appeasement of evil gods is just as important as veneration of good gods, and so, things like giving an offering to Nerull upon someone’s death is just as important and accepted as saying a prayer to Rao for inner solace. Worship of demon princes and dukes of hell is distinguished by not having widespread acceptance.
Humanocentrism: The percentile polygot of races in the LGG causing things like Furyondy being one the primary centers of elvin population will be ignored. Using ’83 population figures makes the world much more humanocentric.
Ships: I have a very hard time justifying frigates and galleons in a milieu that does not include trans-oceanic travel or cannon. The pinnacle of ship design will be the carrack – and it will be very recent.
Yes, 4e is a roadblock to using the Scarlet Brotherhood. Until WotC releases an expansion with monks, it is wise to just keep them on the sidelines. It was an absolute catastrophe when TSR decided to leave out the monks in 2e. They changed the Brotherhood to a Clerical order. At the time all I could think of is imagining one of the monks singing "The Inquisition" from History of the World Part I.
I suspect there will be monk rules in a year or two - that is not too much time to disregard using the Brotherhood's inner ring. If an agent is necessary before then, it can be a cousin. The true shame for the Brotherhood is that the assassin hasn't been a base class since 1e, and likely will be some type of Paragon path in 4e - making it awkward for lower level uncles.
Most of my misgivings about a 4E Greyhawk aren't tied to what I see as "cosmetic" issues. Gnomes, half-orcs, whether succubi are demons or devils, etc. do not define GH to me. Druids and Monks are a bit harder to get around from a mechanical point of view, simply because they do play a much greater role in many canonical sources, but we are told they'll be coming "eventually", so I can even overlook that in a way.
The biggest problem to me is the difference in the campaign-philosophy baggage that 4E seems bound and determined to interject into every setting. The "points of light" design philosophy, specifically, is what I see as inherently at odds with the Greyhawk setting. The Flanaess is not a vast wilderness with small outposts of goodness scabbling to survive the onslaught; it is a place of large contending kingdoms and cabals of powerful individuals whose machinations drive the story arcs.
It would probably be possible to advance the timeline (yet again!) and bend, staple, fold, and otherwise mutilate the setting to fit the design philosophy inherent in 4E. But to my mind that defeats the purpose of using the setting in the first place. If it must be changed that drastically, all you are really getting is a couple of names.
Too, I see little reason to introduce new PC races for no good reason other than the fact that someone at WotC thinks they're neat. If they're so neat, design a setting specifically to highlight them. They already seem willing to turn FR upside-down to incorporate all of the changes that 4E demands; I wonder what will be left to differentiate the settings if they all must include the same elements and reflect the same design philosophy.
I find it interesting that so many people have talked of altering Greyhawk to suit 4e, rather than vice versa. New core changes, like tieflings being a common race, should be altered to suit the campaign(i.e: tieflings are as rare in Greyhawk as they have ever been), not suddenly have a tiefling population explosion somewhere in Greyhawk. Greyhawk is known for cambions anyways, not tieflings, and even cambions are very rare.
The same thing happened with 3e though,with gnomes shying away from being illusionists and being bards instead, the option for dwarves and 1/2 orcs to be arcane spellcatsers, etc. It will be interesting to see which direction people will take things in. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
I think people are trying too hard to do a direct conversion. Firstly IGNORE ALL FLUFF. None of the background for the races and cultures of Oerth needs to be changed. Neither do tieflings and dragonborn have to be introduced as mainstream 'races'. Far better to let pcs play them as aberrations or unusual beings viewed with suspicion.
We've had cambions for decades so cambions now become tieflings, focused in the Empire of Iuz with a few in the Great Kingdom, a few in the Dreadwood (i.e. House Mahlel), and some mechanism for tieflings with a non-evil origin for pcs to play.
Dragonborn are as grim and uncool conceptually as half-dragons were in 3e. I don't mind rare magical cross-breeds and the few established natural cross-breeds that work with humans are fine but enough is enough. Does everything have to be able to breed with everything else these days? This isn't Star Trek.
Nevertheless, I'm sure the youngfolk will think that they are cool so the best way to introduce them is to place their origin in some far off realm - either west of the Baklunish states, the Sea of Dust, the southern jungles, the Land of Black Ice etc. PCs choosing this race will have to accept that they will be pretty unique.
As for missing monks, gangly gnomes, and dopey druids, this is real pain for pcs who are playing them at the moment of transfer but their current absence should be no problem for npcs since the npcs are not rolled up as characters in any event. If you want a traditional npc fighting-monk, just make them a skirmisher and give them an unarmed attack and a few nifty powers. You want a traditional npc druid just make them a controller and give them a few suitable spell powers. Gnomes will be a playable monster race so pcs will be able to play them without any racial feat options - not too bad a trade.
However, my overall advice is to wait for PHB2 before converting existing 3e campaigns. This way we will have a years' worth of articles in Dragon plus all the main pc races and classes to work with.
Frankly, its just too early to tell yet if I am going to use 4e, 3.5, or Pathfinder RPG (I will be playtesting Alpha 2 this weekend).
As for fluff. I was already rethinking the history of elves in Greyhawk (or more accurately, giving an origin story for them). So when I read the feywild, it fit with what I was already pulling together.
I actually like the shadowfell, as I felt the positive and negative planes had no use besides explaining where priests/clerics tapped their powers from. No loss there. You really couldn't go there, so it was just a fluff thing anyway...
I really like the elemental chaos idea since it ties into my concepts of Tharzidun and the primordial creation of the universe in my campaign.
Not a lot of monk players in my games so I don't have to hear a bunch of belly aching about that class not being in PH1. Depending on how the unarmed combat rules work in 4e, it might not be much of an issue for using the SB. Besides I can reconceptalize the org based upon its goals instead of arbritary character classes that make up its members (never liked this idea anyway).
The fact of the mater is, I am moving away from 3e's dependence on NPC and PCs being built the same. I had a hard time with the MM4 and MM5 because of the monsters built with nonstandard magical abilities (the horror!) but then I realized the monsters only live 3 to 5 rounds as combatants so why get all worked up on making them just like PCs. So whether I use the crunch of 4e or not, I will be moving in the direction of the fluf anyway. To take this farther, I had already started using 3e experts as priests in my GH campaign, making those that have powers of the gods much rarer (this was before Ebberon published this idea, damn you Rich Baker for beating me to the punch). I have never like that every leader is a PC class (an artifact of the crunch rules of AD&D 1e.
What this all means is, I am just not going to try an preserve GH in amber anymore. I am tired of the stagnation and the "no you can't" attitude of a great many people. GH is what I make it to be. Besides, my players just want to kick in the door, kill the monsters, and take the loot. So, all this deep background and preservation is just for my own edification, at best.
If the fluff doesn't serve the game I am hosting, kiss it goodbye.
So, 4e isn't going to force me to change GH, I am already altering it to suite my whims and ideas. Long live Heresy & Heretics...
The biggest problem to me is the difference in the campaign-philosophy baggage that 4E seems bound and determined to interject into every setting. The "points of light" design philosophy, specifically, is what I see as inherently at odds with the Greyhawk setting. The Flanaess is not a vast wilderness with small outposts of goodness scabbling to survive the onslaught; it is a place of large contending kingdoms and cabals of powerful individuals whose machinations drive the story arcs.
While I haven't seen the books, nothing I have seen thus far leads me to indicate that a points of light conceit is any more required by 4e than in any of the other incarnations of DnD. Is there something that I am missing?
I find it interesting that so many people have talked of altering Greyhawk to suit 4e, rather than vice versa. New core changes, like tieflings being a common race, should be altered to suit the campaign(i.e: tieflings are as rare in Greyhawk as they have ever been), not suddenly have a tiefling population explosion somewhere in Greyhawk.
Who said anything about tieflings (or dragonborn for that matter) being common races? Offhand, I cannot recall anyone suggesting as much. If the Flaneass is large enough for humans, elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, gnolls, ogrillons, xvarts, norkers, flind, bullywugs, lizardmen, mermen, derro, and a whole host of other humanoids, why would it not be large enough to also include some tieflings and dragonborn?
Under 4e, Tieflings will be a Core and more commonly seen race, the point being rather that simply ignoring them and maintain their rare status(as their place is really in a Planes cape setting), many people are instead surmising where such a new Core race could be fit into Greyhawk. My only concern is forcing this square peg of 4e through the round hole of Greyhawk too roughly.
My point is, your descriptions here:
Tieflings: They will be tied to the corruption of the Great Kingdom and its cavorting with devils, making them relative newcomers to Greyhawk. Tieflings are most common in and around Rauxes. As they are most prominent among princes and their aristocratic families, they have largely been able to escape being treated with scorn and maintain their positions of influence. However, outside the Great Kingdom they are pretty much associated with the corruption that has permeated the Aerdy and are typically treated with scorn.
…and here:
“Dragonborn: They are native to the peninsula of the Nippon Dominion and Erypt. Warbands have spread across the Sea of Dust and the Dry Steppes. Baklunes commonly hire them as mercenaries, especially Zief. Baklunes traveling into the greater Flanaess often take a few Dragonborn mercenaries with them for protection, so they are known wherever Baklune merchants and nobles may travel. Of particular note are the bands that Rary has been relocating to the Bright Desert. Mordenkainen is puzzled as to why Rary is doing this, but not yet suspicious.”
…do not elude to a smattering of anything, but of the wholesale importation of what are essentially non-Greyhawk things into Greyhawk. Dragonborn are pretty much Draconians, and we all know where those came from. However you paint them or change their background/origin, Dragonmen are a Dragonlance archetype, and Tieflings will always be a Planescape archetype. Is there room for such in Greyhawk? Sure. They would probably best fit in the unexplored realms of the west, if anywhere. To each their own, but these two races in particular have an uphill climb ahead of them to gain any form a of acceptance as actually belonging in Greyhawk. _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Last edited by Cebrion on Wed Apr 30, 2008 5:57 am; edited 1 time in total
Tieflings and dragonborn will more commonly appear in official modules but no reason why you need to make them more common in your general campaign, especially as we won't be getting official GH modules.
Grey elves should now be eladrin. That much is clear. Everything is still largely optional.
I'm looking forward to seeing people's conversions of the npcs. Since they do not have to be created using character rules it will be a free-for-all!
If anybody has ever been to look at the Roll Call thread of the Atomic Think Tank forums for Mutants & Masterminds, there are loads of different ways to conceptualise the same characters. It will be really fun!
I guess in five weeks we will get a full picture of 4e. 4e may turn out to be a good system on its own right, but from what I see it will not be Dungeons and Dragons as we know. I am not holding my breath (and why should I? Even if 4e does not work there are 3 other versions of the system which still are excellent systems barring a few bugs) but neither do I want to make a judgement without knowing the full system. It may be that the adjustments needed to bring this system in line with Greyhawk will be minor.
Seems to me that the easiest way to deal with dragonborn is to just change their background fluff to suit them replacing the lizardmen that already exist in large numbers in Greyhawk.
But, frankly, I don't see why anything about the Flanaess needs to change because of 4e. Obviously, it'll affect your PCs options. But everything else will work as is. If you still want to use Malcanthet, then just make some demonic temptresses.
The Old Faith and the Scarlet Brotherhood are class defined, but honestly that's no loss if you ask me. The Old Faith still works as nature priests since the important thing about it is the culture/religion and organization, not the class abilities. Same thing with the scarlet brotherhood. Let them be a variety of classes, just organizing them by thematic function. The monk thing is a bit of a nuisance, but you can keep the leaders out of combat until you think of a good solution or the class is released.
Not to worry. Druids and Monks will show up later on. There has to be a reason to buy the PHB vol. 2 you know! _________________ - Moderator/Admin (in some areas)/Member -
Well I haven't written anything about 4th edition for awhile, so I thought tonight I would make mention of it.
I think their Digital Initiative will provide a lot for those who decide they want to subscribe. As Cebrion pointed out and he is correct, the monk, druid, (insert anything else taken out such as barbarians, half-orcs, half-elves, etc.) will appear in the next PH 2 or 3. Before that though, I think we will see these missing items on the DI. Subscribers will basically get all the "new" information first because they are subscribing and those that choose not to get it will receive it in book format when the time comes. If I am correct I wonder if it will upset those with subscriptions because they already paid for it.
My current understanding is that each world will receive a Players Guide, a Campaign Guide and adventure (or do they mean adventures, I'm not certain), then they move on to the next world the following year. The above mentioned items will certainly become available before Greyhawk is redone, which by WOTC account is at least 3 years away. They have stated that FR is year one, Ebberon year two, and after that nothing definate has been declared other than Greyhawk WILL be on the list. This all assumes that things don't change over the coarse of time before we get there.
Hopefully any Greyhawk work WOTC does will be made to be campaign flavor and thus retain and not change the world to fit in 4th edition factors such as dragonborn or tieflings. I wouldn't mind it if they wrote it in a manner which was a bit more open ended and allowed DM creativity to be encouraged.
The LGG lists specific percentages of racial populations. I'd open this up a bit and yet still make it obvious which races are predominate within an area. By this I don't mean less elves and throw in some dragonborn. What I mean is not limit the populations by percentage as the LGG currently does but still list the races in order of poplation dominance and where geographically each is more dominant. This helps retain the flavor of the world and is consistent with past Greyhawk endeavors and thus most people's campaigns. It makes it easier for those not going 4th edition to retain this Greyhawk feel and not choose to make changes they are not real "excited" about. For the 4th edition players, it leaves broader strokes for the inclusion within their version of Greyhawk. Thus the text is written in a manner which makes them more comfortable about adding dragonborn, etc.
I would like to see some sort of character class dominance as well which is already written into the world but not as obvious because no specific stat appears. Example, Greyhawk City is well known for its Wizards and Rogues. When providing an entry for the Greyhawk Domains area, perhaps list the classes one will find in order by commonality. Thus when a DM (old or new) is working on world development, they are more apt to try and include more wizards and rogues to this region then say another area. The Scarlet Brotherhood would have a higher percentage of assassins and monks than say the Duchy of Urnst. I don't necessarily want hard numbers, but rather a bit more open ended text to get this point across. I would also like to see world flavor come up by actually calling a rogue a "Thief" or a Gnome a "Noniz", a dwarf "dwur" that sort of thing. Care would have to be taken to explain this to the reader to avoid confusion however.
Any 4th edition work presented should in my opinion be fairly edition neutral in regards to not absorbing all the 4th edition items which were not there before hand. Classes/races/etc which were pretty much always a notable construct of Greyhawk should remain in an effort to retain the flavor of the world and make it unique as compared to another D&D world.
I have read that WOTC is using the term "core" with pretty much everything in order to assist people in being more comfortable with dropping items from one world to another, say for example, Castle Greyhawk into the Realms. I understand this concept because if they succeed in changing the way many people think, they will sell more units. What I don't care for is the idea because I don't want any world to lose its originality. I hope that if they procceed with this line of business, that such consideration is given. I hate to see any of the D&D worlds becoming more generic or a hodge podge (mix and match). I realize this doesn't affect my world per say because I choose the purchases, not the company offering the books. When I say this, I speak in general terms of wanting to keep the worlds individuality intact.
I know myself, I was always very picky about what I would or wouldn't add to Greyhawk, for two reasons. The very reason stated above, trying to retain the world's originality. The other being cost. I have only so many dollars I can or will spend on D&D and so going into 3rd edition I decided in advance that I wouldn't purchase "other world" information. This decision wasn't made because I didn't think it was any good or couldn't be modified, it was a financial decision so I didn't overspend. Turns out I did overspend, not on world stuff but instead on all of their optional books. Oh, well, what is done is done. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
I admit I wasn't very happy with the way the 3e LG bumped up the races and classes to make them relatively equal and common in all nations so that all character and class combinations could be contained in each LG region. I think it led to a loss of flavour in many respects.
I was quite happy with pockets of magical expertise (it's not as if every real world city has a top university covering all subjects) and nations devoid of elves or dwarves. I like my racial divides too. I don't really want 1,000 gnomes living in my capital cities - send them back to their warrens I say!
Maybe 7,000 grey elves is a bit low for the entire eladrin population of Celene but I can live with it because it makes them more exotic and mysterious.
I'm going back to 1e racial populations and class distributions if possible so tieflings are going to be slotted into normal nations as part of noble houses who made infernal pacts and dragonborn are going to be relegated to remote mountain relams and possibly servants of the Earth Dragon in the Pomarj. If I can work out a way to introduce a few metallic dragonborn (if such a thing exists) in the eladrin realms of Celene and Sunndi, it might help to give them a more exotic flavour I suppose.
I'm just hoping that any 4e books give a nod to the efforts of LG by including some vague references to the main campaign points and don't totally contradict the 'official' set up of the nations we have at the moment, particlarly as it is taking me long enough to produce by home made gazeteer with the status quo as it is!
I never had the Folio, so I do not know how it introduced the setting.
The 83 boxed set, in my opinion, defined the setting.
Greyhawk Wars/From the Ashes introduced massive changes. While I did not like it at first, I came to love the changes as they gave me a lot of different adventure hooks to work from. If I did not want to worry about the Wars, I could always run a campaign from the 83 set.
The Adventure Begins/Living Greyhawk Gazetteer felt like an attempt to reset the milieu back to where it was with the 83 set. While these releases significantly fleshed out things like history, demographics, and such, they did not really offer me anything new in the way of adventures beyond what I already had.
If and when Wizards of the Coast releases an update to the setting, I hope they take the Greyhawk Wars/From the Ashes approach by using massive changes. This will give me numerous new adventure hooks to use, while I can still go back to running a campaign under the 83 set, From the Ashes, or Living Greyhawk Gazetteer whenever I want the feel of one of those settings.
If Wizards of the Coast uses The Adventure Begins/Living Greyhawk Gazetteer approach of minimizing changes, I question what the product will have to offer that is not already available from the 83 set, From the Ashes, and Living Greyhawk Gazetteer. It may contain a whole slew of Greyhawk specific feats, classes, monsters and such (which is all fine stuff), but when I pick up an update to Greyhawk, I am really interested in what is happening in the worlds rather than game rules.
And so, I hope that Wizards 4E Greyhawk release comes with a bang. Maybe a dragonborn army marches through the Suloise passage and invades Yeomanry; maybe St. Cuthbert leads an army of angels to the prime and obliterates Iuz; maybe a crazed Ulli warlord leads his people to conquest of the whole Baklune people and turns the whole area into a nightmarish, brutal land which threatens to invade the central Flaneass; maybe the Sea Barons discover a new continent and spark a race among the major states of the Flaneass to establish colonies; maybe Turrosh Mak crushes the Uleks and Celene to establish a true empire; maybe Xavener reinvigorates the Aerdy to an era of glory reclaiming the Great Kingdom's lands.
maybe a crazed Ulli warlord leads his people to conquest of the whole Baklune people and turns the whole area into a nightmarish, brutal land which threatens to invade the central Flaneass.
No Monks in the Vol 2 of the PHB so you will have to wait an unknown amount of time for them.
I really peeved about waiting for Druids and Bards who have a solid but small presecence in my campaign.
I dont undertsand why almost everyone is happy to see gnomes go. A good number of my characters and NPCs were gnomes and they seem to have a great flavour.
Which brings me to my major bleat - NPC creation in 4e. Uuuaarrggghyuk. Meaning I'm not a fan. Why cant my NPCs have a race and a proper class like they did in 3e?
What is my ml hmn Expert9 sage now? Something I just make up? The new system caters for combatants but not for others. But I like the idea of having stats just in case he interacts in combat. This change in 4e has absolutely killed my joy in world/town/campaign creation where I had fun creating NPCs. Everything will have to remain 3.5e until I work out how to handle this - I cant believe people like the new system. Maybe I am one of only a few who feel this way - maybe it will grow on me.
You're far from being the only one who feels this way. My group are just about to convert all our characters over to Pathfinder and are going to have a mini-reboot of the campaign; nothing blatant, just some subtle tweaks here and there to try to restore a little first edition feel, and shake off some of the corporate blandola that's crept in under our radar.
None of my group are intending to even look at 4e, either by purchasing the books or perusing the wizards' site.
I really peeved about waiting for Druids and Bards who have a solid but small presecence in my campaign.
Someone did a Druid over at ENWorld that looks pretty good to me, although I'm still absorbing the rules so...
I had recently turned against 4e after taking a wait and see approach. It looked waaaay toooo different for me, although there were plenty of things I liked. Then I playtested it some and now I'm actually pretty enthusiastic about it. There are still a few things I don't like beyond many of the fluff changes, but nothing I can't work around. I actually contacted a group looking for player in my town so I'll probably be joining a campaign, and I haven't played a game in a couple or three years.
Which brings me to my major bleat - NPC creation in 4e. Uuuaarrggghyuk. Meaning I'm not a fan. Why cant my NPCs have a race and a proper class like they did in 3e?
Yep I thought the Druid looked okay - surprised how fast someone got one up.
I checked EnWorld threads and the PHB2 looks like having Sorceror, Bard, Barbarian, Druid. It also has a class starting with W and a class starting with I. Illusionist definitely, since they just previwed Illusionist spells in Dragon. I was rather hoping W would be Witch. A mutch underrated class and one that fits very nicely into my Greyhawk campaign. Also Shaman will be in there.
Still cant believe Monk wont be. How annoying.
I really really torn with 4e - half of it is an improvement, the other half I dont like at all.
Well I just got done flushing my D&D 4e campaign. As a DM I had some fun with the creatures, and everything looked really good on paper. The game was fun and quick, but wasn't D&D. I went this route only because mechanics wise it seemed pretty slick. Thing I hated is the old feel was dead.
I could no longer feel the spirit of my old master (Gygax) and my interest in the new edition just faded. I didn't even want to play it anymore. A player took over for me. I am playing a Human (because other races felt nothing like old D&D for me) Cleric of the Raven Queen (wish it was Wee Jas, but we aren't playing in GH. ).
This edition is so far removed from D&D I would hate to even think of what 4e would be like for GH. Just my feelings. I hope you guys are enjoying it. I am sticking with 3.5/Pathfinder RPG if I decide to DM again and it will be Greyhawk!
As a system by itself 4e is fun and good for quick games but it's not D&D.
I normally wouldn't recant or whatever to one of my own posts but some months ago I stated here on this site I wouldn't be going 4th for GH. Truth still is I won't. I had to try it for mechanics sake for a home brew project specifically designed for a new system. That and I got the books practically half off from, Amazon. I am glad I'm not investing anymore money into it however. Either way I am happy to be back in 3.x frame of mind. I am not here to bash it for others. I do hope you guys find it enjoyable either way. Anyway, I just didn't wanna sound like a bloody hypocrite.
I'm running two different campaigns in Greyhawk (or will be soon, we should restart Saltmarsh in a few months), and once you take into account certain things (there are no "tiefling empires" and dragonborn are from west of the Baklunish basin), it works fairly well.
But it really falls on how you define DnD. Do you define it as high adventure and fights that you talk about for years afterwards? Is it the NPCs you can't forget, and the villains you refuse to? 4E can do those things as well as 1,2, or 3.x. Is it vancian casting and the great wheel (which you could still include the great wheel), then you're going to be a bit disapointed. For me it helps move the party and the story along. I recently was running a 3.5 Ebberon game. The party went three rooms into a four room dungeon and had to retreat for the day. The same group of players went through a 6 room dungeon without an extended rest. (and just as difficult, because I refuse to pull punches, and love rubbing players' noses in the dirt, even if I don't kill them - it makes them appreciate their victories more)
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Canonfire! is a production of the Thursday Group in assocation with GREYtalk and Canonfire! Enterprises
Since they do not have to be created using character rules it will be a free-for-all! 
).
Either way I am happy to be back in 3.x frame of mind. I am not here to bash it for others. I do hope you guys find it enjoyable either way. Anyway, I just didn't wanna sound like a bloody hypocrite. 
