D&D 5E Compare Spell Jammer to Starfinder

[GlassJaw]

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.

Great post hawk, and this is SO true.

I used to work in the video game industry. I wasn't on the narrative/writing side but I have a good sense of storytelling and world-building (guess where I get that from ). I would frequently have discussions with writers or upper management who wanted to put in "humorous" elements.

It's a very fine line between funny and goofy/cheesy/corny. Once you go down that path and pull the user out of the experience, it's almost impossible to recover. And it doesn't take much to do. When in doubt, don't go there.

It's why the Marvel movies have been so successful. They added humor but overall, it was done extremely well.

 

[Helldritch]

I for one, really liked the SpellJammer setting. I think of it as somekind of adventures of the high seas in space. It was an attempt to reunite all settings into one big one. Be you from Krynn, Greyhawk, Birthright, Mystara, Forgotten Realm or any private and imagined setting; you had a place in it. A setting is in a crystal spheres billions of miles in radius. Each crystal spheres are floating (?) in the Phlogiston. Once you exit your crystal sphere you set course on a new one (going from Krynn to Oerth for example). But your crystal sphere could have other planets in it. Leading to exploration of your own crystal sphere a real adventure in itself.

Although it might have looked goofy from the outside, the setting was quite unique and fun to play. Players encountering a nautiloid (a ship full of illithids) can lead to one of the best pursuit adventure. I really encourage you to try it. It was refreshing but it might not be for everyone.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

It only seems goofy to you because of cultural baggage. We think we "know" what a spaceship should look like because we have seen endless depictions of them is SF films and TV. But those would seem goofy to someone born before the 20th century, and to someone born prior to the 17th the existence of crystal spheres would seem obvious.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It only seems goofy to you because of cultural baggage. We think we "know" what a spaceship should look like because we have seen endless depictions of them is SF films and TV. But those would seem goofy to someone born before the 20th century, and to someone born prior to the 17th the existence of crystal spheres would seem obvious.

Thanks for explaining to me why I feel the way I do about it.

Now....why don’t I like spinach? I really want to know...please help!

 

[Azzy]

Now....why don’t I like spinach? I really want to know...please help!

Because you haven't had it fresh?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Thanks for explaining to me why I feel the way I do about it.

Now....why don’t I like spinach? I really want to know...please help!

Spinach is high in oxalic acid, which tastes bitter, especially to children. It is common for people to learn to dislike spinach as children, even though as adults they become less sensitive to the bitterness. This was compounded by the idea that spinach is healthy for children popularised by the character Popeye. It is healthy, but so are plenty of other things with less oxalic acid.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

It only seems goofy to you because of cultural baggage. We think we "know" what a spaceship should look like because we have seen endless depictions of them is SF films and TV. But those would seem goofy to someone born before the 20th century, and to someone born prior to the 17th the existence of crystal spheres would seem obvious.

Those sci-fi spaceships will also look super goofy to someone living in the 22nd century who knows from experience what real spaceships look like

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For some period context, this is footage from a cancelled multimedia Spelljammer box set TSR was working on:

Better than the first D&D movie!




...if only because it’s much shorter..

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is the edition that brought back the Flumph in the monster manual.

Part of Spelljammer's charm is its absurdity. It'll be as silly as ever

Guarantee it won't be.

This isn't the 1980s. "Zany" is a dirty word now (quite correctly!), for anyone mentally under 60 (apologies to the inevitable 30-something Boomers among us).

What they will do is keep all the silly elements so people don't get in a huff, but they'll either minimise them, or recontextualise them. There's no way the Giff will remain a Babar-esque joke race, for example. Real hippos are utterly terrifying and they will certainly make them more threatening and less pompous and silly. It'd be different if SJ had always been a full-on comedy setting like Adventures Incorporated or whatever, but it was a primarily serious setting with some unfortunately prominent silly elements which kept dragging things back to a place where it was neither funny nor possible to take seriously.

I suspect they'll also play up the Age of Sail angle and move away from the weird 1920s thing original Spelljammer kind of had going on. I'd expect far more focus on space and perhaps a new crystal sphere as the "main" setting, with less traveling to extant planets and more mystery.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Guarantee it won't be.

This isn't the 1980s. "Zany" is a dirty word now (quite correctly!), for anyone mentally under 60 (apologies to the inevitable 30-something Boomers among us).

What they will do is keep all the silly elements so people don't get in a huff, but they'll either minimise them, or recontextualise them. There's no way the Giff will remain a Babar-esque joke race, for example. Real hippos are utterly terrifying and they will certainly make them more threatening and less pompous and silly. It'd be different if SJ had always been a full-on comedy setting like Adventures Incorporated or whatever, but it was a primarily serious setting with some unfortunately prominent silly elements which kept dragging things back to a place where it was neither funny nor possible to take seriously.

I suspect they'll also play up the Age of Sail angle and move away from the weird 1920s thing original Spelljammer kind of had going on. I'd expect far more focus on space and perhaps a new crystal sphere as the "main" setting, with less traveling to extant planets and more mystery.

If the way Chris Perkins played the giff character Warrington Munt is any indication, they'll still be utterly absurd. And awesome.