 | |
| Code | WG7 |
|---|---|
| Rules required | 1st edition AD&D |
| Character levels | 0 - 25 |
| Campaign setting | Greyhawk |
| Authors | Various |
| First published | 1988 |
| Linked modules | |
| WG - World of Greyhawk | |
Castle Greyhawk is a comedic adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game set in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. The module bears the code WG7 and was published by TSR, Inc. in 1988 for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. [1]
Castle Greyhawk is a large adventure scenario in multiple parts, consisting of eleven dungeon levels underneath Greyhawk Castle presented in a humorous style. [2]
WG7 Castle Greyhawk was edited by Mike Breault with Jon Pickens, with a cover by Keith Parkinson and interior illustrations by Jeff Easley and Jim Holloway, and was published by TSR in 1988 as a 128-page book. [2]
The designers of this twelve level dungeon were each given a single level to develop. [3]
Shannon Appelcline noted that John Nephew had been contributing to Dragon and Dungeon , and that "As he continued to write for the magazines, he was also invited to contribute to larger projects such as Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms (1988) and WG7: Castle Greyhawk (1988)." [4] : 52
In Castle Greyhawk, TSR parodied its own scenario style, as a send-up of the illogical "gilded hole" labyrinth dungeons. [2] The product contains many references to contemporary popular culture, along with a bitingly satirical treatment of TSR's approach to earlier Greyhawk publications. The module's back cover states "The common theme of this dungeon is that no joke is so old, no pun is so bad, and no schtick is so obvious that it can’t be used to confuse and trip up PCs!" [1]
Thus, although the adventure purportedly concerns Castle Greyhawk, Shannon Appelcline states that "this adventure definitely is not Gygax's Castle Greyhawk. In fact, this satirical adventure isn't really a World of Greyhawk adventure, despite its "WG" product code. TSR purposefully superseded it just a few years later." [5] In 1990, TSR released a more definitive and serious treatment of the Castle itself in module WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins . [6] Greyhawk Ruins was a serious attempt to match the style of Gygax's original work, though it also did not directly derive from Gygax's dungeon. [5] Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins, one of the late 1990s Greyhawk publications meant to revamp the campaign world, explicitly states that Greyhawk Ruins is to be considered the definitive castle layout and not Castle Greyhawk. [7]
Ken Rolston reviewed Castle Greyhawk for Dragon magazine No. 135 (July 1988), and described it as a light-hearted treasure "for gamers with a sense of humor". [3] Rolston felt that publishing an anthology of "really low fantasy" scenarios dignified the style of play involving "this sort of bizarre, humorous, incoherent fantasy arcade adventure, where DMs took the totally illogical premises of the D&D and AD&D games, accepted them without question, then improvised thinly rationalized dungeon universes for us to wander about in, smashing and roasting things and having a thumping good time". [3]
Fan reception of Castle Greyhawk was mixed but generally negative. Many dedicated fans of the Greyhawk setting were bitterly disappointed by the long-awaited work. Some interpreted the publication as being a direct insult to Gary Gygax, who had recently left TSR in a dispute over ownership of the company, and by extension to early fans of the setting and D&D players in general. These issues continue to be discussed and debated on various fan sites and chat rooms. [8] [9]
Castle Greyhawk was a Gamer's Choice award-winner. [2] Lawrence Schick, in his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, described it as a "send-up of illogical 'gilded hole' labyrinths' and considered the dungeon levels "silly-but-playable", cited its "all-star design staff", and called Parkinson's cover "marvelous". [2]
Game designer John D. Ratecliff wrote in an article published on the Wizards of the Coast website:
Despite being intended in fun, the unrelenting mayhem of Dungeonland and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror creates a sense of bedlam, and the parody element opened the door for the later WG7, Castle Greyhawk (1988) -- thought by some at the time to be a deliberate attempt by TSR to destroy Gygax’s reputation in the wake of his departure from the company. The truth, especially given the freelance talent involved, is more likely to be that someone thought it a good idea at the time. They were wrong. Castle Greyhawk’s assortment of villains -- Col. Sanders, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the cast of Star Trek, and others -- would be more in keeping with a bad episode of Scooby Doo than a dungeon crawl. Unfortunately, the Castle Greyhawk collection of unconnected parody adventures tainted the mystique of D&D’s original dungeon so badly that not even the astonishingly deadly killer dungeon presented slightly later in WGR1. Greyhawk Ruins (1990) could reclaim its lost prestige. [10]
| Chapter | Designer | page |
|---|---|---|
| What's Happening Now at Castle Greyhawk | by Chris Mortika | 2 |
| Level 1: Against the Little Guys | by Steve Gilbert | 12 |
| Level 2: It's My Party and I'll Die if I Want to | by Rick Swan | 21 |
| Level 3: Too Many Cooks | by Guy McLimore, Greg Poehlein, and David Tepool | 32 |
| Level 4: There's No Place Like Up | by Jennell Jaquays [lower-alpha 1] | 44 |
| Level 5: The Name of the Game | by John Terra | 54 |
| Level 6: The Temple of Really Bad Dead Things | by Greg Gorden | 63 |
| Level 7: Queen of the Honeybee Hive | by Grant Boucher and Kurt Wenz | 73 |
| Level 8 : Of Kings and Colonels | by John Nephew | 83 |
| Level 9: Vices 'N Virtues | by Scott Bennie | 92 |
| Level 10: Fluffy Goes Down the Drain | by Rick Reid | 102 |
| Level 11: Mordenkainen's Movie Madness | by Ray Winninger | 111 |
| Level 12: Where the Random Monsters Roam | by Steve Perrin | 119 |
Editing: Mike Breault with Jon Pickens
Cover Art: Keith Parkinson
Interior Art: Jim Holloway with Jeff Easley
Typography: Kim Janke
Cartography : Stephen Sullivan
Keylining: Stephanie Tabat and Dave S. LaForce
{{cite newsgroup}}: Check |newsgroup= value (help){{cite newsgroup}}: Check |newsgroup= value (help)Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. Although not the first campaign world developed for Dungeons & Dragons—Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign predated it by about a year—the world of Greyhawk closely identified with early development of the game beginning in 1972, and after being published it remained associated with Dungeons & Dragons publications until 2008. The world itself started as a simple dungeon under a castle designed by Gary Gygax for the amusement of his children and friends, but it was rapidly expanded to include not only a complex multi-layered dungeon environment, but also the nearby city of Greyhawk, and eventually an entire world. In addition to the campaign world, which was published in several editions over twenty years, Greyhawk was also used as the setting for many adventures published in support of the game, as well as for RPGA's massively shared Living Greyhawk campaign from 2000–2008.
Ruins of Adventure is a Dungeons & Dragons module that was based on the "Gold Box" role-playing video game Pool of Radiance, published in 1988 by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). Mike Breault stated that TSR chose him, Winter, Cook, and Ward to work on the design and writing for Pool of Radiance, indicating that the material was originally created for the game. However, according to the editors of Dragon magazine, Pool of Radiance was based on Ruins of Adventure, and not vice versa. The plot loosely tracks that of the computer game.
Dungeonland (EX1) is a 1983 adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) roleplaying game, written by Gary Gygax for use with the First Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) rules. It is an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with the various characters from the book translated into AD&D terms.
Greyhawk Adventures is an accessory for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) World of Greyhawk campaign setting.
Mordenkainen is a fictional wizard from the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. He was created by Gary Gygax as a player character, only months after the start of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign and is therefore one of the oldest characters continuously associated with Dungeons & Dragons.
Castle Greyhawk is one of the central dungeon settings in the fictional World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. The Castle was originally developed by Gary Gygax, for his own campaign and later detailed for publication. Castle Greyhawk is also the name of a 1988 Dungeons & Dragons adventure module that created a treatment of the Castle for the public to use. In 2005, Gygax announced the release of "Castle Zagyg," his new treatment of the dungeon.
Greyhawk Ruins is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. It was published in 1990 by TSR, Inc. for the second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules.
The Free City of Greyhawk, also known as Greyhawk City and the "Gem of the Flanaess," is a fictional city-state in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. Since the setting was originally published in a folio and then again in a boxed set that were both titled World of Greyhawk, the word "Greyhawk" is often used to describe the entire campaign world setting, although the proper name for that part of the world is the Flanaess. Sometimes the lands controlled by the Free City are also referred to as Greyhawk, though the proper term for the region is the Domain of Greyhawk.
Isle of the Ape is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game World of Greyhawk campaign setting, in which the events occur in a magical demiplane of the same name created by the mad archmage Zagyg Yragerne.
Iggwilv is a fictional wizard from the Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. She was created by Gary Gygax.
Timothy B. Brown is an American game designer, primarily of role-playing games. He has been a designer at Game Designers' Workshop, an editor at Challenge magazine, and the director of product development at TSR.
Jacob Franklin Mentzer III is an American fantasy author and game designer who worked on early materials for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. He was an employee of TSR, Inc. from 1980 to 1986, spending part of that time as creative advisor to the chairman of the board, Gary Gygax. He also founded the Role-Playing Games Association (RPGA) during his time with TSR.
James M. Ward is an American game designer and fantasy author who worked for TSR, Inc. for more than 20 years.
The DL series is a series of adventures and some supplementary material for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role playing game. These modules along with the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy of novels, which follow one possible adventure series through the modules, were the first published items that established the Dragonlance fictional universe. The original DL series was released from 1984 to 1986, with the final two modules added to it in 1988. In the 1990s these roleplaying adventures from the original series were collected and revised for 2nd Edition AD&D as the three DLC Dragonlance Classics modules. There were also versions of the module series released in 1999, 2000 and 2006.
In Search of Adventure is an abridged compilation adventure module published by TSR, Inc. in 1987, for the Basic Set of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation was TSR 9190. This 160-page book features cover artwork by Keith Parkinson.
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk is an adventure book for the 3.5 edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The adventure is set in the game's World of Greyhawk campaign setting, specifically in and around Castle Greyhawk and its dungeons. As such, it is an update to the 1990 adventure module WGR1 - Greyhawk Ruins. The adventure also provides updates on a number of important Greyhawk personages as well as encounters in the Free City of Greyhawk itself.
Greyhawk is a supplementary rulebook written by Gary Gygax and Robert J. Kuntz for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. It has been called "the first and most important supplement" to the original D&D rules. Although the name of the book was taken from the home campaign supervised by Gygax and Kuntz based on Gygax's imagined Castle Greyhawk and the lands surrounding it, Greyhawk did not give any details of the castle or the campaign world; instead, it explained the rules that Gygax and Kuntz used in their home campaign, and introduced a number of character classes, spells, concepts and monsters used in all subsequent editions of D&D.
Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms is an accessory and campaign setting for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(July 2012) |