D&D 4E How would you re-envision Spelljammer with 4e?

[Shades of Eternity]

actually I would map out a few routes connecting crystal spheres to the big players. These big players would be independent of the greyspace/krynspace/realmspace stuff cause it would help define the universe as a whole. Also put on the map a couple of starbeasts to make things...interesting. Once you got neighbors, you got tons of possibilities for conflict.

There should be at least two major human spalljamming cultures: one western european type (we can byzantium as a basis) and one asian (more shou lung like).

give it a touch of the old B-5 feel. most of these races can't stand each other but can somewhat sociable, with mind flayers playing the "shadow" of this world and the elves the m'bauri.

give tons of plot hooks for adventure ideas.

Make it so that characters are both useful on and off the ship.

For some reason as of late, I'm getting a real "pirates of the carribean" feel from spelljammer. It should feel above all else fantastic.

 

[MojoGM]

1) Don't kill the silly. The silly made it fun...folk are forgetting FUN in D&D, as the uber-munchkinization takes over (loved 3rd ed, hated the way folk jsut power-gamed to extremes, but yet ridiculed humour...really felt a distinct lack of humour in 3rd ed)

***Lots of damn good stuff in between ***

12) Spelljammer has giff! Giff >>>> all! 'nuff said

WoC, please hire Silverblade to design 4E Spelljammer. Thank you.

 

[Klaus]

I'd add magic to this:

 

[kennew142]

I'd add magic to this ....QUOTE]

When I saw that movie, the first thing I thought of was Spelljammer! It is the campaign I wished I had ran, but never got around to.

 

[kennew142]

Aye, that I really go along with! Spelljammer is *NOT*, bloody well not sci-fi, sigh, rant aimed at so many folk over the years who kept trying to push/want it to be sci-fi...we don't need yet more Trek-clones Go play Star Wars instead, Spelljammer is D&D fantasy.

Spelljammer is pure out right weird fantasy, woot! Swash n' buckle onboard flying ships, wonderful!

You can have a Spelljammer campaign that simulates the universe of B5, Star Trek, Serenity, etc.... My preference would be to do it with traditional fantasy tropes. You don't need to make it a hybrid sci-fi/fantasy game in order to reimagine any of those universes.

That said, it is a little harsh to tell people to go play a different game if they don't want to play it exactly the way you want them to. I personally love Dragonstar. I wouldn't push it into a published Spelljammer setting, but that doesn't make it badwrongfun.

 

[Evilhalfling]

ah the days of sailing through the stars with an all halfling crew on a boat shaped like a giant swan.

one problem that needs addressing - 1-4 illithids or 1 beholder = good.
20* illithids on a boat? 12(?) beholders WTF?
*not that im bitter cause my first ever long term 'ling character ended his life enslaved on a nautalis*

The boat to boat system was usually ignored, in favor of stuff flying by and attacking crew, or landing and exploring some forsaken Rock. I probably over indulged in the silly - Dalwar, space swine, Giant space hampsters, Krynn Gnomes and Giff all put in apperances.

The reason the wizard got chained down was to enable the use of ballista and catapults as primary weapons. It would be far worse with the power of 3 or 4e spells, druids & clerics have a lot better range. 3-5d6 every 2 rounds is a pinprick. and even the Phlogston is not the barrier it once was, using acid/cold substiuted fireballs is simple.

 

[Klaus]

You can have a Spelljammer campaign that simulates the universe of B5, Star Trek, Serenity, etc.... My preference would be to do it with traditional fantasy tropes. You don't need to make it a hybrid sci-fi/fantasy game in order to reimagine any of those universes.

That said, it is a little harsh to tell people to go play a different game if they don't want to play it exactly the way you want them to. I personally love Dragonstar. I wouldn't push it into a published Spelljammer setting, but that doesn't make it badwrongfun.

I wouldn't say "sci-fi", but I certainly wouldn't mind golem grafts, warforged and other steampunk/magipunk flavors seasoning the setting.

 

[ruleslawyer]

That said, it is a little harsh to tell people to go play a different game if they don't want to play it exactly the way you want them to. I personally love Dragonstar. I wouldn't push it into a published Spelljammer setting, but that doesn't make it badwrongfun.

I don't think that was what the poster was saying. I think he was saying that there are plenty of ways to put sci-fi chocolate into one's peanut butter, but Spelljammer should remain medieval/fantastical and not morph into "Star Trek with +1 longswords." Dragonstar fills that niche already. The use of personal air envelopes, flying ships that use sails, balloons, etc., crystal spheres, planet-sized monsters, and so on indicates to me an imaginary universe that can fit tropes from Aristotle to Rabelais to Swift to Raspe to Dore to some of Jules Verne's more fantastic work, and that should do that rather than going to the tried-and-true (and distinctly less "magical," in part because it's more scientifically approachable) tropes of Star Trek or Asimovian sci-fi or B5 or whatever.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

WoC, please hire Silverblade to design 4E Spelljammer. Thank you.

*bows with a theatrical flourish*

Klaus, Ruleslaywer,
I don't mind DMs coming up with their own way of things, of course, but as Ruleslawyer points out, we do not NEED yet another damn scifi setting...this is D&D! Please keep it unique and fantasy.

The problem is we've got too used to the "Star Trek/Star Wars" mindset of space. Wrong, wrong wrong, when it comes ot fantasy I loved original Star Wars and Star Trek, let SPelljammer keep that sense of wonder, but, purely fantasy.

Dont think steampunk, ugh who wants filthy teechnology we're trying to escape from by playing games, in our games, eh? Instead think GNOMEPUNK!! Embrace and accept ships powered by giant space hamsters, or elementals, or helms sucking life energy or magic.

Evilhalfling,
you do have a good point about number of enemies. However, this should be addressed in two ways:
1) Make two sizes of ships, the Nautiloid, as is, is actually a massive bloody great battleship, if you work off the deckplans, which I did, so, really, ships should have small and large versiosn of that ilk: Scout and Battleship, IMHO. SO the typical Nautlioid would the Scout, and have 3 or 4 mind flayers, and the battleship be the horror with a dozen or more

[sblock="Cutaway showing internals of nautiloid"]
Note this is mostly to actual deckplan scale!

[/sblock]

2) Have different types/strength of beholders, or and this is an interestign idea, have it that on beholder ships, the eye tyrants are sort of snuggled up in "wells" or pods, limited mobility until they free themselves. This makes them very vulnerable to ship weapons...OR, sinc ehtey help power the ship, EVERY behold can suffer "helmshock"

(helmshock is what can happen when a ship gets criticalled, stuns the helmsman)

Klaus,
yeah Treasure Planet has more of the SJ feel though should be magic.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I have to sort of disagree about the sci-fi vs. fantasy Spelljammer. The problem is that SF via movies and shows like Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly/Serenity, and many others is the genre that makes the same kind of use of ships that Spelljammer does. It is the SF mold then that we need/want to pattern Spelljammer after when it comes to BETTER incorporating ships into the game. Don't forget that SF, technically, is/was a sub-genre of fantasy. You don't want ion cannons and "warp drives" in your Spelljammer fantasy that's fine, but you still have ballistae and Spelljamming speed that are the same freakin thing with the serial numbers filed off and that doesn't make it SF. Patterning your FANTASY Spelljammer game after Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, or Firefly is not making your game SF-influenced it is making your game SHIP-INFLUENCED. It is a natural outgrowth of basing the game around SHIPS. If people then think of Spelljammer so readily in terms of SF it is only because SF has handled that trope so much more frequently and done so much better a job of it than fantasy.

BTW, in my revision I would dispose or seriously alter a number of Spelljammers original notions. First to go would be the Helm - or more accurately the manner in which it derives power - as I think it is a ludicrous effect in the first place and not well implemented in the second place. Ships need more and better-implemented power sources. Treasure Planet was what I thought Spelljammer could have, and should have been/become. Very little would need to be changed to eliminate any traces of SF there and replace it with fantasy.

Another victim would be crystal spheres and the Flow. Oh, they might still be there but travel from sphere to sphere through the Phlogiston screams for DRASTIC change if for no other reason than it is a pointless time-sink. In Spelljammer things are scaled up by a major factor or two. Nations become planets. Crossing a mountain range becomes crossing an asteroid belt. Crossing the sea becomes crossing the Phlogiston. We need similar travel times for these which in Spelljammer as written can consume YEARS of time where nothing happens in just getting from point A to B.

Note that the title of the thread is RE-ENVISION Spelljammer - not convert. I think it was already put most succinctly upthread - Kill the silly. Amp the cool.