D&D 5E Compare Spell Jammer to Starfinder

[Lidgar]

IMO, better to compare Starfinder to Star Frontiers...but that's a different thread I suppose.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

IMO, better to compare Starfinder to Star Frontiers...but that's a different thread I suppose.

In some ways. However, unlike Starfinder and Star Wars, Star Frontiers does not have magic. Although I guess it might acquire magic of some kind if it was relaunched.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Starfinder setting is much more flexible and diverse than you give it credit for. Personally, I don't like Star Wars, but I'm very much enjoying running my intermittent Starfinder campaign set in the Spike of Absalom Station. I've made it kind of a 50s beat vibe, layered over the downtrodden districts of the Space Station. Nothing like Star Wars at all.

You can do that sort of thing perfectly well with PnP Star Wars RPGs (and I have done). Star Wars, as a setting, is at it's best when it goes outside the movies.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Spelljammer is fantasy adventure in space, roughly based on a medieval understanding of space as opposed to a modern one. The sun is not a star. Each solar system is literally surrounded by a crystal sphere to which the stars are attached. Fantastical locations and beings of all sorts exist in these spheres.

It's a D&D setting, much like planescape, and it connects to all the other D&D settings. You can board a spelljammer ship in the Waterdeep, and sail to Grayhawk (assuming you have a way to get through the crystal sphere and navigate the phlogiston). Like all of D&D, it can be silly, serious, or both simultaneously. What it will always be is fantastical.

 

[Larnievc]

Don't forget the Elven Guyvers

I'm not sure where in the sci-fi end of things they push things, but, well, its certainly a thing that exists

Were they the Bioniods?

 

[Azzy]

Were they the Bioniods?

Yes.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Spelljammer is perfect, atl least for some April Fool, D&D version of some Hasbro franchises (transformers, inhumanoids, Rom Spaceknight, Micronauts, Power Rangers..).

There is a great potentital in the bionoids. They are "kaijus" with a superhero heart. They could be subclasses, or even a base class. And later toys.

* Other matter is the XPs reward for navy battles. If you can shoot with a giant crossbow, gunpowder cannon or catapult against a mecha construct, kaiju, dinosaur or another sea monster, then it would be too easy.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Aside from some monster entries, it's really not. The core boxed sets are not goofy at all and the setting can be quite grimdark. Races like the neogi, mindflayers, scro, beholders, etc are quite nasty and slavery is featured prominently.

Yes, there are gnomes and giant space hamsters. But those are either easily annoyed or simply looked at as one (small) aspect of the setting.

Heck, Star Wars can have Vader and the rancor alongside Ewoks and C-3PO.

I feel it was pretty goofy. The crystal spheres and phlogiston and the gravity lines on ships, and each ship looking like some kind of sea creature. Hippo men with guns and space hamsters and so on. The presence of some darker or less absurd elements doesn't mean it's not goofy.

But I'm not saying that goofy is bad in this context. Quite the opposite, really, because I believe that's what they were going for.

Where as with Starfinder, I think the goofiness is less intentional. But it's still there.

 

[GlassJaw]

I feel it was pretty goofy. The crystal spheres and phlogiston and the gravity lines on ships, and each ship looking like some kind of sea creature. Hippo men with guns and space hamsters and so on. The presence of some darker or less absurd elements doesn't mean it's not goofy.

But I'm not saying that goofy is bad in this context. Quite the opposite, really, because I believe that's what they were going for.

I'll admit it's semantics but I wouldn't use the word "goofy" for what you described. When goofy is used to describe content it tends to be a negative. I equate it with content that is distracting, unintentionally funny, or if it is intentional, slapstick humor.

Spelljammer is akin to Victorian steampunk, Jules Verne, Doctor Who, Babylon 5, Farscape, etc. There are absolutely humorous, quirky, and fantastical elements but it's not goofy.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'll admit it's semantics but I wouldn't use the word "goofy" for what you described. When goofy is used to describe content it tends to be a negative. I equate it with content that is distracting, unintentionally funny, or if it is intentional, slapstick humor.

Spelljammer is akin to Victorian steampunk, Jules Verne, Doctor Who, Babylon 5, Farscape, etc. There are absolutely humorous, quirky, and fantastical elements but it's not goofy.

That's fair. I honestly didn't mean it in a negative way. I think goofy can be fun, for sure, and its presence need not be the end all be all of how a game or setting can be. Some of the examples you cite have some incredibly goofy or lighthearded or absurd episodes or elements, and then others that are deadly serious. Dr. Who stands out in that regard. So does a show like X-Files. I wouldn't call X-Files goofy overall.....but every now and then they absolutely had a goofy episode.

For me, those episodes take me out of the setting. As you describe, they're distracting and jarring compared to what most of the work has conditioned me to expect.

With Spelljammer, I think they created a setting that could be absurd. Yes, you can play it straight. You can have a campaign about the PCs trying to thwart neoghi slavers, or what have you. But if a arquebus weilding hippo mercenary shows up, it won't (or maybe shouldn't?) be distracting because it's right in there from the start.

Starfinder, by comparison, seems to present itself in a very serious manner, and yet I find it's still goofy as could be....and to me, that's not good. Goofy is okay if it's intentional, but not when it's unintentional. I'll add that I've only played a couple of sessions of Starfinder, so my take could be very different from that of people very familiar with the material.