Greyhawk HERO

[Doc Democracy]

11 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Magic has little effect on daily life in Greyhawk, with magic users largely preferring to stay in the shadows (for unexplained reasons).  Greyhawk the city is basically Lankhmar; sorcery happens in the corners but you're not going to see streets lit by Continual Light very often.

 

Interesting insight.  Should I be putting something in to that effect? Is there a game reason that wizards keep a distance?  Is wizard magic more difficult when there are lots of people about?  Does it have side-effects that only become apparent with long term continuous exposure?

[Old Man]

5 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Interesting insight.  Should I be putting something in to that effect? Is there a game reason that wizards keep a distance?  Is wizard magic more difficult when there are lots of people about?  Does it have side-effects that only become apparent with long term continuous exposure?

 

Damned if I know.  Maybe it got explained in the Gord books or something.  I'm going off dim recollections of the WoG boxed set and a couple of modules.  But Greyhawk was very much "default D&D" as a setting, for obvious reasons.

[Lord Liaden]

When I used to run D&D-based games, I treated Alignment less as something that uniformly defines the characteristics of races, nations, even individuals (aside from clerics, paladins, and others who adhere to a particular ethical code), and more as a pervasive miasma from gods, demons and the like, which influences sapient beings on an unconscious level. Due to the influence of these entities, a particular society or ethnicity might have a prevalence toward one alignment or another, but there would always be exceptions. For the most part a world maintains an overall balance. It's when the balance tilts drastically toward one alignment or another that the epochs that define history change.

 

As a corollary to that, I don't consider True Neutral to be the balance of all alignments, which should occur naturally through their interactions. While all the other Alignments actively try to promote or impose their conceptual view on others, Neutral withdraws from that activism and focuses on benefits to the self. At its best this is a striving for personal enlightenment; at its worst, selfishness and passivity.

  

4 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Magic has little effect on daily life in Greyhawk, with magic users largely preferring to stay in the shadows (for unexplained reasons).  Greyhawk the city is basically Lankhmar; sorcery happens in the corners but you're not going to see streets lit by Continual Light very often.

 

 

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Interesting insight.  Should I be putting something in to that effect? Is there a game reason that wizards keep a distance?  Is wizard magic more difficult when there are lots of people about?  Does it have side-effects that only become apparent with long term continuous exposure?

 

 

As our Dean Shomshak once wrote, "Knowledge is not power. Knowledge that other people don't have, is power." Secrecy and mystery keeps magic in the hands of the adepts, and unfamiliarity with magic keeps it intimidating.

[Steve]

In Greyhawk, I don’t think you’d ever find a Harry Potter-like wizard school, even in the city of Greyhawk itself. Magic was instead passed down from wizard to apprentice. That would really tend to keep their numbers down. A school would be like an assembly line making new wizards every year.

 

Based on D&D having an INT minimum to even be a wizard back in early editions (I think it was 9 or better), that seemed to be the main barrier to entry rather than some kind of inner talent. Most characters treated INT as a dump stat unless they were going to be a wizard, so I guess you could say most people were too dim to handle the subtle intricacies of magic.

 

Holding to the wizard-apprentice setup helps explain why there are so few wizards.

[GDShore]

One of the things about D&D was they had no other template to work with, no powers, no talents, ect. Does the birth of a new potential mage create waves in the magic firmament such that a wizard immediately moves in their direction to take them on as an apprentice? I am not trying to put any one down. This is one of the questions I began asking in "78-"79 among others. If people are being born with magic ability and no one shows to teach them do they just dry up and blow away on the wind? Or do they teach themselves? Ever seen what happens when someone tries to teach them selves a new skill it is dangerous to the person trying it and to 'every one around them'. 

[Duke Bushido]

I have always kind of assumes the reason wizards and such kept to thmselves was a combination of the rigors or spell research and Vancian magic.  It is not like you are going to make a living using it:

 

"Okay, that is the two instances I prepared for.  Gotta take a nap now if I want do so it again...."

 

Sequestered away to the corners in small groups, they can take turns napping.

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

6 hours ago, Steve said:

In Greyhawk, I don’t think you’d ever find a Harry Potter-like wizard school, even in the city of Greyhawk itself. Magic was instead passed down from wizard to apprentice. That would really tend to keep their numbers down. A school would be like an assembly line making new wizards every year.

 

Based on D&D having an INT minimum to even be a wizard back in early editions (I think it was 9 or better), that seemed to be the main barrier to entry rather than some kind of inner talent. Most characters treated INT as a dump stat unless they were going to be a wizard, so I guess you could say most people were too dim to handle the subtle intricacies of magic.

 

Holding to the wizard-apprentice setup helps explain why there are so few wizards.

 

Now I like the almost Sith-like idea of the master and apprentice but how does a low entry and low number of wizards sit comfortably with the extensive supply of magic weapons and items?  Whatever else, Greyhawk has a magical economy with potions, scrolls, wands etc as part of its essence.  or is that not the Greyhawk you experienced?

 

Are we saying that casters are rare but smiths, apothecaries, etc., are reasonably common?  That, given time and the right materials, many folk can imbue magic into an item, and that master-craftsmen are the ones creating the finest stuff?  But it takes a wizard to walk the world and cast magic at will?

 

I can see that working. I can also see the economy of adventurers out hunting for the materials for the finest stuff and possibly just getting by, selling the detritus that goes into the more common magic items.

 

[Doc Democracy]

4 hours ago, GDShore said:

One of the things about D&D was they had no other template to work with, no powers, no talents, ect. Does the birth of a new potential mage create waves in the magic firmament such that a wizard immediately moves in their direction to take them on as an apprentice? I am not trying to put any one down. This is one of the questions I began asking in "78-"79 among others. If people are being born with magic ability and no one shows to teach them do they just dry up and blow away on the wind? Or do they teach themselves? Ever seen what happens when someone tries to teach them selves a new skill it is dangerous to the person trying it and to 'every one around them'. 

 

My thoughts are that anyone could be involved with magic but, if you cannot find a mentor, you might, regardless of talent, languish, casting cantrips your whole life.  A mentor opens up windows in your mind that allow you to channel greater magics.

 

I am thinking that clever use of the VPP rules might limit the power available to a wizard.  Your mentor initiates you to the "first level".  In game terms, this allows you to cast magic by buying a VPP.  It is small.  Your spellbook contains a few scripted spells (I am thinking each spell is a knowledge skill) and you have no ability to vary your spells.

 

When you have gained experience, and gold, you might seek out your old master (a contact or relationship in game) or another mentor to take your magic to the next level.  This would require you to spend gold, or lean into a relationship, but the XP spend opens up the VPP a bit and gives you the ability to free cast bigger spells and to maintain more lower power ones.

 

You could gain spells by finding other people's spellbooks or doing research (spending XP on more KS).

 

This means you need to maintain relationships with the right people, or to spend lots of gold etc with those who are more mercenary, if you want to progress.

 

I have it in my mind to use the old names from first edition AD&D for levels up to "name level" to get hierarchies of training.

 

This limits how and when folk might spend experience on certain things but it ties stuff into the setting.  you should be able to progress but you will do so more spectacularly by buying into the settings conceits.

4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I have always kind of assumes the reason wizards and such kept to thmselves was a combination of the rigors or spell research and Vancian magic.  It is not like you are going to make a living using it:

 

"Okay, that is the two instances I prepared for.  Gotta take a nap now if I want do so it again...."

 

Sequestered away to the corners in small groups, they can take turns napping.

 

 

 

I always thought of it as arcane meditations rather than napping, regardless of how it looked to other people.  🙂

[Duke Bushido]

If you stay up every night meditating on a three-week quest, you are going to suffer way more penalties than were ever assessed.

 

Maybe they fall asleep face first in their spell books and soak it up that way.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Duke Bushido

[Steve]

8 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Now I like the almost Sith-like idea of the master and apprentice but how does a low entry and low number of wizards sit comfortably with the extensive supply of magic weapons and items?  Whatever else, Greyhawk has a magical economy with potions, scrolls, wands etc as part of its essence.  or is that not the Greyhawk you experienced?

 

Are we saying that casters are rare but smiths, apothecaries, etc., are reasonably common?  That, given time and the right materials, many folk can imbue magic into an item, and that master-craftsmen are the ones creating the finest stuff?  But it takes a wizard to walk the world and cast magic at will?

 

I can see that working. I can also see the economy of adventurers out hunting for the materials for the finest stuff and possibly just getting by, selling the detritus that goes into the more common magic items.

 

I can’t recall how it was portrayed in Greyhawk’s history, but magic items, the more powerful ones, could be relics of an older time when magic was more common.

 

Maybe there has been a gradual falling off in the number of powerful wizards, so “common” magic items like +1 or +2 weapons, weak wands, and potions are made now but things like a Staff of the Archmagi are relics of that elder age.

[Doc Democracy]

6 minutes ago, Steve said:

I can’t recall how it was portrayed in Greyhawk’s history, but magic items, the more powerful ones, could be relics of an older time when magic was more common.

 

Maybe there has been a gradual falling off in the number of powerful wizards, so “common” magic items like +1 or +2 weapons, weak wands, and potions are made now but things like a Staff of the Archmagi are relics of that elder age.

 

There is definitely a place for one-off "named" items.  And for the low level +1s, I mean how else are you supposed to beat creatures that need +1 weapons or greater to hit??  🙂

[Grow-Arm-Hair Lad]

I have been planning a 5e fantasy game. I generally play only two systems: AD&D 1e and Hero 5e. Here are some of my ideas.

 

The idea of alignment, I'd run it as a Psychological Limitation. Give everyone 20 points but they are held to whatever the alignment description says. I read your discussion on this thread and I wasn't sure if you were doing it that way, or if what I'm saying is obvious, so I apologize!

 

I'd let everyone have their own magic system. I'd forget about package deals (I don't mean that you should forget about package deals--I'm just 'splaining my angle). So if you have a woman that can only shoot fireballs but is stealthy and can pick locks, another woman who has a magic wand (focus) that stats out a Wand of Wonder from AD&D but also carries a soul-stealing sword and she also can do the paladin "lay on hands" thing... What I mean is, the beauty of Hero is that you can build anything.

 

I had a recent experience in 6e where I built a character, and I had just been playing a lot of AD&D 1e right before that. I realized I could use Hero to make a character that makes up for the perceived shortcomings of Dungeons and Dragons. I could make a character who wears armor who can pick locks, move silently, cast spells, and be built like Conan. Or, I could go even crazier: I could make a wizard who carried a sword and also wore armor and who had one of those Krull throwing stars and could shapeshift into different animal forms...

 

Anyway, the idea of playing D&D modules and using Hero to build the characters, I think it's a great idea. 

 

[Doc Democracy]

47 minutes ago, Grow-Arm-Hair Lad said:

Anyway, the idea of playing D&D modules and using Hero to build the characters, I think it's a great idea. 

 

I do too.  I want a better system but if I let the players go wild I don't think I will get the Greyhawk feel that I want/need. 🙂

 

I am not going to stick to the limitations if D&D, and so some of the mix and match you are talking about is indeed what I am aiming for, I just need it to make sense in the setting.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Grayhawk feels pretty generic faux-European to me, and being a D&D setting makes it feel even more generic.  I don't mean that as a criticism, my world in part is pretty generic faux-European as well.  Its just hard to make that kind of setting feel distinct or to capture its feel.

Edited March 28, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[GDShore]

I think its a good idea too, we used D&D modules in our gaming group all the time. It just took a bit of work converting antagonist's to Hero system. One of our group ran E.P.T. and even he would use D&D modules on occasion.

[Duke Bushido]

On the commonality od magic items even in the scarcity of magic users:

 

 

Chris Goodwin pointed me to a story some time ago that features a potential explanation.  Sometimes people become "taken" with a drive to create something.  Often it is craftsmen and artisans, but sometimes it is just Joe Anybody.  This drive lasts as long as it takes to complete the thing or things they are crafting.

 

It becomes an obsession, and the crafter may ignore hunger, elements, and go days without sleep.  When the frenzy ends, the item or items he has creatwd will be magical, even if he himself knows nothing about magic.

 

He will not know how he created it- he may not even remember having been taken by creative fervor- and he will most likely never be abke to repeat what he did.

 

Now I know it isn't Greyhawk, but it is a potential explanation for all those oeky wands, rings, and bracers lying about the countryside and scattered through various dungeons.

 

 

Alternatively, magic items are always magic.  Even a wand with Charges, if left alone for a couple if decades, will return to full charge.  Those that are broken or destroyed will reappear in a century or two.  Factor in a world age of ten thousand years or so, and you could litter the place with magical items.

 

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Grayhawk feels pretty generic faux-European to me, and being a D&D setting makes it feel even more generic.  I don't mean that as a criticism, my world in part is pretty generic faux-European as well.  Its just hard to make that kind of setting feel distinct or to capture its feel.

 

Almost like saying Lord of the Rings is a bit of a generic quest against Big Evil.  Just happened to be the one everything else copied or kicked off from/against.  🙂

 

This thread is relatively meta, but it does ask the question of what are the tropes that make that faux-European setting.  What was Gygax reaching for while being limited in how that was expressed by his game system? What is it about D&D that makes it feel like a D&D setting?  WotC got it wrong in 4th Edition.  While it may have been been a decent system, people did not feel D&D when playing it.

 

I want to incentivise folk to hug the D&D feels while being liberated to escape the limitations, so am exploring what that means for creating the game.

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Alternatively, magic items are always magic.  Even a wand with Charges, if left alone for a couple if decades, will return to full charge.  Those that are broken or destroyed will reappear in a century or two.  Factor in a world age of ten thousand years or so, and you could litter the place with magical items.

 

I like to think the magic items found in wilderness and dungeons were mundane items imbued with the spirit of the person wearing/using it when they died under heroic circumstances.  That +3 Shield was held by Ardra who held back a horde of orcs while his comrades escaped.  It wasn't magical when he was using it but part of his departing life-force remained in that object, helping defend others even after his death.

[Opal]

35 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

What is it about D&D that makes it feel like a D&D setting?  WotC got it wrong in 4th Edition

Straight up and simple:  overpowered casters, unbounded by any sense of game balance or genre fidelity, let alone realism; and strictly inferior non-casters, struggling against the system to do much at all, and, if anything, more constrained in options and ability than actual reality.

 

Fortunately you're not going for that.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Opal

[Opal]

36 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

What was Gygax reaching for while being limited in how that was expressed by his game system?

One interesting observation I came across is that early D&D had a lot in common with the Wild West (heck, it even had the "Gold Rush economy").

 

Kinda obvious once I heard it.  You explore, kill whatever's living there already, pick up gold, carve a new land out of the wilderness.  

 

My personal take is that Greyhawk was a post-apocalypse sci-fi setting with sufficiently advanced (and forgotten) ancient technology.  That's what all those artifacts, relics, and weirdly common powerful magic items are.  

 

I mean, it was inspired by the Dying Earth, afterall.

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Opal

[Opal]

40 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I like to think the magic items found in wilderness and dungeons were mundane items imbued with the spirit of the person wearing/using it when they died under heroic circumstances

That's a more mythic take, I like it. Relics and artifacts sometimes start out like that.  

 

I can imagine building a FH character around bearing such an item, an inheritor or fated weirder, taking advantage of the way indestructible/irreplaceable foci work.

[Doc Democracy]

43 minutes ago, Opal said:

Fortunately you're not going for that.

 

I hope not!  😄

 

[assault]

The game was new. Arnesen was the only precursor. There was no need to overthink.

 

Maybe that's what you need to do. Not overthink.

 

Recently l have been considering building an old school Dungeon. The best I have come up with is to base it on Barsoom. Go under an old Burroughsian city.

 

And if anyone describes their character as a "Rouge", you know exactly what they mean. 

 

It may not be what they meant, but who cares.

 

Edited March 29, 2023 by assault

[Duke Bushido]

5 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 What is it about D&D that makes it feel like a D&D setting? 

 

Claw -Claw -Bite

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

2 hours ago, assault said:

Maybe that's what you need to do. Not overthink.

 

If I didnt know you had been about for as long as I have, I would think you had never met a HERO GM.  Don't overthink?!!  You might as well tell me to play D&D!!  😄

5 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Claw -Claw -Bite

 

 

 

It will be the ability of monsters to do lots of damage upfront that will make them scarier than almost anything else.  Three killing attacks each phase...

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

12 hours ago, Opal said:

Straight up and simple:  overpowered casters, unbounded by any sense of game balance or genre fidelity, let alone realism; and strictly inferior non-casters, struggling against the system to do much at all, and, if anything, more constrained in options and ability than actual reality.

 

Fortunately you're not going for that.

Only if the magic user lived that long and you gained enough XP.

 

18 hours ago, GDShore said:

I think its a good idea too, we used D&D modules in our gaming group all the time. It just took a bit of work converting antagonist's to Hero system. One of our group ran E.P.T. and even he would use D&D modules on occasion.

I still do this.

Edited March 29, 2023 by Ninja-Bear