Spelljammer My question about Spelljammer

[Hussar]

I have to admit, I’m kinda jazzed about this whole thing. With the added bonus of really hitting me square in the nostalgia feels with Star Frontiers callbacks. Cool concept. Great art. Flying ships. I mean this is a great big buffet with pretty much all my favourite things.

But here’s my question. What do you DO in Spelljammer. In bog standard DnD you go out, find a dungeon or some abandoned location, kill/interact and go home with you I’ll gotten gains.

But what does a Spelljammer adventure look like? I’m just a bit overwhelmed by the choices here. Telling me you can do anything isn’t really helping me.

So if I sit down as a player in your SJ adventure, what would I be doing?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Killing monsters and stealing their stuff.

 

[Leatherhead]

Don't overthink it too much.

Just go with the old classic:

• Find a Star-Map to some treasure.
• Board a ship with a rag-tag crew.
• Wilderness encounters, IN SPACE!
• Get lost and have your resources dwindle.
• Get found and boarded by a star elf/neogi/beholder/clown ship & hijack their ship/resources for your own.
• Find the asteroid with the treasure & go for a dungeon crawl.
• On the way back to port, those creatures that you hyjacked from called their friends, it's time for ship-to-ship battles!
• Back in port, spend your booty on ale or whatever.

 

[Hussar]

Don't overthink it too much.
/snip

I suppose, but, at that point, what makes Spelljammer different than, say, Ghosts of Saltmarsh? Just the aesthetics of it?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I suppose, but, at that point, what makes Spelljammer different than, say, Ghosts of Saltmarsh? Just the aesthetics of it?

Tone.

 

[Helldritch]

Fantasy Star Trek, Fantasy Star Wars, and full exploration.

It is the Voayages of the Princess Ark if you are old enough to remember these from old Dragon magazines. It is a chance to have weird races and cultures totally unrelated to what the PCs might have seen before. It is a change of pace quite important from standard adventures.

Bring this cargo from here to there and stop at these Star ports to get such and such while avoiding space pirates, beholder ships, illithid ships, and all kind of space danger.

It is going to explore the ruins of an old dungeon in an asteroid but this time, teleport will not get you back home in a pinch. Space is too vast for this. And you might not even be on your home world!

This is the exploration pillar at its best. No ranger powers to bypass the difficulties of travel. All characters must contribute and NPCs are required to help aboard the ship to maintain peak efficiency. And finally, it is the best darn reason to explain why you picked the sailor background while landlocked.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Telling stories but nobody should realise these are rip-off of famous sci-fi and space-opera franchises.