12-04-2018, 06:47 PM
Long time reader, first time poster...
Havard, as someone who is attempting to help organize the fragmented Greyhawk fandom we face many of the same problems you are (and the scales between Blackmoor and Greyhawk are not that vast in comparison to some of the larger fandoms out there).
Why is Greyhawk suddenly ascending right now in the fan community? Really it is a combination of things. We are not bound by one platform, in fact we are spreading out where ever we can. Some highlights:
* Facebook Groups. There are a lot of them dedicated to them. We range in size from less then a 100 members all the way to 2,000+ member beomouths. The one I run for Canonfire! is about 900 members right now and growing and the other I assist Anna Meyer with, The Flanaess Geographical Society, is one of the bigger ones. Sages of Greyhawk is another very large group.
* Twitch streams. The Greyhawk Channel is massive. They are usually running live play 5e Greyhawk games once a day and now host a 1-2 hour talk show called Legends & Lore every Thursday. There are two other streams, LordGosumba's Knights of Ulek campaign (30 years old, a hybrid 1e/2e campaign) and Return to the Bandit Kingdoms by wickedstudiosllc. I believe there is a spinoff live play group from TGHC based out of Mexico by Winged Horizon.
* Discord chat servers. This has replaced iRC chat as the main focal point of real time text chat (with modern conveniences and voice chat too). This has been invaluable to organize fans, patreons, and the actual organizers. Slack has some limits and has not caught fire except where it already being used by tech-heads.
* Greyhawk Online is being resurrected. This used to host my Greyhawk Heraldry site and many other Greyhawk content producers. Hopefully we will see some great things from this site again soon.
I cannot say enough about Anna Meyer's maps. Having Greyhawk maps that are available to everyone to use under a non-commercial use license. The work of Joseph Block, Mike Bridges, Allan, Maldin, etc. on their websites and blogs are anchor points for this modern push.
The main thing we are doing is finding folks that want to move forward (whatever WotC decides to do with Greyhawk or not) and we support one another. There is a growing community of creators that are trying help each other succeed because we see everyone being raised up by the tide right now.
Keep plugging away at it. Hopefully some folks will be inspired by your work and start making their own... The other thing that would help, is if Arnesons' Estate will make his work available again in a modern format and/or some sort of retro clone.
You do good work and hopefully it will catch fire like Greyhawk has.
Havard, as someone who is attempting to help organize the fragmented Greyhawk fandom we face many of the same problems you are (and the scales between Blackmoor and Greyhawk are not that vast in comparison to some of the larger fandoms out there).
Why is Greyhawk suddenly ascending right now in the fan community? Really it is a combination of things. We are not bound by one platform, in fact we are spreading out where ever we can. Some highlights:
* Facebook Groups. There are a lot of them dedicated to them. We range in size from less then a 100 members all the way to 2,000+ member beomouths. The one I run for Canonfire! is about 900 members right now and growing and the other I assist Anna Meyer with, The Flanaess Geographical Society, is one of the bigger ones. Sages of Greyhawk is another very large group.
* Twitch streams. The Greyhawk Channel is massive. They are usually running live play 5e Greyhawk games once a day and now host a 1-2 hour talk show called Legends & Lore every Thursday. There are two other streams, LordGosumba's Knights of Ulek campaign (30 years old, a hybrid 1e/2e campaign) and Return to the Bandit Kingdoms by wickedstudiosllc. I believe there is a spinoff live play group from TGHC based out of Mexico by Winged Horizon.
* Discord chat servers. This has replaced iRC chat as the main focal point of real time text chat (with modern conveniences and voice chat too). This has been invaluable to organize fans, patreons, and the actual organizers. Slack has some limits and has not caught fire except where it already being used by tech-heads.
* Greyhawk Online is being resurrected. This used to host my Greyhawk Heraldry site and many other Greyhawk content producers. Hopefully we will see some great things from this site again soon.
I cannot say enough about Anna Meyer's maps. Having Greyhawk maps that are available to everyone to use under a non-commercial use license. The work of Joseph Block, Mike Bridges, Allan, Maldin, etc. on their websites and blogs are anchor points for this modern push.
The main thing we are doing is finding folks that want to move forward (whatever WotC decides to do with Greyhawk or not) and we support one another. There is a growing community of creators that are trying help each other succeed because we see everyone being raised up by the tide right now.
Keep plugging away at it. Hopefully some folks will be inspired by your work and start making their own... The other thing that would help, is if Arnesons' Estate will make his work available again in a modern format and/or some sort of retro clone.
You do good work and hopefully it will catch fire like Greyhawk has.