Spelljammer Why Play Spelljammer Over a Regular Pirate Campaign?

[EzekielRaiden]

Why Spelljammer? Because it's weird. My players are absolutely not interested in playing a D&D pirate game, and aren't all that interested in a seafaring exploration game, but they're absolutely interested in playing an exploration game in weird fantasy space. (Heck come to think of it they're more interested in playing an exploration game with flying ships on the surface of the gameworld than they are a seafaring one as well - flying ships are a big draw I think).

That is, at the very least, something that "regular" pirates can't do but at least air pirates can. Ocean piracy doesn't have free rein of a whole world--just the parts reachable by a relatively deep-draft cargo vessels. A sky pirate can fly bombing runs in the dead of night, or dogfight with dragons, or try to lose an enemy by flying between cloud layers.

Space adds in...more of a difference of degree than kind, but a difference nonetheless. Asteroid-hopping might be kinda-sorta analogous to hopping between floating islands, but it's not quite the same and carries a much higher risk of danger overall. If space is a vacuum, that's obviously a pretty big danger (much, MUCH more dangerous than the open sea--the open sea can take weeks to kill you, hard vacuum will do it in a matter of minutes). It's always possible to have very dangerous islands or locations, but it's hard for me to come up with something that would have quite the same tone as the classic "voyage to the sun/through the corona" kind of thing that is a very classic space fantasy but hard to finagle into even sky pirates, let alone regular boating-on-the-ocean pirates.

So, I guess that's kind of it. There are a few (not many, but a few) adventure ideas that either need space pirates, or just work a lot better/easier/more smoothly with space pirates. There are a few further ones that work more or less equally well with sky pirates as they do with space pirates, but which definitely wouldn't be easy (or even plausible) to put into a regular boating-on-the-ocean pirate story.

 

[overgeeked]

You've almost, but not quite, described the setting of the Flash Gordon movie from 1980.

Obligatory comment. Lucas only made Star Wars because he couldn’t get the rights to make a Flash Gordon movie.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Obligatory comment. Lucas only made Star Wars because he couldn’t get the rights to make a Flash Gordon movie.

I have read on the subject and I think that is exaggerated somewhat... but it's really not worth debating much honestly.

 

[overgeeked]

I have read on the subject and I think that is exaggerated somewhat...

You’d be wrong.

but it's really not worth debating much honestly.

You’re right about that.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I'll preface my answer by saying upfront Ive always found Spelljammer to be kinda stupid, but I do see it fits a niche regular DnD doesn't.

As far as why play in one and not the other ... think of the different possibilities in storytelling potential and player choice. A resident of Middle Earth is extremely invested in how the War of the Ring shakes out. A Spelljamming crew can shrug at Sauron and head off to greener pastures.

A story set in infinite worlds (spaceborne or dimension hopping) allows the players to encounter situations "of the week" that wouldn't work in a traditional campaign. See the OG Star Trek, Twilight Zone, or Sliders for some big concept of the week storytelling that can't be done in a traditional DnD setting.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I'll try to give answers that haven't already been given before:

1) Since 5E Spelljammer will use the Astral Sea there will now be chances for sailors to run into githyanki riding red dragons, emissaries from the Outer Planes (angels, morons, demons, devils, morons, etc), the crews of other ships could be from completely different worlds with different pantheons and other unique features, etc.
2) The original Spelljammer had a tendency to reskin existing monsters as similar-yet-distinct aliens with different cultures, powers, etc. It's an opportunity to disguise well-known monsters from players so that they won't already have a good idea what to do based on the name and appearance of the creature.
3) Different planetoids can have wildly different rules. For example, in the adventure The Heart of the Enemy there is a planet that normally causes red dragons to dramatically shrink so that even an adult looks like a pseudodragon (take the dragon off-world, though, and you've got a different story).
4) The setting is fantastical and can include things such as sentient constellations in a system where stars are giant pearls that asks the party to find which planetoid one of its stars fell on, or a living comet that maintains an interplanetary ecosystem by carrying natural resources from world to world where they are needed (both of these are featured in The Heart of the Enemy).

 

[Unwise]

A semi-related note, if you want to do ship to ship combat, steal some of the ship rules from SW5E. It is really exceptional.

 

[Umbran]

Tell me of a how, in a Pirate setting, this comes along and kills ya.

You ever get in a fight with a swan? They will frak you up, man!

 

[Umbran]

It’s actually pretty easy.

Especially when you can refer to the prior d20 Star Wars out there.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just realized…

You could LITERALLY play Spelljammer over a regular pirate campaign.

Start off with your preferred regular D&D style pirate campaign setting: world like ours Vs archipelago world Vs waterworld- and at some point, “First Contact“ happens. Or “War of the Worlds”. Or the leviathans congregate in the waters off of one particular island…