torvahl

I must say I like GreyHawk. When I first started playing dnd my friend used it as a base for many adventures. Keep in mind neither of us knew exactly what we where doing back then. This was when first edition first came out he had teh books and i didn't. So everything seemed like magic to me as we went through though back then he was pretty heavy handed . He would follow what ever the rule said and I made so many mistakes simply because I didn't know what all I could do as my character . Needless to say I lost every charcter I ever played for several years. So I learned not to become to attached to them. Anyway my first clue as to how the world and particularly the city of Greyhawk was amazing alive. Was through the Gourd the Rogue books. Granted later on it got kind of silly but by then I think Gygax was just trying to thumb his nose at Tsr by showing them he could destroy that which he created even if it was just in a novel. What I liked was the beginning about the beggers union and the thieves guild. I also like how it showed the character developing from a homless street kid to one of the master thieves of the city and even the region just surviving by the skin of his teeth. It also showed how much courage and determination he had. He trained hard in all his rogue skills and every city he went to when he had money he went and hired the best swordsman in the city to train him. I really feel that Greyhawk could have been just as dominant and have as much or more material than Forgotten Realms had Gygax not had to be constantly fighting for control of the company and eventually ousted. I did find a few things about modules he wrote quite funny if my memory serves. It seemed to me that after getting by many of his tougher challenges monsters , traps etc you would then find items that would have been useful in defeating them. And finally at least some of his charcters still have the last laugh cause their names are immortilized on the spells. Really thought the power of being gamemaster allows you to change anything in any world you set before your players so they don't have to be high magic or low magic just because the setting says it is. If you don't like the notable characters in that world . You think they are to chessy just make some of your own and give them a history and reason for being and let the players discover it iin their travels and exploration. Torvahl