Saturday, April 23, 2011

D & D Gazetteer

The D & D Gazetteer is an early product for Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition.  It introduces players to the world of Greyhawk.  As the title implies it is designed to give dungeon masters and players alike a brief taste of the variety of nations, places, and powers that abound in Greyhawk.

While I love settings Greyhawk is not one that I am all the familiar with despite the references to it throughout 3rd Edition D & D.  Part of this reason may owe to the fact that as the RPGA Living World very little material was published for the settings and rather players affected the world.  As a result this provides an interesting background for where some of the more famous spells of D & D got their names.

As a setting itself this does not feel terribly unique, however oddly this might be because this was one of the earliest settings so while a reader may be more familiar with Forgotten Realms or Golarion it's more likely that those worlds are cribbing off Greyhawk then the other way around (especially so for Golarion of course).  Despite that generic feel and the tiny amount of space given for each local the gazetteer does a good job laying out possible adventuring ideas and story hooks.  In the end it leaves a lot of room to play in allowing for more an easier sandbox approach.  Granted for people with extensive collections from earlier D & D may have access to far more detailed information on Greyhawk that fills out the world more but armed with just the gazetteer there is lots of space to do whatever the players or dungeon master desires.

Overall I'd rate this a 5 out of 10.  It's not terribly inspiring or exciting but the production values are decent (especially for an early 3rd edition product) and the world is certainly ripe for exploration and adventure.

Available in: Physical*

Links: Noble Knight

Next up: The Great Beyond (Pathfinder)

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