Grodog's City of Greyhawk Archive

Greyhawk City

[note to self - don't forget the original city geos info too]

• ~12 inns/taverns, ~20 other locations (several temples, wizard tower, Sages Guild, Mercenaries Brotherhood, a few arms/armor dealers, merchant shops, moneychangers, jewellers, the Mystic Trader (con man who took on many different ruses/disguises to fleece PCs)
• Gary Gygax in "Designer's Forum: Varied Player Character and Non-Player Character Alignment in the Dungeons & Dragons Campaign" in The Dragon 9 (September 1977):

  In general, player characters will not know the alignment of the various persons they encounter, for in the normal course of affairs such knowledge is not important. Naturally, this does not apply during “adventures”. This brings me to a discussion of the typical interaction of varied alignments. The Greyhawk Campaign is built around the precept that “good” is the desired end sought by the majority of humanity and its allied races (gnomes, elves, et al.). I have this preference because the general aim is such that more than self-interest (or mental abberation) motivates the alignment. This is not to say that a war of lawful good against chaotic good is precluded, either or both opponents being allied with evil beings of lawful or chaotic alignment. What is said is that most planned actions which are written into the campaign are based on a threat to the overall good by the forces of evil.

  While there are some areas where nearly all creatures encountered will be of like alignment, most places will contain a mixture of alignments, good and neutral, evil and neutral, or all of the varying alignments. A case in point for the latter mixture is the “Free City of Greyhawk”. This walled town was the area trade center and seat of feudal power, then began to decline when the overlordship transferred from a suzerain to the city itself, but is now undergoing a boom due to the activities of adventurers and the particular world system events (a new struggle between lawful good and chaotic evil, with the latter on the upswing). The oligarchs of the city are neutral in outlook, if not in alignment, viewing anything which benefits their city as desirable. Therefore,
  all sorts of creatures inhabit the city, commerce is free, persons of lawful alignment rub elbows with chaotics, evil and good co-exist on equitable terms. Any preeminence of alignment is carefully thwarted by the rulers of the place, for it would tend to be detrimental to the city
  trade. There are movements and plots aplenty, but they are merely a part of the mosaic of city intrigue, and player characters can seldom find personal advantage in them, let alone assume a commanding position in municipal affairs.

So, how do you put all this Greyhawk Castle lore to use, fleshed out, in an actual game?  Continue on to Castle Greyhawk and Grodog's Version of Greyhawk Castle.

If that's all the campaign consisted of, I agree that PCs would eventually tire of tomb looting after bashing in the 2964th door. That's when Gygax's advice about ways to spice up your game are handy: whisk the PCs off to the Warden, create special themed sublevels (the film Aliens comes to mind as a good option!), create something special for them (if several of your players really like Star Wars, transport them to the Death Star, which they have to escape before Luke blows it up; if the players love LOTR, have one of the corridors transport them to Osgiliath or Minas Morgul or Numenor (!), etc. Those kinds of "specials" are the best, because they're tailored to the players' tastes and interests.

Build express elevetors, a teleport network, stairwells that bypass the upper levels completely but are hidden behind secret doors that can't be detected until you're 8th level (unless you have a Wand of Secret Door and Trap Detection, in which case then you need to figure out how to open the door...), yawning chasms that go deep and can be flown/feather falled/levitated/etc. into (again, using means generally beyond lower-level PCs either because they lack the magic items or the experience level for the spell durations to last long enough to get them to the bottom safely!): there's no need to spend lots of game time running PCs through the same old explored stuff in detail---simply allow the PCs to move at a quicker pace through the areas they know, roll a few wandering monster encounters, and get them to the good stuff

Return to Grodog's Greyhawk.
Return to Grodog's D&D.
Return to Imrryr.