Spelljammer Spelljammer in D&D 5e Speculation: How Will the Setting Be Changed?

[Parmandur]

Yep. Dark Rite would make an awesome home campaign, but as replacement for those two settings, I think fans of the originals would rightly feel cheated.

Even for mixing purposes, I'd rather have two distinct books that I can reference.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

They both tie into "metasetting" elements...but different parts of the metasetting that do not intersect 9unless you want them to). Spelljammer is on he Prime Material, Planescape is in the Outer Planes. Indeed, the metasettign elements are tertiary in both cases,

Wait…what? Tertiary?

the primary point of Spelljammer is space opera or planetary romance swashbuckling, whereas Planescapse is weird fiction and political intrigue between various abstract principles beyond the material world. Any swashbuckling ship stuff doesn't contribute to a Sigil campaign, and Sigil material doesn't contribute to a Spelljammer campaign.

I’m flummoxed by this. The point of both is to adventure throughout the cosmology. Sigil adds a huge amount to a cosmic space opera fantasy game. Hell’s bells the faction of Planescape add a huge amount to a Spelljammer game. As for the other way around, adding “spaceships and guns and swords” to the “mercenaries making a living in the margins between factions” is…purely additive.

Mixing at home is one thing, but for organizational purposes they are more distinct than any other two D&D Settings:

I just…couldn’t disagree more. They have a ton in common.

it would be like covering Dark Sun and Birthright in one book, because both involve dealing with governments in some fashion.

I don’t even see the two as being as far apart as FR and Eberron. IMO it was a misstep to have both as separate things in the first place.

 

[Parmandur]

I’m flummoxed by this. The point of both is to adventure throughout the cosmology

Completely different parts of the cosmos. It's like a deep sea exploration setting, and a political urban setting: sure, both are on Earth, but they are covering different territory entirely. It's like throwing Voyage Into the Unknown and Brooklyn 99 in one combined setting product because both involve working for the government and saying that everything else is details. Working for the government is a tertiary detail to the genre in both cases, just as being "meta" is tertiary to Planescape or Spelljammer, the differences are actually what matters in both cases.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Completely different parts of the cosmos. It's like a deep sea exploration setting, and a political urban setting: sure, both are on Earth, but they are covering different territory entirely. It's like throwing Voyage Into the Unknown and Brooklyn 99 in one combined setting product because both involve working for the government and saying that everything else is details. Working for the government is a tertiary detail to the genre in both cases, just as being "meta" is tertiary to Planescape or Spelljammer, the differences are actually what matters in both cases.

But they aren’t like that at all. It’s vastly more like a game set on the East Coast where you can both interact with the politics of the great cities, and search for sunken ship treasures from the 1700’s. Making them separate is a weird choice.

There just isn’t much reason to not have a spelljammer ship be able to make port in Sigil, and sail the astral sea, and visit the City of Brass, nor to ignore the potential of the factions running proxy wars on the material and other “habitable by mortals” planes that a spelljammer crew could get mixed up in.

Hell, just working in the Feywild and Shadowfel into the idea of the material plane as a big infinite space sea pretty much requires making spelljammer allow for going to other planes as a fairly normal thing. Just that already puts spelljammer in the planes rather than just the material.

 

[Parmandur]

But they aren’t like that at all. It’s vastly more like a game set on the East Coast where you can both interact with the politics of the great cities, and search for sunken ship treasures from the 1700’s. Making them separate is a weird choice.

There just isn’t much reason to not have a spelljammer ship be able to make port in Sigil, and sail the astral sea, and visit the City of Brass, nor to ignore the potential of the factions running proxy wars on the material and other “habitable by mortals” planes that a spelljammer crew could get mixed up in.

Hell, just working in the Feywild and Shadowfel into the idea of the material plane as a big infinite space sea pretty much requires making spelljammer allow for going to other planes as a fairly normal thing. Just that already puts spelljammer in the planes rather than just the material.

...?

But they are seperate things, that have nothing to do with each other? Planescape deals with abstract extradimensional Realms of Metaphysical Ideal, Spelljammer deals with physical places, just over large distances and scale. I really just can't get my head around seeing them as similar, other than "you can fly a Spelljammer from Toril to Oerth" and "you can walk through a magical portal from Toril to Sigil, then through another portal from Sigil to Oerth." Which means they are like taking a train across the continent versus catching a ride in a commercial rocket to get from LA to New York. Technically they are both traveling, but the story of the path taken isn't commensurate or compatible in genre.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

...?

But they are seperate things, that have nothing to do with each other? Planescape deals with abstract extradimensional Realms of Metaphysical Ideal, Spelljammer deals with physical places, just over large distances and scale.

The idea that those two things, when literally part of the same cosmology, shouldn’t be the same “setting”, it’s just wild to me. Like having two games that are totally separate for playing in the ground front of the American Revolution and the naval front, or one for engaging in the diplomacy and intrigue and another for being an active revolutionary, but all under the same ruleset, with the same classes, same rules for non-combat challenges, etc. I’m just absolutely bewildered by the idea that they should be separate.

I really just can't get my head around seeing them as similar, other than "you can fly a Spelljammer from Toril to Oerth" and "you can walk through a magical portal from Toril to Sigil, then through another portal from Sigil to Oerth." Which means they are like taking a train across the continent versus catching a ride in a commercial rocket to get from LA to New York. Technically they are both traveling, but the story of the path taken isn't commensurate or compatible in genre.

And I see your position as similar to saying that a setting with trains and a setting with airplanes can’t possible be the same setting.

Or, to use another existing setting as a comparative example, it’s like saying that an urban noir setting where one of the PCs steps off the platform of a magical train and into a magical taxi with an address for the other PCs P.I. Office at the start of a campaign full of cat and mouse intrigue, can’t possibly be the same setting as a pulp adventure setting where the heroes make a daring escape from the ruins of the ancient giantish castle with the mysterious artifact and are flown to the next locale in their patron’s airship.

 

[Yaarel]

But they are seperate things, that have nothing to do with each other? Planescape deals with abstract extradimensional Realms of Metaphysical Ideal, Spelljammer deals with physical places.

They are two separate things, the astral thoughts and the material places.

However the material places are the official settings themselves, such as Greyhawk, FR, Dragonlance, etcetera.

How to get from one setting to an other would happen via astral thoughts.

In other words, the Spelljammer setting actually is the phlogiston of the astral sea. Thus, the same astral sea where the alignment Wheel domains exist, is the same astral sea that the spelljammers navigate.

It is all Planescape.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Lots of planes are too dangerous for low level PCs, and most of campaigns end before highest levels. UA playtests haven't showed PC races too linked with Planescape setting.

My theory is Hasbro really wants Spelljammer to become famous and popular, and as a hook for the potentil market of sci-fi fandom. One of the goals would be to publish mash-up version of famous sci-fi franchises, for example Rom Spaceknight, Visionaries, Buck Rogers. Speculators know the comics about intercompany crossovers are as limited editions.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

...?

But they are seperate things, that have nothing to do with each other? Planescape deals with abstract extradimensional Realms of Metaphysical Ideal, Spelljammer deals with physical places, just over large distances and scale. I really just can't get my head around seeing them as similar, other than "you can fly a Spelljammer from Toril to Oerth" and "you can walk through a magical portal from Toril to Sigil, then through another portal from Sigil to Oerth." Which means they are like taking a train across the continent versus catching a ride in a commercial rocket to get from LA to New York. Technically they are both traveling, but the story of the path taken isn't commensurate or compatible in genre.

I agree with you about the distinctions of the settings, but for me they aren't mutually exclusive. In most of my campaign concepts, both Sigil and spelljammming, crystal spheres and phlogiston exist as parts of the cosmology. It's more a matter of tone, plot and scope if and how they come into play.

But mixing them together in an astral sea soup isn't my cup of tea.

 

[Scars Unseen]

What if

Spelljammer turns out to be Planes-star-jammer? A fusion of Star Frontiers, Planescape, and Spelljammer.

Full-on scifi, with laser guns, force fields, computer AI, and space opera.

"Sufficiently advanced technological" energy fuels jammer ships, that hyperdrive thru the astral sea, to seek out new worlds, where no human has gone before?

Sounds like Dragonstar, and I already have Dragonstar (not that I would mind an update, I just wouldn't want that update to take the place of Spelljammer or Planescape).