Authors | Gary Gygax Robert J. Kuntz |
---|---|
Genre | Role-playing game |
Publisher | TSR, Inc. |
Publication date | 1975 |
Pages | 68 |
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.
The original rules for Dungeons & Dragons were published by TSR in 1974, but were limited in scope: the character classes and monsters listed were small in number; and for combat rules, players needed to have a copy of Chainmail , a rulebook for miniatures wargames published by Guidon Games in 1971. Over the next two years, TSR bolstered the original rules with five supplemental books. Greyhawk was the first of these supplements, named after Gary Gygax's home campaign.
The 2004 publication 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons suggested that details of Gygax's Greyhawk campaign were published in this booklet. [1] However Gygax had no plans in 1975 to publish details of the Greyhawk world, since he believed that new players of Dungeons & Dragons would rather create their own worlds than use someone else's. [2] In addition, he did not want to publish all the material he had created for his players; he thought he would be unlikely to recoup a fair investment for the thousands of hours he had spent on it, and since his secrets would be revealed to his players, he would be forced to recreate a new world for them afterward. [3] In fact the only two references to the Greyhawk campaign were an illustration of a large stone head in a dungeon corridor titled The Great Stone Face, Enigma of Greyhawk and mention of a fountain on the second level of the dungeons that continuously issued an endless number of snakes.
Greyhawk instead focused on new game rules that had been developed by Gygax and Kuntz during long hours of home play. The 68-page supplement also introduced new character classes (thief and paladin), [4] [5] as well as new rules for combat, spells, monsters, and treasure. [4] Greyhawk included new rules on weapon damage varying by weapon. The supplement added new treasure and magic items, and new spells, including 7th, 8th, and 9th level spells. The supplement also included a section on monsters, introducing the lizard men, beholders, displacer beasts, blink dogs, carrion crawlers, and many others. [4]
Greyhawk was already in process at the time of TSR co-founder Don Kaye's death in January 1975, and was published in early March. [6] : 7 [7] : 502 It was designated Supplement I and given a product designation of TSR 2003. [8] Many of the new rules presented in the supplement eventually became standard parts of the AD&D game. A second supplement, Blackmoor , followed later the same year.
Illustrations for the supplement were provided by Greg Bell, [9] : 39 who had previously met Gygax while playing wargames, and had already provided some illustrations for the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set. Gygax often contacted Bell at the last minute for artwork; as a result, Bell sometimes responded by copying figures from the pages of comic books. His illustration of a sword-wielding warrior on the cover of the Greyhawk supplement is a copy of "Dax the Damned" by Esteban Maroto from a 1974 issue of Eerie . [9]
Ready Ref Sheets (1977) from Judges Guild collected 20 pages of charts that were taken from the original D&D boxed set, as well as Chainmail and Greyhawk. [6] : 66 Material from Greyhawk, along with the original D&D and the Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry supplements, was revised by J. Eric Holmes for the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1977). [6] : 10
In 2013, the Greyhawk supplement was reproduced as part of a premium reprint of the original "White Box" D&D rules. Each booklet comes with new cover art but otherwise reproduces the original content faithfully. [10]
Lawrence Schick, in his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, calls Greyhawk "The first and most important supplement to Original D&D". [4]
Shannon Appelcline, in his 2011 book Designers & Dragons, considers Greyhawk an "innovation" because at the time "supplements were largely unheard of in the wargaming industry. Though games were frequently revised and reprinted, continually expanding a game was something new." [6] : 7
Journalist David M. Ewalt wrote that the supplement helped dungeon masters to learn how to create adventures through examples, bridging "the gap between players who learned the game at Gary's table and those who picked it up in a hobby store." Ewalt valued that Greyhawk showed that Dungeons & Dragons was meant to be adapted and evolved by the players beyond the original rules to make it most suitable for each individual gaming group. [11]
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson.
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.
David Lance Arneson was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game (RPG), Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s. Arneson's early work was fundamental to the role-playing game (RPG) genre, pioneering devices now considered to be archetypical, such as cooperative play to develop a storyline instead of individual competitive play to "win" and adventuring in dungeon, town, and wilderness settings as presented by a neutral judge who doubles as the voice and consciousness of all characters aside from the player characters.
Blackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originated in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, as an early testing ground for what would become D&D.
Chainmail is a medieval miniature wargame created by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. Gygax developed the core medieval system of the game by expanding on rules authored by his fellow Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA) member Jeff Perren, a hobby-shop owner with whom he had become friendly. Guidon Games released the first edition of Chainmail in 1971.
In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, Tenser is an archmage who strives to rid the Flanaess of evil. Tenser is a former member of both the Citadel of Eight and the Circle of Eight.
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.
Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure by Robert J. Kuntz and Gary Gygax is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, published by TSR, Inc. in 1984. It originally bore the code "WG5" and was intended for use with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition rules. Because it is one of the WG modules, it is a module intended for the World of Greyhawk campaign setting. It was later updated in 2004 to the Third Edition Revised rules in Dungeon magazine, issue #112, as Maure Castle. There were subsequently two additional installments in issues #124 and #139.
Kobolds are a fictional race of humanoid creatures featured in the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game and other fantasy media. They are often depicted as small reptilian humanoids with long tails, distantly related to dragons.
The Castle & Crusade Society was a chapter of the International Federation of Wargaming dedicated to medieval miniature wargaming.
The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1982 for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) rules. The 64-page adventure bears the code "S4" and is set in the Greyhawk campaign setting. It is divided into two parts, a 32-page adventure, and a 32-page booklet of monsters and magic items. The plot involves the player characters investigating rumors of lost treasure. After traversing a wilderness and two levels of dungeons, the players face Drelnza, the vampiric daughter of long-deceased archmage Iggwilv.
James Michael Ward was an American game designer and fantasy author who worked for TSR, Inc. for more than 20 years.
Robert J. Kuntz is a game designer and author of role-playing game publications. He is best known for his contributions to various Dungeons & Dragons-related materials.
Lenard William Lakofka was an American writer of material for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Although never a formal employee of TSR, the company that published Dungeons & Dragons, Lakofka was an influential voice in the development of the game. He was one of the playtesters of the game as it was being developed, an editor of early manuscripts, wrote a widely-read monthly D&D magazine column and two official D&D adventures, and had his home campaign setting of the Lendore Isles incorporated into Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting.
Eldritch Wizardry is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume, written for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game, which included a number of significant additions to the core game. Its product designation is TSR 2005.
The original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson was published by TSR, Inc. in 1974. It included the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation was TSR 2002.
Blackmoor is a supplementary rulebook of the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game written by Dave Arneson.
Swords & Spells is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation is TSR 2007.
David R. Megarry is a game designer most notable for the board game Dungeon!.
The First Fantasy Campaign is a supplement for fantasy role-playing games written by Dave Arneson and published by Judges Guild in 1977.