Spelljammer...just wow

[AllisterH]

Myself, I like the Giff just fine.


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.

It was Outer Space. But Outer Space more closely imagined by Victorian writers IMO. If you were not familiar with that, SJ was WAY WEIRD (the crystal spheres, the phlogiston and the look of the Giff all screamed to be Victorian space on acid)

 

[Set]

I heard that at one GenCon someone had built a mock-up of a Hammership that was a couple feet long. Imagine using that with miniatures to run a battle!

I'd love to see a line of Spelljammer models! Some of those ships were freaking sweet looking, especially the Neogi Mindspider, Elven Man-o-War and Dragonfly / Damselfly.

I've also got a soft spot (probably in my head) for the Thri-Kreen Leaf-Ship, Arcane Triop, Quad of Thay, Ogre Mammoth and Shou Lung Dragonship!

I was also a big fan of the crystal spheres concept (not so much the phlogiston).

 

[Kesh]

Isn't it much more high-tech than Spelljammer?

Yes, but that was a plus for me. Dragonstar has both technology and "magitech" items, along with all the standard D&D-isms. It's the best sci-fantasy setting I've seen, next to Shadowrun.

That said, I wouldn't mind running a straight Spelljammer campaign either. I just prefer the extra tech.

 

[FreeXenon]

The only thing I would really like to see for Dragon Star is a way to limit Spellware. Other than that, Dragon Star rocks.

 

[Ripzerai]

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.

I've also found that to be the case. I've always liked Spelljammer, though I didn't play in it very much. There are some things about it, in retrospect, that could have been done a lot better, and I completely respect people who decide it isn't their cup of tea.

As for "stepping on the toes of other settings," though, that's a complaint that makes my ears rattle and my eyeballs roll out my nostrils. Defending the "purity" of a D&D world isn't about personal taste, it's just geekery for geekery's sake (something I've been very guilty of in past threads, so I'm throwing houses at glass rocks here, just so you know I know where I stand).

If any of the other settings had had meticulously detailed outer spatial regions that Spelljammer contradicted, it might have had some merit, but really, sometimes nerdity becomes so odious that I've got to open a window. There was a Spelljammer in Greyhawk Ruins. Well, yeah, there's a freaking Alice in Wonderland demiplane there, too, exactly how is a flying boat a deal-breaker? How is the setting that hosted Expedition to the Barrier Peaks damaged in any way by a tacit acknowledgment that somewhere illithids and mercanes have managed to build spaceships of their own? Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are, have always been, exactly as pure as the English language, which is to say as pure as a bathtub full of mud mixed with equal parts maple syrup and Guacamole - they're both pastiches drawn from all sorts of influences, cobbled together from modules and supplements reflecting a wide variety of minds and needs. Look at Faerun's pantheon, with Finnish gods butting heads with Celtic, Norse, Greek, and one that looks suspiciously like he came from Nehwon, its names cribbed from Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and that's all before TSR bought the setting and spliced in the Moonshaes, Vaasa, Maztica, Zakhara, and Kara-Tur. Or look at Oerth's versions of King Kong, Lewis Carroll's books, the crashed spaceship, the Central Americans, or the quasideity who dresses like a fugitive from the Boot Hill RPG, or things like the Machine of Lum the Mad, the Mighty Servant of Leuk-o, and the Apparatus of Kwalish. I'm sure it's technically possible for game designers to come up with something that truly clashes with either settings' themes, but flying boats do not do it by a long shot.

The Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk have always been attached to myriad other worlds. It's part of what defines both settings. Oerth even has a god of space travel, Celestian. Spelljammers actually fit the genre much better than a lot of the things Oerth hosts.

Dragonlance fans have a better argument, since at least some of its designers (Tracy Hickman, but not Jeff Grubb) apparently always wanted it to be its own thing. Still, Spelljammer has so many tinker gnomes in it, Dragonlance arguably fits with Spelljammer even better than the other two, and no wonder - Jeff Grubb designed Spelljammer with Dragonlance in mind. Perhaps if he hadn't put so much Dragonlance in it, people would have liked Spelljammer better, but that's an entirely different complaint.

 

[Ry]

Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are, have always been, exactly as pure as the English language, which is to say as pure as a bathtub full of mud mixed with equal parts maple syrup and Guacamole

Sig-worthy.

 

[tzor]

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but what I don't like about SpellJammer are the pseudo-antique physics.

I have to strongly disagree. With the exception of the notion of taking D&D spell casting ability and using it as a power source almost everything in classic Spelljammer can be found again and again in various sci-fi novels, movies and TV series.

Consider replacing the wooden ship with the island of Manhatten and you have something very similiar to the Spindizzy of James Blish's Cities in Flight.

Consider a Tom Baker Dr. Who epsiode that involved Space fairing wooden masted ships with crews stolen from various points of time.

Look at any "hyper space" model of interserstellar space travel and you will see a lot of similiarities with spelljammer.

 

[messy]

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.

hey, i'm a "tweener."

i liked the gnomes and hamsters for their cuteness and silliness
i didn't like the guns (seemed out of place, even in a setting with space-traveling ships), the giff (wtf?), and the multitude of weird monsters (mind flayers, etc., which are a little too weird for me).
didn't like connecting the different worlds (gh, fr, dl, etc.)

I like Eberron because it's a campaign setting geared away from fantasy-stereotypes. It has a very strong "Final Fantasy" feel to it, like FFIV, FFVI and could evolve into FFVII. Just without the technology and keeping magic as the center of industry (and not having magic as an aid to technology, like Final Fantasy's done). Actually, after playing FFXII, I believe FFXII and Eberron have much more in common with each other.

interesting comparison... i might have to take another look at eberron, as i currently have no interest in it.

I'd love a proper spelljammer book. The ship combat, the strange new worlds & creatures and of course the fact that magic was just a part of life in the space....

for a "proper spelljammer book," see andy collins' "shadows of the spider moon" in dungeon magazine

messy

 

[Odhanan]

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.

Oh. God. Bad. Idea... :\

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

interesting comparison... i might have to take another look at eberron, as i currently have no interest in it.

FWIW, aside from the fact that both have airships and pulp sensibilities, I found Eberron *hugely* disappointing as a D&D take on Final Fantasy. Eberron is much more D&D taken to 11 and merged with some pulp, as opposed to the more unique worldbuilding of FFs 6 and on. You not only lose the tech and magic dialectic that drives so many of the FFs, you also lose the fantasy-from-a-nearly-blank slate quality that allowed Square to create wholly original settings.

(Eberron creator) Keith Baker famously said - I daresay boasted - he never played a Final Fantasy game; I have a lot of respect for Keith's passion and creativity, but, frankly, this always struck me as a bit like a space opera writer who prided himself on never having watched Star Wars.