SpellJammer

[JDowling]

it would appear that I missed significant changes in the 2nd boxed set, I'd be told before that they were basically just a reprint and I shouldn't bother (or that they were worse than the origonal). I wasn't playing D&D much at the time it came out, so I never got it.

I will need to take-back those specific critiques, but I stand by what I said about being generally dissapointed in conversions that I've seen. again, not that I could do better /shrug.

Spelljammer is an original setting? I thought it was just a toolkit for bridging Greyhawk to Forgotten Realms to Dragonlance.

while Spelljammer did act as a bridge between settings I think that it definately did have a distinct over all feel to it. Usually we wouldn't go to the established settings, and would rather travel to unknown spheres, et cetera. There was the whole Legend of the Spelljammer bit that you could go into which wasn't tied to any other setting by necessity.

You could have a viable spelljammer campaign and never touch a planet bigger than an astroid.

So, I think that while you certainly could use spelljammer as nothing more than a bridge between worlds, I think it had a lot more to offer. I think it also opened up a lot of fun ideas for your DM, much in the same way that Planescape does. If you play Planescape or Spelljammer as "nothing but a bridge" then I think you were missing out on the rest those products had to offer... unless you didn't want to buy what they were selling, then bridge away to your hearts content

EDIT:

My main beef with the athas.org conversion was mostly with the spellcasting classes . . .

which are examples of the general point that I was making, it's more than a conversion of what was. it's a conversion + "these alterations someone thought were cool/necessary". So, I agree with what you listed as dislikes, which basically changes the whole feel (from a crunchy standpoint) of the setting.

Psionic Warriors - too much "woah, I can do cool junk like neo did in the matrix! run up walls feat! Awesome!" the whole newer psionics have a totally different feel to them. I could nix those feats, or I could nix the class and leave "well enough alone"

classes on Darksun 3e / 3.5e don't need to work how they do in other worlds, they never did in 2e, why start now?

 

[Ranger REG]

while Spelljammer did act as a bridge between settings I think that it definately did have a distinct over all feel to it.

Well, it does have flying ship and rules for it. But when inserting into an existing published campaign setting, it pushed to the background.

It needs it own distinct setting that is built around the flying ships, like Star Trek or Star Wars. A good example I stated earlier is Treasure Planet.

Besides, we have flying ship in Forgotten Realms. Not the Spelljammer kind, but it fits better.

 

[JDowling]

Well, it does have flying ship and rules for it. But when inserting into an existing published campaign setting, it pushed to the background. . .

Sure, we'd usually start a spelljammer game as a spelljammer game instead of inserting it into an existing campaign world so I guess we didn't have that issue.

Usually a space-port area, or some such, homebrew worlds by the DM. Maybe our characters origonated on FR, or DL, or where ever, but those areas were secondary, and more background that prominent in the campaign.

I wouldn't argue if Spelljammer was redone and it had it's own highly detailed crystal sphere/setting included, I'd love it. Just as long as they didn't make gross alterations to the setting.

- spelljammer has guns
- the phlogoston (spelling)
- lizard men are smart like man
...and so on.

EDIT:
just want to point out one thing I never "got" about inserting spelljammer into other worlds. In Dragonlance, for instance, there are some pretty hefty things that simply don't make sense anymore when spelljammer enters the picture.

I calculated out the insane fortune you could make at one point importing steel into Dragonlance and exchanging it for gold there to go buy more steel (either elsewhere in the same sphere, or in another nearby sphere). In the DL books I had they emphasized how valueable steel was, because all the wars and what not, justifying a Steel Piece base currency.

That whole flavor bit for DL just flies out the window, a spelljammer merchant company would need to be blind and dumb to not see that oppurtunity to get a quick buck until prices altered and DL had more than enough steel but hardly any gold (and thus switches to a gold currency).

Of course once you've made a small fortune, you invest in more ships and magical cargo holds to help build your merchant empire, et cetera.

That's another reason why I was never fond of Spelljammer as a bridge, it leads to too many inconsistancy problems unless the gods of the world or some large powerful organization controls import/export to the sphere hehe

 

[reanjr]

If it was relaunched, it'd probably look different though. As a setting that was a natural highway between existing campaign worlds, it made classic mistakes, and I think the lessons from those mistakes were taken and applied to Planescape, which is why the latter did so much better.

Or maybe it was that Planescape didn't have spaceships.

Or Giant Space Hamsters.

Or Scro (Yes, friends! That's Orcs spelled backwards!! They're exactly like orcs!!! Except intelligenet and space-faring!!!!)

No. I think Spelljammer would do just as abysmally now as it did back then. Not to mention they would lose the whole aspect of it being a connecting system between different campaigns.

 

[reanjr]

Sure, we'd usually start a spelljammer game as a spelljammer game instead of inserting it into an existing campaign world so I guess we didn't have that issue.

Usually a space-port area, or some such, homebrew worlds by the DM. Maybe our characters origonated on FR, or DL, or where ever, but those areas were secondary, and more background that prominent in the campaign.

I wouldn't argue if Spelljammer was redone and it had it's own highly detailed crystal sphere/setting included, I'd love it. Just as long as they didn't make gross alterations to the setting.

- spelljammer has guns
- the phlogoston (spelling)
- lizard men are smart like man
...and so on.

EDIT:
just want to point out one thing I never "got" about inserting spelljammer into other worlds. In Dragonlance, for instance, there are some pretty hefty things that simply don't make sense anymore when spelljammer enters the picture.

I calculated out the insane fortune you could make at one point importing steel into Dragonlance and exchanging it for gold there to go buy more steel (either elsewhere in the same sphere, or in another nearby sphere). In the DL books I had they emphasized how valueable steel was, because all the wars and what not, justifying a Steel Piece base currency.

That whole flavor bit for DL just flies out the window, a spelljammer merchant company would need to be blind and dumb to not see that oppurtunity to get a quick buck until prices altered and DL had more than enough steel but hardly any gold (and thus switches to a gold currency).

Of course once you've made a small fortune, you invest in more ships and magical cargo holds to help build your merchant empire, et cetera.

That's another reason why I was never fond of Spelljammer as a bridge, it leads to too many inconsistancy problems unless the gods of the world or some large powerful organization controls import/export to the sphere hehe

If only Athas were safer to travel to. Alas, I cannot go buy 200 slaves with a gold ring. Or come with a bag of holding filled with gold coins and absolutely crush the entire Athasian economy!

 

[Ranger REG]

That's another reason why I was never fond of Spelljammer as a bridge, it leads to too many inconsistancy problems unless the gods of the world or some large powerful organization controls import/export to the sphere hehe

How'd you feel about the Poly mini-game/setting Spelljammer: Shadow of the Spider Moon? Granted there's not enough material, but I like the direction it was pushing for Spelljammer.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

The Astromundi Cluster was one of the last products to be released for Spelljammer. This was a boxed set detailing a crystal sphere partly cut off from the rest of the multiverse and was the nearest we got to having a proper campaign setting for Spelljammer. It was very good indeed but should have been released shortly after the original boxed set.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Gez]

All it would really take is a 3rd party publisher willing to pay for the rights, such as with Ravenloft.

Ravenloft was the first, and the last licensed setting. Wizards came to the realization they could, and thus should, have made a more lucrative deal out of this.

Look at Dragonlance. The campaign setting is published by Wizards. Sovereign Press paid the cost of writing the stuff, SovPress also pay for supporting the line through sourcebooks; and Wizards reap the benefits of the sales of the best-selling book in the line.

Financially, it's a very harsh deal. I doubt you would find more third-parties willing to strike such a raw deal -- especially for a not-that-popular setting such as SpellJammer.

 

[dead]

Ravenloft was the first, and the last licensed setting. Wizards came to the realization they could, and thus should, have made a more lucrative deal out of this.

Does S&S own Ravenloft now or only the right to produce material for it?

 

[JDowling]

How'd you feel about the Poly mini-game/setting Spelljammer: Shadow of the Spider Moon? Granted there's not enough material, but I like the direction it was pushing for Spelljammer.

Wish I could tell you, but I got out of buying the mags for a long time (as I found that I'd read through all of them, had a decent collection of old ones, etc but never used them).

All these threads about the Spider Moon and Darksun conversions are making me want to go buy those issues though :x