Spelljammer Mearls and Spelljammer challenge

[fjw70]

Same here - the astral plane is basically hyperspace, allowing fast travel between distant points. There are gith, but other beasts as well.

Hadn’t thought about that. I may have to incorporate that.

 

[Sadras]

I've also discarded the phlogiston et al and have races sail the Astral Sea. The hyperspace is a nice touch.

 

[AtomicPope]

I've been running Spelljammer 5e for 3 years and it looks like I'm doing the same things as everyone else:
* Space is in the Astral Sea, but not fully the Astral Plane (like the Border Ethereal)
* There are Astral Currents that act like Hyperspace Lanes (trade triangle, etc) to give it an Age of Sail feel
* Heavenly Bodies have a Crystal Sphere that creates a Planar Boundary (ie, you cannot teleport to another plane but if you have a tuning fork you can plane shift)
* Underdark creatures are spacefaring (Dwarves, Aberrations, Oozes, et al)
* Space is like being at very high altitude

To shift away from the "Dungeon" and into Space I changed the healing rules. In this way the PCs are reluctant to linger around after a few deadly encounters. Instead, they go back to their ship and stay in the triage.
* No full hit points healed after a long rest
* When you drop to zero hit points you suffer 1 level of exhausion
* To spend hit dice during a short rest you must use a healer's kit

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

I've also discarded the phlogiston et al and have races sail the Astral Sea. The hyperspace is a nice touch.

Thank you. I am working on adapting some of the settings from Gulliver's Travels. Just for the sake of novelty. No pun intended. But age of sail is the thing I'm going for.

 

[Irda Ranger]

* No full hit points healed after a long rest
* When you drop to zero hit points you suffer 1 level of exhausion
* To spend hit dice during a short rest you must use a healer's kit

I like these slightly grittier healing rules, without being super-gritty. It looks like a nice compromise.

I had my own ideas for Spelljammer, but another guy in my group is running it his way. He was a Navy submariner, so he has specific ideas about how ships should work. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Personally, I noticed the lack of a Giff player race and details about the Illithid Empire in MTOF, and thought to myself "Maybe they're holding those back for Spelljammer?". Then I saw Mearls' tweet and I got unreasonably excited. A Stream of Many Eyes could also be about Spelljamming beholders.

Anyway, it's nice to keep the dream alive.

I'm liking the ideas here about simplifying Spelljammer, and making the phlogiston the Astral Plane (or Border Astral). That seems consistent with the 5E ethos too.

I had developed my own alt-cosmology for Spelljammer, where the Prime Material Plane was "all phlogiston" except where "stellar ruptures" from the Elemental Plane of Fire (aka, stars) had permanently burned it away, leaving a bubble of free space. The ash from burning away that much phlogiston hardened into a crystal sphere. I'll have to think about this Astral Sea business and whether it makes more sense.

 

[SkidAce]

I know its wrong...

But I'm tired of all my good ideas becoming official in some fashion. I think they are spying on me.

I'm going to be pissed when 5e uses space as space and astral for hyperspace.

I may even become indignant.

And you other folks using astral as hyperspace????

...I got my eye on you too....

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

And you other folks using astral as hyperspace????

...I got my eye on you too....

Pppbbbttt!

I thought of it first and you can't prove otherwise.

Joking aside there is nothing to stop us from doing our own Homebrew thing.

 

[SkidAce]

Pppbbbttt!

I thought of it first and you can't prove otherwise.

Joking aside there is nothing to stop us from doing our own Homebrew thing.

Ahh, in reality you are correct.

Great minds and all that, and I'm sure the wheel was invented in several places.


A moment of truth, before I end the tangent/humor rant I started....

It does get mildly annoying when new folks would join (was in military and moved a lot) and they would say "Oh you got that from so and so book".

/sigh


Carry on stalwart adventurers, carry on!

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Spelljammer might be better received now than it was in the early 90s. Why? Well, look at how science fiction RPGs are thriving, with some even having a mystical or fantastical element (i.e. "science fantasy"). Now Spelljammer isn't SF, but as being "fantasy in space" (so to speak) it could draw upon the current popularity of Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, both of which have strong fantastical elements.

The few issues I had with Spelljammer had nothing to do with space fantasy. Most of it centered around the tone and their poor attempt at humor. The real problem with humor in a written medium that you'll be reading frequently is that the jokes grow stale and are no longer funny. This tendency is greatly exacerbated if the jokes aren't funny to begin with. Planescape, in my opinion, had a similar problem, although it was somewhat better in that it was attempting to create its own slang and lingo to be used in game. It's also the same issue I have with many modern games like Apocalypse Now and similar games. The comments throughout Xanathar's Guide to Everything also come to mind. On the other hand, the old Volo's Guides written by Ed Greenwood are much more successful in that regard, mostly by keeping the humor to the footnotes. However, I'm quite aware that there are people that hate those too.

Having said that, Planescape was great fun and relatively easy to work into an existing campaign. Spelljammer, on the other hand, was not. The lore and concepts had too much of an impact on existing campaigns, say the Forgotten Realms and Grayhawk, and required either a significant reworking of established lore to make sense, or just ignoring the things it breaks in the setting. Even just trying to add it for expanded lore, but relegating it to the background doesn't really work well.

There seems to be a theory that Spelljammer and Planescape will be merged, with Spelljammers flying through the planes (the Astral Plane is a common thought), and this seems to be based on things that have been said or hinted at from WotC. I confess that at the moment I don't recall where I saw the references.

Regardless, a space fantasy with a light-hearted feel can easily draw inspiration from things like you mention, particularly Guardians of the Galaxy, and others like Firefly.