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

[Parmandur]

Does "honey sriracha aioli" sound better?

Let's throw it on a pizza and find out.

 

[Mind of tempest]

So do I. I've never cared for the actual spacefaring aspect. I'd much rather spelljammers be necessary for timely travel across the astral sea. I'm fine with going to the moons of the setting, but I'd much rather travel to other settings take place by traversal to the astral sea. Especially given the 4e cosmology where all the planes are just aspects of the astral sea or elemental chaos carved out by deities or powers.

I think planar travel is absurdly boring in D&D, because you just use plane shift or gate and boom you're basically there, and those are your only options outside of "you find a portal". Super boring, gated behind spellcasters, just not interesting. I think spelljamming is way more interesting. Now it's difficult to even get to the afterlife. You've got to build or acquire a craft to just to get to the other planes, and travel is suddenly not instantaneous and solved directly from the spellcaster's character sheet. It's very thematic and unique to D&D, too. You could easily have an adventure like The Odyssey or Jason and the Argonauts in the astral sea, with small islands in the astral sea created by being living there. Or a pirate campaign inspired by One Piece or something. Or inspired by Elric. The trappings of Spelljammer always felt like they push you away from doing that.

The thing I don't like about Spelljammer is probably what most people do: the space opera aspect. Everyone I remember wanting to play it in the 90s wanted to play Star Wars in D&D or Star Trek in D&D or RIFTS in D&D. None of those appealed to me; I'd rather just play dedicated systems for those settings. The interstellar travel itself isn't interesting to me. The jargon built around Spelljammer was a big turn off to me, as well. I just don't find it interesting to invent brand new terms when seafaring ones basically already work. I also don't really care for Aristotelian physics. I wouldn't miss the aspect where spelljamming helms blocked spellcasting. I'd rather they have a key and work more like a ship's helm than something you wear. Frankly, I always associated the name with windjammers, not "jam" as in "block" or "jam" as in "shove spells into". I also never really cared for the creatures unique to Spelljammer, so if I use the material I'm not that interested in those. Why, yes, I have often said that I don't like Spelljammer, why do you ask?

I just don't think it's interesting to travel from Oerth to Krynn to Toril, etc. Most of the published settings that are actually fleshed out are little more than palette swaps, so it just never feels necessary to travel to another setting that's 95% identical.

honestly, I agree with you on the first bit portals are kinda dull.

I just what spaceships, guns and magic

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Can a jammer port at Sigil?

My theory is they are too big to enter a portal, but maybe in the Gatetowns around Sigil. But the most possible option is ports with portals to Sigil.

 

[overgeeked]

Absolutely. I personally fall into the opposite camp, as I never had a ton of interest in Spelljammer, but I view Sigil and the factions as being a setting in and of itself. And I'm sure there are quite a few players who really like both settings.

My primary argument would be that we can't rule too much out at this point; there are several valid approaches WotC might take to the setting. I simply don't think either Spelljammer or Planescape have so much intrinsic definition that we can rule out WotC doing a Ravenloft-level (or even more intensive) reimagining.

Yeah. I don't trust WotC to do anything less than utterly mangle any setting they put out at this point. As excited as I am about the idea of Spelljammer...I was over-the-moon about Ravenloft...then the book landed. So, it's 100% wait and see. Maybe after the fad and lifestyle brand era dies we can get back to interesting game settings.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just don't think I agree that they have to be separate entities. I mean, if Sigil becomes a torus-shaped starport in the center of the Astral Sea, with ships sailing through color pools to various locations on the Prime and outer planes, with neogi and beholders joining the Doomguard, that's certainly an exercise with a point. I'm not saying it's the correct approach, but it is a feasible one.

Even absent a complete merge, I think the idea of using the Astral as the method of travelling between spots both intra-plane (as in Spelljammer) and inter-plane (as in Planescape) works well within the 5e cosmology as currently defined, and would suggest at least a loose connection between the two settings.

Question: for those who want them combined, can you explain to me why? What is gained by making such a large change, especially one that will upset some players?

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Right. Some view both Spelljammer and Planescape as simply a means of conveyance between other, different settings, whereas some view both of these as settings unto themselves. I've always been more interested in Spelljammer as a setting unto itself, whereas, being less of a fan of Planescape, I view it as simply a means of conveyance. For me, the fun of Spelljammer was being out there, not hopping between Kyrnn and Greyhawk...doing the things you could only do in Spelljammer.

I'm on the same page for SJ and PS as settings in themselves. In the rough plot arch sketch for my current campaign the lvl 10 party will spend most of their time in Realmspace until lvl 16ish, when it's time for the planes. With a pitstop in Sigil, if WotC stop procrastinating!

 

[overgeeked]

I'm on the same page for SJ and PS as settings in themselves. In the rough plot arch sketch for my current campaign the lvl 10 party will spend most of their time in Realmspace until lvl 16ish, when it's time for the planes. With a pitstop in Sigil, if WotC stop procrastinating!

Most of the books TSR published are still available as PDFs from Drivethru. You don't need to wait for WotC. Most of Planescape is the factions and personalities more than any feats, subclasses, etc. And unless your players are going to swap characters to a Planescape-only race, you don't need race info either. So all the old books are still just as useful as they ever were.

 

[TwoSix]

Question: for those who want them combined, can you explain to me why? What is gained by making such a large change, especially one that will upset some players?

A few reasons.

1) Even if the settings are published as two separate products, they're still going to be somewhat intertwined. (Assuming both eventually get published, of course.) They're the two products that would define the "5e as unified multiversal setting" conceit that's been implemented in recent products; they're both conceptually much less usable as standalone settings than anything else that has been published for 5e.

2) Even going back to 2E, I've always thought they were a little weird as standalone products. Functionally, it's going to be the elite of each setting that has the means and the desire to travel to other worlds; it's silly to think those same elite wouldn't be aware of both methods of long-distance travel.

3) A lot of the recent settings lean more towards "magical demiplane" in feel rather than "M-class planet orbiting a class G star" (Ravnica, Theros, Strixhaven, for example). Not an impossible thing to get around, of course, but to my mind more recent settings seem to be not a great fit for a pure Spelljammer approach.

4) Novelty for novelty's sake. I've already read the 2e Spelljammer and Planescape material, I don't need the same thing reprinted with new mechanics. Forgotten Realms at least updates the timeline with each new edition book. The Eberron books I could accept because a) it's my favorite setting, so I'll support it anyway, and b) they at least put new spins on a lot of old material with each new edition book.

"Novelty for novelty's sake" might not be a market winner, but I'm under no impetus to advocate for positions purely for being beneficial to WotC's bottom line.

 

[Parmandur]

Even if the settings are published as two separate products, they're still going to be somewhat intertwined.

Well, sure, but but the same goes for Eberron or Ravnica, which intertwine in WotC treatment of each other on that same comic level, along with the Forgotten Realms.

"Novelty for novelty's sake" might not be a market winner, but I'm under no impetus to advocate for positions purely for being beneficial to WotC's bottom line.

Advocate, maybe not, but expect what is best for their bottom line and you will rarely be surprised (except for when they make colossal blunders and misjudge their audience, as happened in 4E).

 

[jolt]

The current WotC model seems to be to take a core idea and build around it. I don't see a Planejammer as happening at all. There's only so much info you can put into a single 5E book and even as two separate books there's going to be loads of stuff left out. As for what's in the book, it will be like every other 5E setting books they've put out. It will have some character options, a chapter devoted to how spelljamming works, how to connect it to the various worlds already in existence, etc. Planescape is a full setting and is too big to share with another expansion in the same book. I would also expect everything to work in a much simpler manner since, again, that's what they've done with everything.