Living Greyhawk
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Living Greyhawk is an on-going living campaign for the role playing game Dungeons & Dragons that is based on the World of Greyhawk. The campaign is run by the RPGA, which also administers and facilitates other Living campaigns (e.g., Living Force, Mark of Heroes) and games (e.g., D&D Minatures). It is also the name for the living campaign itself and is sometimes used to refer to the living campaign's storyline.
Living Greyhawk is a structured way to play Dungeons & Dragons. It uses the most current D&D rules (currently version 3.5) with some small modifications, so that play is equalized among everyone around the globe.
Greyhawk is the invented realm that Gary Gygax created during his own homegames in the 1970s. Some feel that this makes it the only true setting for Dungeons & Dragons, because throughout the realm, one can experience all that Dungeons & Dragons is about. The discovered and civilized sections of Oerth (an alternative to Earth) are known wholly as Greyhawk, with the Free City of Greyhawk being near the geographical center. And, just like real life, the land is divided, and subdivided by political and racial boundaries.
Where the "Living" part comes in is that players are able to use and develop the same character to play various modules (which are normally 4- or 8-hour games) instead of having to use a pre-generated, different character for each module, while the various modules themselves are loosely tied together and developed based on the successful, or unsuccessful, events from previous modules. Modules are written by various people, and then published for everyone to play. These modules have plotlines and goals, but aren't stiflingly directive. When certain modules are played, the Dungeon Master submits the results to the RPGA, which keeps note on how many groups were able to slay the Evil Wizard, or get the Glowing Orb, or prevent the Dastardly Duke from assassinating the King. Then these results may influence the plots of future mods, which continue the theme. That is why it is "Living" - because everyone is involved, and it will change and grow over time, based on how players play at their gaming session. Story arcs can live through several years of play. The current year on the Living Greyhawk Calendar is 596 CY.
Where your characters live in Greyhawk depends on where you live in the real world. Characters progress normally with gold and experience, but with some guidelines.
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[edit] Campaign organization
Many of the different realms and territories from the World of Greyhawk setting have been mapped onto areas of the real world (chiefly in North America and Europe). Players resident in these real world Regions usually play characters based or originating in the corresponding realm in the World of Greyhawk. For example, a player living in the United Kingdom can role-play a character living in the Free State of Onnwal. Each region is overseen by a Triad of three RPGA volunteers, who produce and edit regional adventures set in their region, create and advance plot lines within the region and oversee and enforce the rules of the Living Greyhawk campaign within their region.
The Regions are in turn grouped into one of 5 Metaregions, each of which is over seen by a member of the Circle, a group of six senior volunteers that coordinates the Living Greyhawk Campaign for the RPGA.
As well as the realms incorporated into player Regions, several parts of the World of Greyhawk, including, for example, the Free City of Greyhawk itself, are not assigned to any region or metaregion. These realms are described as Core regions.
The table below shows the triads for each geographic region:
[edit] Adventures and story-line progression
The Living Greyhawk campaign produces four categories of role-playing adventures: Regional adventures, Metaregional adventures, Core adventures and Adapted adventures.
- Regional adventures can only be played within the borders of the corresponding real world Region, though players can travel from other Regions to play them (at double the cost of Time Units). For example, a Nyrond Regional adventure can only be played in the American states of Arizona, Hawaii, Southern California, and Utah. Regional adventures deal with events set in the realm from the World of Greyhawk mapped to that region. For example, Regional adventures in Arizona, Hawaii, Southern California, and Utah are set in the Kingdom of Nyrond. Production of Regional adventures is overseen by the regional Triad, with the approval and editorial oversight by the Circle member with responsibility for the relevant Metaregion.
- Regional introductory adventures are similar to regional adventures but can only be played by 1st-level characters (in some cases, only by completely new characters).
- Regional special adventures are similar to regional adventures but are generally made available only to selected events, occasionally just a single convention.
- Regional interactive adventures are somewhat similar to regional special adventures, but players often dress up as or physically act out their character in a similar style to a LARP.
- Metaregional adventures must be played within borders of the corresponding real world Metaregion and deal with events set within the portion of the World of Greyhawk correspoding to the Metaregion. Production of Metaregional adventures is overseen by the Circle member or Metaregional assistant with responsibility for the Metaregion.
- Core adventures can be played anywhere in the real world (even in areas that do not have a Living Greyhawk Region assigned to them) and deal with events in the Core regions of the World of Greyhawk (though they can also deal with events of wide-reaching consequence within regions). Production of Core adventures is overseen by a Circle member with special responsibility for the Core regions.
- Core special adventures generally take the form of a "dungeon crawl", where most of the adventure is taken up by battles with little or no roleplaying element. Some core special adventures are made available to only eight conventions worldwide, while others are run at a selection of big conventions but then reissued (possibly in a rewritten format) for home play.
- Adapted adventures are a sub category of Core adventures, except that these adventures have not been specifically written for Living-Greyhawk. Some adventures published by Wizards of the Coast or in Dungeon Magazine will be selected by the campaign administration and made available (adapted) for play in Living Greyhawk.
- Adaptable (no longer used) adventures were published by the RPGA until 2002. The story could be modified by the regional triads in order to include them into the story arc of the region.
Each Region and Metaregion has a continuing story line - overseen by the Triads and Circle members. A number of contining plot arcs also exist in the Core regions. By collecting feedback on critical events in each adventure played (or more accurately - reported), the Triads and Circle can determine the influence of player actions on the setting and adjust the direction of the continuing plotlines accordingly, often dealing with the conseqeunce of player actions in one adventure in a subsequent adventure. The ability of players in a localised region of the real world to influence events in "their" realm in the World of Greyhawk (and thus giving them a strong feeling of ownership of their Region) is regarded as one of the chief strengths of the Regional system and a factor in the success of the Living Greyhawk Campaign.
[edit] Time Units
In Living Greyhawk, each character starts out the new year with 52 time units (TUs), which while ostensibly equal to one week of game time are really just an arbitrary delimitation of how often a character can be played in a year. Most regional and meta-regional modules cost a player one TU for in-region play and double that for out-of-region play. All Core adventures cost a minimum of 2 TUs. TUs can be spent for other out-of-adventure reasons, such as crafting an item or being a member of an order or a guild.
Once a character has spent 52 TUs, that character can no longer be played until the new calendar year.
[edit] Notes
- ^ In October 2006, parts of Australia & New Zealand were spun off into the newly recreated Ratik region, which had been in hiatus since 2004 [1]
