Reader Mail: Where Would You Start an Adventure in Greyhawk?

Last night I received an email through my fancy little contact box over there on the left of the page that was a really good question. So I thought I would throw it up on the blog, along with my answer, so that other Greyhawk enthusiasts could join in with some suggestions to help this reader out.

Hi! . . . I'm starting a campaign soon that's going to be set in Greyhawk. No one in the group has played In Greyhawk. I've been reading up on the setting, and I'll be using the LGG [Living Greyhawk Gazetteer] as my reference. What are the top areas to start a Greyhawk campaign for players new to the setting? There's so much information in the LGG that I'm having trouble choosing where to get started . . . 

Greyhawk Adventures Cover by Jeff Easley

Dear Reader, 

Without knowing what your group is into it's hard to give you a definitive answer as to where you should start adventuring. The World of Greyhawk has so much to offer your group from swashbuckling adventures on monster infested waters with the Sea Princes; to crossing a seemingly endless waste in the Sea of Dust as they search for lost cities hidden beneath the ash of a ruined civilization; to infiltrating the dreaded kingdom of that vile demigod Iuz; to the political intrigue of the Great Kingdom with its mad king and devilish lords; and of course there's the dungeon that gave the world its name. Greyhawk just is a land of plenty and you'll find something for every interest you could ever have waiting for you! 

But that isn't really helpful, is it? 

No. 

If I were to suggest a place to start adventuring I would pick the city of Dyvers. It's a free city located just on the southwestern portion of the Nyr Dyv (a lake of fathomless depths with monsters slumbering somewhere deep within that occasionally rise when particularly bad storms or earthquakes disturb their sleep) along the Verbobonc river. It's smaller than the more famous Greyhawk and has a natural rivalry with its sister city. I often describe it to my players as a city the size of Nashville; large and sprawling but not so big that you can't find your way around it. To the north you have the Kingdom of Fuyrondy (a land of noble knights standing against the ever present evil of Iuz and his demonic armies). To the south the Gnarly Forest where I usually put wild beastmen, goblins, and necromancers. Then there's the Wild Coast and the Orcish Empire of the Pomarj where all good adventurers go to die. 

As for getting everyone together I usually start them off having just been released from the city militia or having just graduated from the various colleges, universities, seminaries, and academies that their assorted classes would use. Then I tend to provide them with a few close-ish locations for them to explore. Often I tend to tie their first adventure to a character's family or friends to help establish them in the world. I like adventures that have them hunting down someone missing as it's easy to connect them with the slavers of the Wild Coast or the machinations of Iuz's armies. Then I just let the players craft their story from there. 

The other good thing about Dyvers is that it's fairly close to many of the big adventure locations in classic adventures like Maure Castle, Castle Greyhawk, the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Bright Desert, and so on. So if you have access to those adventures it will be fairly easy to get the players there from Dyvers. 

Hope this helps and don't hesitate to contact me again if you need more, 

Charlie 

P.S. Oh! Before I forget you should always remember that while Iuz is the biggest threat to the world that the Great Kingdom is not to be discounted as an enemy if you want to avoid demons. The king is mad and periodically purges the nobility (and, well, if we're being honest here most anyone else he remembers exists). His agents are fanatical in their devotion to him and act on his word as though it were the Holy Word of a god. They're a great enemy to throw into the game even if only for a mild distraction.

Reader Email: Why No Exclusive Focus on Minorities? [Updated]

This morning I received an email from a reader who wanted to know if I would consider writing a series focusing on under represented minorities as a way to showcase them to the wider blogging community and thereby exposing them to a wider audience. I get this question from time to time and I'd like to take a moment to address it publicly.

As a general rule I don't write articles that focus on someone's gender, sexual orientation, or race as their main qualifier for why my readers should pay attention to them. I wouldn't like for someone to single me out for such an article based on what's going on with my crotch, who I let touch me there, or what color my skin is so I won't do that to anyone else either.

Furthermore, when I write something like the Best Reads of the Week series I want everyone to understand that of the bloggers I surveyed that these individuals - regardless of the sexual orientation, gender, or race - were the best that week and that what those authors wrote got my attention and really excited my imagination. Every article that I have ever linked to in the series has been chosen expressly because of its own merits and not for any other reason. I've featured links to articles by homosexuals, straights, bisexuals, men, women, trans-gendered, and people of practically every race under the sun and every single one of them was selected based solely on their ideas and natural talents.

I know that my reasoning will not be sufficient for everyone who reads this post, and I'm open to discussing it with anyone who want to explore the subject. Hell, I'm even willing to add your opinions to this post to help further develop the conversation when you make a really good point; but for right now, this is my reasoning for why I don't focus on such things.

[Edit 5/14/2015 11:03 PM EST]

+Mateo Diaz Torres joined the discussion earlier today and had these salient points to add to the conversation:

I definitely don't think you're under any obligation to highlight anyone, but I think people do have potentially good reasons for doing it. It isn't necessarily degrading and discriminatory like some of your blog commenters have said.

1. People do get their work and ideas dismissed based on their race/gender/sexual and gender identity. Highlighting marginalized creators can bring attention people deserve based on the merit of their work.

2. People get scared off from the hobby. With some regularity, I see women who dropped out of groups or even gaming because of the amount of rape directed at their characters (emphasis added), and less threateningly, a lot of gamers seem to think women are mysterious aliens. "Hey, look, there are women/gay people/Latinos in the hobby, too" can go a long way to attracting more people into the fold.

In both of these cases, the highlighter (for lack of a better word) is bringing attention to people on the merit of their work, and trying to pull people into the hobby based on their interest in games.

Look, I want to say this in a public setting where anyone can come across it. If you think it's okay to act out your power fantasies by raping a female character than you need to fuck right off. You're not being funny, or clever; you're just being a dick bag.

An Overwhelming Sense of Dread

Dear Dyvers,

What's been going on with your blog? You've gone from posting almost every single day to days on end without a new post? WTF?

Anonymous Mouse

I've been working on a project that I should have been preparing for all year but completely forgot to do because it always seems like there's more time than there actually is. I'm currently doing my best to get though everything before December 1 so that I can reveal the project on that date. So far it's looking like I'm not going to make that self-imposed deadline (because I'm doing too god damned much).

Points if you've figured out the project by the way. None for silence or incorrect guesses.

Go Away Vampire, and Never Come Back

The other day I was asked by JD why I have such hate for the Vampire and Werewolf games produced by White Wolf Publishing. In a lot of ways my hatred for the games is based around the very deep disgust that I have with the way that the games affect the people who play them. But there is more to my disgust with the games than just how it affects people: they're adults after all and they don't have to play if they don't want to. I despise the game system and the story lines of the games just annoy me to no end. So, in other words, I have three major reasons for hating those games: Story, System, and Player Attraction.

It's All in the Story of the Game

I love games that tell a story. 

There's nothing better than when I sit down at my table and begin the set up to the world and let my players tell a story that's more evocative and entertaining than anything else I could be doing. The only restrictions on where my players can go are those 'red lines' that we won't cross and the limits of their imaginations. What I get when I play Vampire is a system with too many societal limitations on my players and too many Anne Rice fans writing the supplements. I fucking hated the Vampire Chronicles and it didn't change when I got the chance to play in one of the books. 

I fucking hated the Vampire Chronicles and it didn't change when I got the chance to play in one of the books. 

Werewolf was a different story for a long time. I had first started getting hints of the storyline from the collectable card game (CCG), Rage: The Werewolf: The Apocalypse. There were hints at a larger story and by reading the cards I was given just enough of a tantalizing glimpse for me to waste my money on the actual book. The story of the game is incredibly convoluted and it often creates a situation where players are given to being combative towards one and another. Now I'm all for killing the fucker who's making you mad, but there's something dark within the human psyche that is brought out in how these games are played that I don't like.

Roll 6d10s and Pray for Success

The Storyteller System was what the games used when I was introduced to them, and I fucking hate it. Every time that I would do any task beyond wiping my own ass it seemed as though I was rolling three d10s and hoping for two successes. Now there are those who are going to read that last statement and say, "but you play third edition Dungeons and Dragons where you roll all the time with your skills!" 

I have enjoyed listening to Call of Cthulhu games on many occasions . . . I have never enjoyed listening to, let alone playing, in a Vampire the Masquerade or Werewolf: The Apocalypse game.

Yeah, I do play third edition Dungeons and Dragons, home of the skill system. But you know what? I've never had a Dungeon Master who was so myopic that he felt like I had to roll to climb a two foot step, whereas, I've had to make that roll in Werewolf on multiple occasions. Again I can hear them say, "but you had a bad Storyteller!"

My only answer is that they were good Dungeon Masters and they were good on the few occasions when we played Call of Cthulhu - a system that is expressly story driven. I have enjoyed listening to Call of Cthulhu games on many occasions (and I highly suggest you listen to that podcast from RPGMP3.com as Hal is a boss Game Master), by contrast, I have never enjoyed listening to, let alone playing, in a Vampire the Masquerade or Werewolf: The Apocalypse game. It's not the fucking Game Master, it's the system and story.

He Placed His Hand Upon My Thigh and Asked, 

"Do You Trust Me?"

My final problem with the Vampire and Werewolf games has less to do with the games themselves and more to do with the people attracted to the games. Let's face facts here: no matter what system you are playing in the hobby you will encounter some seriously unbalanced motherfuckers out there who think the game is real. Usually you can bounce these people from your games in a pretty straight forward manner, but in Vampire and Werewolf there tends to be so many of these cats that it's impossible to get rid of them all.

It's like watching a kid get his ass kicked for his lunch money and having to hear him defend his bully by saying, "but he's really a nice guy."

What really turned me off on the Vampire games, though, was when I went to play in one about ten years ago and walked in on a bunch of people just waiting for the orgy to start. Walking in on something like that once is bad enough because you leave feeling creepy when that's not what you came for, but when it happens again with a completely different group of people you start realizing that the connection isn't your bad timing but the other consistent factor: the game.

Werewolf on the other hand encourages bullies. 

I can not tell you the number of times that I have attempted to play the game only to watch the 'Alpha' start dominating the other people in the game. I mean, I'm sitting there watching grown men and women cowed before this 'alpha' doing his bidding and all I can think is fuck off. You're grown men and women and this peckerwood is bullying you in a game. I'm watching people I know actually get emotionally upset during the game and then defending the game afterwards. It's like watching a kid get his ass kicked for his lunch money and having to hear him defend his bully by saying, "but he's really a nice guy."

I can't stand a fucking bully. 

I've stood up to them my whole life and I don't give a damn about what the game says. Fuck bullies in all their forms; they don't intimidate me, and I won't let them intimidate others.