World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting

Elisabeth Barrington reviewed the supplement in The Space Gamer No. 33.[6] She commented that "When I first saw the module as it came in the mail, my reaction was, 'Good heavens!' I was struck by the beautiful artwork on the cover folder, bearing the arms of all the principal persons and organizations of the world. The map is even more beautiful, in full color, and everything is clearly marked and named. Everything is thought of for descriptions in the booklet; I doubt if most campaign worlds are this complete (mine certainly isn't)."[6] She continued: "Though the map would have been difficult to package in one piece, that would have made laying it out a bit easier. It is almost too large. We didn't have enough table space for it; it had to go on the wall or the floor. The book is printed in small type. It gives you a headache if you are trying to study some aspect of Greyhawk for any length of time."[6] Barrington concluded her review by saying, "This is an example of how to organize a world if you are a 'completeness' fanatic. Even if you don't use this particular world, it will help you get started on one of your own."[6]

The World of Greyhawk folio received two reviews in Dragon No. 46. In his review, Jeff Sieken was generally impressed, mentioning its colorful folder, the outside covers of which are "adorned with the numerous coats-of-arms of the various states, cities and factions chronicled within the gazetteer".[2] He said the two maps were "easily the highlight of the product", and that Darlene and the TSR art department "deserve to be congratulated for their quality", although he considered the sometimes dubious accuracy of the maps to be a major drawback.[2] He felt that reading the entire booklet would give one a pretty good understanding of the world depicted on the map, but he found that more information on some places would have been useful, and remarked on the lack of pantheon of Greyhawk-specific deities, as well as the lack of any details on the famous personalities of the world.[2] In Kenneth W. Burke's review, he remarked that he was glad to finally have "a universal constant" in the form of an official campaign setting.[7] Burke complained mostly about minor flaws in the work, but was particularly incensed about the use of the terms "cannibal" and "savages", assuming this was a derogatory reference directed at Africans.[7] Regardless, Burke rated the folio a 9 out of 10, blaming its problems on the product's size and scope.[7] Lawrence Schick, Vice President, of Product Development at the time for TSR Hobbies, Inc., responded to the two reviews. He stated that the idea behind the product was "to provide a setting for a fantasy campaign, a coherent place where fantastic things could happen", and that although The World of Greyhawk was based on Gygax's own campaign, the publication "was made deliberately vague in many areas so that individual DMs could impress their own ideas and personalities upon it".[8] He also responded to Burke's charges: "As regards the savages, nowhere in the text of the Gazetteer is there any indication of anybody's skin color. Nobody here ever gave it any thought, because it doesn't matter."[8]

Game designer Jim Bambra found the original set "disappointing", because "there is only so much information you can cram into a 32-page booklet, particularly when covering such a large area".[5]

Schick, in his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, describes the campaign setting as "a medieval-Europe-type fantasy world where most of the early AD&D scenarios are set".[4]

The larger Guide booklet is, in style and content, similar to the previously published folio. All the content of the folio edition is included in it, with a few changes.[5] The focus of some of the details for each region is sharpened. For example, the rulers of countries, which had originally only had titles, were given names, and populations were given to within a thousand, rather than as rough estimates. The section regarding geographical features is reorganized and expanded. Gygax increased the four yearly festivals from six days to seven days; this increases the length of the calendar year from 360 days to 364 days and means each calendar date now always falls on the same day of the week every year.

New material was also added, mainly culled from the Dragon magazine articles published in the previous three years.[5] This includes information about trees and other flora of the Flanaess, an examination of populations, including distribution of the four main human races, demi-humans (elves, dwarves, halflings), and humanoids (goblins and orcs), and human racial characteristics, including languages, appearance and modes of dress. There are also two one page maps, one of regional alignments (good, evil, etc.) and one of regional products and resources.

One fifth of the Guide is devoted to the deities of Greyhawk; in addition to the nineteen gods introduced in Gygax's Dragon articles, another thirty-one gods are added, for a total of fifty deities. However, only twenty-two are given a full description of their appearance, areas of influence, and worshipers. Nineteen of those are the original Greyhawk deities from Gygax's Dragon articles; the other three given full descriptions are Raxivort (whose full description had been previously published in issue No. 64 of Dragon,[23]) Ulaa, and Xan Yae. Combat statistics and specific powers for these twenty-two deities are also included, but placed in a separate appendix in the Glossography booklet. The remainder of the deities are simply listed by name and sphere of influence.

In Gygax's original Dragon articles, no mention had been made of racial preferences for any of the gods. The boxed set edition introduces four pantheons, one for each of the four human races. (In this edition, there are no deities for non-humans.) The twelve deities of the Suel pantheon had been created by Len Lakofka, and he would subsequently publish a five-part article on them in the July–November 1984 issues of Dragon. Most of the other gods are assigned to one of the three remaining pantheons, while a few are either declared either common to all humans or of unknown origin.

The smaller forty-eight page booklet, the Glossography, contains reference tables for rates of movement, random encounter tables, and a list of rulers of each region. The booklet also contains a rewrite of David Axler's weather creation article from Dragon, although the number of tables is reduced from fourteen to ten. There are six examples of adventures that can be placed in the world of Greyhawk in the booklet, and the map coordinates of the twenty-one previously published TSR adventures set in Greyhawk. In addition, there is a section for determining a character's birthplace (from Len Lakofka's Dragon article), a list of notable non-player characters (from Gygax's Dragon article), and map coordinates for every region, city, and town marked on the color map. Finally, there are combat statistics for the 22 deities who had been accorded a full description in the Guide.

Chris Hunter reviewed the boxed set in Imagine magazine, giving it a balanced review.[24] Hunter had some problems with the map (the two halves did not fit together well; rivers seemed to flow up into hills; deserts were too close to forests). However, he liked the Guide, noting that it "gives the DM an excellent base on which to construct a campaign."[24] For those looking for a "grand design" for a campaign world and who do not mind "the restrictions imposed by using someone else's", the box "will prove a worthwhile purchase".[24]