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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[Ratskinner]

I wasn't expecting Spelljammer at all. To be honest I expected Eberron or Greyhawk even Nentir Vale first. Well heck maybe we are getting all of them/

I would have Planescape, if they wanted something in the multiversal realm.

I would not have expected Greyhawk, Dragonlance, or Nentir Vale. We already have a "generic" prime setting. A splashy dip into an oldie needs to be different and avoid stepping on toes. Eberron, maybe Darksun might have also worked.

IMO, etc etc.

 

[Ratskinner]

Wait a second, they don't really say whether or not Giff would be playable.

Hmm...

Hmm....alien invasion of Faerun?

 

[tardigrade]

Spelljammer's crystal spheres are not parallel Material Planes. They are all part of a single Material Plane (along with the Phlogistion, which is also part of the Material Plane).

I don't think this was ever stated, actually. To me, if you start from the previously established canon that FR, DL etc are all different Material Planes, throw in the restrictions on access to the planes from the phlogiston and assume that material planes aren't infinite (just Really Big), it makes perfect sense that each Material Plane is a crystal sphere, and that the phlogiston is basically non-planar space of some sort.

 

[tardigrade]

So thinking about Spelljammer, which I've never actually played but read back in the day, my main concern is getting an entire party onboard (that's a pun!) with the system. I've run a few parties in games that had ship management as part of the play - last one was Rogue Trader.

What I've found is that you're lucky to have one person who's really invested in the mechanics of the ship maneuvering/maintenance/improvement/combat system and everyone else is just along for the ride. It's bad enough to get players to grok their own PCs at times. But when you add a layer of ship management/combat on top of that you're herding cats twice as much.

So much this. I loved the feel of Spelljammer but never tried a campaign because of this.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I don't think this was ever stated, actually. To me, if you start from the previously established canon that FR, DL etc are all different Material Planes, throw in the restrictions on access to the planes from the phlogiston and assume that material planes aren't infinite (just Really Big), it makes perfect sense that each Material Plane is a crystal sphere, and that the phlogiston is basically non-planar space of some sort.

You could try reading the original Spelljammer stuff then, since it was pretty explicit in its Ptolemic setup. The whole point of Crystal spheres connected by the phlogiston was allowing travel between worlds that didn't require planar magic.

Which isn't to say that a mishmash isn't possible, and and obviously we can all use whatever interpretations of the rules, fluff, and canon we like, but in 2e there was one Prime Material Plane, and all the published campaign worlds took place on it (except Ravenloft, which was on a demiplane).

 

[Dungeonosophy]

If Spelljammer is coming, I ask that it have a complete "galactic" (phlogistonic?) map showing the location of all the canonical D&D worlds, from all editions. C'mon, if Star Wars and Star Trek can have galactic maps, D&D can too.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Kobold Avenger]

If Spelljammer is coming, I ask that it have a complete "galactic" (phlogistonic?) map showing the location of all the canonical D&D worlds, from all editions. C'mon, if Star Wars and Star Trek can have galactic maps, D&D can too.

You can't really "map" the material plane because the D&D worlds aren't in consistent positions with each other, and there's many many other worlds, many of them being fill-in-the-blank worlds that DMs can make as their Homebrew setting or a place to explore if it's a World-Hopping Campaign.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And the books for AD&D? Never farther away than, say, a Waldenbooks or a B. Dalton. And that's before getting into specialty stores!

The situation was very different in the UK in the 1980s. You had to travel into a major city to find any AD&D related products - even dice!

These days you can often find a few 5e and Pathfinder books in a certain book chain in medium and larger towns.

 

[lowkey13]

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