I don't know Greyhawk or its products very well. If I were to one day run Greyhawk for 2e which version of the setting would you recommend?

Pre-Greyhawk Wars materials definitely.

The 1983 boxed set or the 1980 folio.  IMO, most of the 2e-era Greyhawk material falls below par.

Yeah, the '83 boxed set is fantastic.  The Gygax novels set in Greyhawk, while not world-beating literature or even genre work (though I do like Saga of Old City a lot if you read it as a selection of chronological short stories), do a lot to flesh out the world, too.

The 83 set is incredibly generic. If you like that, go for it.
I recommend From the Ashes, but it's hard to find. The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is also really, really good.

Depends what you want.

If you want the framework with the idea of making Greyhawk yours, and/or an organic campaign that develops in actual play, definitely the 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set.

If you want a more detailed setting from on high, with everything filled and detailed by the game designer, plot/metaplot etc, then you could opt for Carl Sargent's stuff (From the Ashes et al.).

I'm definitely more interested in the first approach, personally.

Quote from: danbuter;673025The Living Greyhawk Gazetteer is also really, really good.

Good call on this.  Not a bad book at all, kind of similar in detail to the boxed set.

Folio or '83 box.  You can do a hell of a lot worse than to check out Grodog's Greyhawk - http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html .

Great resource that.

...now with that said, some history as I understand it.  I'm sure this puts up the Grodog Signal, and he'll correct anything I mess up too badly:

The original, Lake Geneva GH game was set on a map of Earth, or at least the United States.  Greyhawk was Chicago, Blackmoor and environs was the Twin Cities.  There wasn't a lot of stuff in terms of other kingdoms and so forth designed; outdoor areas were represented by the Outdoor Survival map from Avalon Hill.  The chief focus was on Castle Greyhawk.

With that said, there were still places to go and things to do: one of Gary's sons (Ernie?) found a slide in Castle Greyhawk that took him from there to China, and another time he used the "John Carter" method of concentrating intently on a distant red star to find himself on Barsoom, where he learned how to fight with two swords from the aforementioned warlord, before coming home.  Fraz-Urb-Luu's demonic visage was in the lower tiers of CG, and eventually Erac bargained with it and freed the demon...

Anyway...

When people clamored for a "canned" campaign, Gary had Darlene Pekul rework the map so that with the exception of The Lake of Unknown Depths and Greyhawk City's proximity to it, there was no North America remaining.  Gygax liked the new map so much that he ported his home campaign to it as well...in designing the new map new kingdoms were outlined, the heretofore only hinted at backstory of Greyhawk was finalized, and we got two great products - the '80 folio and the '83 boxed set.  Module locations were placed, as were other someday-to-be-released adventure locales were outlined.  Unfortunately we never got a Forgotten City in the Sea of Dust, anything from within the Abbor-Alz (save Castle Maure), nor a City of Greyhawk or Castle Greyhawk.

Some City of Greyhawk details can be divined in Gary's novels and Andre Norton's Quag Keep (also set in Greyhawk).  But mostly the city is an enigma.  Various 2e products (after the execrable "Castle Greyhawk", less a product and more of an insult directed at Gary after he left the company) attempted to outline those places, but unfortunately aren't the "real deal".

So, for authenticity stick with 1e.  That's my opinion.

I know its a minority view, but I thought From The Ashes was probably the best version of Greyhawk.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;673068With that said, there were still places to go and things to do: one of Gary's sons (Ernie?) found a slide in Castle Greyhawk that took him from there to China, and another time he used the "John Carter" method of concentrating intently on a distant red star to find himself on Barsoom, where he learned how to fight with two swords from the aforementioned warlord, before coming home.  Fraz-Urb-Luu's demonic visage was in the lower tiers of CG, and eventually Erac bargained with it and freed the demon...

Robilar (Rob Kuntz) was the first to reach the last level of that incarnation Castle Greyhawk and the slide to China to be found therein. Tenser (Ernie) and Terrik (Terry Kuntz) retraced their companion's steps down and followed shortly thereafter. They are the three who made it to the bottom of the Castle.

It's Erac's Cousin who made it to Barsoom, Erac having died in the upper levels of the Castle previously. He had to dual-class into a fighter, and indeed developed a fighting style using two Vorpal longswords. This link between Castle Greyhawk and Barsoom survived in the fourth and last incarnation of the Castle, e.g. Castle Zagyg, published by Troll Lords, as the pool at area 60 of the Upper Works leading to the Red Planet.

Erac's Cousin's adventures in Barsoom are some of Ernie's favorite moments in the campaign.

Quote from: RPGPundit;673070I know its a minority view, but I thought From The Ashes was probably the best version of Greyhawk.

i agree. i think that from the ashes really elevated greyhawk above being simply another generic fantasy setting.

Quote from: RPGPundit;673070I know its a minority view, but I thought From The Ashes was probably the best version of Greyhawk.

My favorite, personally.

Hmm. Some mixed views, I expected that. I'll have to see what resources I can snag from ebay. Thanks.

I'm glad to see there are a few who agree with me on this.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;673068Folio or '83 box.  You can do a hell of a lot worse than to check out Grodog's Greyhawk - http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html .

Great resource that.

Thanks

Quote from: thedungeondelver;673068...now with that said, some history as I understand it.  I'm sure this puts up the Grodog Signal, and he'll correct anything I mess up too badly:

LOL, you done good, Bill  The original GH campaign map was based on the one published in the Domesday book, which Jon Peterson shared in his Playing at the World book:



and in his blog @ http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-great-kingdom-domesday-book-9.html in case you want to do some more reading about it.  

Quote from: thedungeondelver;673068Anyway...  When people clamored for a "canned" campaign, Gary had Darlene Pekul rework the map so that with the exception of The Lake of Unknown Depths and Greyhawk City's proximity to it, there was no North America remaining.  

Gary also wrote about the creation of the GH map (and provided some good info about hte campaign world and the city specifically) in his article "To Forge a Fantasy World: Greyhawk's Creation" in Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Essays on Roleplaying (Jolly Roger Games, 2000).  It's also posted to the Gygax Legendarium blog @ http://gygaxslegendarium.blogspot.com/2012/04/to-forge-fantasy-world-greyhawks.html

Quote from: thedungeondelver;673068So, for authenticity stick with 1e.  That's my opinion.

Agreed, although I've found a number of 2e and 3e resources useful (not much out of 4e thus far and I haven't looked at Next).  Sargent's 2e materials often go in directions I don't like, and provide more detail than I often need, but he did base a lot of his work in his modules and sourcebooks on Gygax's treatment of Greyhawk from the Gord novels and the earlier boxed set and folio.  So, while many consider his work heretical, I do find quite a bit of it very useful.

Quote from: Orpheo;673192Hmm. Some mixed views, I expected that. I'll have to see what resources I can snag from ebay. Thanks.

I would make your purchases based on where and how you want to focus your campaign.  If you have some ideas in that direction, I'm sure we can provide some more useful guidance.