Spelljammer...just wow

[Graf]

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.

While I like Spelljammer I think this isn't really a factually valid statement.
Some other people have touched on it but to bring it fully out:

Spelljammer is totally different. I'm not saying it's good/bad/black/white/whatever but its not comparable.
They're different mechanisms, and different story engines
Spelljammer has travel time; Planeshift doesn't (read: random encounters en route)
Planeshift has hostile arriving environment possibilties; Spelljammer: you're fine inside of your ship
Spelljammer means dealing with resources like food and water; Planeshift (nope)
Spelljammer the means of movement (ship) can be attacked or stolen; Planeshift: effectively impossible to stop or attack the spell
Planeshift: almost no control of destination; Spelljammer: total control of destination
Planeshift can go home anytime just cast the spell (or use a color pool or whatever); Spelljammer going home is going to take days or weeks in the ship

At a story level
Planeshift
At 9th level I cast Planeshift... I have -no- control over where I will wind up on an -infinite- plane.
Which is a fancy way of saying: They go wherever the DM wants. Since they're traveling around the planes anything can happen really but only because the DM makes the possibility available.
Lets say that he wants to have them rescue a community from an attack by raiders. Wherever they arrive: "There's a community! There are raiders. You see them chasing a woman with an infant! The raiders see you! And some of them break off and attack!![/i]"

Spelljammer
The players move, of their own volition, wherever they want. And they'll have the right to basic information about where they're going.
DM: The closest area is a forested planet, which has been plagued by raiders.
Players: Boring! We want to go to that Egyptian world. The one with the buried temples. That the trader mentioned 5 sessions ago. We get in the ship and go!
DM: OK.... You get to the system and...
Players: OK. We want to find the biggest city on the planet.
DM: Ok.... You go the biggest City...
Players: We can see it from above right? We want to go to the market place
DM: Ok.... you can see a big bustling market place...
etc.
etc.

It's just not the same system either from a mechanics or (more importantly in my mind) a story perspective.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Takhisis of DL/Krynn is named in the entry on Tiamat (in 1e it was claimed that she and tiamat were the same, while 2e onwards has had them as seperate beings)

Even in the 2nd edition Planescape boxed set they stated that Tiamat and Takhsis are one and the same and that the clueless of Krynn mistakenly refer to the first plane of hell (Avernus) as the Abyss.

They might have changed this with later Planescape products – I'll check when I get home.

 

[Pbartender]

I am glad space in D&D didn't turn out like real-world space or we'd have a Star Wars rip-off.

You never took a look at the Spelljammer adventure Wildspace, did you?

That's the one with the moon-sized battle station shaped like a beholder that shoots giant planet destroying super death rays out of its eyes... It's the heroes' job to fly inside the thing and destroy it.

 

[Andor]

I don't get the hatred for the Giff. Why is a vaugly hippoish humanoid more threatening to suspension of disbelief than a hyena like one (gnoll), or a green rubber wolverine (troll), or a centaur or a harpy or a dwarf made out of flaming metal (azer)?

Personally the only thing about SJ that ever bothered me were those damm tinker gnomes. If ever there was a race that seemed like the types to put a screen door on a submarine it was those little idiots.

As for real world physics in space... Why? What do you get out of it?

A quasar? If you're within about 400 light years of it the radiation will vaporize you instantly.
A black hole? Possibly useful as a plot device to get rid of the macguffin of the week I suppose.
Vacume? Actually the was vacume in space in Spelljammer. It's just that every object had a gravity field that would hold some air around it. A single medium sized creature (If I recall correctly) had about 10 minuetes of air in it's personal air bubble. Which frankly works a lot better that "The scro pierces your suit with a rapier. Start trying to breath blood."

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Spelljammer is my favorite setting of all time. Since it came out, meshing with its setting tropes has been the only reason I ever run games with actual D&D rules.

For years, people not liking Spelljammer was just inconcievable to me. Everyone in my family games at least liked the setting, and some were as devoted to it as I was, and either most of the other gaming groups I played with liked it or it didn't come up.

Of late, though, I've run into several objections from other players:

1. The Ptolemaic physics.
2. The blend of fantasy and space, and non-traditional fantasy in general.
3. Stepping on the toes of other settings.

The first two in particular have proven highly effective barometers for finding people with whom I'm going to butt heads about *any* setting; what they want out of fantasy is diametrically opposed to what I want. Some of them are top notch players, and we can often get along great in sci-fi or supers or horror games, but fantasy's pretty much out.

 

[Piratecat]

The first two in particular have proven highly effective barometers for finding people with whom I'm going to butt heads about *any* setting; what they want out of fantasy is diametrically opposed to what I want. Some of them are top notch players, and we can often get along great in sci-fi or supers or horror games, but fantasy's pretty much out.

That's a really interesting metric. The second reason you mention is what turned me off of Spelljammer (and even Dragonstar.) I just don't want my D&D to mix with space. Which I guess is a little bit weird; I love planar jaunts, for instance, and all kinds of creative fantasy worlds. Space is a barrier I just can't get past my suspension of disbelief, though, and it's resulted in me staying away from SJ.

 

[Shemeska]

They might have changed this with later Planescape products – I'll check when I get home.

I do know that they were seperate in On Hallowed Ground, and I want to say also in Planes of Law, but I'll likewise need to check when I'm home.

 

[Korgoth]

I don't get the hatred for the Giff. Why is a vaugly hippoish humanoid more threatening to suspension of disbelief than a hyena like one (gnoll), or a green rubber wolverine (troll), or a centaur or a harpy or a dwarf made out of flaming metal (azer)?

Personally the only thing about SJ that ever bothered me were those damm tinker gnomes. If ever there was a race that seemed like the types to put a screen door on a submarine it was those little idiots.

As for real world physics in space... Why? What do you get out of it?

A quasar? If you're within about 400 light years of it the radiation will vaporize you instantly.
A black hole? Possibly useful as a plot device to get rid of the macguffin of the week I suppose.
Vacume? Actually the was vacume in space in Spelljammer. It's just that every object had a gravity field that would hold some air around it. A single medium sized creature (If I recall correctly) had about 10 minuetes of air in it's personal air bubble. Which frankly works a lot better that "The scro pierces your suit with a rapier. Start trying to breath blood."

Myself, I like the Giff just fine.

On the physics issue, here's what I get out of it: the selling point of SpellJammer, to me, would be "D&D in Space". But it's not in space. Therefore I have no interest.

It's as if you said: "I know you're interested in Roman history. I'm running a game set in the Roman Empire. In my game, the Roman Empire is ruled by giant alien teddy bears from the planet Kyoot-Ur. Roman Teddy Bear Legions fly around on hoverskiffs fighting the Celts, who are blue featureless spheres. I'm sure that since you like ancient Rome you'll want to play!"

I like Outer Space. I like D&D. It would be fun to have D&D characters be able to go into Outer Space using magic. But SpellJammer just simply isn't about Outer Space. In fact, in SpellJammer, Outer Space doesn't exist. Hence, I really don't get much out of it.

 

[Rel]

I'm running a game set in the Roman Empire. In my game, the Roman Empire is ruled by giant alien teddy bears from the planet Kyoot-Ur. Roman Teddy Bear Legions fly around on hoverskiffs fighting the Celts, who are blue featureless spheres. I'm sure that since you like ancient Rome you'll want to play!"

I'm IN, Korgoth! You had me at "Kyoot-Ur"!

 

[Alzrius]

That's a really interesting metric. The second reason you mention is what turned me off of Spelljammer (and even Dragonstar.) I just don't want my D&D to mix with space. Which I guess is a little bit weird; I love planar jaunts, for instance, and all kinds of creative fantasy worlds. Space is a barrier I just can't get past my suspension of disbelief, though, and it's resulted in me staying away from SJ.

I can understand this point of view (though I personally don't agree with it), but for me it runs into another problem - the in-game viewpoint of space. A fantasy world with D&D's magic style makes it hard to just write all of space off. Hasn't some archmage (particularly an undead one) ever thought of how useful it'd be to have a base (e.g. a tower, laboratory, etc.) on the moon? Just greater teleport there, maybe cast some spells to make it more comfortable, and that's all it takes. And once that far, why not other celestial bodies? It's the slippery slope.