Spelljammer, love it, hate it? your two cents

[Iron Bonny Shades]

Does anybody remember the 2nd edition spelljammer?

If so, what did you like/dislike about it?

Also is there any 3rd editions conversions out there?

[Draxy]

This is one of those few areas in 2nd edition AD&D that I am glad to see weren't incorporated into 3rd edition. In my opinion, it would have made it even more assinine and laughably generic.

Spelljammer, to me, was the single worst addition to D&D in the history of the game. It did not fit AT ALL into the fantasy genre. It seemed utterly and totally contrived to appeal to the penultimate power gamer and to add NOTHING to the fabric of AD&D 2E but cheap and artificial commercialism.

Needless to say, I didn't like it one bit. The only thing that I found that was worse were the "Spell Decks" and "Monster Decks" and "Encounter Decks" and all of that tripe that was being churned out at the end of 2E's run.


Draxy

[Omote]

In ways I agree with Drax, in others I surly do not agree.

First of all, I don't think SpellJammer fits in to well with what is the D&Dverse. it is too different and takes away part of what made D&D, the way it is. good 'ol fashioned dungeoncrawling and kingdomw saving goodness.

However, I do give the creators props for creativeity. Some of the SpellJammer stuff is terrific! The imagination and writing was second to none. However, it may have fared better if it was another system, NOT related to D&D and the D&D worlds.

Those are my 2 coppers. I really wish I had more to say, but i have only limited experience with SJ. I played in Krynnspace like 3 times and after that only a few other times.

Overall, not for me.

......................Omote

[Iron Bonny Shades]

What to say about spelljammer.

If I had to say it in a nutshell, it was ahead of it's time.

Think about it.

They took the concepts of aeristolean physics and threw the dnd universes upside down and took new spins on old ideas.

The development of the major star powers as dnd races were actually pretty kewl.

However, it should have never been part of dnd canon.

It does not mesh well with the traditional worlds of greyhawk, dragonlance, and forgotten realms.

It should have been it's own universe.

Unlike many worlds and possibilities, it should have been mapped out the known worlds, with the big powers that be and their location within the spelljammer universe. You could make the map themselves a cross between a star chart of space campaigns and those fanciable navigation charts of the 15th century.

They should have had a few human "empires" in space that help the reader bridge the gap and understand the world a lot better. I think a human byzintine empire and a full fledged chinese empire in space would have seriously rocked.

Also, go into more detail about the key powers and how they related to each other. There was a serious lack of information that felt more like the quick dnd write ups instead of the possible intrigue and power that could happen when they deal with each other in space. Although it was before it's time Babylon 5 should have been their template for this universe as a whole.

With an abstract idea like spell jammer I cannot stress that you need to be thorough in explaning such an environment. Otherwise, you just blow your players minds. Not having a well developed universe really ruined the potential world of spelljammer. Plus how the unusual nature of spelljammer affects travel and trade (like for starbeasts and philogestein trails).

I am currently working on an rpg to use as my spearhead for a company I'm working on. If I succeed in the market, I would love to get the spelljammer environment licence and work it with d20 which seems to work a lot better with worlds as unconventional as this one.

[Ahnemesis]

I remember Spell Jammer. I liked it a little. But liked it alot when we incorpurated it into our runs just briefly. It was a great distraction from the Ravenloft jitters and our own world.