Spelljammer D&D Direct Live Report: 9am PDT (5pm BST) SPELLJAMMER CONFIRMED! DRAGONLANCE!

D&D Direct, WotC's new video-format announcement show launches today at 9am PDT (5pm BST). If you aren't able to watch it, I'll be updating this article live. Feel free to comment below! Once it launches, you will need to refresh this page when you want to see new updates. The video is expected to last about 30 minutes.

If you CAN watch it, you'll find it on YouTube or Twitch at the above times. Otherwise, follow along below!

• 45 mins to go. Live updates incoming!
• 30 mins to go!
• 5 minutes to go!
• Here we go! Opens with a sea shanty.
• Forgive typos. They talk fast and I can't type.

• Spelljammer is confirmed!
• They talk REALLY FAST!
• Spelljammer Adventures in Space, project lead Chris Perkins, Trystan Falcone graphic designer
• Cities built on asteroids, dead gods floating in the ether
• 6 races---astral elves, autognomes, hedozi(?), gif, plasmoids, thri-kreen
• 3 hardcovers in a slipcase: Astral Adventurers Guide, Boo's Astral Menagerie, Light of Xaryxis adventure
• Prequel adventure in July
• Wizkids miniatures

Other stuff also discussed!

• Baldur's Gate 3 CRPG preview video (game is in 2023)
• Journeys Through Radiant Citadel intro video -- 3 of the adventures are: Wages of Vice (5th level), Caribbean; Orchids of the Invisible Mountain (14th level), feywild, far realm, Whistler new monster; Fiend of Hollow Mind (4th level), skeletons and spirits

• "Campaign Cases" -- Creature tokens! Terrain tiles! July!

D&D Movie directors now onscreen. The movie in March 2023 is called HONOR AMONG THIEVES.

• New D&D starter set. Comes with 'digital onboarding'. Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. We knew about that one.
• D&D digital monstrous compendium. Available to those with WoTC or D&D Beyond Accounts. Volume 1 has an eldritch lich and the 10 legged asteroid spider. And the starlancer. Might have misheard some of that!

• MMO Neverwinter video. Dragonslayer begins June 2022. (I wonder if they'll need a dragonance for that?)
• New D&D actual play video, Legends of the Multiverse. Lots of 80s cartoon style soft rock music. Boo is in it.

WIzKids skirmish game D&D Onslaught. October

Finally -- DRAGONLANCE WARRIORS OF KRYNN! SHADOW OF THE DRAGON QUEEN!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

They chose to sidestep a potential problem rather than do the work to fix it. Just like they always do.

The main "potential problems" with the Phlo were:

1. It stops people from using firearms, cannons, and fire spells in space battles, which is just stopping fun for the purpose of stopping fun.
2. It's a pretty boring adventuring location, serving more as a featureless hyperspace than a part of the setting that enhances adventures.
3. It makes Divine spellcasters less fun to play, because it shuts down how they get back spells.

In order to "fix" these potential problems you would have to get rid of how flammable/explosive the Phlogiston was, turn it into something other than a monotone Bifrost ocean hyperspace (probably adding adventure locations and creatures native to the Phlogiston), and get rid of how it stops Clerics and Paladins from regaining spells every day.

Doing all of that would basically get rid of the Phlogiston and replace it with something that has the same name but functions completely differently. At that point, you might as well just drop the concept entirely and replace it with a suitable replacement that is already a part of your cosmology just to simplify it a bit (which the Astral functions as).

The Astral Sea doesn't prevent the usage of firearms, cannons, or fire spells, has plenty of native creatures, adventuring hooks, and interesting locations/scenery, and doesn't prevent Clerics and Paladins from regaining spell slots. Also, people are more familiar with the word "Astral" than "Phlogiston," and "Astral" is just easier to pronounce.

IMHO, they fixed the main problems with the Phlogiston by getting rid of it. There are quite a few circumstances where the only proper "fix" for a problem would be to just sidestep it. Instead of trying to build a castle in a swamp, you should just move to dry land nearby and build your castle there. That's technically "sidestepping" the problems of building in a swamp, but is a superior solution to anything you could do to try and make building a castle in a swamp viable. I feel the same applies to the Phlogiston.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Exactly. So why start pretending now after 5e reversed almost all of 4e's innovations?

. . . It did. Almost all of 4e's innovations were reversed by 5e. Nentir Vale has been dropped, the Fighter and Wizard disparity is as bad as ever, the cosmology has been dropped, some of the best classes have been dropped (Swordmage, Warlord), healing surges no longer exist, and monster design in 5e is super boring. Most of 4e's innovations were dropped by 5e. Just because a few things remained (Spelljamming in the Astral, the Feywild and Shadowfell, short rests) that doesn't contradict the fact that most of D&D 4e's innovations (love them or hate them) aren't present in D&D 5e.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm going to amend my statement a bit. D&D has had fairly logical cosmologies before. 4e's World Axis cosmology made much more sense than the Great Wheel...The Great Wheel/Planescape has never been sensical.

Absolutely agreed.

Spelljammer's cosmology has never been sensical.

Disagree. It made perfect sense. It just sucked for divine casters, fire-prone magic-users, and firearms.

You're on the prime material plane and you never leave it. Your system is inside a crystal sphere. You travel outside that crystal sphere and enter the phlogiston. The phlogiston is flammable. The phlo moves you at FTL speeds. Elsewhere in the phlo are other crystal spheres you can visit. That's 2E Spelljammer's "cosmology".

It didn't really have a cosmology unto itself. It just used what was default in 2E. Until 4E, Spelljammer didn't interact with the planes at all. So cosmology wasn't a thing it needed to worry about. Hence the term "planejammer" being applied to the 4E and now 5E versions. Because that was a fundamental change to how the setting worked.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Disagree. It made perfect sense. It just sucked for divine casters, fire-prone magic-users, and firearms.

You're on the prime material plane and you never leave it. Your system is inside a crystal sphere. You travel outside that crystal sphere and enter the phlogiston. The phlogiston is flammable. The phlo moves you at FTL speeds. Elsewhere in the phlo are other crystal spheres you can visit. That's 2E Spelljammer's "cosmology".

It didn't really have a cosmology unto itself. It just used what was default in 2E. Until 4E, Spelljammer didn't interact with the planes at all. So cosmology wasn't a thing it needed to worry about. Hence the term "planejammer" being applied to the 4E and now 5E versions. Because that was a fundamental change to how the setting worked.

I meant more stuff like the fact that they needed stars to exist, but also wanted Crystal Spheres to exist, so they had to reconcile this problem by just saying "okay, Stars do exist, but inside of crystal spheres. The stars that you do see are actually just portals to the Quasielemental Plane of Radiance that exist because . . . reasons". The existence of portals to a random dimension of light on the inside of crystal spheres makes absolutely no sense in-world. They're purely a meta explanation for why you can see stars from inside what is basically a Dyson Sphere that makes it impossible for you to actually see other stars. There are a few other things similar to this about the setting that I could bring up, but this was the example that immediately jumped to mind. "Stars exist, but they're actually not stars, but real stars do exist, you just can't see them because we wanted to reference what some Greeks thought the universe was like thousands of years ago."

Maybe this is a nitpick, but to me, that's enough to label Spelljammer's original cosmology as nonsensical. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, the setting of Spelljammer is supposed to be nonsensical. I'm fine with the setting's nonsense, so long as it's actually fun to play in. From my experience, the Phlogiston wasn't fun. That's why I'm fine with it being replaced.

 

[overgeeked]

One of the things people are skipping over, I think, is that the 2E and 5E versions aren't mutually exclusive.

The prime material plane can still contain the phlogiston.

Spelljammers used to travel out of the Wildspace of a system, through a crystal sphere, and into the phlogiston...all the while staying on the prime material plane.

Spelljammers now travel out of the Wildspace of a system, through a silvery mist, and into the Astral Sea...physically transitioning into the Astral plane.

5E is simply ignoring what's outside of Wildspace on the prime material plane.

You can easily say that Spelljammer ships don't physically travel to the Astral Sea and instead move into the phlogiston.

Yeah, it sucks for some of us old grogs that loved the original. But I think the complaining misses the point. We're getting new Spelljammer stuff. And hopefully DM's Guild Spelljammer stuff. I for one am looking forward to the wild and crazy stuff we're going to see.

 

[overgeeked]

I meant more stuff like the fact that they needed stars to exist, but also wanted Crystal Spheres to exist, so they had to reconcile this problem by just saying "okay, Stars do exist, but inside of crystal spheres. The stars that you do see are actually just portals to the Quasielemental Plane of Radiance that exist because . . . reasons".

For some crystal spheres, yes. But not for others. Each one was unique...or at least could be unique. That's a feature, not a bug. The variability gave you more to explore.

The existence of portals to a random dimension of light on the inside of crystal spheres makes absolutely no sense in-world.

It doesn’t need to. You can explain it however you want. Only some had this, not all.

They're purely a meta explanation for why you can see stars from inside what is basically a Dyson Sphere that makes it impossible for you to actually see other stars.

So what?

There are a few other things similar to this about the setting that I could bring up, but this was the example that immediately jumped to mind. "Stars exist, but they're actually not stars, but real stars do exist, you just can't see them because we wanted to reference what some Greeks thought the universe was like thousands of years ago."

They can exist side by side. It doesn’t have to be uniform and universally true everywhere. Again, that variability is a feature, not a bug.

Maybe this is a nitpick, but to me, that's enough to label Spelljammer's original cosmology as nonsensical. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, the setting of Spelljammer is supposed to be nonsensical.

Again, disagree. It’s not nonsensical, it’s just not uniform. Each crystal sphere was unique. That was awesome.

I'm fine with the setting's nonsense, so long as it's actually fun to play in.

The weird and different makes it fun.

From my experience, the Phlogiston wasn't fun. That's why I'm fine with it being replaced.

Weirdly, me too. But it’s not gone. We’re just no longer traveling through it.

 

[Parmandur]

. . . It did. Almost all of 4e's innovations were reversed by 5e. Nentir Vale has been dropped, the Fighter and Wizard disparity is as bad as ever, the cosmology has been dropped, some of the best classes have been dropped (Swordmage, Warlord), healing surges no longer exist, and monster design in 5e is super boring. Most of 4e's innovations were dropped by 5e. Just because a few things remained (Spelljamming in the Astral, the Feywild and Shadowfell, short rests) that doesn't contradict the fact that most of D&D 4e's innovations (love them or hate them) aren't present in D&D 5e.

And good in my book. Just because something is an innovation doesn't make it "good" or "desireable."

In 2014, I remember someone Tweeted at Chris Perkins asking if there was anything from 4E that he would like to bring back in 5E, and he straight up said "everything I liked in 4E made it into 5E."

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

And good in my book. Just because something is an innovation doesn't make it "good" or "desireable."

In 2014, I remember someone Tweeted at Chris Perkins asking if there was anything from 4E that he would like to bring back in 5E, and he straight up said "everything I liked in 4E made it into 5E."

Hey, I'm not trying to start another Edition War. I'm pretty sure we already have one of those going on in a different thread. I was just debunking their claim that most of 4e's innovations made it to 5e.

 

[Parmandur]

Hey, I'm not trying to start another Edition War. I'm pretty sure we already have one of those going on in a different thread. I was just debunking their claim that most of 4e's innovations made it to 5e.

Depends on how you define "innovation," I think the two of you are disagreeing over the definition of terms. I'm not interested in rehashing any arguments, either, water under the bridge.

 

[Maxperson]

As it stands, the only thing of interest to me is WotC explaining how putting everything in the Astral Sea/Plane doesn't lead to various pantheons simply wiping each other out. The phlo kept the crystal spheres separated and prevented gods from nuking other planets. Now that the phlo is gone, and it's all ported into the Astral Sea, a logical consequence would be a divine free-for-all.

Gods used to need to have worshippers in a sphere in order to have any sort of influence there. They couldn't just walk through the astral and pop out in some other sphere and begin wreaking havoc. I don't know if that changed. In any case, pantheons have always been able to wipe each other out if they wanted. Nothing stopped the Norse pantheon from waltzing over to Asgard and smiting the Greek gods, or the Faerunian pantheon from heading down to whatever planes the Greyhawk gods dwell on and killing some. They don't need this new set up in order to go to war.