Perrenland's got it all! Spooky lake? Check. Spooky mountains? Check. Spooky steppes? Check. Ancient dwarven kingdom? Check. Urflan mounds? Check. Colorful human fiefdoms? Check.

Southern Keoland might be a good area for a "Gygaxian Campaign" if you enjoy pirate and sea-based campaigns. You have lizardmen & sahaugin in the swamps and coasts, humanoids to the east, the nearby demi-human realms of Ulek, pirates in the Sea Princes, "lost/new world" adventures in Amedio Jungle and Hepmonaland (fairly short boat rides away), and no doubt underwater realms in the Azure Sea. No tent-pole dungeon, but you could make a large sunken temple complex in the swamps or off-shore to fill this role. Or create some vast dungeon complex in the countryside.

I use Dyvers as the starting point in my campaign.

The city of Highport in the Pomarj would make a good home base with the Suss and Gnarley forests and the Drackensgrab hills nearby. It also is fairly close to the Bright Desert. The city itself could act as the tent pole dungeon with the PCs exploring the ruins while dealing with the orc tribes and cultists that invest the city.

My home campaign is based on the "borderlands" between the Principality of Ulek and the Pomarj. Lots of places you can adventure from there.

I love Irongate. A great place for a dwarf campaign.

The Wild Coast was often my starting point for Greyhawk campaigns as it was a rough and tumble area where I could drop in a variety of modules and/or homemade adventures. As I recall I dropped a lot of modules in the area and they fit well in the areas around Woolly Bay.

Hey GG, really have found all your content to be fun and digestible for getting into Greyhawk. Even invested in a gold box off ebay for my next campaign after the enjoyment I got out of all of your stuff. Thanks for helping me so much

I created a fleshed out Loftwick in the Yeomanry. It's a great base for doing the Against the Giants/Erelhei-Cinlu adventures. It has that "Keep on the Borderlands" feel being so close the the mountains and what mountains they are.

I don't have any experience with Greyhawk but this is giving me ideas for things do with my own setting!

It makes a lot of sense when you read; even the current edition; that this formula was the guiding campaign design formula that DnD was built around. Not to say that this is like the "correct" way but it does seem much more "organic" to the rules and game design choics that DnD is built around.

Yeah I've always used the Gygaxian model of letting the PC pull the story off track if they want to. Some of our best stories actually came from the PCs doing something I didn't expect and me just having to roll with it and make stuff up on the fly to compensate. And the PCs always seem to love the feeling of the course actually being in their own hands instead of getting railroaded into what the DM wants. I guess it makes it feel more like real life? It's hard knox for the DM sometimes....but it's ultimately worth it.

I'm currently preparing a Campaign in Tenh (i set the B2 Borderlands there) and I got the impression that there's a great variety there as well. Troll Fens, Phostwood Griff Mountains, many cities to adventure in, Nystul to meet up with. But it gets even better when you think about travelling across the neighboring borders: The Pale, the Bonemarch, the Rovers, the Bandit Kingdoms and the Northern Suel Barbarians surround Tenh for very different kinds of adventures. Maybe my scale on this a bit off with the distances? But I still think it fits well. Tentpole could be the Keep on the Borderlands if you'd like to, or theres the lost city of Tostenca (Skrellingshald) in the Griff Mountains which would make an excellent Megadungeon to create by the DM, a huge tunnel-ridden mountain with many exits to terraces and the city on the top plateau... Which is a whole city with so many buildings to choose and explore. Tenh has lots of citys listed in the Iuz book, Calbut would be closest to Tostenca but Nevond Nevend is the capital and also not far. There are citys close to all the borders to provide shopping and resting close to the woods, fens or steppes, so the players wouldn't always need to travel back to your main city...

I'll throw out Ratikhill, holding the pass between Ratik & the Bone March. Aside from the strong "border guard" possibilities vs. the humanoids (Keep on the Borderlands would fit well), there are also the nearby mountains and possible expeditions into the northern barbarian lands. In general, agree that the older "sandbox" style of campaign play needs revival.

Another great and very informative video. I have set and started a campaign in Keoland and pretty much have had the party go from there (N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile god, from there onto the U series of modules, onto the city of Greyhawk, then the village of homlet, etc and so on.)

Find the spot on the map with the least there, double check the boxed sets to be sure there is nothing set down about it. Once you find this place in the middle of nowhere and has little to no entries in the sources, set your game there. And make it yours. That way you are adding to the world and not just using it.

We are running our campaign in this style after playing a more modern narrative style. The narrative style consistently failed b/c people schedules got in the way or character XY or Z was killed and he/she was so tied into the narrative of the campaign that the entire campaign died with them. Narrative style with plot armor is fine but for our group it didn't work. We are using Yeomannary to place KOB, Night Below and Baltrons Beacon, and Tomb of the Lizard King

Geoff is my favorite area

The definition of "Gygaxian" is fascinating. I have been playing since I was 12yrs old in '75. LBB's then Holmes to AD&D then 2e. We NEVER played this style (multiple PC's per player). We did have some fluidity in attendee's as we had a large group of players (one session we had 15 people in the room). I also hit alot of early GenCon's starting in '78 (grew up in Chicago Suburbs) and don't remember talking to anyone that had that style of play either. Maybe GG and the crew were off on what people were really doing?

These videos are great!

I like players to be somewhat near Greyhawk at the start, so it’s realistic to get there at some point But it should also be near the center. The canonical location of Hommlet is great for this, but you can really go anywhere in that region. Celene could even be doable, or somewhere outside of it Maybe, like if you want to go on the edge of the center, maybe Ulek. Mountain pass away from the path to Greyhawk. It would just be disappointing to not have realistic short term access to Greyhawk City

The old-school campaign is open ended and player driven. The DM sets the stage, the players tell the story.

Thank you for another great video. Dumb side-question: was it indeed pronounced "Maur-ey Castle"? It was misspelled "Mauve Castle" in the earlier Gord the Rogue novels.

YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.

This a great topic and here is why, the 5E kids do not know the lore of any D&D worlds outside of 5E. The Sword Coast is perfect and so is Sigil. The kids are very "unsure" on how to sandbox. They only know to show up roll dice and that's it. This is a great video. Thanks!