Greyhawk Legacy

Where I’ve Landed on Greyhawk

For the last few days, Malaky, Critical Dom, and I have been having one hell of an ongoing conversation in the TBE Discord about Greyhawk and, more broadly, the legacy of Dungeons & Dragons itself. It started in one place and just kept branching out. We talked about modern D&D and 5e, the announcements coming out of Gen Con, Wizards returning to Greyhawk, Luke Gygax and Melf, Rob Kuntz and his plans for Lord of the Green Dragons, Troll Lord Games and the Gygax material they are bringing back into print, and eventually the complicated question of who gets to carry Gary Gygax’s creative legacy forward.

Critical Dom has also spent the last several years researching this history for his book, D&D: An American Institution, and that brought another layer to the conversation. We weren’t just trading opinions about people on social media. We were digging into old TSR history, interviews, credits, court and probate records, Castle Greyhawk and Castle Zagyg, who created what, who worked with whom, and what happened to all of this material after Gary died. Dom’s book is well worth checking out for anyone interested in that history.

It’s been an awesome discussion.

And somewhere during all of this, I started thinking about why I care so much about Greyhawk in the first place.

Greyhawk means something to me beyond all of these arguments. It was the first world I ever played D&D in. I was six going on seven, sitting with my older brother and his friends in the back of a pawn shop in Altus, Oklahoma. Along the back wall was this immense aquarium with a piranha swimming around in it while we played. Think about that scene through the eyes of a six-year-old kid: my brother and the older guys gathered around a table, those incredible Darlene Greyhawk maps spread out in front of us, dice rolling, this strange fantasy world opening up for the first time, and a damn piranha cruising back and forth in a huge tank behind us. It was surreal, and more than forty years later I can still see it.

Greyhawk isn’t just an old D&D setting to me. It’s a core memory and one I remain incredibly fond of.

With all that being said, I think I’ve finally reached my position on the whole Greyhawk legacy fight.

Rob Kuntz was there. Whatever anyone thinks of him today, the historical record makes it pretty clear that Gary Gygax valued him as a friend and creative collaborator. So let Kuntz make Lord of the Green Dragons from the material he actually owns and show us his vision of what that campaign could have become.

Let Luke Gygax work with Wizards and give us his version of Greyhawk, informed by growing up around the game, playing Melf, and being Gary’s son.

And let Troll Lord Games publish the Gygax material the Estate has authorized them to publish. They were working with Gary during the final years of his life. They knew him, published him, and were helping him bring his worlds back to the table when he died.

At this point, I’m less interested in watching everyone argue over who is the “true” heir to Greyhawk.

Make the books. Publish the adventures. Put the material in our hands. Let us play it.

Twenty years from now, the quality and historical value of those works may tell us far more about Gary Gygax’s legacy than another twenty years of people arguing over who has the strongest claim to it.

There doesn’t have to be a Greyhawk throne.

Let them all work the forge. Then let the works speak for themselves.