D&D 5E 5e isn't a Golden Age of D&D Lorewise, it's Silver at best.

Parmandur

Book-Friend
That's kind of my point. I'm sure a lot of newer players have actually played in the Forgotten Realms without even knowing it. They don't know about the world, they just think they're playing through Tyranny of Dragons or Princes of the Apocalypse or Tomb of Annihilation. A lot of people probably don't realize that they're playing in that setting because it's assumed at the core of 5e.

And I bet the same thing would have happened if, say, Greyhawk or Eberron were the main setting of 5e. So it's not that the Forgotten Realms is actually more-liked than any other setting or inherently better at fulfilling the role WotC gave it this edition, it's just the one they chose and there are other settings that would have worked at least as well as the FR.
That was how I was introduced to my favorite Setting, Greyhawk, as a fuzzy background assumption given in the Core books during 3E. It did not take off as well as FR, despite being the official Setting assumed in books and used in Organized Play.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Parmandur

Book-Friend
More evidence for the popularity of Greyhawk that everyone keeps saying isn't popular...
Yeah, pretty astounding that after 3 decades of active mishandling 1 in 20 people were still playing in GH. I somehow doubt that it has kept up as well as FR, maybe Exandria has replaced it. But it does explain why to this day "here how you play this in Greyhawk" keepa making it into new products.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
The first Spelljammer boxed set was released in 1989. The final one was released in 1993. Spelljammer was never the most popular setting, but it lasted a lot longer than 15 months.
He is referring to the AD&D wra sales information that has recently come to light. Spelljammer did not sell anything after 1989, basically.
 

delericho

Legend
He is referring to the AD&D wra sales information that has recently come to light. Spelljammer did not sell anything after 1989, basically.
The problem with that is that those sales numbers refer to the first boxed set only. So all that's saying is that 3/4 of the people who wanted it bought it right away. And that boxed set sold in excess of 80,000 units. Describing that as a failure is a stretch - there are an awful lot of D&D products that came nowhere near that.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
The problem with that is that those sales numbers refer to the first boxed set only. So all that's saying is that 3/4 of the people who wanted it bought it right away. And that boxed set sold in excess of 80,000 units. Describing that as a failure is a stretch - there are an awful lot of D&D products that came nowhere near that.
Yeah, but comparing like to like it did not do well relative go other Settings at the time.
 

delericho

Legend
Yeah, but comparing like to like it did not do well relative go other Settings at the time.
But, again, does that by itself make it a failure? Any ordered list is going to have some items higher than others.

(I would at this point argue that it obviously did well enough for TSR to continue to support it for years... but given how badly TSR was run that doesn't hold any weight.)
 


teitan

Legend
But, again, does that by itself make it a failure? Any ordered list is going to have some items higher than others.

(I would at this point argue that it obviously did well enough for TSR to continue to support it for years... but given how badly TSR was run that doesn't hold any weight.)
Considering the whole failure of TSR was that they were producing boxed sets at massive losses and no one knew what was actually selling unless it was selling poorly. Compared to other settings released at the time, yes according to sales SPelljammer was an albatross eking out its existence, It really can't be spun any other way. It applies to a lot of TSR's settings and products though because the company was so mismanaged but of the material available at that time it was the poorest seller. AS AD&D2e slogged along and sales dwindled a product that sold poorer than Spelljammer could be considered a great success like comparing X-men sales in 1998 to 1991, comparing Jim Lee's X-Men no. 4 to X-men no 100 of course it looks really bad, the industry had a massive crash and Marvel had declared bankruptcy but X-men was still one of the industry's top selling titles so Spelljammer's 80k units may have been a skunk in 1989 when AD&D was selling much better than when Planescape sold 64k in 1994 when Random House was returning unsold books, boxed sets and other materials and demanding payment on unsold products.
 
Last edited:

delericho

Legend
Considering the whole failure of TSR was that they were producing boxed sets at massive losses and no one knew what was actually selling unless it was selling poorly. Compared to other settings released at the time, yes according to sales SPelljammer was an albatross eking out its existence, It really can't be spun any other way.
I disagree. You're drawing a lot of conclusions from a very small amount of data.
 

The problem with that is that those sales numbers refer to the first boxed set only. So all that's saying is that 3/4 of the people who wanted it bought it right away. And that boxed set sold in excess of 80,000 units. Describing that as a failure is a stretch - there are an awful lot of D&D products that came nowhere near that.
Indeed. The numbers who are currently buying a boxed setting does not give you good information about the number of people currently playing a setting. Remember, it's mostly DMs who buy settings, and there is always a time-lag between them buying the setting and them actually starting a campaign there.

The marketing of (original) Spelljammer was mishandled, and it wasn't as successful as it could have been, but it still managed to acquire a cult following and be hugely influential. And I know anecdotally of a 5e Spelljammer campaign running in 2020, long after the original boxed set was available.
 

delericho

Legend
The marketing of (original) Spelljammer was mishandled, and it wasn't as successful as it could have been...
I'm not even sure I agree entirely with that - Spelljammer is, by quite some distance, the weirdest of all the TSR settings. Even Planescape, the closest competitor, is built on a foundation of planes drawn mostly from real-world myths. So I think it was always destined to be very much a niche interest.

I agree, though, about the cult following. And when considering a revival, that may prove to be a significant strength. Provided, of course, they don't change the setting in ways that alienate those passionate, vocal fans...
 

Levistus's_Leviathan

5e Freelancer
those passionate, vocal fans...
All 7 of them? I don't think they're going to be a problem. Whether or not the older fans complain about the Phlogiston being absorbed by the Astral Sea, I think that 5e Spelljammer will succeed on its own merits, not based on the feelings of the very few people that actually have been fans of it since it came out.

I think if it comes down to "Oh, in 5e spelljammer's lore, you can take a Squid Ship to a mining colony built on the petrified remains of a dead god" versus "oh, in 2e spelljammer's lore, if you tried to shoot a ship in the Phlogiston with a cannon, everyone on both ships would die" . . . the rule of cool would win out 9 times out of 10. I don't have anything inherently against the idea of the Phlogiston, I just think that being able to go to the Astral Sea and find the petrified bodies of dead gods is 100 times cooler than anything you could do in 2e's Phlogiston. And I think the bigger segment of 5e's newer players would agree with that, too.

In my opinion, whether 5e Spelljammer succeeds or fails will probably come down to the price, the new format of 3 small books, and the fact that it might be too wacky for some people (but, looking at Gen Z's sense of humor, I really don't think Spelljammer is going to be too wacky for younger D&D players).
 

Just on the popularity/stats of old box sets, I‘m not sure that tells the whole story.

There‘s also the rest of the product line for each setting. I bought the Spelljammer box set and loved it but only ever picked up an adventure and the realmspace book, finding the quality of much that came out after a setting box set to not be that great.
Planescape on the other hand I picked up anything that came out, although the quality varied a lot, I found more good than bad.
 


JEB

Legend
You'll note that my comment about alienating the vocal fans came in the context of there being a cult following big enough to be a strength. If there are 7 such fans, their opinions are irrelevant either way.
r/spelljammer had 1961 members as of June 2021, before Spelljammer 5E was announced. (They have 4290 now, but it's hard to tell how many are reinvigorated veteran fans and how many are brand-new.) There are still active Spelljammer forums as well.

I'm sure some folks still consider those numbers insignificant... but it is rather more than "7".
 

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
All 7 of them? I don't think they're going to be a problem. Whether or not the older fans complain about the Phlogiston being absorbed by the Astral Sea, I think that 5e Spelljammer will succeed on its own merits, not based on the feelings of the very few people that actually have been fans of it since it came out.

I think if it comes down to "Oh, in 5e spelljammer's lore, you can take a Squid Ship to a mining colony built on the petrified remains of a dead god" versus "oh, in 2e spelljammer's lore, if you tried to shoot a ship in the Phlogiston with a cannon, everyone on both ships would die" . . . the rule of cool would win out 9 times out of 10. I don't have anything inherently against the idea of the Phlogiston, I just think that being able to go to the Astral Sea and find the petrified bodies of dead gods is 100 times cooler than anything you could do in 2e's Phlogiston. And I think the bigger segment of 5e's newer players would agree with that, too.

In my opinion, whether 5e Spelljammer succeeds or fails will probably come down to the price, the new format of 3 small books, and the fact that it might be too wacky for some people (but, looking at Gen Z's sense of humor, I really don't think Spelljammer is going to be too wacky for younger D&D players).
I've been toying with the idea of phloguston nebulae, drifting through the Astral Sea and/or Wildspace, that have the old phlogiston effect and effectively act as navigational hazards.
 

I'm not even sure I agree entirely with that - Spelljammer is, by quite some distance, the weirdest of all the TSR settings.
Nothing wrong with weird. The reason it had trouble finding its market was the po-faced seriousness with which the marketing treated it. So people who liked their D&D serious bought it and were turned off by the dumb jokes, whilst the people who like dumb jokes were put off by the serious marketing. Spelljammer didn't really start to take off until after TSR stopped trying to sell it.
Even Planescape, the closest competitor, is built on a foundation of planes drawn mostly from real-world myths.
Spelljammer has its foundation in "what if 18th century science was right?", so plenty of real world there. Whereas Planescape largely ignored the planes in favour of "what if people took philosophy literally?", and thus has nothing to do with the real world.
 
Last edited:

delericho

Legend
Nothing wrong with weird.
Of course not! But weird does mean it was never going to be for everyone.

Spelljammer has its foundation in "what if 18th century science was right?", so plenty of real world there.
I'm reasonably sure a great many people were more familiar with Heaven, Hell, Elysium, and other planes than with the esoterica of long discredited 'science'. :)
 
Last edited:

Levistus's_Leviathan

5e Freelancer
You'll note that my comment about alienating the vocal fans came in the context of there being a cult following big enough to be a strength. If there are 7 such fans, their opinions are irrelevant either way.
I'm sure some folks still consider those numbers insignificant... but it is rather more than "7".
I was using hyperbole. There are obviously more than 7 passionate spelljammer fans that have been around since it was first published (I thought I made that clear through the tone of my post, but I guess not).

Spelljammer has always had a smaller fanbase than most of the other popular settings. And if the Ravenloft fanbase wasn't big enough to impact the 5e release of the setting in any major way, I doubt the Spelljammer fanbase won't be able to do the same with the upcoming spelljammer release.
 

many people were more familiar with Heaven, Hell, Elysium,
Which barely feature in Planescape, which is almost entirely confined to Sigil, AKA "The Cage". Where familiarity with Nietzsche, Kant and Sartre will stand you in better stead.
But weird does mean it was never going to be for anyone.
If a setting was "for anyone" you wouldn't need any more. The whole point of having multiple settings is to appeal to different tastes.
 

Epic Threats

An Advertisement

Advertisement4

Top