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I grew up on Greyhawk. Some might argue that this game is the reason I'm relatively sane.

Living Greyhawk was the realization of a dream that had fallen when TSR screwed up.

I never heard of Living City until late in it's career. I didn't care when I did hear about it because it wasn't Living Greyhawk.

For years I was one of the people pestering TSR to give up the Greyhawk name so that people who cared about the setting could continue developing it. The moral clarity, clear demographics, and an open future with a past adequately developed to build upon to create that future all are superior to Forgotten Realms.

Planescape was the only reason I was ever interested in Forgotten Realms because it opened up a pathway through the multiverse across Prime Material Planes...something which had already been established as possible, if yet undeveloped, in Greyhawk.

Now there is to be only Living Forgotten Realms?

Well, I spent a decade as part of an underground movement to establish Greyhawk as the premier role-playing game, and will continue to do so, but I could have been happier without the feeling of betrayal generated at GenCon.

Genghis Cohen wrote:

Living Greyhawk

1) Reconsider the termination of Living Greyhawk.

Period. Throwing it out is a disservice to its players and all those that have volunteered to contribute so much to it. It says that the RPGA doesn't have any value for the work that has gone into it.

Its removal while it's still very viable destroys for me the greatest draw of the living system.. stability. Home campaigns fold left and right as people migrate for one reason or another causing you to start anew. LG had it's trade offs compared to a home campaign- it had character continuity issues, accounting headaches, and like limitations but what it delivered for all of this was stability. Everything else you could do with simple one-off modules where you could bring your own character into.

It's removal removes that stability from the playing field. If the RPGA removes LG for it's own reasons, then will certainly do so again with whatever they replace it with. Thus whatever the LFR (or however you abbreviate it) is able to deliver it *can't* deliver the main selling point that LG delivered to me...

Now the people I've met traveling across the states I'll continue to value. And some kind of medium for playing with them would be desirable. However I don't see any need for that to have anything to do with the RPGA.

For me that means putting more time into my Blackmoor Characters and spending my volunteering efforts there, rather than with the RPGA's campaign du jour. Personally I like to believe that the players should be appreciated... and this move is a clear statement that they don't mater.

-James

Maldin wrote:

Quote from "Inquest Gamer"..
And yes, Wizards does recommend you begin new campaigns with Fourth Edition. “It’s not going to be as huge a jump,” as from Second Edition to Third Edition, said Slavicsek, “but there’s enough changing in the core system of how we are doing classes and races and characters that we’re not even gonna attempt it—we’re just telling you it’s better to start over.”

This does not sound good for Living Greyhawk at all. Considering its been far and away the most successful campaign the RPGA has ever run, the seemingly inevitable loss of LG will be a terrible terrible mistake.

And what of Greyhawk as a campaign setting?? I'm still reading through the thousands of posts that have been made in the last 24 hours, but I haven't seen anything definitive yet. I'm pessimistic, while still holding out hope.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com

I associate Forgotten Realms with bad writing, horrible plot holes,
whiny dark-skinned emo elves, stupid Gandalf ripoffs, and everything
else that causes people to think D&D players are weird.

That's why I think WotC is making the dumbest mistake they could make trying to kill Greyhawk.

pedr wrote:

A few general comments of things which I think need to be 'tightened up' if organised play is to have a more significant role in the 4e era:

1) Correct the various errors/out of date information which the RPGA disseminates. Most notable of this is the reference to rpgahq@wizards.com and rpgagm@wizards.com which no-longer work. The email sent after sanctioning an RPGA event, for instance, needs re-writing and appearing to come from a different, valid, email address. Similarly, the placeholder file for LFR adventures must not be a simple copy of the placeholder for regional LG adventures, which is woefully out of date and refers to non-existent websites.

2) Dramatically improve the communication flow between RPGA HQ and members. The participation of Chris and Ian on the messageboards is a great deal better now than it has been in the past, but there are still a ridiculous number of reports of emails to rpgasanctioning@wizards.com going un-acknowledged. The solution for this is likely to only be possible if the budget for the RPGA extends to employing more staff - a couple of dedicated customer service reps who develop a good working relationship with Chris and Ian is probably the minimum to ensure that the expectation of members is met: Wizards wants organised play to be an important part of 4e and the more that it says that, the more people will expect that if things are reported incorrectly or files are not available for download, or new members can't log in to the members' area that these problems are acknowledged when they are reported and fixed within a considerably faster timeframe than is common at the moment.

(Note that this isn't a criticism of the current RPGA staff - I'd far rather that Chris and Ian get on with their current jobs and not get distracted by replying to emails saying "we got your email, we'll get it fixed tomorrow," or whatever, but there needs to be someone who sends that email back to the RPGA member if people are to feel confident that the RPGA is fit for purpose.)

Two very brief points.

1) I second the motions in the quoted post.

2) The 4e threads are so packed I find it painful to read through all the posts.

Dave