Spelljammer Spelljammer in 5e

[Eyes of Nine]

Saw it on the shelf at our local game shop and thought about buying it but there was such a glut of d20 products coming out at that time that I passed on it. Also we were either playing D&D 3.x or d20 Modern that I new I'd probably never use it.

Oh dang, forgot about Dragonstar. I owned a game store during all the third edition time (sold it in 2006). I bet it's cheap to find now.

 

[R_J_K75]

Oh dang, forgot about Dragonstar. I owned a game store during all the third edition time (sold it in 2006). I bet it's cheap to find now.

When the 3PP d20 products started coming out I bought a few but most were junk so I was rather selective after the first few ones. Even then it was sometimes hard to tell the good from the bad. The Kenzer Co Equipment guide and DM screen were two of the good ones.

 

[DammitVictor]

We played the heck out of that. Really well thought out for the V3/3.5/d20 system.

I owned every product in the line, and ran several Dragonstar campaigns in the mid-2000's.

I didn't like their approach to technological weapon damage, but everything else was koala tea and I'm thinking about perusing my books again just for old times' sake.

It's also, still, not even a little bit Spelljammer; it's a great setting in its own right, but a remarkably poor substitute.

 

[Einlanzer0]

I owned every product in the line, and ran several Dragonstar campaigns in the mid-2000's.

I didn't like their approach to technological weapon damage, but everything else was koala tea and I'm thinking about perusing my books again just for old times' sake.

It's also, still, not even a little bit Spelljammer; it's a great setting in its own right, but a remarkably poor substitute.

I think at some point you have to recognize that as much of a cult following as it has, spelljammer in many ways failed as a setting and that's part of why Planescape came along and became a dominant force in D&D a few years later and why spelljammer stopped getting developed and struggles to find a place nowadays.

While all I can offer is speculation, it seems to me that there was too much of a focus on using it as an expansion of lore and mechanics to integrate a bunch of generic fantasy worlds into the same universe and not enough focus on building it as its own campaign setting, and you'll note that's exactly what Planescape achieved.

That's what something like this would be an attempt to address to give it a more lasting appeal. My hunch is that WotC knows how much potential spelljammer has, but have been a bit stuck between a rock and hard place with it in part because of how they tried to incorporated it into 4th (which was terrible). They seem to have something up their sleeves, though.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I think at some point you have to recognize that as much of a cult following as it has, spelljammer in many ways failed as a setting and that's part of why Planescape came along and became a dominant force in D&D a few years later and why spelljammer stopped getting developed and struggles to find a place nowadays.

While all I can offer is speculation, it seems to me that there was too much of a focus on using it as an expansion of lore and mechanics to integrate a bunch of generic fantasy worlds into the same universe and not enough focus on building it as its own campaign setting, and you'll note that's exactly what Planescape achieved.

That's what something like this would be an attempt to address to give it a more lasting appeal. My hunch is that WotC knows how much potential spelljammer has, but have been a bit stuck between a rock and hard place with it in part because of how they tried to incorporated it into 4th (which was terrible). They seem to have something up their sleeves, though.

I didn't play any D&D between 1984 and 2008 (basically no 2 or 3 for me). Is it totally crazy to combine Spelljammer and Planescape?

 

[R_J_K75]

I didn't play any D&D between 1984 and 2008 (basically no 2 or 3 for me). Is it totally crazy to combine Spelljammer and Planescape?

Think 4E started to or eluded to it. Werent Spelljammers mentioned in the Astral Plane book, and maybe a few other references?

 

[Einlanzer0]

I didn't play any D&D between 1984 and 2008 (basically no 2 or 3 for me). Is it totally crazy to combine Spelljammer and Planescape?

Personally, I don't think so at all since they're moving in the direction of making the prime material the universe as depicted in 2e spelljammer instead of just a single world.

It just creates a bit of wonkiness with how they positioned spelljamming in 4e as a way of traversing the planes, which imo was the wrong direction to go and should be ignored for 5e.

 

[R_J_K75]

It just creates a bit of wonkiness with how they positioned spelljamming in 4e

Its been a long time since I read those books, how exactly did they position it in 4E?

 

[Einlanzer0]

Its been a long time since I read those books, how exactly did they position it in 4E?

They left it a little bit loose, but, in a nutshell, they simplified the planar cosmology and conceptually merged it with the idea of a "universe" through the way they depicted the Astral Sea. They then positioned spelljammers as being ships used to traverse the planes and, specifically, to move around the Astral Sea.

It effectively retconned the idea that there is a quasi-realistic universe that exists separately from the planar cosmology and attempted to simplify and merge both together, eliminating spelljammer specific concepts like the phlogiston and crystal spheres in the process.

I suspect they realize this was a mistake and are working on ways to undo it for 5e. Although I honestly think they overthink trying to create continuity from edition to edition. Sometimes simply hand-waving something away and pretending it didn't happen is the best option.

 

[R_J_K75]

They left it a little bit loose, but, in a nutshell, they simplified the planar cosmology and conceptually merged it with the idea of a "universe" through the way they depicted the Astral Sea. They then positioned spelljammers as being ships used to traverse the planes and, specifically, to move around the Astral Sea.

It effectively retconned the idea that the planar cosmology and the natural/prime material universe as separate things along with all the specific concepts tied to the latter like phlogiston and crystal spheres.

I suspect they realize this was a mistake and are working on ways to undo it for 5e.

Kind of what I thought just couldn't remember as we didn't play 4E for very long, and didn't do any plane hopping. I tried selling my 4E books a few years back and no one would buy them, cant say Im surprised.