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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Von Ether" data-source="post: 7739653" data-attributes="member: 15582">First I mentoned that these were two easier ways to do the job. Not the only ways, so I'm confused as to the need for a rebuttal. But oddly enough, these examples support my suggestion.And ignoring the even older cliches in D&D where the bartender is secretly a high-level traveler so as not to be intimidated by jerky PCs. And as a spectator of the Eberron Regicide forum flame war. I learned that some thought it  was such a scandal that Eberron's rulers were only mid-level with most of their level in NPC classes. Many GM's feared that would make them fat plumbs for high level PC. So D&D has an even longer history of doing work-arounds to avoid such inconvenient things. Hence, shoehorning D&Dism into the environment get players to behave. As things mostly under NPC, and GM control (and hence highly ignorable for the plot and the GM), giving such similar toys to players make such things much less ignorable. And if you ask players to ignore too many inconvenient things (i.e., be told "No, you can't do that. Nope, you can't do that either and nooot that either." Then players may wonder why even bother with said toys. (But that gets back to my suggestion that Spelljammer needed to focus on either swashbucking or Master and Commander.)Yep. Adjusting parts of the setting to avoid situations that need more rules. Easy-peasy. I said it would could be the easiest fix, not saying there aren't more fixes, they'd just probably be more complicated.And I'm saying that in gaming, the reason it's done that way is because doing 3-D battles are usually clunky and most designers and players find out that the added "realism" isn't worth the extra effort. This comes from about 20 years of doing starship minis combat and reading said genre's designer blogs. As for sci-fi fiction and movies, that's a whole other discussion because Spelljammer is science fantasy about sailing ships in the stars, so we're starting to talk apples and oranges. We can agree to disagree. For me, "mechanics should flow from the setting" imply exactly that. Design the setting first, narrow down what you want players to experience in that setting and how you want to them to experience it and figure how your rules accomplish that goal. On the other two hands <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> , if you want to use D&D then it's much easier to start with embracing how D&D implies many things for your setting (zero to hero growth, niche hero protection, certain archetypes, etc.) and then tweak a setting idea to fit. It's also easier to have only a few PC skills/attribute checks to interact with a whole separate mini-game that operates in a different mode. You can find other valid solutions, never said you couldn't. As a side note, I ran a Spelljammer homage game for a whole year in another game system and it went pretty smooth.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The 'jammers worked off of potions and scrolls. Luckily, my players let me do the bookkeeping so I discovered any math mistake later.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> There were no planets, just floating islands that mysteriously kept gravity and refreshed air (the PC solved that one to their own horror and lost a PC in the effort.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> The air currents around said "bastions" were dangerous high up and you had to find a safe "current" to sail in into harbor, otherwise the ship would be smashed by hurricane winds higher up. (No rock bombing possible)</li> </ul>Keep things alternating from wacky to terrifying and the players had a great time.</blockquote>

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