Seems like a pure nostalgia play, as most players can't tell the difference between the various high fantasy medieval settings anyway.
Also, we can toss Harry Potter directly in the trash.
Well don't look at me, I was throwing it in the trash before it was cool, for which I was called a bigot because apparently that made me racist and homophobic.
D&D is, after all, still a geek hobby. There are a lot more people willing to identify as a geek now, you can fly your geek flag a lot more openly, but it's still a geek thing. And geeks love their history.
They love the
idea of history. What they
really love is canon and nostalgia.
You know appeals to Gen Z? 80s stuff, so this is kind of a two for one deal.
Hate to break it to you, but they've already moved on to the '90.
The writing was never really what carried the books, it was the world building. Which, while not particularly robust, was uniquely appealing to queer and neuro-divergent kids growing up in the late 90s.
No, it was appealing to those groups for exactly the same reasons as everyone else. It's the story of an abused orphan who enters a magical world full of familiar things and paternal/maternal figures where they discover they're the chosen one. It's as derivative as it gets.
Why Greyhawk? Because it's medieval Europe, to a large extent. You know, an actual setting that resonates with a lot of players because it's based on something real.
But not necessarily something
familiar.
The more you move away from familiar concepts, the harder the sell is for a setting. Doesn't mean that it can't be amazing, but for the most popular Fantasy RPG, you want a starting point that more people can understand.
Which is why it's such a dumb idea to move away from #ForgottenRealms now that the movie is out and BG3 is a breakaway hit which will be producing content both fan and official for years to come.
Or maybe that's
exactly why.
The advantage that Greyhawk has is that it is less developed. You can go back to the basics of the 1983 boxed set and then let people loose to do what they will with it. (I have a sneaking suspicion is that its nations are a lot easier to explain than those of the Forgotten Realms). It has classic dungeons to point out, but otherwise gets out of the way.
There's a fine line between having enough content to inspire ideas yet leaving enough room for that to be possible, and I'm not sure #WotC can walk that line.
All fantasy ethnic groups are, ultimately, references to reallife cultures. This means, ethically, we must describe and engage these fictional(ized) cultures with the same sensitivity, compassion, and knowledgeability about the complexity and diversity of the members, as we do for reallife ethnicities.
No, fantasy ethnic groups are as often analogies and allegories to big ideas and concepts, and the idea that they
must directly correlate to
actual ethnic groups is easily one of the most intellectually toxic ideas contaminating this hobby.
You have to be careful when you base your settings on places in the real world that you don't base it on stereotypes. However, there already are a number of fantasy versions of real world regions in Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.
You mean the book about an ethnostate where membership determines rulership and criminals are brainwashed into not committing crimes?
Like any other utopian idea, there's no such thing as an unproblematic representation.
The Orc is a case in point.
You mean the group based on fascists and Nazis? The group literally represented by pigs?
