I was throwing around ideas about a new Greyhawk campaign I may be starting, and when along the timeline I'd start, and what modules would then be available to the players. I'm the sort who doesn't really like to say "Oh, there used to be evil Slavers round here, but a bunch of NPCs defeated them a while back" - I'd rather let the players decide to take up arms against the Slavers themselves.
So, in the interest of creating a "free-roaming" style campaign where my players could pick up most of the classic modules paths if they chose to do so, I got to thinking:
What would Oerth look like if all the evil plots started in classic modules had been allowed to continue? What does an Oerth in 595 CY with active Slave Lords, a Temple of Elemental Evil, Giants in Geoff, The Crook of Rao still on the Isle of the Ape (&c) look like? Is Iuz on the ascendent, or have far worse evils risen in his place? Have areas of the Flaeness fallen to the demi-human hordes of lapsed into devilry?
I've often toyed with such ideas too. The worst case scenario I can think of from the published modules is to let Vecna win in 'Vecna Lives!' Other than that, maybe Doomgrinder, but that one was underwhelming for me after the hype.
Interesting question. For my part, I would have to answer with a question, or two.
Is "evil" "stupid?" By this I mean is evil the cackling type that slaughters peasants so they can't plant crops so famine strikes and soon there are very few people left alive for the evil doers to oppress.
Or is "evil" smart? Do they oppress people, but not so much that the work of daily living doesn't get done?
Maybe there are both types - some "smart" and some "stupid." In which case, does the "smart" evil (the ones who want peasants alive and trade continuing so it can be taxed) become opposed to the "stupid" evil (the ones who want to slaughter everyone or nearly so)?
In the latter case, I think there are some cool campaign posibilities - smart evil vs stupid evil.
Is "good" then subjective - seeing that the smart evil is "better" than the stupid evil that just wants slaughter? Or is good absolute? And will throw its life away fighting _all_ evil?
Maybe there is "smart good" and "stupid good" too? Smart good understands that smart evil is better than stupid evil and thus will oppose one more than the other? Stupid good will oppose all evil regardless?
Could be a cool campaign. Lots of questions to ponder. _________________ GVD
Along these lines, can anyone point me to a page on this site that lists adventures that have been "completed" in canon and their effect on GH history? I can't seem to track it down at all ...
Interesting question. For my part, I would have to answer with a question, or two.
Is "evil" "stupid?" By this I mean is evil the cackling type that slaughters peasants so they can't plant crops so famine strikes and soon there are very few people left alive for the evil doers to oppress.
Or is "evil" smart? Do they oppress people, but not so much that the work of daily living doesn't get done?
<Snip>
Maybe there is "smart good" and "stupid good" too? Smart good understands that smart evil is better than stupid evil and thus will oppose one more than the other? Stupid good will oppose all evil regardless?
This is another of the hive of bees in my bonnet of late. This one in particular was stirred up after watching Serenity. One of the things I really like about Joss Wheedon is that his bad guys aren't dumb and the good guys can't rely on cliched minion/villain stupidity to get by.
More philosophically, the bad guy in Serenity isn't doing bad for the sake of being bad. He knows he's bad, a monster, but justifies it because he's making "a better world". This is the kind of villain I can believe in.
In fact, I can see the Scarlet Brotherhood being motivated by largely similar aims. They don't want to conquer the world so they can cackle manicially at the end of it all. They honestly, firmly and 100% believe the world will be a better place under their rule. If only these stupid barbarians would see the light and stop resisiting them. Despite their foolish strategy of open war during the Greyhawk Wars, I would regard the SB as being in the smart evil catagory (the Ahlissans and the North Kingdom would also fall into this catagory - Aerdy's been largely purged of its stupid evil. Rary would also be smart evil).
Equally - the Palish honestly, firmly and 100% believe the world will be a better place under THEIR rule, if only those damn heathens would stop worshiping false gods and follow the One True Path. The bad guy in Serenity really puts me in mind of a member of the Church Militant - what we call Awful Good in our home campaign. These are the kind of guys who would fight any evil anywhere even if it meant their ultimate defeat ("Ally with Nyrond against Al Mor? But Lynwerd is a fiend lover! Ally with the Tenhas against Iuz? But they worship heathen gods! Never!" etcetc).
Having villains being bad for the sake of being bad is unsatisfying for me. Even Iuz has an angle. Being a god of pain and suffering, spreading pain and suffering empowers him and empowerment is his thing. He has Abyssal Lords to conquer, family scores to settle, apotheosis to attain. Whether he has an ultimate goal is another question - but even if he doesn't, being motivated to gain power for power's sake hardly sets him aside from hundreds of other petty despots and dictators in the real world.
I do agree though that, given that pain and suffering is his thing, Iuz should perhaps be more like Lord Foul from the Thomas Covenant series - sowing dissent among his foes, making them turn on themselves and twisting all their good intentions into evil that rebounds on them, but that's a matter of campaign flavour, I guess. I would agree though that Chaotic Evil (or stupid evil, as we also call it in the home campaign) is far less satisfying that Lawful or even Neutral Evil.
One thing that we've played up in the home campaign is how similar the churches of Heironious and Hextor are when you get down to brass tacks. They're two sides of the same coin. If a Hextorite gives you his oath, he'll keep it no less fervently than a Heironian and a Heironian enjoys the heat of battle no less than a Hextorite - and they both have the same desire to will and vanquish their foe. The difference is in how they go about doing it.
The central idea of the Balance (which Mordenkainen is so obsessed with) is that at their extremes, Good and Evil are indistinguishable. Only the middle road of Balance and Neutrality (with the big n, as opposed to small n neutrality where you don't really give a damn and just muddle on through) allows people of all shades to get along and have their space in the world - even the stupid evil and the awful good ones.
One aspect of Greyhawk which I never enjoyed was all the emphasis on the "Grey". That is, the forwarding of all the Neutral powers "keeping the balance". My style has always been of fighting the good fight against evil. I would play paladins, LG mages, and the like against the forces of evil, with the self rightous, pompous neutrals seen as (at best) useful dupes of evil to (at worst) complacent allies of evil.
Now many old Hawkers like that neutral aspect, that good could never run away and beat evil down and likewise evil would never triumph over good. But From The Ashes changed all that.
My campaigns take place during and just after the Greyhawk Wars, and evil has clearly won great victories. By tracing the history leading up to the war, the decimation of the Circle of Eight at the hands of Vecna may have ensured that this neutral watchdog group could not interfere with the war. At any rate, all these powerful Neutral entities failed to keep the balance and evil made tremendous gains. At this point in GH history, all out efforts for good are required just to keep the status quo.
Events after the wars (The Flight of Fiends, the crowning of King Lynward) have gone a bit back to balancing the cosmic scales. But as far as the "Scorched Oerth" campaign, the grim and dark setting of immediately after the Greyhawk Wars would be a great place to adventure. Check out FtA. At that point in time, evil plots have mostly succeeded and good had its back against the wall.
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