Greyhawk vs Forgotten Realms

Love the channel Grog. Keep Greyhawk alive!

I would get mobbed by Forgotten Realms purists. I basically just use the location/deity names. The rest is modified lore or my own made up lore.

Forgotten Realms is extremely detailed. Nearly every single place on the maps, they are huge. Some of the islands are detailed Moonshae.

As a Greyhawk fanboy, I rejected the Forgotten Realms when it was released. Im not rpg zealot anymore, but after giving the Realms a chance I found it wasn't to my liking. Just doesn't appeal to me. I agree with points made, Greyhawk is practically a low fantasy setting whilst the Realms is unmistakenly high fantasy. I still have fond memories of Greyhawk, but my taste have changed & it's luster has dimmed. Note- if GMs were paralyzed by the thought of getting canon wrong Star Wars RPGs wouldn't exist.

The reasons one person might like one more than the other are the exact same reasons why another person preferred the other setting.

Greyhawk always seemed more hodgepodge constructed, with gaps and blank parts of the information. Yes, Greyhawk has been considered low magic. It is unlikely that players can buy many magic items. They have to adventure for them. The Adventures are deadly in grungy trap filled dungeons.

The Forgotten Realms are much more filled in and consistent in being a mid to high magic setting. The setting focuses on grand adventures and high fantasy. The adventures could be connect over a long campaign once the DM included plots and out of dungeon encounters within an area from the players favorite D&D novels.

I hear so many people complain that Hazards-of-the-Bro doesn’t make material for settings like Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Mystara, and others, but I consider that a good thing, seeing what they have done to Forgotten Realms.

I like a framework where I can fill in the blanks as opposed to a setting that requires dozens of sourcebooks.

As a 3.5 DM, I feel that Greyhawk is the true Forgotten Realm.

I've never felt it necessary to conform to sourcebook material in a campaign. It seems to me the idea is to take the setting and make it your own. It is not possible to abide by all sources at all times. And what about future materials? Any contradictions can be resolved simply - they are different campaigns with differing circumstances. I have no patience with rules lawyers who argue about source stuff. If it's not a core rule, it can be changed without derailing the game.

I enjoy the Realms. But, Greyhawk is my first love and STILL my preference. Gygax for the Win!!!!!
Not to mention I have around 50 adventures that I have mapped on my Oerth map for the original “Modules” including some “Newer “ 3.5 & 3ed adventures that are pretty seamlessly added.
I love Greyhawk.

Currently running a lot of old greyhawk modules in the forgotten realms for my players right now. The two kind of combined really fits my and my players style and it’s super enjoyable.

All u need is Drizzt Do'urden

Forgotten Realms is mostly just Faerun though, specifically the Sword Coast. The rest of the world of Torilmay be mapped but it's not defined whats there.

Thematically I always felt that FR was more about the conflicts between the gods and their past deeds, while Greyhawk gives me more of a "Mortals vs Demons" vibes. I mean Iuz is half-demon and his lover was a demoness, who controlled the Temple of Elemental Evil (or was that added with the PC-Game? Don't remember). So while the feeling of Greyhawk is more low fantasy, it also gets more cosmic through the attacks of outsiders, while the gods of the realms are basically part of every day life.

I find it funny that everyone says they love Greyhawk bc it allows you to use your imagination, but at the same time they complain that theres too much magic in the Forgotten Realms. I think most of it is from Gygax worship

Hey Grognard! For me it'll already be Mystara. But I also grew up with Greyhawk also, and I tend to bring some AD&D adventures i into that one. Thanks for to our content.

To Greyhawk feels more weird. FR is so generic and boring. Greyhawk has this strangeness that is reflected in the DnD rules and feel. Greyhawk is rustic and otherly, can’t get closer in words.

Forgotten Realms isn't a campaign setting, its a lack of a campaign setting. The whole thing designed so that literally anything you can imagine is happening somewhere, so that nothing in your game has to be tailored around a particular theme. Players can run wish fulfillment characters about anything and its supported by the setting.......

which of course is the exact opposite of the point of a campaign setting.

With Baldur's Gate 3, sadly the FR popularity over Greyhawk is only going to worsen. It's sad because 3rd edition's launch was when I started. I grew up with it.

great video. i took more inspiration from greyhawk directly from my current campaign than the realms. i call them these days ''the remembered realms'' because they just use the damn sword coast.

It's so frefreshing to hear a Greyhawk fan compliment Ed Greenwood and the Forgotten Realms, because there is so much (unnecessary) vitriol on the internet. You don't have to hate one because you like the other. I prefer Gygaxian Greyhawk for my campaigns, but there is a lot I like about Ed Greenwood's work also and I've converted some of his stuff for use in my campaign. I also like my player characters to be the "heroes of the realm" without a lot of high level NPC's around.

Greyhawk matched the ruleset better than the higher fantasy level 30+ wizards Forgotten Realms.

In FR your PC was there when an NPC solved the situation. I GH your PC needs to do something t fix things or Evil will win. in FR you don't matter to the fight against evil, while in GH you do.

Great comparison video, focusing on the "fleshed out" vs "bare bones" approaches to pre made fantasy worlds. I like Greyhawk a lot more, like a whole lot, the lore being things to build off. I always thought of Forgotten Realms as a fully fleshed out Wilderlands of High Fantasy, and there are a lot of similarities between the two, like FR was Greenwood's take.

I took the Realms back to the original 1E greybox. I just dumped all the official canon and erased it. Of course, I only play 2E, so this is not really an issue.

I personally hated the Time of Troubles and it never settled well with me so now I am just ignoring it. Forget canon. Make it up yourself. Let your players make the world their own.

Video does a very good description of describing the difference between the two, I have dabbled with both setting, but mostly did my own stuff, ( as a 1st ed teen, mostly worldless jumping from cave to cave, trying be unable to get my others to embrace a world, then purchasing FR as it came out, and still unable to get a "world" interest, and latter using my modification of my brothers world, which at least somewhat irked him I think when I made changes and additions. being away from the game from ages and now getting back in, I am highly drawn to the concept of Hexcrawling, but not quite able to make it happen. While Greyhawk is much more suited for such, it not really perfect either. I currently sitting wanting to get stuff going again, and most likely going to go to to the create your own. I also wargame in 15mm using battlesystem rules, and starting to tend towards just running large battles using a slightly modified 1st Ed AD&D rules, which is really what all those hard cover books are really about, they are more for mass combat, then RPG, and that is the reason SO MANY PEOPLE have issues with them, as they think they are for RPG not RPG and Table Top Wargaming in sort of a TableTop MMO. While FR is much worse, Greyhawk does have lots of material that one must be familiar with, and can easily do thing "wrong" for those who have read it all. but since FR is the Current default, there are a lot more people familiar with FR then GH now days, to it is less of a issue.

5e has done a lot of material for the Forgotten Realms, but only for the Sword Coast. 3.0/3.5 and 2e were more comprehensive about it.

I find Greyhawk to feel a lot more like medieval Europe than the Forgotten Realms. The Flanaess has four major feudal kingdoms dominating much of the continent along with other smaller feudal states, plus the baklunish west very much feels like a stand-in for the Muslim world neighboring medieval Europe. In comparison, Faerun is full of free cities and city-states, with only Cormyr feeling more or less like a medieval european kingdom.

"That might be how Ed did it in his Realms, but we play in my Realms" is my typical answer.

Forgotten Realms, in particular the Sword Coast and Faerûn at large, is a nigh insurmountable beast for new dungeon masters - it is just too much, especially with the weight of novels and games! Arguably Dragonlance is no better. Greyhawk has this semblance of "homeostasis" that many settings lack, even at its fullest at the end of Living Greyhawk, and some of the other settings like Mystara and the Nentir Vale in Fourth Edition despite being fairly minimalistic manage to be very usable settings in spite of that...

I do like the Realms, but Greyhawk will always be my setting.

One thing to add the is annoying about the Realms vs. Greyhawk, Greyhawk you see cultural mixing between two countries that are right next to each other, much like you see in the real world, however with the Realms, you can have two countries right next to each and other there's zero cultural mixing which leads to some very harsh realities and jarring situations when you cross the border from one country into another.

I would largely agree. But the stuff that was added on after Ed Greenwood handed the Realms over was a hodge podge of real world analogs like Mongolian cultures, Egyptian transplants along with the Egyptian gods, the Moonshae Island Celts and vikings, along with Mezzo American lands and cultures with Maztca, and don't forget Kara Tur and Al Qadim. Ed's original vision was for a world where you couldn't put your finger on exactly what the real world influences were, and as a result of the manyTSR add-ons, it did feel a little wierd with all the pseudo historical stuff juxtaposed with the pure fantasy.
Greyhawk's inconsistencies seemed a product of the organic process of its development. Though, sadly, we never had much access to it back in the day. The few products they made for it in the 90s weren't evenly distributed for sale across the country.

Both Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk are equally great in their own right. I have had lots of fun with my friends in both worlds.

As an Eberron fan myself, who hasn't played in Greyhawk since the early 90s and isn't really fond of the Realms, I would love to hear your thoughts on the setting.

I think that GMs should just ignore or follow lore as they desire. If a player complains just it's not what is written I'd simply tell them that it's my game setting, my lore to change. It's not like we're creating a series or a movie based on a book expressly to copy it, or be in its world. It's a game that should be adjusted to fit the desires or interests of those playing it. I'm currently running two campaigns in Cormyr using Castles & Crusades rules and I'd say that I stick to the lore about 75% of the time. I'm also following the 2e AD&D timeline and not the current 5e one. Though I will agree that lower magic works better. I prefer a game (which is why C&C is my preferred system now) that is a moderate magic level. This way you can either add or take away and it won't hurt anything. Compared to 3rd to 5th editions which became high magic games built into the system and it's difficult to remove any of it without hurting the game.

Ths is perhaps too optimistic, but maybe the upcoming Vecna adventure will reintroduce Greyhawk. I also find running in the Realms stressful due to the extensive lore. I am new to the game, having dmed for my daughters during lockdowns. I don't have a lot of background and I don't want to screw anything up! Glad I am not alone in this.

Oerth is far more Howard or Moorcock than Toril is. Stuff doesn't align precisely with, "Oh, this is the analogue for the Han Dynasty Chinese!" kind of writing. Broad strokes, yeah (like the Rovers are a combo of Mongolian steppe peoples and Native American tribes/nations), but not 1:1 parallels. In many respects it's a lot more fun to screw around in. And there's more room for your players to spread their wings. Excepting the Circle of Eight and their servants, there's not a ton of people to trip over like in the Realms (where another comment pointed out that every NPC wizard is an archmage and every NPC fighter is epic level with unique special toys that you will never match or duplicate), and there's very few villains who can't ultimately be defeated in personal combat (e.g., they have actual STATISTICS, and capabilities and weaknesses that can be exploited or used against them by a sufficiently powerful and prepared party).

I like both settings, but I think I prefer Greyhawk for its slightly more sword and sorcery tone. However, I disagree with the comment that the realms feels more homogenized. Once FR novels started getting written, various authors were given permission to create their own little corners of the realms, which were tacked on similar to Blackmoor. The Moonshae Isles, Icewind Dale, and Hartsvale are all examples of this.

Thanks Grognard! Maybe if Jim Ward’s book was a boxed set like Ed Greenwood’s Gray Box, there would be a larger following. BECMI kids who were introduced to 2nd Edition by way of comic books or a friend, loved them boxed sets!

FR feels like medieval Europe, whereas Greyhawk feels like Dying Earth. Very different.

A fun thing with the high magic feel of Forgotten Realms... it might be more tied to earlier editions (2e, 3e) as 5e seem to try to dial back magic items in a big way. "Plus" items only go to +3 and those are really rare and limited to the highest tier of play. Also attunement is now a thing, which limits the number of items you can have.

So the question is if the game and the setting has grown apart a little...

D&D is still "high magic" compared to some other systems but 5e is still trying to limit it a little.

EXCELLANT Video...I was around during the transition from Greyhawk to Realms...never got into them.

WotC making Greyhawk the default setting for 3e was ideal for illustrating the whole kitchen sink aspect of the setting and gameplay.
Such a shame they seem to have ditched the setting entirely for 5e, it would be nice to have some newer modules for the setting.

While I can apprciate why people would like Greyhawk as a sandbox setting and the OG, it always struck me as being just the most generic iteration of a fantasy world lacking any real distinction or flavor. Which if you are a new GM and just want a rough framework of a world then that's great and more power to you!

FR though, has a deep, rich and flavorful setting where there is so much written and alluded to that as a GM I feel like I have so much to work with both as a player and a GM.

To each there own :)

Even in 3.5, there wasn't a Greyhawk official book, was there?

Its the home of all the original wizards. People know Greyhawk without knowing it.

With all the massive quantities of amazing magic and mundane items, item creation feats, and the item slots available in 3rd edition, I had always thought Greyhawk was proper high fantasy. By comparison, just reading the intent in 5e's books will tell you they wanted magic items to be rarer, not to mention the mechanics of only 3 attunement slots and lack of ability to craft magic items unless you're an artificer or forge cleric and Faerûn just looks less magical.

Oerth rules

Good video my man! I think FR has probably benefitted from having a single person to create & oversee its development (i.e. Ed Greenwood) whereas Greyhawk has been created & developed my a number of authors over the years (e.g. Gary Gygax, Jim Ward, Carl Sargent, Roger E. Moore etc) making it feel perhaps less cohesive than the Realms. Still, Greyhawk was my first campaign setting and I still love it and use it to this day :)

Great vid! Glad you tackled this subject