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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AtomicPope" data-source="post: 6935370" data-attributes="member: 64790">I've been running a homebrew Spelljammer for exactly one year.  It started in Bissel (-ish), and led the players on an Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.  The group is a mix of long time players (10-15 years each) and noobs (first timers).  The funny thing is even someone who played for 15 years wouldn't know anything about the classic Barrier Peaks adventure, nor Blackmoor, nor the Egg of Coot, nor the City of the Gods.  So for my part, I took the plotline of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and changed it a bit.  For starters, it was a crashed Spelljammer vessel, a hybrid of Scifi/Fantasy like you mentioned.  Furthermore, it didn't crash alone.  Several ships crashed but as debris from a space war and some were more intact than others.  The damage from the fallen vessels varied.  The basis of one crash was the Ioun Star shattered and opened a fluctuating portal to Doriat, the planes of ash in the Realm of Madness.  Mind you, this was before Stranger Things.  Since an opened portal to another dimension is also classic fantasy, I had to add a twist which brings us to the meat of the campaign.As a hybrid, I spent time building up the common D&D fantasy elements to make it look like a normal game: Orcs, Goblins, Giants, Necromancers, Greyhawk Wars, and Zombies.  I crafted several adventures and encounters to establish a D&D adventure: Zombies eating brains, Orc raiders kidnapping people as slaves, traumatized villagers, evil necromancer experiments, and massive structural damage from giants.  Within those encounters were clues that would be also transform from normal D&D to Scifi-Fantasy.  After the players got used to the roles of normal D&D monsters, I changed them flipping the script to Aliens and Outer Space.  Intellect Devourers and Mind Flayers eating brains.  Chuul relic hunters snatching people for Aboleth overlords.  Villagers suffering from Space Madness.  Alien experiments on humanoids: Mind Flayer reproduction, Aboleth Mutations, and Alien parasites.  Gibbering Mouthers and Psychic Ooze ravaging the countryside and heading to the city.  Massive structural damage from ship weaponry, unlike anything they've ever seen.I dropped a LOT of the Spelljammer mechanics, especially the way the Helm created a One-Man-Show.  I modeled the House Rules after Rogue Trader, a campaign I ran for years with great success.  Unlike Spelljammer, each of the characters has a vital role in piloting the ship.  I also created Spelljamming rules that allows characters to use non-Spells.  In this way, all players can choose a role on the ship that best suits their abilities.  For example, the Master Gunner is a Ranger who will Hunter's Mark other vessels before firing a volley.  The OG Spelljammer lacked a group dynamic, which is at the heart of D&D and the class system.  That's something that MUST be considered when adding technology or changing the genre.  You want to keep the D&D feel, even though the props and sets have changed.Whenever we add technology to a magic world we have to ask some basic questions:* Why do they need technology?* What will niches will technology hold?* What is the relationship between technology and magic?If we can make an Everburning Torch then we won't need light bulbs.If we can make a Wand of Fireballs then we won't need grenades or rocket launchers.Typically, the hybridization of Scifi-Fantasy means we meet somewhere in the middle and the niche is filled by the needs of a particular society.  We often dig deeper into cliches.  In other words, those who are technologically primitive are magically advanced.  The most common cliche is Druids leading a technologically primitive but magically advanced society.  Their skyscrapers are tree cities.  Their rapid transit are Tree Stride points that require special keys.  Their trains are bound Earth Elementals dragging impossibly heavy sleds of stone without disturbing the earth.  I've used this in my own campaign.Something else I introduced was a few House Rules for damage.  The purpose was to change the nature of adventuring.  I didn't want the players to spend the night in the dungeon.  Instead, I incentivized the behavior of an "away team" but increasing the lingering damage of wounds.  So after the away team was injured, they'd return to the Spelljammer for triage.  Here's the rules:Grievous Wounds – When a character is reduced to zero hit points they immediately suffer one level of exhaustion.  Note: if their exhaustion level is high enough they could suffer Disadvantage on their Death Saves.Slow Natural Healing – Characters don't regain full hit points at the end of a long rest. Instead, a character can spend Hit Dice to heal at the end of a long rest, needing a Healer's Kit, spells or abilities just as with a short rest.  At the end of a long rest the character regains half of their maximum Hit Dice rounded up.Treatment of Injuries Required – A character can't spend any Hit Dice after finishing a short rest until someone expends one use of a healer's kit to bandage and treat the character's wounds or they're the target of a healing spell or ability that grants healing over time such as Regenerate or Song of Rest.True Grit – The Fighter’s class ability Second Wind no longer heals hit point damage.  Instead, the character gains temporary hit points that last for 10 minutes.Now the players need some technology to heal or special magic.  Also, both technology and magic facilitate the natural healing process.  As a result, a healer will be both technically proficient and magically apt thus blending the two genres.  After a year it's worked precisely how it was designed.</blockquote>

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