What We Got Instead
Surprisngly in 1983, Gygax did manage to publish the 'Alice' modules
EX1, Dungeonland and EX2,
Land Beyond the Magic Mirror both derived from an extension of his original Castle Greyhawk. Both were set on a
partial-plane adapted from the Looking Glass World of Lewis Carroll. Gygax claimed to have visited his players there many times
and in the publication even the famed NPC Murlynd had took up residence there. With such a silly, light hearted
example from Gygax's legendary campaign, surely other authors would take Castle Greyhawk more seriously in his absence?
Get ready to fall down a rabbit hole....
In the obscure, short lived (3 issues) newsletter, TSR Worlds there was a contest held for a 'Dumb Idea' for a
TSR product. Apparently the winning idea would actually be made by the TSR staff. A notice was posted in Dragon #132:
"The Official TSR Dumb Ideas Contest,which ran in the first issue of TSR
Worlds, has now ended. The winning idea (by a two-to-one majority) was the
“GREYHAWK® Jam” supermodule, a
round-robin dungeon crawl designed
by some of the industry’s best designers.
Entitled WG7 Castle Greyhawk,
this hilarious product is now in your
stores.
The three “Trash the Player” ideas
(“Fortress of the Kobolds,” “Stung,”
and “The Ogmoor Orc Hunt”) were
numbers 2, 4, and 5, respectively, but
together outpolled “GREYHAWK
Jam.” (There are some mighty frustrated
and nasty DMs out there.) “The
Sound and the Fury,” a module with an
audio cassette of sound effects, came
in third. At the rear were “Space 1889”
(a space supplement for the BOOT
HILL® game) and “Top Ballista” (aerial
combat based upon you-know-what).
The winner of the contest, and recipient
of autographed copies of Manual of
the Planes and DRAGONLANCE®
Adventures, is Ted Ross, of New Concord,
Ohio. Congratulations!"
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But this won "Best Satirical RPG".
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Yes it's true Greyhawk fans don't like WG7 for various reasons (now), but was it truly reviled
when it first came out? Undoubtedly people were mad as a hatter back then:
"...'Catastrophe's Spell' is likely to be popular,
for much the same reasons that
AD&D® game modules like the roundrobin
Greyhawk Castle are popular. The
'chaotic whimsy' genre seems to be in
vogue."
-The Role of Books, Dragon #135 (John C. Bunnell)
"Castle Greyhawk, various authors. TSR,
Inc., $9.95. This is what dungeon-bashing
is all about: .The Random Monster Generator,
located on the lowest level of the
dungeon, is running on Full Automatic.. In
order to achieve the truly fantastic, sometimes
you need to be silly. The designers of
this 12-level mega-dungeon have each
been given a level to indulge their wildest
whims and peculiar twisted geniuses. I
freely admit that the FRPG play I enjoyed
most in my formative years was this sort
of bizarre, humorous, incoherent fantasy
arcade adventure, where DMs took the
totally illogical premises of the D&D and
AD&D games, accepted them without
question, then improvised thinly rationalized
dungeon universes for us to wander
about in, smashing and roasting things and
having a thumping good time. Finally, TSR
has dignified this style of play by publishing
an anthology of .really low fantasy.
scenarios. Hooray!"
- Role-playing Reviews, Dragon #135 (Ken Rolston)
And most inexplicable:
"The Gamers. Choice Awards for 1989 were presented at the 1989 GEN CON® game fair in Milwaukee, Wis., on August
11 at the MECCA arena. The presenters were Lorraine Williams and Jean Rabe. Votes were collected from gamers at conventions and through POLYHEDRON.
Newszine, and balloting was administered by the RPGA. Network....
Best Role-Playing Adventure: Castle
Greyhawk (TSR, Inc.)"
- The Gamers Have Chosen!, Dragon #151
I kid you not! anyhow, after the hilarity wore off, people wanted a serious dungeon still and in 1990 TSR
put out
WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins by
Blake Mobley and Timothy Brown. While this module captured the complexity of a Gygaxian dungeon crawl and contained many easter eggs,
it was too little too late for some fans still smarting from WG7. Wizards of the Coast would go on to update Greyhawk Ruins for 3.5 edition.in 2007 with
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk. Concurrently, Gygax worked on finally bringing his original vision of Castle Greyhawk to publication with
Castle Zagyg for Troll Lord games up to his untimely death in 2008.
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