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D&D General Is Spelljammer really that bad?
- Thread starter Chaosmancer
- Start date
JEB
Legend
To be fair, it might be getting a bump for Christmas, as a more obvious gift for D&D player friends/relatives than Dragonlance (boxed set vs. hardcover). But sales is sales.
John R Davis
Hero
Finished Xarysis tonight :
You need to find A to get B to do C.
A does not have B but D may have E.
D does not have E but F might have G.
F does not have G but H might.
Rinse and repeat all the way to X.
Contrived Betrayal.
Contrived Betrayal.
Contrived Betrayal.
Universe blows up
Place on eBay
You need to find A to get B to do C.
A does not have B but D may have E.
D does not have E but F might have G.
F does not have G but H might.
Rinse and repeat all the way to X.
Contrived Betrayal.
Contrived Betrayal.
Contrived Betrayal.
Universe blows up
Place on eBay
jasper
Rotten DM
How many of those 5 stars reviews have more that one sentence saying best product every. I give my wife's products four or five stars reviews but no written reviews.
1589 reviews 93 written reviews 5 stars
345 reviews 45 written reviews 4 stars
170 reviews 36 written reviews 3 stars
112 reviews 52 written reviews 2 stars
92 reviews 55 written reviews 1 stars
"... but the boat dynamics are so awesome to have." 5 stars what boat dynamics?
"i have literally never gotten a package so fast before. blew my mind! ordered it one day and it showed up the next day at 6 so it only took like 12-14 hours to deliver or something crazy like that! i didnt even order it with fast shipping! also the book is incredible! art is some of the best ive seen in those books! just happy in general!"
"
5 stars because I've waited seemingly forever for spelljammer to be updated. Much of what I've known and loved is back.
Unfortunately, the book that i would expect to really be the foundation of the whole thing, the adventure's guide, is only 64 pages. It gets the gist across, but it might be difficult for some one who isn't familiar with the original material to know what to do. More space for ship mechanics amd setting would have beem nice.
Still, 5 stars because i love spelljammer and i want them to publish more material."
"..
If you are doing ship to ship combat, I would highly recommend doing it as "Theater of the Mind". I've played a ton of Star Wars and Starfinder games over the past couple decades, and starship combat is NOT fun. Just skip it, or make a few rolls to simulate combat- and then describe the awesome space battle that just happened.
Making roll after roll, while you advance your spaceship mini a hex at a time, isn't fun. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise..."
"A neat structure for running adventures in space. While ships and economic POTENTIAL are discussed, the specifics of what to do in space outside of the adventure is left largely to player imagination. While ship-to-ship combat has been built to be unfavorable (the damage from ship-board weapons is abysmally low and slow), boarding keeps things similar and familiar to the classic ambush-type encounters."
"
Interesting to read negative reviews over content. I would suggest those on the fence buy the product and consume it for themselves. It is evocative, gorgeous, whimsical, and imaginative. One of the most imagination inspiring release by WoTC.
Every page sets the mind to whirling with ideas and dreams. You will not be disappointed if you have the average active imagination of a true gamer
"" Here let me insult the negative reviewers. "The books were perfect upon arrival, and will give reasonable benefit to any 5e games you run. Something I would concern you with is there is a lightness to the amount of actual new things being introduced. A few new races and new variations of races and almost no new items."
"
Sadly the book is way too short,but the adventure which comes with it, it's really great.
It's not your full price worth, but wait for a good discount, and it's a sure purchase!"
All of those are taken from the five star reviews.
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darjr
I crit!
A quick look? Several. Lots? I’m not going through all 200 plus reviews.
I will note that many seem to be of a begrudging sort.
i_was_like_you
Villager
We shouldn't consider Spelljammer in a vacuum...
While we shouldn't necessarily consider any part of the 5e product line as separate from the core books, we definitely shouldn't consider The Astral Adventurer's Guide separately from the Spelljammer Adventures in Space (A thrilling space-based adventure setting for the world's greatest roleplaying game). It is a bundle, intentionally, with each of the three volumes referencing each other throughout. Nor should we truly consider said bundle apart from Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. It functions much like the VanRichten's Guide does for fleshing out the Ravenloft campaign setting beyond the Curse of Strahd adventure.
I think that it's an alright product, aside from a bit of formatting changes I would make:
Hey Hasbro, yeah you, stop breathing down the neck of your only billion dollar brand, and find a way to make your other brands anywhere near as profitable year after year. Obviously, even in uncertain economic times, Wizards of the Coast has consistently managed to maintain revenue. They must be doing something right.
Stop just slapping any IP you can get a hold of on your existing board games and come up with something good. That and buy up the companies making auxiliary products for Wizards games, like dice, card sleeves, and miniatures, and add them to their portfolio.
While we shouldn't necessarily consider any part of the 5e product line as separate from the core books, we definitely shouldn't consider The Astral Adventurer's Guide separately from the Spelljammer Adventures in Space (A thrilling space-based adventure setting for the world's greatest roleplaying game). It is a bundle, intentionally, with each of the three volumes referencing each other throughout. Nor should we truly consider said bundle apart from Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. It functions much like the VanRichten's Guide does for fleshing out the Ravenloft campaign setting beyond the Curse of Strahd adventure.
I think that it's an alright product, aside from a bit of formatting changes I would make:
The 32 pages making up the ships section of chapter 2, Astral Adventuring, of the Astral Adventurer's Guide should have been a separate booklet, like the Tarokka Deck booklet in Curse of Strahd (deluxe, anyways), possibly even perforated or separate as handouts because in ship to ship encounters, the players are going to need theirs, while the DM needs the other one (barring mirror matches).
The handful of pages that constituted the entirety of chapter 3, the Rock of Bral should also have been a separate booklet.
That leaves us with the remaining 7 pages of chapter 2 (most of which also appears on the DM screen), as well as the 9 pages of chapter 1, Character Options (most of which appears in Boo's Astral Menagerie), and the 2 pages of the Intro, Vast Oceans of Adventure. These 18 pages (or what's left of them if we remove the redundancy) should have been added to Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, which should have been included in the Spelljammer bundle.
At an MSRP of $69.99 for the regular edition, plus an additional $49.95 for Radiant Citadel, that's more than twice what it should be priced at, especially considering the added cash grab of the alternate covers and the special editions.Hey Hasbro, yeah you, stop breathing down the neck of your only billion dollar brand, and find a way to make your other brands anywhere near as profitable year after year. Obviously, even in uncertain economic times, Wizards of the Coast has consistently managed to maintain revenue. They must be doing something right.
Stop just slapping any IP you can get a hold of on your existing board games and come up with something good. That and buy up the companies making auxiliary products for Wizards games, like dice, card sleeves, and miniatures, and add them to their portfolio.
Demetrios1453
Hero
Why would you bundle Spelljammer with Radiant Citadel? The first utilises the entirity of the Astral, while the second uses a single hub in the Ethereal. One uses ships to travel to a virtually infinite number of worlds, the other uses portals to a select few worlds. Thematically and mechanically, they aren't similar at all.
I really wanted to like this setting--I mean, I was hyped about doing a Treasure Planet / Outlaw Star esque campaign. And then the actual reviews and breakdowns of what was in the book started coming in, and it all faded away.
Everything I've heard makes it sound...low-effort. People have mentioned Stars Without Number, and that offers a very good, very compact way to generate random systems with plot hooks ready to go in just a few pages. Something like that? Nope, too much effort. A space combat system that engages the party? Nope, too much effort. I think the Hadozee mess was the cherry on top. OK, I understand why you excised the old lore, what's it getting replaced with? Oh....nothing? Well, I guess that is a guaranteed way to offend nobody.
"Just use your imagination!" I can indeed do that, and I'm not sure I need what the books offer to enhance that.
WotC can and have done better--Eberron and Ravenloft have far more meat on the bones. I swear if Waterdeep: Dragon Heist came out today, the description of Waterdeep would be "It's a fantasy city with people doing stuff, I dunno, make something up."....and people would defend it.
Everything I've heard makes it sound...low-effort. People have mentioned Stars Without Number, and that offers a very good, very compact way to generate random systems with plot hooks ready to go in just a few pages. Something like that? Nope, too much effort. A space combat system that engages the party? Nope, too much effort. I think the Hadozee mess was the cherry on top. OK, I understand why you excised the old lore, what's it getting replaced with? Oh....nothing? Well, I guess that is a guaranteed way to offend nobody.
"Just use your imagination!" I can indeed do that, and I'm not sure I need what the books offer to enhance that.
WotC can and have done better--Eberron and Ravenloft have far more meat on the bones. I swear if Waterdeep: Dragon Heist came out today, the description of Waterdeep would be "It's a fantasy city with people doing stuff, I dunno, make something up."....and people would defend it.
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