Spelljammer Spelljammer in D&D 5e Speculation: How Will the Setting Be Changed?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Please use quotes and clear reasoning to show where I “insisted” any such thing.

This is the phrase that made @Micah Sweet object to your post.

Settings change. It’s a good thing.

Here, you're saying that the mere concept of changing a setting is a good thing. Under this logic, if you changed Eberron to replace every humanoid race with Flumphs, that would inherently be a good thing.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

Honestly, spelljammer is marketable but needs to hit a particular niche.

If it weren't for the sheer trademarks involved, I'd say let a third party do it.

Also make it so it can stand on its own.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Er, yes, it does. Just it would utterly remake an Age of Sail setting if you came along and added planar travel to the things that an ordinary sailing ship can regularly and routinely do. It's not a "detail"; it's a profound and radical change. The fact that "D&D in space" and "D&D on the planes" do not have oodles of third-party literature and film available to illustrate the differences in the genres doesn't change the fact that they are very different genres.

That isn't to say that a hybrid of even radically different genres can't be fun in its own right. But as fun as Shadowrun is, Forgotten Realms fans would be quite rightly upset if you put arcologies, megacorps, and netrunning in Baldur's Gate.

That’s enormously overstating the case. Spelljammer is flying a magic boat between worlds. Allowing it to go to the Feywild, a thing that literal first level characters can do on accident, does not remake the setting.

It will change. Of all the settings, Spelljammer and Planescape can’t avoid being changed. Even if wotc wasn’t doing a unified multiverse this edition, Planescape and Spelljammer wouldn’t exist in a contradictory cosmology. Because of that fact, they will be retrofitted into the current version of the great wheel, complete with Feywild and Shadowfell.

Making parts of the elemental planes, and a few other places, accessible from Wildspace, is very much in keeping with the multiverse as presented in 5e.

Your comparison is patently absurd. Age of Sail to planar travel? Seriously!? Space travel to planar travel would at least have been a vaguely appropriate comparison.

But even if I’m charitable, and use space as a comparison instead, it doesn’t stack up.

It’s like claiming that Star Trek completely c changed what made it Star Trek to the point of not being recognizable when they introduced the Mirror Universe.

And even then the change is less in the case of Spelljammer, because in D&D canon planar travel is a known thing. Other planes aren’t theoretical, and there are cultures that actively engage in it.

The hard separation of the two ideas has always been weird and forced.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is the phrase that made @Micah Sweet object to your post.

Here, you're saying that the mere concept of changing a setting is a good thing. Under this logic, if you changed Eberron to replace every humanoid race with Flumphs, that would inherently be a good thing.

That isn’t what those words mean. At all.

I’ll come from a different angle, see if this helps. If I say that traditionalism, ie the prioritization of Tradition for Tradition’s sake regardless of utility or need, is bad, that doesn’t not then follow that I think all traditions are bad.

Likewise, the fact that settings change is not the same as the idea that all of the elements will change, nor does the statement that “it is good that settings are not in stasis, that they change” is not a statement that all change is good. It’s literally just a statement that allowing settings to be changeable is a good thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Please use quotes and clear reasoning to show where I “insisted” any such thing.

You have on at least two separate occasions in this discussion refuted a concern about setting updates by stating that things are going to change and that change is good. That's good enough for me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That’s enormously overstating the case. Spelljammer is flying a magic boat between worlds. Allowing it to go to the Feywild, a thing that literal first level characters can do on accident, does not remake the setting.

It will change. Of all the settings, Spelljammer and Planescape can’t avoid being changed. Even if wotc wasn’t doing a unified multiverse this edition, Planescape and Spelljammer wouldn’t exist in a contradictory cosmology. Because of that fact, they will be retrofitted into the current version of the great wheel, complete with Feywild and Shadowfell.

Making parts of the elemental planes, and a few other places, accessible from Wildspace, is very much in keeping with the multiverse as presented in 5e.

Your comparison is patently absurd. Age of Sail to planar travel? Seriously!? Space travel to planar travel would at least have been a vaguely appropriate comparison.

But even if I’m charitable, and use space as a comparison instead, it doesn’t stack up.

It’s like claiming that Star Trek completely c changed what made it Star Trek to the point of not being recognizable when they introduced the Mirror Universe.

And even then the change is less in the case of Spelljammer, because in D&D canon planar travel is a known thing. Other planes aren’t theoretical, and there are cultures that actively engage in it.

The hard separation of the two ideas has always been weird and forced.

The Mirror Universe didn't invalidate anything about the non-Mirror universe.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That isn’t what those words mean. At all.

I’ll come from a different angle, see if this helps. If I say that traditionalism, ie the prioritization of Tradition for Tradition’s sake regardless of utility or need, is bad, that doesn’t not then follow that I think all traditions are bad.

Likewise, the fact that settings change is not the same as the idea that all of the elements will change, nor does the statement that “it is good that settings are not in stasis, that they change” is not a statement that all change is good. It’s literally just a statement that allowing settings to be changeable is a good thing.

If that's what you meant, I'm glad I understand you better, but I still don't completely agree. Not every setting is amenable to the same degree of change, and certainly no change will please everybody. I would prefer no change that invalidates setting history, for example. New explanations and retcons are usually fine, and most settings should accommodate current aspects of the game somewhere, like the Feywild if it makes sense. You and others clearly prefer a far greater degree of change than I do.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

If that's what you meant, I'm glad I understand you better, but I still don't completely agree. Not every setting is amenable to the same degree of change, and certainly no change will please everybody. I would prefer no change that invalidates setting history, for example. New explanations and retcons are usually fine, and most settings should accommodate current aspects of the game somewhere, like the Feywild if it makes sense. You and others clearly prefer a far greater degree of change than I do.

It’s more that I don’t think the changes that are almost certainly coming are a big deal. Like, it’s not like the other planes didn’t exist in old spelljammer.

You have on at least two separate occasions in this discussion refuted a concern about setting updates by stating that things are going to change and that change is good. That's good enough for me.

That isn’t the same thing as what you claimed before.

The Mirror Universe didn't invalidate anything about the non-Mirror universe.

Neither would allowing travel to other planes in spelljammer, necessarily. I think they probably will retcon the setting, but they could just as easily say, “new discoveries have made it possible to blah blah City of Brass etc”.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It’s more that I don’t think the changes that are almost certainly coming are a big deal. Like, it’s not like the other planes didn’t exist in old spelljammer.



That isn’t the same thing as what you claimed before.

Neither would allowing travel to other planes in spelljammer, necessarily. I think they probably will retcon the setting, but they could just as easily say, “new discoveries have made it possible to blah blah City of Brass etc”.

There was an old article in Dragon Magazine #159 that talked extensively about ships traveling through the Astral Plane. This was in an issue that was otherwise mostly about Spelljammer, so I definitely believe the two ideas can coexist.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There was an old article in Dragon Magazine #159 that talked extensively about ships traveling through the Astral Plane. This was in an issue that was otherwise mostly about Spelljammer, so I definitely believe the two ideas can coexist.

Absolutely, and that’s all I’m talking about here.

With how 5e has worked so far, Spelljammer isn’t likely to be super sectioned off from other settings, and combining a little bit of the game’s other existing “here’s a ship in space” elements…just seems hard to imagine them not pursuing it.

The other thing to remember is; they want setting books to be a guide to playing a kind of game, not just for groups to play in that setting, as such.

Sidenote, Baldur’s Gate 3’s fancy cinematic trailer showed the Illithid nautiloid going between planes. Not conclusive, but potentially indicative IMO.