Spelljammer...just wow

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Here's the thing: There are certain D&D settings that get their "hook" from totally smashing a time-honored convention of the game. (Spelljammer and Darksun are probably the most extreme examples.) When faced with a convention-smashing supplement, most people have one of two reactions: They're either inspired to the point of delirious love, or their brain shuts down completely from the shock.

That's what you're seeing here, and every other thread ever discussing Spelljammer in every forum, newsgroup, and mailing list until the end of time. The Inspired Gamers will insist Spelljammer is the greatest idea since funny-shaped dice, and the rest will insist it's the greatest crime in the history of roleplaying. There's almost never any inbetween.

Insulting, unfair and untrue.

 

[Razz]

Spelljammer's biggest problem was that it was presented as a way to tie together the "Big Three" (Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and the Forgotten Realms) rather than as a setting in its own right. Some of this was ameliorated later on, but the damage was done.

If an ounce of the art direction and flavor they later gave Planescape had been applied to Spelljammer, it probably would have done a lot better. There is a LOT to like there, and some of the critters from those MC appendices are great.

But fans of the Big Three saw it as a goofy imposition on their worlds (which it was), and they rebelled.

--Erik

That's just silly of the fans of those settings, then. Because the way I see Spelljammer is not only the answer to the mystery of the "Beyond the Night Skies" in a fantasy setting, but what if the PCs wanted to explore "outer space" of their home worlds? It has just as much fantasy element as traveling through yuan-ti infested jungles or ogre-ridden mountains, if not more creative.

Also, Spelljammer helped ground some famous creatures to certain settings. If it wasn't for Spelljamming, mind flayers wouldn't exist in Forgotten Realms. Probably beholders wouldn't either.

It sucks fanboys had to bash such a potentially great setting.

 

[Pants]

Here's the thing: There are certain D&D settings that get their "hook" from totally smashing a time-honored convention of the game. (Spelljammer and Darksun are probably the most extreme examples.) When faced with a convention-smashing supplement, most people have one of two reactions: They're either inspired to the point of delirious love, or their brain shuts down completely from the shock.

Oh, I get SJ, I also think that, if done well, it could be really cool, but I think the principle problem with the setting was that it was so far removed from the standard D&D of the time (which is not necessarily a problem) and then, to further antagonize people who already wouldn't like it, it was created to be the de facto way to travel between settings.

I fully believe that the SJ hate would be a lot less if it were simply its own setting rather than a way to travel between settings. As it is, you have SJ crap turning up in a bunch of different campaign settings, where the effect can be quite jarring.

Planescape at least slotted into the pre-existing setup. The planes already existed, in one form or another, PS just added onto them.

 

[Pants]

Also, Spelljammer helped ground some famous creatures to certain settings. If it wasn't for Spelljamming, mind flayers wouldn't exist in Forgotten Realms. Probably beholders wouldn't either.

Actually, there was a way to get to other worlds before SJ existed: the planes.

They existed all the way back in 1e.

 

[Razz]

Spelljammer was/is awesome. As creative, really, as Dark Sun, but in a more deliberately "fun" direction.

It's confusing as to why it's got all the hate. Lots of people don't like Dragonlance but they rarely turn up to post about how it was dumb/stupid/etc.
I think there is still a drive among some gamers to insist that the hobby must be "serious". "We're saving the world!" "No fooling around!" etc. etc.
(the Spelljammer novels went this route, it was actually painful to read about this mopey protagonist wandering around)

It is, however, also one of the most challenging settings for a DM to run.

Why?
Because, usually, the players get a ship. And once they get a ship?
You can go anywhere, and do anything you want to.

So either the DM really works with the players or it gets 'rail-roady'.

As a setting it is fantastic, and you should definitely look at the Spider Moon Polyhedron. The author (Andy Collins IIRC) has more stuff on his website.

It's no different than your best friend's spellcaster who can cast plane shift by the time he's 9th level on everyone in the party and take you to an infinite number of planes in your world's cosmology...or another cosmology by rolling his Knowledge (the planes) check and journeying through the Plane of Shadow.

At least Spelljammer was a much more fun and cooler way of getting around the Material Plane and/or other cosmologies, and it kept it to the Material Plane, too. Didn't really hit other planes (unless it was enchanted to do that, that is).

 

[Tolen Mar]

...and the way the SJ stuff was just thrown willy nilly into different settings annoyed the hell out of me.

And now Wizards is doing the same with Eberron.

I also loved the ideas behind Spelljammer, I just could never convince anyone else to give it a try. There were a couple of things that annoyed me about it, not the least of which was the 'Big Three' being made a part of it. Spend the time to develop its own setting people! If the DM's and players want to include those items, they'll find a way without you forcing it down their throats.

Erm...Sorry. Been away too long, needed a good soapbox rant.

Maybe one day I'll get around to designing a true spelljammer setting that doesn't reference the big three...add that to my list...lets see, item #437 ::sigh:: One day, maybe.

 

[Razz]

Actually, there was a way to get to other worlds before SJ existed: the planes.

They existed all the way back in 1e.

Still, the planes didn't explain what was going on beyond the skies of your home Material Plane. I mean, do gamers really treat every cosmology to have a Material Plane that has one planet with one huge illusion in the skies that simply "appear" to be suns, stars, moons, and other celestial bodies? It comes to a point (especially after your players finish watching Star Wars or something) that gets one very imaginative player to say,"Hey, let me go research some spells with my wizard and let's all float around in space beyond this planet and see what's out there. Besides, casting plane shift last week got half of us killed ever since we decided to take a trip to the Nine Hells to test our mettle. Space sounds cooler, anyway, than mucking through yet another dangerously painful environment of yet another layer of the Abyss anyway, how about it guys?"

Oh, and, mind flayers from the planes wouldn't be aberrations anymore. They'd be outsiders...or at least have the extraplanar subtype.

 

[el-remmen]

As a means to have rules for ships that fly through space and a wonky alternate view of interstellar physics I really loved it.

Sure, half the stuff I dumped (more than half), but that might be true of every D&D supplement I have every used.

But the spelljammer stuff is still something in the background of my homebrew setting that explains some generally inexplicable things to the general populace (that is, if they knew) and also presents new mysteries of its own to those adventurers who end up discovering their world is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[the Jester]

Here's the other "meh" about SJ: if the Forgotten Realms is an alternate material plane from Greyhawk, why can you just fly to it?

I loved Spelljammer as a concept, and bought the boxed set the day it came out- but I was very disappointed at how poorly it did "dnd sci-fi", and also at how they set the cosmology. I was ready for dnd in space, with adventures near the event horizon of a black hole! -with quests for neutronium, with which to make a supercool new item! -with exotic atmospheres, masks of breathing and so on!

What I got instead was pirates in semi-space, with silly crystal spheres and atmospheres that were all the same, with no zero-gravity issues, with, in short, no sci-fi elements whatsoever.

Meh.

 

[RedFox]

Because it's not to everyone's tastes. It's probably a little too "bizarre" for mainstream fantasy. Look at the number of folks who dislike monks as a class simply because they don't conform to their genre expectations, and then extrapolate that out to embrace a fantasy concept of dyson spheres and luminiferous ether and magitek sailing ships.

It was bound to be a niche product, if that. That it was created as a "meta-setting" that intruded on everyone's favorite settings was probably the proverbial straw that broke the camels' backs.

Me, I love it. But I have no illusions about it having broad appeal.