2012-01-05

To Greyhawk or Not To Greyhawk?

Every few years, I look at the current state of the table-top roleplaying culture and I wonder where I should be running my games. Not whose house to gather at, not which room to take over and strew books around in, but what setting to use?

Let's face facts: I don't have the same amount of time to devote to writing material to use for game. Work is more and more invasive on my time, real life takes its toll. So, how do I spend my time prepping for the sessions I run? So far, it's been about taking established Greyhawk material and translating it to Pathfinder rules. That, or creating whole-cloth the stuff that I need for my specific game. Greyhawk is awesome, and there are no more books being released there.

Golarion, on the other hand, has new material being released from both professional and amateur sources. (This is, of course, the default setting for the Pathfinder RPG. And more than just quantity, the quality of the Golarion releases is quite high. Personally, I haven't seen the kind of layers and detail that are being wrought for Golarion since 80's-era Glorantha. Detailed local shrines which actually have effects on the characters who attend them, personalities and politics in every corner of the world, well-balanced NPCs who genuinely need the player-characters as either their foils or their allies.

Also, have I mentioned that this is already in the system my players prefer to use?

Greyhawk was my first setting. I'm profoundly affectionate for it. However, I might need to swap over to a different setting for the games I'm running in my limited time. Yup. I'm thinking it might be time to set Greyhawk aside for a little while (at least until I get done with my writing for it).

Opinions? Confessions?

Let me know!

No comments:

Post a Comment