I hear bad thing about the other setting tie-in books so I'm saving those for last.
Practical Planetology is also a favorite of mine and I rather like Greyspace but that is because I am Greyhawker first and foremost.
I also liked the idea of Under the Dark Fist and 2nd Unhuman War adventures. Although I've since heard Under the Dark Fist has several flaws.
The Astromundi Cluster is incredible. I keep hoping to run a campaign in it someday.
I always wanted to get my hands on the Astromundi Cluster material. Never did, but I do have the Legend of the Spelljammer Boxed set, that one is always fun if you are willing to devote a campaign to it or start one on it, have done that too. Still I don't think anything is more valuable to a spelljammer campaign than the War Captian's Companion set.
Then of course, there's the ship catalog. Twenty ships, built by and primarily used by everyone from kobolds (Angelship), undead (Flying Pyramid), goblins (Porcupine Ship), orcs (Scorpion Ship), halflings (Swan Ship), to lizard men (Turtle Ship). The flying pyramid kinda puts me in mind of Stargate: SG-1. Hmm . . .
The supplement gets rounded out with new spells (like disable helm, and create atmosphere), new equipment (like giff guns for ships, and the crown of the void for PCs), and of course new monsters (from the innocuous Flow Barnacle to the unlikely Arch Lich-- a good lich, if you can believe it ;)).
well "Skull & Crossbows" style ones, thought they were amazing in terms of art, layout and info.
Those, some of the Dark Sun add ons like "Dune Trader", and the beastiary series "The Ilithiad" "Eye Tyrant" and "Sea Devils" were high points of TSR's era, sigh
~Bewildered
The Astromundi Cluster is incredible. I keep hoping to run a campaign in it someday.
Practical Planetology is also a favorite of mine and I rather like Greyspace but that is because I am Greyhawker first and foremost.
Also Lost Ships and Practical Planetology.
Bel
Been reading through the PDFs. I really like Rock of Braal, Skull and crossbows, Practical Planetology. I actually have hard copies of the last two since they were by Nigel Findley one of my favorite RPG writers before he passed on.
I managed to miss that sad news until relatively recently.
Looking forward to the books with the 2nd Unhuman war since it ties to the Cloakmaster novels. I hear bad thing about the other setting tie-in books so I'm saving those for last.
To be honest, every Spelljammer product has its good and bad points.
I've heard people (including people well respected in the SJ community) say that they don't like X or Y, but have been able to find great gems of information in them.
But I've also heard people say that they love X and Y, but have seen fairly fatal flaws in them.
Spelljammer really has an unfinished feel to it (like the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi). You really need to read between the lines, get in touch with your inner Grubbmeister and write well researched fanon designed to fill in all the blanks.
Every time I leave my SJ gamebooks for a while, and then go back to them, I seem to find something that I never noticed before (as if it is a new detail) and that makes me change my favorite product on a regular basis.
However, I do like SJA3 Crystal Spheres (which I would have loved to have seen made into four 3e sourcebooks for Herospace, Faeriespace, Greatspace and Darkspace).
I'm also currently looking at the SJ content within PHBR8 The Complete Book of Elves and planning to raid the elven world concept to make an Elven Navy home sphere. (You can read more on my "[Celenaresspace] Milking PHBR8 to create THE elven sphere" thread over at The Piazza.)
Can someone tell me if the hardcopy of Greyspace (SJR6) has a map like Realmspace and Krynnspace? ~Bewildered
I seem to recall that one of them didn't have a map. But to be honest, the sphere maps were pretty much useless (except as art). Keep watching the SJR6 Greyspace page at Spelljammer Wiki and eventually, I'll get to the posters*.
* = I pulled all my SJ posers out of the products and had them laminated, and they are all stored separately in a couple of poster tubes. I'm still wikifying other (more important) details, and will come back to the posters at another time.
The best sphere map in a SJ product is from The Astromundi Cluster boxed set.
-Nate
On the one hand, Under the Dark Fist is probably the most epic experience I've ever had in a roleplaying game. We played that as the end of a massively high-level campaign when I was fifteen, as a weekend-long marathon session, and it was purely awesome. The council vote was high drama, and the final battle has never been matched for action and emotion.
On the other hand, Skull & Crossbows was the series of adventures that really built the foundation of the campaign, and I remember having a lot of fun with that.
-Nate
My copy of Greyspace doesn't have a map in it, although I did buy it used and so am not sure if it should. Additonally, I don't have Krynnspace and so can't comment on whether it's the one without the map.
SJR7 Krynnspace definately does have a sphere map. (I don't like it, as it is more art than a functional game aid, but it is there.)
If one of the products does not have a map, it is between SJR2 Realmspace and SJR6 Greyspace. (I can see myself going to hunt through my map tube sooner than I expected to.
)-Nate
-Realmspace.
I second that motion!
Realmspace has a map. It, too, is more artistic than navigational, but it does list each body's distance from the primary and approximate travel time between them.
Thanks Nate. I just checked my map collection. I've got no map for SJR6 Greyspace.
Ah, the late days of TSR...
I like "the Astromundi Cluster" if only for how stupendously bad it is. There's like, two or three gems of great ideas there, and then they just piled on a ton of nonsense and horribleness.
Hmm. I'd say that the great ideas are more than three. I even think that some of the less than great ideas can be improved. And I think the seemingly wonky ideas can be salvaged and others can be turned into something workable.
I find the elves especially wonky. The one race that is not tied to the sphere is treated as if it has somehow mutated from the rest of the elven subraces. But I think that it is all rebootable.
My biggest pet hate with Clusterspace is the "Hotel California" effect. You get handed a new sphere, but then get told that nobody can get out. The Spelljammer (the ship) has the same thing going for it. Hrmph!
Ah, the late days of TSR...
Well, TSR did go on for quite a while after Spelljammer was cancelled. But I think they were cutting back on things by this stage in the SJ product line.