I'd like to see Spelljammer mentioned in 4th ed at least, as a way to get from port city's to "strange locales", as things like the illithids' Nautiloid and Neogi's Deathspider Spelljamming ship have been mentioned in 3rd ed.
Resurrecting that ridiculous, horrible, pathetic excuse for a setting would be a terrible mistake. I believe spelljammer was one of the reason that 2nd Ed died. The day it is given any attention other then ridicule would be a sad, sad day indeed
That being said, Planescape rocks and it should not be ignored in 4e!
I believe spelljammer was one of the reason that 2nd Ed died.
That'd be a neat trick, seeing as they stopped publishing Spelljammer (1989-93) in 1993, not coincidentally right before publishing Planescape materials (1994-99), and seven years before 3.0 was released in 2000.
Actually, between Spelljammer and Planescape, simply looking at the timing, it would be more reasonable to say that Planescape killed 2nd edition.
(Which I wouldn't say because Planescape was only one of many reasons 2nd edition had to be killed.)
(Trivia sidenote -- the true birth of Spelljammer could be traced to the classic 1st edition module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks published in 1980.)
That'd be a neat trick, seeing as they stopped publishing Spelljammer (1989-93) in 1993, not coincidentally right before publishing Planescape materials (1994-99), and seven years before 3.0 was released in 2000.
Actually, between Spelljammer and Planescape, simply looking at the timing, it would be more reasonable to say that Planescape killed 2nd edition.
(Which I wouldn't say because Planescape was only one of many reasons 2nd edition had to be killed.)
(Trivia sidenote -- the true birth of Spelljammer could be traced to the classic 1st edition module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks published in 1980.)
Perhaps what I am calling 2nd Ed is not the same as what you would call 2nd Ed. I am not to familiar with the dates all the material was released so I am not sure where 1st Ed ends and 2nd Ed begin. I always assumed Spelljammer was published during 2nd Ed. I started playing the game when it was called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I assumed that was 2nd Ed.
Anyway, I agree 2nd Ed had to die and I agree that Planescape was a part of its death. After 5 boxed sets, 3-4 monster compendiums, countless modules and a number of other material there came to be just too much to handle.
And perhaps I am not being fair to spelljammer, I never really read a lot of the material. This is mainly because I did not enjoy what I did read. To me space travel and DnD just did not mix well. In addition I really do like Planescape and I would like to see it developed further as long as it is not overdone as it was in the past.
Not unlike the modern books did with Star Frontiers....sigh....
Age of Sail, pirates, privateers...yum! Good fun. Add in magic and what do you get...? Flying ships! Where does that lead you? Space! And space in a Fantasy Universe does not have to be anything LIKE our own.
The problem with planescape to me was it always seamed so small. I can walk to anything I needed to in Planescape. It always seemed safer to travel in planescape than it did in normal worlds.
Spelljammer was a good idea except it tried to link to many things up. I hated crystal spheres. I hated that all the campaign worlds were on the same material plane.
All the settings creater hated it well. Greyhawk was part of the great whell cosmology. Forgotten Realms was a Great Tree and Dragonlance was I believe just tree different planes.
If you mix the two setting together you could do a kick but settings. Spelljammers trave space and planes to reach other worlds. In 4e it could be epic in scope.
Take out the spheres, put in large gate in space to allow ships to travel to the shadow plane. The transitve plane allows access to other material planes or other large dimentional gates.
Mix the factions from Planescape and Spelljammer. They work.
The Gythyanki make for great antagonists in space and on the astral plane.
I say save both setting, by combining them both.
Perhaps what I am calling 2nd Ed is not the same as what you would call 2nd Ed. I am not to familiar with the dates all the material was released so I am not sure where 1st Ed ends and 2nd Ed begin. I always assumed Spelljammer was published during 2nd Ed. I started playing the game when it was called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. I assumed that was 2nd Ed.
You are correct in that Spelljammer was a 2nd edition campaign setting, but wrecan was correct in pointing out that it was cancelled long before 2nd edition ended. I believe that mismanagement at the top of TSR was more responsible for its collapse than "bad campaign settings". If TSR wasn't badly run we wouldn't be discussing D&D on a Wizards of the Coast website.
I think that all the out of print 2nd edition settings had a lot of potential and am really disapointed that WotC have restricted us to "Forgotten Realms or Ebberon". WotC current policy forces people to go back to 2nd edition rules (or the fan conversions from those rules) to have the game of D&D they want.
(I didn't like the 3rd edition Ravenloft licenced products (as they transformed the Demi-Plane of Dread into a standard horror setting), but the SP/MWP products for Dragonlance have been great. Check them out quickly as they have to stop selling them soon and I've got no idea if 4th edition will have a Dragonlance Campaign Setting.)
I'm hearing rumors that everything except FR and Ebberon is going to only get online support via D&D Insider.
That just isn't good enough for me 3rd edition and 3.5 are better rulesets that older versions of D&D (in my opinion - no flames please), but 2nd edition D&D has a richness of campaign settings that is so beautiful that it is unsurprising that many people continue to stick with the old rules so that they can carry on playing in the D&D worlds they love.
I want my Spelljammer - I want my Dragonlance - I want my Greyhawk - I want my Forgotten Realms - And I want Planescape. Fan conversions are nice, as a second place alternative to new campaign settings, but they have taken so long that many of the official websites haven't finished 3rd edition before it has ended. So I insist on WotC increasing the number of campaign worlds they support before I switch to their new core rules. (I'm not even going to read the 4th edition SRD.)
Anyway, I agree 2nd Ed had to die and I agree that Planescape was a part of its death.
I'm more of a Spelljammer fan than a Planescape fan, but I wouldn't blame Planescape for 2nd edition dying. I think Gary G. and other D&D gurus being booted out was more likely to have caused any drop in quality. D&D needs to have people who love it and live it at the helm.
And perhaps I am not being fair to spelljammer, I never really read a lot of the material.
Spelljammer isn't for everyone, and I wouldn't claim that it is, but "It was a happy day when Spelljammer died..." is definately an unfair thing to say, especially if you haven't read a lot about it.
If you don't enjoy SJ it would be far better to go to forums of settings you do like and say something positive about something you do like.
This is mainly because I did not enjoy what I did read. To me space travel and DnD just did not mix well.
To me the biggest problem with Spelljammer, was that people didn't understand that it was "fantasy space". Most of the people I have seen bashing it believe it is a "sci-fi" setting bolted on to their favorite campaign setting.
There were some continuity issues in the three "...space" books (Greyspace, Krynnspace and Realmspace). A lot of people were disapointed about those, but the SJ fans were just as disapointed, if not more disapointed, than fans of other campaign settings.
But handled well Spelljammer can be used as a trasitive campaign setting that can take a group of players from Forgottten Realms to Dragonlance or to Greyhawk. Or it can be used in a game that ignores all of those "groundling worlds" and goes somewhere else.
A DM who only plays one of the big three campaign settings can also use Spelljammer to turn his game into Dragonlance-in-space, Greyhawk-in-space or Forgotten Realms-in-space, by restricting their game to the crystal sphere containing their favorite game world. (This sort of campaign would be espcially useful for Greyhawk DMs who are fans of the god Celestian who is supposed to be a space explorer.)
The great thing about Spelljammer (if you like it) is that the space travel is open deck sailing on ships propelled by magic and does not play like something from a sci-fi RPG.
Risks associated with landing on large planets insulate Oerth, Krynn and Toril from most "contamination" risks, as long as a DM knows the rules and is willing to make PCs that abuse Spelljammer crash land.
The void of wildspace keeps ships out of the sight of "groundlings" and the crystal spheres stop other gods from invading the area around the groundling world.
I think that if TSR did a better job of publising the strong points of Spelljammer, it would have had a lot more support. As it is, the setting is very misunderstood. I often have to correct people who think it is "sci-fi" or who think it is called "SpellJammer".
In addition I really do like Planescape and I would like to see it developed further as long as it is not overdone as it was in the past.
I would love to see Planescape come back, but this is a Spelljammer thread and it would be best for PS fans to start their own thread where they can show the WizOs that there is public pressure for a 4th edition Planescape Campaign Settting.
As a fan of spelljammer i would love to see at least a mention of the campaign world.
There has been some nods to Spelljammer in 3rd edition products. My favorite one is Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, which has a Beyond Faerun section, that mentions Kara-Tur, Maztica and Zakhara as well as The Sea of Night.
The Sea of Night section is the largest of these and covers (but doesn't mention by name) Realmspace and its spacefaring community.
I was so happy to see these things mentioned, yet so sad that 3rd edition got the chop before any of them were brought back. I would buy a 3rd/3.5 edition Realmspace. I would buy Al-Qadim. I would buy Maztica. I would buy Kara-Tur (and was gutted when I saw that Oriental Adventures dumped Kara-Tur in favor of a random CCG world). The fact that these and many other settings are "missing" from 3rd/3.5 edition makes me feel that WotC have sold me a half finished game.
I am so sad about that, because the d20 System is a great engine and D&D deserves to have great campaign worlds to show it off.
If you ask me, I'd like to see Planscape and Spelljammer linked.
Planescape did make use of the Spelljammer setting, so in a way they are already linked.
The problem with planescape to me was it always seamed so small. I can walk to anything I needed to in Planescape. It always seemed safer to travel in planescape than it did in normal worlds.
To be fair I think that R&D time had been cut to an absolute minimum by the time that Planescape came out - I think that the product would have been 100 percent better if it (and all the other 2nd edition campaign settings) was made with the sort of budget that WotC spent on early 3rd edition products.
Each of the planes in Planescape needed to be portrayed as an infinately large area with enough room for an infinate number of dead souls and Planewalkers. I think that sourcebooks should have portrayed that a bit better, instead of focussing on the strange Planespeak slang that Planewalkers use.
Spelljammer was a good idea except it tried to link to many things up. I hated crystal spheres. I hated that all the campaign worlds were on the same material plane.
Spelljammer doesn't work without the crystal spheres. They are an essential plot device. Everything inside Krynnspace follows laws of nature dictated by Dragonlance, while everthing inside Realmspace follows laws of nature dictated by Forgotten Realms. And so on. The spheres allow you to add any game world to Spelljammer, while excluding rules from other games that would clash with the canon of that game world.
All the settings creater hated it well.
Erm. Do you actually have links to pages where setting creators badmouth Spelljammer and/or Planescape? I've got a feeling that this might just be anti-SJ or anti-PS lies that have no truth behind them. I'm not sure about Planescape, but a lot of the people working on Spelljammer also worked on other product lines that Spelljammer linked in with. Jeff Grubb the main SJ man has had a lot of involvement with lots of other campaign settings.
Greyhawk was part of the great whell cosmology. Forgotten Realms was a Great Tree and Dragonlance was I believe just tree different planes.
It wasn't the fault of SJ or PS that someone at TSR tried to make the Great Wheel universal. SJ doesn't make too many references to cosmology and I'm pretty sure PS came along after the reboot had already happened.
I have not seen any reference to the FR Great Tree before the 3rd edition FRCS. I think that was a change from earlier material.
If you mix the two setting together you could do a kick but settings. Spelljammers trave space and planes to reach other worlds. In 4e it could be epic in scope.
I think there is a lot of crossover potential (with the Celestians being common to SJ and PS and SJ having Planar Churches and Polygot Faiths that would fit in well with the concept of planewalking.)
But I was discussing this recently somewhere else and I would prefer to see a separate Spelljammer Campaign Setting and Planescape Campaign Setting hardbacks. There are some people who like SJ but dislike PC and vice versa. Separate books gives fans who want both, twice as much stuff, while making it possible for people to opt into one of them if that is what they prefer to do.
I think that sourcebooks that deal with individual crystal spheres/campaign worlds like Greyspace, Realmspace and (if you can figure out the problems with Takhisis stealing the world) Krynnspace could provide rules for Spelljammer, while providing links between the local worlds and the planes. A book like Krynnspace could also provide a way to link the DL cosmology to the Great Wheel.
Take out the spheres, put in large gate in space to allow ships to travel to the shadow plane. The transitve plane allows access to other material planes or other large dimentional gates.
Nooooo! Stay away from my precious spheres, my phlogiston and my single material plane universe.
You can have travel between wildspace and other planes. (I wouldn't limit it to the Shadow Plane - I'd want Astral Plane and Etherial Plane travel too.) The Spelljammer fans call inter-plane travel on spelljamming ships "Planejammer".
I'm a fan of Planejamming, but not everyone loves both settings and if you force it on people who only want SJ or PS you will spoil it for them. It needs to be an option that sits on top of both the other settings.
Mix the factions from Planescape and Spelljammer. They work.
The Gythyanki make for great antagonists in space and on the astral plane.
I say save both setting, by combining them both.
I say share some factions and some monsters and make both settings support each other, but keep them separate. Then people who want to do the Planejammer thing can use them both together and people who want pure SJ or pure PS still have their way.
Separate - but compatible - Spelljammer and Planescape settings are a win-win situation for all fans.
Spelljammer doesn't work without the crystal spheres. They are an essential plot device. Everything inside Krynnspace follows laws of nature dictated by Dragonlance, while everthing inside Realmspace follows laws of nature dictated by Forgotten Realms. And so on. The spheres allow you to add any game world to Spelljammer, while excluding rules from other games that would clash with the canon of that game world.
It works great without them. And as proof I offer the Mini campaign for Spelljammer created by Paizo
Erm. Do you actually have links to pages where setting creators badmouth Spelljammer and/or Planescape? I've got a feeling that this might just be anti-SJ or anti-PS lies that have no truth behind them. I'm not sure about Planescape, but a lot of the people working on Spelljammer also worked on other product lines that Spelljammer linked in with. Jeff Grubb the main SJ man has had a lot of involvement with lots of other campaign settings.
Head over to Enworld and do a search. And it wasn't just creators. It caused some fustration with others as well. Some of this pour out at conventions like Gen Con, some of it on message boards, some of it in publications.
It wasn't the fault of SJ or PS that someone at TSR tried to make the Great Wheel universal. SJ doesn't make too many references to cosmology and I'm pretty sure PS came along after the reboot had already happened.
Just by stating that the crystal spheres exist is a change to the cosmology of a game world.
I have not seen any reference to the FR Great Tree before the 3rd edition FRCS. I think that was a change from earlier material.
That has always been the case, it's Ed Greenwood's material, since inception. It was just made more to the point in 3e.
I think there is a lot of crossover potential (with the Celestians being common to SJ and PS and SJ having Planar Churches and Polygot Faiths that would fit in well with the concept of planewalking.)
But I was discussing this recently somewhere else and I would prefer to see a separate Spelljammer Campaign Setting and Planescape Campaign Setting hardbacks. There are some people who like SJ but dislike PC and vice versa. Separate books gives fans who want both, twice as much stuff, while making it possible for people to opt into one of them if that is what they prefer to do.
It really doesn't make sense to do so. The cost is high to do so.
I think that sourcebooks that deal with individual crystal spheres/campaign worlds like Greyspace, Realmspace and (if you can figure out the problems with Takhisis stealing the world) Krynnspace could provide rules for Spelljammer, while providing links between the local worlds and the planes. A book like Krynnspace could also provide a way to link the DL cosmology to the Great Wheel.
Ugh, why bother tying the game worlds cosmology together. Unification just makes everything less special. All the game worlds should have thier own cosmology. The abyss is differant in the Dragonlance world than it is in the Great Wheel, and it is differant than the one in Forgotten Realms.
But joining Planescape and Spelljammer together makes is differant. It pushes the settings to new places.
Spelljamming crews can find lost worlds like the planet that was stolen by Orcus in "Return to the Tomb of Horrors." or the planets that were described in "Queen of the Demonweb" pits. Both settings combine with an planer aspect of adventuring.
The point is grow out in differant ways. You'll never get the setting to pour back intot he bottle. The best chance for the setting is to re-imagine them for a bigger effect.
Nooooo! Stay away from my precious spheres, my phlogiston and my single material plane universe.
You can have travel between wildspace and other planes. (I wouldn't limit it to the Shadow Plane - I'd want Astral Plane and Etherial Plane travel too.) The Spelljammer fans call inter-plane travel on spelljamming ships "Planejammer".
I'm a fan of Planejamming, but not everyone loves both settings and if you force it on people who only want SJ or PS you will spoil it for them. It needs to be an option that sits on top of both the other settings.
I say share some factions and some monsters and make both settings support each other, but keep them separate. Then people who want to do the Planejammer thing can use them both together and people who want pure SJ or pure PS still have their way.
Separate - but compatible - Spelljammer and Planescape settings are a win-win situation for all fans.
Eventually some spellcaster is going to fly higher that anyone has gone before, and will need to know whats out there. It doesnt make sense for the metaverse to end at the edge of the atmosphere, wizards have breathing magicks and cold protection, theres no reason they have to stop flying when the air runs out.
If there was nothing out there, then why hasnt some crafty wizard built something out there yet? A fortress on the moon sounds pretty secure.
Problem was... it wasn't a campaign setting in its own right. There weren't enough Spelljammer-exclusive organizations, it didn't have its own cosmology and pantheons, and all of the regional material was based in the other 2nd Edition campaign settings, so that it couldn't stand alone.
If it had been given proper treatment from the get-go, people would still be running their old Spelljammer games and there would be 3.5e hardbacks dedicated to it, like the Manual of the Planes and the Planar Handbook were made for old-school Planescape fans.
Spelljammer was a great idea, and most of the original material for it was excellent. It was one of my absolute favorite campaign settings of all time.
Problem was... it wasn't a campaign setting in its own right. There weren't enough Spelljammer-exclusive organizations, it didn't have its own cosmology and pantheons, and all of the regional material was based in the other 2nd Edition campaign settings, so that it couldn't stand alone.
If it had been given proper treatment from the get-go, people would still be running their old Spelljammer games and there would be 3.5e hardbacks dedicated to it, like the Manual of the Planes and the Planar Handbook were made for old-school Planescape fans.
there were actually quite a few spelljammer-exclusive organisations (the complete and utter lack of which was one of the reasons i didn't like shadows of the spider moon). there were also lots of spelljammer-exclusive monsters and races (which have since been used elsewhere).
there was also plenty of spelljammer-exclusive regional material. there's a huge difference between greyhawk and greyspace, or krynn and krynnspace (not so much difference between realms and realmspace though, imo... which is disappointing, because if there was one crystal sphere i would have liked to see totally different from it's base campaign setting, it was realmspace). also, all of the adventures took place away from the big 3 settings (or in setting-neutral areas) introducing many new locations.
i just don't get why people would have used it just for crossover campaigns... that would be like buying stormwrack to handle those times when the party wants to book passage on the ship. you may as well just announce that it takes 2 weeks, and maybe throw in a random encounter or three... if you buy a book about ships and rules at sea, it's probably because you want to run a campaign involving ships and sea battles and adventures relating to those events (although it could also just be because you're addicted to buying D&D books =P )
not saying it didn't happen, mind you (i certainly don't have the market research to prove one way or the other). just saying i don't get why it would happen =P
That'd be a neat trick, seeing as they stopped publishing Spelljammer (1989-93) in 1993, not coincidentally right before publishing Planescape materials (1994-99), and seven years before 3.0 was released in 2000.
I'm glad someone pointed this out. Spelljammer was one of the very first AD&D2 settings, published in the same year as AD&D2 itself. In some senses, it was AD&D2's Eberron. Of course, it was never very popular, but it certainly had nothing to do with the end of AD&D2. It was published so early on in AD&D2's lifecycle that its art and production values more closely resemble AD&D than the rest of AD&D2.
It's also worth noting that AD&D2 did not die. New editions are a fact of the roleplaying game industry. Eleven years isn't even a particularly brief edition.
Actually, between Spelljammer and Planescape, simply looking at the timing, it would be more reasonable to say that Planescape killed 2nd edition.
(Which I wouldn't say because Planescape was only one of many reasons 2nd edition had to be killed.)
I'd be interested for you to expound upon this point in one of the Planescape threads. Planescape saved AD&D2 for me, so I'm having some trouble seeing where you are coming from. :whatsthis
(Trivia sidenote -- the true birth of Spelljammer could be traced to the classic 1st edition module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks published in 1980.)
A common misconception. The starship in S3 is drawn entirely from New Wave science fiction, and has nothing to do with the Age of Sail-in-space mentality of Spelljammer. The starship in S3 is actually a nod to a similarly-constructed space vessel known as the Warden, from an earlier TSR game called Metamorphosis Alpha. This mutant-themed science fiction game went on to inspire the more famous Gamma World. There is more in common between Gamma World and Greyhawk (and Boot Hill, for that matter) than there is between Gamma World and Spelljammer.
Spelljammer doesn't work without the crystal spheres. They are an essential plot device. Everything inside Krynnspace follows laws of nature dictated by Dragonlance, while everthing inside Realmspace follows laws of nature dictated by Forgotten Realms. And so on. The spheres allow you to add any game world to Spelljammer, while excluding rules from other games that would clash with the canon of that game world.
Alternately, you could argue that the void of wildspace itself is enough of a divider. I've always disliked the crystal spheres and the phlogiston -- I understand the Renaissance pseudoscience that they spring from, and I suppose I can appreciate the flavor, but I've always felt that they only served to add complexity to a system that didn't need it.
Speaking of the Spelljammer/Planescape link, you know what I would rather have seen? Ships using astral conduits to wormhole across the astronomical distances between campaign worlds. Astral conduits get a seriously bum rap in the "methods of planar travel" sweeps.
Erm. Do you actually have links to pages where setting creators badmouth Spelljammer and/or Planescape? I've got a feeling that this might just be anti-SJ or anti-PS lies that have no truth behind them. I'm not sure about Planescape, but a lot of the people working on Spelljammer also worked on other product lines that Spelljammer linked in with. Jeff Grubb the main SJ man has had a lot of involvement with lots of other campaign settings.
As we've seen in the recent videos promoting D&D4, game designers have no compunction about mocking anything and everything that came before (and what is even more common, after) in order to promote their own ideas. That is nothing new -- it has been happening since Gygax turned wargaming on its head to create D&D. Spelljammer and Planescape make easy targets, because they take an original tack that doesn't appeal to the majority of gamers. Dark Sun also gets a lot of bad press.
Nooooo! Stay away from my precious spheres, my phlogiston and my single material plane universe.
Sorry, man. I know what it is to have sacred cows, but if I had one wish for D&D, it would be for the elimination of crystal spheres.
...Well, okay, no, it would be for the elimination of the feat glut. But if I had TWO wishes...
I'd like to see Spelljammer mentioned in 4th ed at least, as a way to get from port city's to "strange locales", as things like the illithids' Nautiloid and Neogi's Deathspider Spelljamming ship have been mentioned in 3rd ed.
The idea of a D&D setting where the "Points of Light" are individual, isolated planets in a dangerous and evil galaxy is a remarkably bleak and compelling concept. :lightbulb
Do want, in other words.
What I'd really love is to play spelljammer as a very dark, grim setting, where not only are the civilized places points of light in the darkness, but so are the heroes themselves. Maybe I'll work something out on my own...
I've got a story that involves non-human races using magic traveling through space...shouldn't be too hard to use some of those story elements to make a campaign...
Dammit now I've got a new obsession...
Crap.
Planejamming exists, but yeah 4th ed Spelljammer ships are too high level, really, ick :/
We're too fixated on "space = Star Trek/Star Wars", which is crap, basically ;)
-That attitude never made/makes any sense to me whatsoever.
-That attitude never made/makes any sense to me whatsoever.
Well, long before those shows/films came aorund, space varied from Space 1899, Flash Gordon, Cyrano DeBergerac, etc etc.
"real" space is more like "2001", but for fiction, it can be whatever the heck we want, it doens't HAVE to be hard scifi! It was fantasy long before it was scifi ;)
In some senses, it was AD&D2's Eberron.
Now... THAT is an estute observation!
I do agree with several people here that much of the anti-SJ sentiment stems from one of two things... People who never actually read the material and think that it is SciFi contaminating their fav FRPG... or people who did read some of the material and think that space and space travel needs to fit our REAL universe (which [A]D&D could never do anyways!) and hate SJ for NOT being SciFi.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
-I might get tomatoes thrown at me who don't espouse the view, but Science Fiction IS Fantasy!
Lol. Well, yeah. Or rather, Fantasy is Science Fiction is Fantasy is....ad infinatum. :P
Don't worry, I'll hang out and suffer the tomatoes with you.
EDIT: This might take some the heat off of you.
Just like in sci-fi, fantasy* must**, in order to be worth a damn, make sense.
*insofar as there is a difference, the two things being sub divisions of the same genre.
**there are exceptions, when the world intentionally is silly and nonsensical. See: Xanth, Discworld. Even in those cases, once you have created the foundations for how the world works, no good work of non-realistic fiction should break the rules of those foundations. There will sometimes be things that don't seem to work within the rules at first, but later are given proper context, or that remain intentionally mysterious, but in those cases, the reaction from characters within the world should be appropriate for something that seems to break the laws within which the universe operates.
Basically, there are the laws of physics and chemistry. They govern everything, and interact inextricably with one another. In fantasy, there are also the laws of magic, which govern with physics and chemistry, and interact inextricably with the other two. A given law of physics is universal, unless a given law of chemistry or magic interacts with it in a way that creates an exception, and the same for the other two sets of laws.
Another way to explain it: Many people assume that magic breaks the laws of physics and chemistry. A better assumption in a fantasy world is that the way magic works is a part of the laws of physics and chemistry, all work scientifically, mathematically, but most people in a fantasy world are unaware of this.
This is, in my opinion, why authors and game designers tend to run into so many problems when writing worlds and stories containing both advanced technology and magic. Either magic becomes just another science, which many readers find unsatisfying, or you are tempted to do stupid things like arbitrarily making magic and technology unable to interact with one another with screwing eachother up. "the more tech you have, the less magic you can have, and vise versa." as in the game Arcana and, I've heard, Shadowrun.
Lol. Well, yeah. Or rather, Fantasy is Science Fiction is Fantasy is....ad infinatum. :P
Don't worry, I'll hang out and suffer the tomatoes with you.
-People disliking Spelljammer because it's Science Fiction, and thus, doesn't belong in a D&D game, and people disliking Psionics, because it's Science Fiction, and thus, doesn't belong in a D&D game are two opinions that I've never gotten whatsoever. But, hey, whatever, I guess...
Also, I have a kinda well-known write-up of my Grand Unified Theory of the (A)D&D multiverse on my Life, the Multiverse, and Everything webpage, wherein I describe how the D&D Multiverse come into existence, why it has the laws of physics and magic that it has, why they change from plane to plane, where mortals and gods fit into the grand scheme of things, even how elementals and intelligent swords can exist.
Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Loads of edition-independent Greyhawk goodness... maps, magic, mysteries, mechanics, and more!
Hello,
I am a newcomer here. It was long time ago when I played with this game last time, but in the close future we want to launch a new campaign in this world. So I re read the basic rules, and I have a question related to the phlogiston travel.
I know the basic differences between the tactical speed and the travelling speed in the Wildspace, but what about the speed of the ship in the Phlogiston?
Because a ship with travelling speed can flights only in a straight line, so if the helmsman wants to turn with the ship, or make any other maneuver, first he or she needs to slow down to tactical speed.
In the phlogiston the spelljammers following different rivers to reach a new sphere, and the travelling time is somerwhere between 10-100 days.
But the ships do this travel with the travelling speed (100 millions miles per day) or tactical speed or other?
I think this rivers not follow a straigth line, so the ship can not flight with travelling speed (as in the Wildspace), or the helmsman needs to slow down very often. The tactical speed basically is too slow for a long travel, but we don't now how fast are these phlogiston rivers, so maybe in a phlogiston river a ship with tactical speed can travel very-very fast.
What do you think about it?
Spelljammer was an interesting concept that was horribly executed. From the drawing of Elminster in a business suit to the idiocy that was the Astromundi Cluster, very little (aside from the remarkable gem that is The Rock of Bral), of the setting was done well. Nonetheless, there's a great deal of romantic appeal to the more vivid images of the setting--the Neogi Mindspiders, the cyclopean labyrinths of the Crystal Spheres, the cryptic Zodar, and all the other things from Murderoids to Giant Space Hamsters that make some people still love the setting 16 years on.
So yes, let's have a book that brings back the ideas behind the setting while not resurrecting it.
basically it takes as long as the DM wants to travel through the Flow rivers ;)
That'd be a neat trick, seeing as they stopped publishing Spelljammer (1989-93) in 1993, not coincidentally right before publishing Planescape materials (1994-99), and seven years before 3.0 was released in 2000.
I'm glad someone pointed this out. Spelljammer was one of the very first AD&D2 settings, published in the same year as AD&D2 itself. In some senses, it was AD&D2's Eberron. Of course, it was never very popular, but it certainly had nothing to do with the end of AD&D2. It was published so early on in AD&D2's lifecycle that its art and production values more closely resemble AD&D than the rest of AD&D2.
That is a good comparison, because Eberron took a left-turn with D&D and did things that had never been done before.
(Trivia sidenote -- the true birth of Spelljammer could be traced to the classic 1st edition module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks published in 1980.)
A common misconception. The starship in S3 is drawn entirely from New Wave science fiction, and has nothing to do with the Age of Sail-in-space mentality of Spelljammer. The starship in S3 is actually a nod to a similarly-constructed space vessel known as the Warden, from an earlier TSR game called Metamorphosis Alpha. This mutant-themed science fiction game went on to inspire the more famous Gamma World. There is more in common between Gamma World and Greyhawk (and Boot Hill, for that matter) than there is between Gamma World and Spelljammer.
All true. Spelljammer is not science fiction, therefore this ship is not a spelljamming ship.
But this does give us (Spelljammer fans*) a problem. If the roots of D&D (Greyhawk and Blackmoor) have a backstory that gives them a distant past where science fiction spaceships were common, then this sort of stuff should have existed (at one point) in the Spelljammer universe. Maybe long-gone groups, like the Juna, flew around the spheres in sci-fi flying saucers.
* = I'm assuming people in a Spelljammer forum are Spelljammer fans, rather than non-fans who have nothign better to do with their time than be trolls.
Spelljammer doesn't work without the crystal spheres. They are an essential plot device. Everything inside Krynnspace follows laws of nature dictated by Dragonlance, while everthing inside Realmspace follows laws of nature dictated by Forgotten Realms. And so on. The spheres allow you to add any game world to Spelljammer, while excluding rules from other games that would clash with the canon of that game world.
Alternately, you could argue that the void of wildspace itself is enough of a divider. I've always disliked the crystal spheres and the phlogiston -- I understand the Renaissance pseudoscience that they spring from, and I suppose I can appreciate the flavor, but I've always felt that they only served to add complexity to a system that didn't need it. Speaking of the Spelljammer/Planescape link, you know what I would rather have seen? Ships using astral conduits to wormhole across the astronomical distances between campaign worlds. Astral conduits get a seriously bum rap in the "methods of planar travel" sweeps.Erm. Do you actually have links to pages where setting creators badmouth Spelljammer and/or Planescape? I've got a feeling that this might just be anti-SJ or anti-PS lies that have no truth behind them. I'm not sure about Planescape, but a lot of the people working on Spelljammer also worked on other product lines that Spelljammer linked in with. Jeff Grubb the main SJ man has had a lot of involvement with lots of other campaign settings.
As we've seen in the recent videos promoting D&D4, game designers have no compunction about mocking anything and everything that came before (and what is even more common, after) in order to promote their own ideas. That is nothing new -- it has been happening since Gygax turned wargaming on its head to create D&D. Spelljammer and Planescape make easy targets, because they take an original tack that doesn't appeal to the majority of gamers. Dark Sun also gets a lot of bad press.
Well, I still want to see a citated list of D&D authors badmouthing Spelljammer (rather than an invitation to look for it on ENWorld, so that I know who's work to avoid. Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!
Nooooo! Stay away from my precious spheres, my phlogiston and my single material plane universe.
Sorry, man. I know what it is to have sacred cows, but if I had one wish for D&D, it would be for the elimination of crystal spheres. ...Well, okay, no, it would be for the elimination of the feat glut. But if I had TWO wishes...
To me the crystal spheres perform a vital role. They define the zone at which the gods of a given gameworld can no longer influence the universe. This means that you can take something like Dragonlance, and apply its "rules" as the local laws of nature within Krynnspace. Do that in every sphere and you don't have to worry about different campaign settings that have conflicting rules.
If you kill the crystal spheres, you will need a new control mechanism. Not to mention a new way to explain why different campaign settings can have different patterns of stars that have no connection with other settings. I would hate to have to try to make a three dimensional model of stars in the D&D universe and link each star with a campaign world sun. That sort of "realism" would be a total pain-in-the bum and would cause a lot more work than using flow rivers.
What I'd really love is to play spelljammer as a very dark, grim setting, where not only are the civilized places points of light in the darkness, but so are the heroes themselves. Maybe I'll work something out on my own... I've got a story that involves non-human races using magic traveling through space...shouldn't be too hard to use some of those story elements to make a campaign... Dammit now I've got a new obsession... Crap.
Sounds very interesting. I'd bet a lot of the crowd over at The Piazza would be interested in that.
In some senses, it was AD&D2's Eberron.
Now... THAT is an estute observation! I do agree with several people here that much of the anti-SJ sentiment stems from one of two things... People who never actually read the material and think that it is SciFi contaminating their fav FRPG... or people who did read some of the material and think that space and space travel needs to fit our REAL universe (which [A]D&D could never do anyways!) and hate SJ for NOT being SciFi. Denis, aka "Maldin" Maldin's Greyhawk melkot.com
I'd agree with that totally. There was definately some poor marketing going on, back when Spelljammer was sold.
Lol. Well, yeah. Or rather, Fantasy is Science Fiction is Fantasy is....ad infinatum. :P Don't worry, I'll hang out and suffer the tomatoes with you.
-People disliking Spelljammer because it's Science Fiction, and thus, doesn't belong in a D&D game, and people disliking Psionics, because it's Science Fiction, and thus, doesn't belong in a D&D game are two opinions that I've never gotten whatsoever. But, hey, whatever, I guess...
Back in the early days of D&D, Gary G. and Dave A. just added random stuff from everywhere. Then, when D&D got a bit more commercial it started to form more of a backstory. I think that backstory, which turned into multiple backstories, when we got multiple campaign settings, allowed players (and GMs) to start pidgeonholing or maybe even stereotyping D&D.
Spelljammer is totally a fantasy thing...it is a big flying carpet that goes from world to world, but people just don't get it. "Ship" + "space" = "spaceship" and that just sells Flash Gorden rocket ships to a lot of people. I quite like what the Wyrmstone people are doing (with their writers bible that discourages use of words like "planet" that have sci-fi baggage).
And psionics is also a fantasy thing too. Mind flayers have been around for eons, but for some reason it is cool for them to have mind-bending powers, but not PC races. I think that too many people have seen Scanners and associate psionics with evil scientists. But psionics (in science fiction) have always been a fudge to put wizard-like powers into a scientific context.
I am a newcomer here. It was long time ago when I played with this game last time, but in the close future we want to launch a new campaign in this world. So I re read the basic rules, and I have a question related to the phlogiston travel.
You might want to start a new thread on this, rather than have your question get lost in the other stuff.
I know the basic differences between the tactical speed and the travelling speed in the Wildspace, but what about the speed of the ship in the Phlogiston?Because a ship with travelling speed can flights only in a straight line, so if the helmsman wants to turn with the ship, or make any other maneuver, first he or she needs to slow down to tactical speed.
In the phlogiston the spelljammers following different rivers to reach a new sphere, and the travelling time is somerwhere between 10-100 days.
But the ships do this travel with the travelling speed (100 millions miles per day) or tactical speed or other?
I think this rivers not follow a straigth line, so the ship can not flight with travelling speed (as in the Wildspace), or the helmsman needs to slow down very often. The tactical speed basically is too slow for a long travel, but we don't now how fast are these phlogiston rivers, so maybe in a phlogiston river a ship with tactical speed can travel very-very fast.
What do you think about it?
I would mostly agree with what Silverblade said.
I think that there is a speed of travel in the phlogiston, and I think that it is highly variable (given the travel time charts) but humans (and other PC races) can't see exactly what is happening in the flow, so can not tell the distance they are travelling.
I think that a zat (which can see the paramagnetic gradient) could maybe measure distances between the spheres, and work out travel speeds, but they don't seem interested in anything outside their own sphere.
Don't forget also, that the spheres bob up and down and move towards and away from each other. So distances are not a fixed thing.
Spelljammer was an interesting concept that was horribly executed. From the drawing of Elminster in a business suit to the idiocy that was the Astromundi Cluster, very little (aside from the remarkable gem that is The Rock of Bral), of the setting was done well. Nonetheless, there's a great deal of romantic appeal to the more vivid images of the setting--the Neogi Mindspiders, the cyclopean labyrinths of the Crystal Spheres, the cryptic Zodar, and all the other things from Murderoids to Giant Space Hamsters that make some people still love the setting 16 years on.
I wouldn't exactly say it was horribly executed. But with other parts of D&D (like Planescape) you have several generations of material to stand upon, while Spelljammer was starting from scratch. The 2nd edition PHB builds upon half a dozen other books (and learns from their mistakes) while SJ makes all the mistakes you expect a product that takes risks to make.
So yes, let's have a book that brings back the ideas behind the setting while not resurrecting it.
Personally, I'd rather have something more like the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting - a 300 page Spelljammer Campaign Setting that did exactly the same job...but in space.
I wish that 3rd edition had given us this...and like most core matierial, I wish that the original SJCS book had been based in Greyhawk (and therefore been about Greyspace).
Rather than rebooting Spelljammer, I think that a 2nd edition of it could have compiled stuff that was scattered across multiple products into a single product. Shadows of the Spider Moon attempted this, but with a new sphere. If it had instead been done with Greyspace, a SJCS could have set up the scene for a Realmspace (written to be Forgotten Realms in space*) Krynnspace (written by MWP**) and a Shardspace (written by Keith Baker).
* = As opposed to just D&D in space.
** = Maybe at gunpoint! LOL
I think that single volume campaign sourcebooks that documented a single sphere (and its power groups) would have been a far better way to fill out the SJ universe. Each volume could have come with some adventure ideas, but with the SJ universe being so radical, I think that people need a good description of how things look. Some of the planet descriptions in the 2e line are so short that they don't really tell you anything useful.
I think that the Astromundi Cluster boxed set comes as close to giving me what I need for a sphere as the 3e product line model did. 2e SJ requires too much work (or winging it).
I'm not so sure that SJ could work in the 4e context (where it only gets 3 books) unless it was set up to be the last setting out of the door.
A last setting out the door SJ would have to have something like nine chapters that show you how to reboot the nine earlier settings into the SJ universe. It would need to be even less descriptive than books like SJR2 Realmspace. That would be one of the three books. Ships (and space combat) would probably burn up another book. That would leave you a final book to try to do what the AD&D Adventures in Space boxed set did. Pow - we are out of books.
