Living Greyhawk Gazetteer

by Erik Mona, Gary Holian, Frederick Weining, et al.

Make the world your own! At gaming tables everywhere, the future of the Greyhawk setting turns on the rolls of dice and the actions of thousands of Dungeons & Dragons players. This comprehensive... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786917431
• ISBN13: 9780786917433
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.4" x 10.8"

Customer Reviews

Still one of the best fantasy gaming worlds.

The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer (LGG hereafter) is the latest incarnation of one of the very first published roleplaying campaign settings. Initially released in the early 1980s, Greyhawk had its start as the homebrew setting of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator E. Gary Gygax and was the primal stomping ground from which many of the game's most distinctive offbeat tropes emerged. How does this venerable setting hold up after more than twenty-five years? Remarkably well, all things considered. Before we proceed any further, however, into what the LGG is, I want to make it very clear what it is not: 1. The LGG is not a "crunchy" book. This alone sets it apart from not only most other D & D products, but most other roleplaying books period. The LGG contains not one single new prestige class, spell, feat, magic item, or monster. In fact, it also doesn't include statistics for any of the various NPCs mentioned throughout the text. Not a one. The writers had only 192 pages to work with and apparently chose to forsake such things entirely in favor of packing the LGG to the gills with details on history, cultures, politics, theology, and geography. Whether this is a strength or a weakness is up to you. Personally, as someone who enjoys D & D-style games without D & D-style rules, I found this virtually systemless format to be ideal for use with other rulesets. 2. The LGG is not a pretty book. Despite beautiful cover art, the LGG is far from pleasing to the eye overall. Moreover, it's softcover, a turn-off for some. 3. While the LGG does present the framework of a great campaign, there is no attempt made to match the sheer level of minute detail present in settings like Forgotten Realms and Kingdoms of Kalamar. Rather, the LGG's focus is on the big picture: Gods, geography and broad national and ethnic divisions. If you want a setting that details every little rut in the backroads, Greyhawk is simply not it. As someone who specifically doesn't want a world with a "canon" answer to everthing and few real mysteries and spaces left to fill-in myself, this aspect appeals to me. In the end, there's no right answer. It all comes down to how much setting detail is not enough for you, how much is too much, and how much is just right. 4. Greyhawk is not "fresh", "new", or "out there." As the original home of most of the classic Gygaxian D & D tropes, Greyhawk doesn't feature the clever (and often more than a little subversive) takes on them that defined such settings as Spelljammer and Planescape. If you still enjoy thoroughly "vanilla" D & D-style gaming, Greyhawk may be the world for you. If you don't, keep looking. Now that the disclaimers are out of the wat, there's a lot I like about the World of Greyhawk. Firstly, it has a nice feel to it. While not truly "dark fantasy" like, say, Ravenloft or Midnight, Greyhawk has a very gritty, dangerous tone about it. True strongholds of good are few and far between and there's a real sense that the only reas

The GH book I always wanted....

Ive been playing in Greyhawk for over 13 years now. I remember buying the old boxed set many years ago with birthday money. Cracking that pristine box open and looking upon the works of Pluffet Smedger (the Eldar, of course), unfolding the beautiful maps..... Greyhawk has persisted as my favorite fantasy rpg setting since that day; outlasting childhood, adolescence, girlfriends, 5 years in the USMC, 6 years of marriage, several jobs, dozens of friends and acquaintences, more gaming groups than I can count on two hands, and relocations around the US and jaunts overseas. Even when the setting was kicked to the curb by T$R and went 'underground' for too long a time; even when met with the uncomprehending stares of Forgotten Realms players when trying to get a game going, I stuck with my old favorite setting to the bitter end if need be. Greyhawk is synonymus with FRPG in my mind. Thru major campaigns and story arcs, even conversion to another game system my love of the setting has continued to the present day.So, suffice it to say Ive got an investment in the setting of both time and emotion, and thus am not exactly an unbiased reviewer. With all of that said, as empirically and objectively as I can manage, I must give the LGG a full 5 stars. On a 1 to 10 scale it might be a 9, due primarily to overall lower quality intererior art, but such a nick isnt worth 20% on a 1 to 5 scale; thus on a scale of 1 to 5, the LGG goes the distance.Why such a high rating? Because this is the book that Ive wanted so many times over the years, feverishly detailing campaigns and sessions with too little time and too many widely scattered sources of material, or worse a total lack of material period. This book manages to coalesce many of the crucial Greyhawk canonical works into one quality product while expanding material in many places, fabricating new material in others, and somehow managing to bridge the gap between the oftentimes widely different 'eras' of pre-Carl Sargent and post-Carl Sargent work (for the record, Im mostly pro-Carl Sargent). While I have run & played in many Greyhawk campaigns, I persist the events of past campaigns in my version of Greyhawk; including material that I have had to make up over the years to fill gaps in the printed canon or altered canon to fit my purposes, and the actions of PCs from various groups. Therefore there are discrepencies between 'my version' and the official canon as Im sure is true of many other DMs Greyhawk campaigns, but that is hardly a fault on the part of the writers and thanx to the largely modular approach taken by the design team I can easily snap in replacement sections where needed without unduly skewing all other relevant material.I remember Erik Mona and Gary Holian from the days of GreyTalk; in fact, I played in a play-by-email rendition of the classic Slavers module run by Gary Holian briefly many years ago. They both have grass roots-level history with Greyhawk, and it shows. Though I will likely ne

Living Greyhawk Gazetteer---worth it!

No, it doesn't cost $40 and no it doesn't have little gremlins which pop up to turn the pages for you but the LGG is worth purchasing for all the reasons mentioned by other reviewers. Also, I'd like to mention that Sword & Fist includes details on the Knights of the Great Kingdom, Knights of the Watch, etc., likewise you'll find other Greyhawk-related details in other such guidebooks (e.g., Defenders of the Faith)with which you can further enrich your Greyhawk gaming experience. And let's not forget that more can be found by signing up with the RPGA in order to get the Living Greyhawk Journal. That, too, is worthwhile. But the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is where it all starts so get your copy ASAP! Just thought you would like to know. :)

A comprehensive guide to all things Greyhawk

If Greyhawk is old hat to you, then this won't be any thing new to you. But for those of us who are new to Greyhawk, this is better than the first 3rd ed. Gazeteer that WotC released. It is chock full of everything you need to play in greyhawk. Extensive writeups on countries, history, the gods and factions are jammed into this thick book! This is the info I was looking for in the other Gazeteer. If you need a gazeteer with info on everyhting in Greyhawk, then buy this one and skip the other.

Greyhawk!

Despite some of the lukewarm receptions that some of the other reviewers give this product, I found the LGG fantastic! The world of Greyhawk is presented in all of its varying shades of "grey" glory. From Ahlissa to Zief; all of the political factions, organized lands, forests, rivers, lakes, mountains, and islands are incredibly detailed--while still allowing the DM ample room to manipulate/develop the game world to his/her hearts content. (Admittedly a difficult thing to balance, but the authors pull it off!) There are also mysteries and adventure ideas mentioned within each entry to help the game master generate ideas for their own campaigns.It is true that some of the information in the book may be repeated from older sources. However, it is also true that unless you care to spend tons of money on ebay buying up out-of-print titles, you'll never get this much solid Greyhawk information complied into such a well presented and organized package. Lastly, many of the authors of the book have been THE backbone to the Greyhawk community on the 'net over the years. They are in no small way responsible for helping to keep Greyhawk alive during the difficult TSR years. It's great to see their hard work and love for the Greyhawk setting (over the years) come to print media with such style and grace.M. Schroeder