Theme
In Castle Greyhawk, TSR parodied its own scenario style, as a send-up of the illogical gilded hole labyrinth dungeons. The product contains many references to contemporary popular culture, along with a bitingly satirical treatment of TSR's approach to earlier Greyhawk publications. The module's back cover states "The common theme of this dungeon is that no joke is so old, no pun is so bad, and no schtick is so obvious that it can’t be used to confuse and trip up PCs!"
Thus, although the adventure purportedly concerns Castle Greyhawk, most fans of the setting consider it to be a "joke" module. In 1990, TSR released a more definitive and serious treatment of the Castle itself in module WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins. Greyhawk: The Adventure Begins, one of the late 1990s Greyhawk publications meant to revamp the campaign world, explicitly states that Greyhawk Ruins is to be considered the definitive castle layout and not Castle Greyhawk.
Read more about this topic: Castle Greyhawk (module)
Famous quotes containing the word theme:
“And God-appointed Berkeley that proved all things a dream,
That this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its farrow that so solid seem,
Must vanish on the instant if the mind but change its theme ...”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The saying, “The Magyar is much too lazy to be bored,” is worth thinking about. Only the most subtle and active animals are capable of boredom.—A theme for a great poet would be God’s boredom on the seventh day of creation.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It seems to me that upbringings have themes. The parents set the theme, either explicitly or implicitly, and the children pick it up, sometimes accurately and sometimes not so accurately.... The theme may be “Our family has a distinguished heritage that you must live up to” or “No matter what happens, we are fortunate to be together in this lovely corner of the earth” or “We have worked hard so that you can have the opportunities we didn’t have.””
—Calvin Trillin (20th century)