Spelljammer...just wow

[Jürgen Hubert]

Ha Jürgen! I don't know if you did it intentionally or not, but you basically just summarized the design rationale behind TSR's Star*Drive campaign setting for the Alternity system.

Star*Drive was based explicitly around the contrast between a Core Region of Space, a Partially colonized fringe, and a completely menacing frontier. It also set up the 'great powers' and history of the setting in such a way that was both evocative and was filled to the brim with campaign possibilities.

Well, it's not really a novel idea because that's basically what the Age of Sail really was like - and thus, it makes a great template for any space-based exploratory setting.

I just wish Spelljammer had built more on that - after all, the "feel" of the spelljammer ships was already fairly close to this. All that lacked was a good integration of the actual worlds of the setting.

Instead we got "The Top Ten Reasons Why Elminster/Raistlin/Bigby Does Not Want Groundlings To Know About Spelljamming"...

 

[Gez]

That's the main issue I believe is really awful with D&D. They've fed the gamers so much European-flavored fantasy that it's too hard for almost anyone to comprehend that a fantasy setting can be different and SHOULD be different in feel, setting, and flavor.

Of course it's TSR's fault if gamers want that. Of course.

That's because TSR released Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Oriental Adventures and Al Qadim that these have become niche products. That's because nothing say "European-flavored fantasy" like Beholders and Sahuagins and Rust Monsters and Gelatinous Cubes and so on.

Let's be serious one moment.

I also love how the "vanilla" setting assumptions (which I wouldn't call European-flavored) are elitist. And what are the niche products, then? Populist? Yeah, right.

 

[Celebrim]

Of course it's TSR's fault if gamers want that. Of course.

That's because TSR released Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Oriental Adventures and Al Qadim that these have become niche products. That's because nothing say "European-flavored fantasy" like Beholders and Sahuagins and Rust Monsters and Gelatinous Cubes and so on.

Let's be serious one moment.

I also love how the "vanilla" setting assumptions (which I wouldn't call European-flavored) are elitist. And what are the niche products, then? Populist? Yeah, right.

Careful, Gez. You just might be too rational for this thread.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

If you go to the Talking the Talk section you will find that Rystil Arden runs his spelljammer campaigns there and has his own fully realized additions to the setting, such as empires and races and such.

 

[RichGreen]

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.

I think this is probably true. I loved Spelljammer but I think it missed having its own setting at the start which it didn't get until the excellent Astromundi Cluster boxed set came out, ironically one of the last products in the line.

I ran two SJ campaigns: one that started in the Forgotten Realms with the superb Wildspace module, continuing with Skull and Crossbow, and based mostly on the Rock of Bral, and another one that was set in the Astromundi Cluster. The second one definitely worked better as that boxed set is packed full of adventure ideas and conflicts.

Oh, and I loved the giff and found the dohwar amusing. There were enough serious monsters in the setting to accomodate these two "funny animal" races too. Worth remembering that SJ gave us the neogi and the arcane (now mercane). The low points for me were Crystal Spheres (a terrible module) and Krynnspace (SJ was a particularly bad fit with Dragonlance).

Cheers


Richard

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

A post above mentions that some SJ hate comes from sci-fi fans who can't stand the altered physics. My wife and I have debated the merits of SJ off and on for years. She's a NASA buff, keeping up with all the latest space flight news...and SJ's altered physics bothers her sense of order to the extreme. It's illogical to her and just too far a stretch to comprehend. Me, I love it. Its a fictional universe, why can't it have different laws of physics. But, everyone has different tastes and unfortunately, SJ didn't appeal to enough of those tastes to really succeed.

I'm not too fond of all the campaign settings being inter-connected either, although at the same time I like to think of SJ and PS as kitchen sink settings where anything goes. So, integral parts of the cosmology? No. Enough connection that I can have an SJ crew with a Mul, Dracotaur, Kender, Moon Elf, and whatever else my players can come up with? Absolutely. There's a certain appeal to giving in to total wackiness every so often. My point: Sj elements in FR, GH, DL = not good. FR, GH, DL, and everything else elements in my SJ = rock on.

 

[carmachu]

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)

Again, some of you arent listening. You state that we can just ignore parts that they slip into other campaign settings with spelljammer stuff.

The point is we shouldnt HAVE to. People who dislike Dragonlance, as an example, dont go out of their way to hate it, becuase no one is trying to stick DL stuff in Ebberon or FR or GreyHawk.

When you annoy people by forcing something down their throat, expect backlash.

 

[Piratecat]

Please don't tell people what they are or aren't doing.

Whether you love Spelljammer or hate it, our expectation is that this thread will stay civil. Thanks!

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

As I recall, there were a few novels that attempted to cross the FR and DL streams. Something to do with Fistandantilus or some such. So, yeah, Kender have invaded the 'realms at least once.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Anyone thinking that Spelljammer didn't conform to Western myth and fantasy needs to spend some time researching the pre-Galileo beliefs about the cosmos. It's lifted almost entirely from real-world beliefs.

That said, it'd be a lot better off if the game worlds had been designed with crystal spheres and the like from the get-go, instead of having everything retro-fitted into them later. (Although, ironically, that's sort of thematically appropriate, given that the ancient astronomers bent themselves into pretzels to justify celestial movements that kept Earth at the center of the universe.)

That was kind of my biggest dislike of Spelljammer, actually. I really thought the concept sounded cool before the specifics came out (and loved the artwork for it), but didn't care for the phlogiston and crystal spheres- I didn't know at the time that there existed any basis for it in RW history, and was intrigued when I later discovered that it did- but it still didn't fit in with my conception of what the various TSR cosmologies were supposed to be like (as they had been presented) at that time.

I'd have much preferred it if it had just been regular space travel, utilizing Astral travel for insterstellar transportation or the like (there was an article in Dragon magazine around the time Spelljammer first came out, in fact, that was pretty much like my conception of it- I think it was even called Astraljammers).

I absolutely loved the notion of tying these various fantasy worlds together, and having them all exist in the same cosmology (one of the reasons I liked Planescape, too), but didn't care for the underlying means with which it was achieved. Had the whole thing been set up that way from the beginning, as you suggest, it might have gone down easier.