What did I do to change the mechanisms of Spelljammer when I devised my own version?
When I taught video game design in college I discovered that students who were asked to write down their conception of their game, usually wrote about a story and not any actual game mechanisms (often called mechanics). That's not a game. Always keep in mind that stories are part of settings or adventures, not part of actual game design (though RPGs usually have a default setting). The game designer must focus on the mechanisms, the rules that players must follow. Without mechanisms you don't have a game.
A good set of mechanisms (rules), such as Apocalypse World or the D&D D20 mechanisms, can be adapted for a variety of settings.
I usually create my own settings, but the commercial setting most interesting to me is Spelljammer, despite its inconsistencies. I'm a naval guy at heart. 15 years ago I devised an alternative set of rules to fix Spelljammer rather than start over from scratch.
Consider the biggest flaw in Spelljammer, that those who come into possession of flying/space traveling ships are likely to stay at home and use them to great benefit in warfare, trade, or adventure. If you could use a full-size ship flying above a planet-sized world's surface, why would you ever leave? You'd use the ship as a super bomber in pursuit of defense or conquest, or for trade if peaceably inclined.
The key aspect of my game is a relationship between ship size and the size of celestial bodies. The larger a ship is, the sooner it loses ability to fly as it approaches celestial bodies. The larger a celestial body is, the sooner an approaching ship loses ability to fly. For an Earth-sized planet only very small boats and magic carpets can fly all the way to the surface from space without losing propulsive capability; everything else suffers "kinetic energy poisoning" (crashes). Keep in mind, in Spelljammer all bodies of any size generate their own gravity field, always 1G. Nor does distance from the sun(s) affect the typically terrestrial temperatures. While only practical way to use ships is in conjunction with quite small celestial bodies, such as asteroids and small moons, those can be inhabited and farmed, and hold water and atmosphere just as the Earth can.
This necessarily means that if adventurers want to use such ships they will have to go out into Wildspace, not hang around a planet. It also means that there would be little interaction between a full-size planet and the denizens of Wildspace. Which makes it easy to make up unusual settings for use "out there" without worrying much about how they would affect the main planet(s) - if there are such.
The second big change is that you are not required to sacrifice your spells to have a good tactical platform. The ship-master must be able to cast spells. Sometimes he may cast spells to provide the propulsive force for the ship, or someone else may cast the spells, but in either case the master cannot cast spells except to power the ship while he, she, or it is conning the ship. The master doesn't lose spells the way they do in Spelljammer, but in order to cast non-propulsive spells they must abandon the task of guiding the ship.
These "aetherships" are "kinda magical". There are no separate magical "helms". If you want a spaceship you cannot destroy one in battle and put the helm on another vessel, you must take the ship more or less intact. Ships have been developed over centuries in a haphazard manner, people using trial and error (guess and check) because the scientific method is virtually unknown. There are ShipCraftsmen (or women) who build these ships using expensive materials, a highly sought-after skill, but in most respects it's more like Vikings building ships than like anything approaching modern shipbuilding.
Nonetheless, there are standard forms of ships, and one of the greatest peculiarities is the discovery that aetherships work better when they are built in the form of some living creature. The ships are Very Expensive, but last for decades, even centuries with good upkeep (there's no water deterioration…).
More about "Localships," AetherGuns, strategic vs tactical speeds, and ramming another time.
contributed by Lewis Pulsipher
When I taught video game design in college I discovered that students who were asked to write down their conception of their game, usually wrote about a story and not any actual game mechanisms (often called mechanics). That's not a game. Always keep in mind that stories are part of settings or adventures, not part of actual game design (though RPGs usually have a default setting). The game designer must focus on the mechanisms, the rules that players must follow. Without mechanisms you don't have a game.
A good set of mechanisms (rules), such as Apocalypse World or the D&D D20 mechanisms, can be adapted for a variety of settings.
I usually create my own settings, but the commercial setting most interesting to me is Spelljammer, despite its inconsistencies. I'm a naval guy at heart. 15 years ago I devised an alternative set of rules to fix Spelljammer rather than start over from scratch.
Consider the biggest flaw in Spelljammer, that those who come into possession of flying/space traveling ships are likely to stay at home and use them to great benefit in warfare, trade, or adventure. If you could use a full-size ship flying above a planet-sized world's surface, why would you ever leave? You'd use the ship as a super bomber in pursuit of defense or conquest, or for trade if peaceably inclined.
The key aspect of my game is a relationship between ship size and the size of celestial bodies. The larger a ship is, the sooner it loses ability to fly as it approaches celestial bodies. The larger a celestial body is, the sooner an approaching ship loses ability to fly. For an Earth-sized planet only very small boats and magic carpets can fly all the way to the surface from space without losing propulsive capability; everything else suffers "kinetic energy poisoning" (crashes). Keep in mind, in Spelljammer all bodies of any size generate their own gravity field, always 1G. Nor does distance from the sun(s) affect the typically terrestrial temperatures. While only practical way to use ships is in conjunction with quite small celestial bodies, such as asteroids and small moons, those can be inhabited and farmed, and hold water and atmosphere just as the Earth can.
This necessarily means that if adventurers want to use such ships they will have to go out into Wildspace, not hang around a planet. It also means that there would be little interaction between a full-size planet and the denizens of Wildspace. Which makes it easy to make up unusual settings for use "out there" without worrying much about how they would affect the main planet(s) - if there are such.
The second big change is that you are not required to sacrifice your spells to have a good tactical platform. The ship-master must be able to cast spells. Sometimes he may cast spells to provide the propulsive force for the ship, or someone else may cast the spells, but in either case the master cannot cast spells except to power the ship while he, she, or it is conning the ship. The master doesn't lose spells the way they do in Spelljammer, but in order to cast non-propulsive spells they must abandon the task of guiding the ship.
These "aetherships" are "kinda magical". There are no separate magical "helms". If you want a spaceship you cannot destroy one in battle and put the helm on another vessel, you must take the ship more or less intact. Ships have been developed over centuries in a haphazard manner, people using trial and error (guess and check) because the scientific method is virtually unknown. There are ShipCraftsmen (or women) who build these ships using expensive materials, a highly sought-after skill, but in most respects it's more like Vikings building ships than like anything approaching modern shipbuilding.
Nonetheless, there are standard forms of ships, and one of the greatest peculiarities is the discovery that aetherships work better when they are built in the form of some living creature. The ships are Very Expensive, but last for decades, even centuries with good upkeep (there's no water deterioration…).
More about "Localships," AetherGuns, strategic vs tactical speeds, and ramming another time.
contributed by Lewis Pulsipher
