Spelljammer Is Spelljammer Coming To D&D 5E?

Thanks to Stan Shinn over on Google+ for this scoop! WotC held a presentation at the GAMA trade show today, in which they covered both recent D&D performance (best year ever!), some previews of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, and a small hint towards... Spelljammer?

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Here's Stan's report, direct from the trade show:

"Interesting Spelljammer and market news from the GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association) WOTC Seminar on March 13 in Reno (I’m there now).

Mark Price talked about D&D and showed some pictures from inside the upcoming Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes book. I have a few pictures (attached) prior to the Mordenkainen’s slides, but they asked us not to take or share pictures of the Mordenkainen’s book interior. They did show us a picture of a ‘Giff’ — a Spelljammer creature, which will be in the book. He looked like a steampunk hippo with a blunderbuss. Regarding why the creature was in the book, he said “I’ll let you speculate wildly about what that may mean.”

There was look of a wink in his eye so I’m pretty sure the hint was that Spelljammer is coming soon!

Other news from the seminar:

— 2017 was the best year for D&D ever in terms of sales
— Year 3 of D&D sales is stronger than their first year
— Actual play streaming is a key driver of D&D’s success, with 9 million users watching D&D on Twitch
— 8.6 million Americans have played D&D in the last 12 months (they did not give stats for overseas)"

It seems Xanathar's Guide was the fastest selling product in D&D history!

Wondering what Spelljammer is? Imagine D&D (2nd Edition) in space, except the ships are magic flying sailing galleons, and space is a "phlogiston" they can sail in with magical helms, and each world is in its own "crystal sphere", and all of D&D's settings exist in the same universe, and you can fly between them. Image above is of the AD&D 2E Spelljammer boxed set.

Of course, it might not be that. It might just be a monster entry Mordenkainen's Tome, and nothing more.

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[delericho]

True, but they could quite easily make the start point transferable to any generic fantasy setting, because more people play homebrew+Greyhawk+Krynn+FR+et.al. than play FR. Lantan is a bit specific.

Or they could just start the campaign aboard ship, with the PCs having been press-ganged. That's a similar setup to "Out of the Abyss", and worked reasonably well there.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Fogorten Realms is the most popular D&D settin thanks to the succes of videogames "Baldruc Gate" and "Newerwinter Nights". If there is a videogame of Birthright (a real time strategy, for example) and it is sold well, then Birthright books would be published again. And FR's author is still alive. We can't change the background of Greyhawk (for example adding new continents) because we aren't allowed to alter the setting, the risk of a "jump the shark" would too high.

Today the old game franchises are potential gold mines for other genres (videogames, cartoons, action-live movies..). Spelljammer is perfect to add vehicles and other things to be sold as toys.

* I am thinking and.... what is your opinion about to create a new "sphere" for Spelljammer with the races and defilers from Athas? It would be like a mock-reboot of Dark Sun, but without altering the original.

* Do you remember the article "Iron lords of Jupiter" from d20 Modern (Dungeon Magazine #101)?

 

[delericho]

Fogorten Realms is the most popular D&D settin thanks to the succes of videogames "Baldruc Gate" and "Newerwinter Nights".

Partly. Though it was already the most popular setting (of three) by the time 2nd Ed rolled around, and that pre-dates those games. FR just has a lot of stuff going for it - those games, the novels, a couple of very iconic characters, and reams of accessible lore from a very prolific creator.

We can't change the background of Greyhawk (for example adding new continents) because we aren't allowed to alter the setting, the risk of a "jump the shark" would too high.

Given the right author they could do it (although one problem is that "the right author" is quite likely Eric Mona, who isn't available). But one other issue is that Greyhawk is a bit too close to FR. I suspect they're more likely to want to revive things that are more distinctly different - Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Planescape (and, yes, Birthright).

* I am thinking and.... what is your opinion about to create a new "sphere" for Spelljammer with the races and defilers from Athas? It would be like a mock-reboot of Dark Sun, but without altering the original.

Well... they could do. My suspicion is that they're more likely to just reboot Dark Sun itself. Whether they then populate a crystal sphere for that setting or not would be up to them.

* Do you remember the article "Iron lords of Jupiter" from d20 Modern (Dungeon Magazine #101)?

Very vaguely. I did enjoy the mini-games that Dungeon/Polyhedron had for a little while... though I think I only ever actually used one of them, and it was better in theory than in practice.

 

[fjw70]

Or they could just start the campaign aboard ship, with the PCs having been press-ganged. That's a similar setup to "Out of the Abyss", and worked reasonably well there.

I started my Spelljammer camapaign with the PCs being from the FR but the first scene was them waking up in the cargo hold of a Spelljammer ship in route to being sold to the Neogi. So as they have now escaped and took over the ship they are slowly learning about the Spelljammer setting (or at least my version of it).

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

And we should remember a lot of pulp fiction from 30's years now they are becoming public domain. This means we could use a lot of things from the first works of planetary romance and sword & planet genres (for example John Carter's adventures).

* About Dark Sun, better a retcon than a reboot. Or at least the novels should be still canon. (Some little details could be changed).

* If the skyships or spelljammers can use siege weapons, giant crossbows, for example, to kill big monster or enemies. How should be the XPs reward?

* What if a player who likes "Eclipse Phase" rpg wants to create a transhuman version of Spelljammer, with homebrew rules about egos and morphos?

* How to use the lore to create stories of space horror (aliens, dead space, deep horizon, doom, system shock) in Spelljammer setting?

 

[delericho]

* About Dark Sun, better a retcon than a reboot. Or at least the novels should be still canon. (Some little details could be changed).

The thing I find funniest about Dark Sun is that in the 2nd Ed "Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide", TSR very strongly advise DMs that it's a bad idea to lovingly detail a campaign world and then immediately hit it with massive changes. Spin on a year or two, and the Dark Sun novels did exactly that - to the extent of changing some of the fundamental concepts of the setting. (Sadira's sun-magic messes up the 'magic is destructive' point.)

IMO, 4e did the right thing with that setting - accept the first novel as being broadly accurate, but ignore the rest.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Good point. I was thinking of 'Murika.

Yes, that makes sense. It also brings up the thought that the books will have a much wider release now.

 

[MechaPilot]

True, but they could quite easily make the start point transferable to any generic fantasy setting, because more people play homebrew+Greyhawk+Krynn+FR+et.al. than play FR. Lantan is a bit specific.

I'm sure they will, in the same very limited way in which they describe putting the other published adventures in other WotC D&D worlds. I'm running PotA right now, and it has limited advice for setting it in Eberron, etc. I assume this is a trend the adventures will continue, but that also means every adventure they make will probably take place in (or at least begin in) FR.

Given the nature of what WotC has already put out, I'm fairly confident in saying we won't get a Spelljammer setting book; it'll be an adventure instead, and it'll begin in FR. Given how large the Spelljamming universe is, I don't think any kind of setting map for it will be included. Also, I'm pretty certain that any Spelljammer product won't range very far beyond the planet it starts on, and the mooon(s) of that planet. At most, it'll detail the crystal sphere that contains FR, and I think that's a generous assumption.

 

[Old One Eye]

My guess is if there is a Spelljammer adventure, it will not be the Spelljammer setting as we know it from the boxed set, nor would it include the Realms.

I guess it would be a multiverse adventure based out of Sigil, with Spelljamming meshed in with the Astral plane as only one arc of the overall adventure.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Many of the races from Star Frontiers already exist in Spelljammer.

Yeah the Huldrefolk of Krynn are from Star Frontiers.

But Star*Drive and Alternity came a lot later so races like the Fraal, Aleerin/Mechalus, Weren, Sheseyan and T'sa weren't even considered at the time.

Yeah but the Fraal (and possibly others) appeared in Urban Arcana (d20 Modern campaign model), which is connected with the D&D Multiverse via the Plane of Shadow. So it's all connected. And Gamma World was even given a D&D logo in 4E.