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Spelljammer...just wow
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<blockquote data-quote="an_idol_mind" data-source="post: 3510236" data-attributes="member: 43749"><p>Spelljammer: cool idea, poor execution.</p><p></p><p>A lot of its flaws were likely related to poor quality control on TSR's part. TSR had a lot of imagination, but little in the way of business acumen or knowledge of good game design.</p><p></p><p>I know that one thing that turned me off early on Spelljammer was the reliance on the other settings. I didn't care about Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or the Realms at the time, so the whole "now you can adventure in all three" never appealed to me. And that seemed to be what most of the marketing was focused toward.</p><p></p><p>I didn't care to see Spelljammer forced into other settings. Sure, it was easy to ignore, but it was like having an extra page of adspace in the supplements. Some significant portions of adventure modules had to get redesigned to push the Spelljammer elements out of it. Again, not too hard, but an annoyance. I buy adventure modules to minimize the work I do. Forcing me to rewrite major treasures and such is an added irritation.</p><p></p><p>The goofiness was also a problem. There's a difference between light-heartedness and parody. A lot of Spelljammer material seemed to focus on turning the setting into a joke, which turned off a lot of people who saw some really cool concepts there.</p><p></p><p>Yeah, I could run Spelljammer without the Big Three and without the goofiness. I could also run the Forgotten Realms without the high-level NPCs, Eberron without the warforged, dragonmarks, and lightning rail, or I could put a massive ocean somewhere into the Dark Sun setting. But if I'm going to change a setting that much, why bother buying the setting in the first place? Through their support and supplements, TSR defined what they wanted Spelljammer to be. It's a shame that their definition strayed so far from what would have appealed to a majority of gamers.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="an_idol_mind, post: 3510236, member: 43749"] Spelljammer: cool idea, poor execution. A lot of its flaws were likely related to poor quality control on TSR's part. TSR had a lot of imagination, but little in the way of business acumen or knowledge of good game design. I know that one thing that turned me off early on Spelljammer was the reliance on the other settings. I didn't care about Dragonlance, Greyhawk, or the Realms at the time, so the whole "now you can adventure in all three" never appealed to me. And that seemed to be what most of the marketing was focused toward. I didn't care to see Spelljammer forced into other settings. Sure, it was easy to ignore, but it was like having an extra page of adspace in the supplements. Some significant portions of adventure modules had to get redesigned to push the Spelljammer elements out of it. Again, not too hard, but an annoyance. I buy adventure modules to minimize the work I do. Forcing me to rewrite major treasures and such is an added irritation. The goofiness was also a problem. There's a difference between light-heartedness and parody. A lot of Spelljammer material seemed to focus on turning the setting into a joke, which turned off a lot of people who saw some really cool concepts there. Yeah, I could run Spelljammer without the Big Three and without the goofiness. I could also run the Forgotten Realms without the high-level NPCs, Eberron without the warforged, dragonmarks, and lightning rail, or I could put a massive ocean somewhere into the Dark Sun setting. But if I'm going to change a setting that much, why bother buying the setting in the first place? Through their support and supplements, TSR defined what they wanted Spelljammer to be. It's a shame that their definition strayed so far from what would have appealed to a majority of gamers. [/QUOTE]
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