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whales-are-gay · 2 years

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re: ttrpgs, I think my favorite piece of advice I've ever been given by a friend, after spending like an hour telling them abt my super intricate dnd homebrew game, is "why not just make this its own game?".

And this totally changed my perspective on homebrewing bc like,,, that's essentially what ur doing when you get that deep into it. When you're reworking the magic system and making your own classes and races and all new monsters, you've just theseus's-shipped DnD. And like- when I realized I could just write my own game, my ideas also got like 10x better because I stopped being shackled to DnD's existing biases and systems (even if you don't think about it consciously, DnD has unwritten rules of conduct and how to play that you can choose to toss out the window or change when it's your game).

Like I feel like homebrewing has become sort of a pride thing, like "look at me I know the system so well I can add more to it!" which is just silly tbh. Like if it's a matter of pure passion, congrats! Go write a better game than DnD! and if it's about doing it yourself/being the Grand Master Who Created It All- don't make your players be your first unknowing playtesters, when you play in an already developed, different game system, you get to skip a lot of the jank and clunky parts for something someone HAS extensively playtested and edited so it flows better. It's literally better for everyone- just write ur game on the side and enjoy a less stressful tabletop games with ur friends.

AND AND, AS A FINAL THING- if you play games in the genre you want to write about, 9 times out of 10 you'll get a better awareness for how to make that genre good !!! Like if you're trying to make sci-fi dnd, playing sci-fi systems will help inspire you !!!! there is NO DOWNSIDE to branching out creatively at ur table besides ur friends being butts and not wanting to try to learn something new.

I just. aubbhsefwghtergsafiDIAFGSFHFDREYJGFSD. it's time to let go of dnd. I promise it'll still be there when u get back. be actually adventurous you weirdos. stop limiting ur creativity to a janky ass system when you could be playing something better. It's like insisting on making every meal with a pb&j as your only ingredients- like yeah it's a great pb&j, and you sure can try to make other foods with it, but why not just use other ingredients from the get-go instead of continually reshaping and reconstituting this sandwich so that, as the best possible outcome, it becomes a weaker version of the food you could've just gone and made yourself!!! AND, AT WORST- you just have a gross pb&j mess that makes you think "I guess the only food that's good is a standard pb&j since I couldn't make anything else." and that sucks ass !!!! this metaphor is rapidly slipping away from me but you know what I mean. ughrghfthergwhgherugh >:I

yes exactly! i really like the pb&j analogy. and i think dnd is tied to its origins as a war game and a western fantasy medieval roleplay game (tolkein-esque fantasy, essentially). not entirely a bad thing, but like ursula guin said- by ignoring what already exists in the genre you’re doing your audience (and in this context) your players a disservice.

if your players dont want to learn a new game, take the time to teach them! it might mean extra long (or multiple) session 0s but like. it opens up a whole lot more

#the BEST module is in call of cthulu a game that is so unlike 5e #ttrpg #dnd #i should probably make an ask tag #validwofjobs #blesties

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dmsden · 2 years

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Adventures on the Starry Main - Why you should be excited by Spelljammer

Yo ho, me hearties! So at this year's first ever D&D Direct, there was a lot of exciting news. For me personally, however, nothing could've been more exciting than the news that Spelljammer was returning to D&D in the form of a slipcased set of three books and a DM's screen. This was met by almost everyone I know with roars of approval, and you may have seen all kinds of clamor for this particular setting to return.

But maybe you've never played Spelljammer, so why should you be getting excited? For this week's article, I thought I'd share some of the details that have made me excited for the return of this classic and divisive setting.

It's D&D...in Spaaaaaace!!!

When I first heard about the idea of Spelljammer, back in 1989 or so, I was skeptical. I wanted to give it a chance, however, and I bought the boxed set. I am so glad I did, because I was blown away by the contents. Spelljammer is indeed D&D in Space, but they had imagined it in a way I had not.

One thing I was concerned about was that it would feel like an effort to make D&D a science-fiction story, but it definitely didn't. This didn't feel like a sci-fi story; this felt like swords and sorcery in space. It was D&D heroes on the decks of a fantastic ship, fighting against neogi pirates. It was swashbuckling adventure where you might race mind flayers to find a treasure hidden among an asteroid field or battle against an armada of orcs seeking to spread their chaos to the stars.

I had been worried that Spelljammer wouldn't feel like D&D, but it absolutely did. It just took D&D into directions I hadn't really thought about. Up, for one thing. I introduced Spelljammer concepts into my home campaign pretty quickly, and my players loved it. The next time I ran a campaign (for 3rd edition), I had Spelljammer ideas baked into it. My current campaign doesn't, but it certainly could, with relatively minor adjustments.

It links all the worlds of D&D together

Yes, of course you can have your players travel from Oerth to Toril via a planar portal, but it's much more exciting to have the travel along the way be its own adventure. Just as it can be sort of anti-climactic to have the PCs teleport from Waterdeep to Chult, it can be a bit dull to simply have the players step from one world to another.

In the concepts of Spelljammer, one can sail off one's world, an area called Wildspace (an area full of amazing adventure all by itself), and then go out even further. In the new Spelljammer, that "even further" will take you into the Astral Plane (also called the Astral Sea). So you could potentially sail your ship to any of the Outer Planes, such as Pandemonium, the Abyss, or Mount Celestia. But you could also chart a course to a different world, such as Krynn or Eberron.

Imagine giving your players a treasure map that leads them off of their world to the homeworld of a planet-jumping pirate. Seeking this legendary scoundrel's hoard could be an adventure, or it could be a whole Spelljammer capaign. The sky is NOT the limit!

You can play an ooze!

I was delighted by the Unearthed Arcana article from a ways back that gave the opportunity to playtest races like plasmoids, giff, autognomes, and hadozee, because I knew where these races had originally come from. (Okay, some of them came from Star Frontiers, but that's a whole other article.) That article was the first inkling I had that WotC was planning on actually relaunching Spelljammer, as those races are all traditionally associated with that setting.

One thing the addition of Spelljammer gives is a potential origin for races that you're having trouble fitting into your world's reality. Maybe you have a player who is hot to play a Vedalkin from the Ravnica book, and you're having trouble slotting them into your setting as a whole. Well, if they literally come from another world, that solves the issue. Maybe a group of Vedalkin crash-landed on your world, and they've been here ever since in a small enclave, propagating and seeking a way home. Maybe that's that player's long term quest - to find his people's homeworld. Bam! Instant plot and a reason for that PC to be excited to head off into space.

Personally, I find the new races quirky and fun. I've adored the Giff since they first showed up in Spelljammer, and I'm so excited to have them as a PC race at last. Plasmoids sound like a super-interesting RP challenge and a fun concept in general. And if you don't think a mantis-man is an awesome race to play, then I'm not sure we can be friends.

The Return of Giant Space Hamsters!

Well, okay, not really...I think GSHs are pretty silly (which is not to say I won't use them in my campaign). There are some really neat classic Spelljammer monsters, though, and there are hints of more on the way. I'm excited to see the new stats of Void Scaavers, for example, a creature that was always terrifying in the old days.

If you want a taste now, hopefully you grabbed "Monstrous Compendium Vol 1: Spelljammer Creatures" for free! That gives you lots of awesome monsters you can use, Spelljammer or not. Clockwork Horrors! Fractines! Puppeteer Parasites! I feel like Spelljammer gives the designers and DMs permission to cut loose and get weird. Why have we never seen these bizarre creatures before? Well, they mostly live out in Wild Space, and it's only adventurers who sail out beyond the reach of the planet that encounter them.

Variety of Tone

One thing that I think Spelljammer is great for is that you can really play with the tone of the game. Sure, you can run a super serious "Master and Commander" or "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" sort of story, full of naval battles and the intrigues of kings and crowns. You can also really go nuts, however.

There are evil space clowns, creepy murder comets, and hippomen obsessed with explosives. You could have foppish beholders with wigs and cravats that echo the court of Louis XVI. You could have a crew of undead sailing on a ship made of the skeleton of a dead giant. You could have a wicked mind flayer pirate named Bloodbeard.

Sailing off of your world gives you a chance to let your imagination go really wild. If you ever had an idea for a story, but you didn't feel like it fit in anywhere on your campaign world, taking the story off of your world might give you a chance to figure out where it belongs. You can go for a campy romp of a story, or you could delve into cosmic horror, or you can go for swashbuckling high adventure.

The Ships are so cool!

One of the things that really captured my imagination back in '89 was how neat and varied the ships of Spelljammer were. From the mighty Spelljammer itself (a huge manta-winged vessel with a city on its back) to the smallest damselfly, the ships weren't trying to look like classic spaceships at all. They looked like insects, fish, and dragons. The designers really thought about the different cultures making the ships and put together ideas that seemed to match the cultures that had created them.

Even cooler, thanks to the rise of pre-painted miniatures as a commodity, the new release is being supported not just by normal-scale minis, but also by a ship-scale set. I can't wait to have a space battle using ship-scale minis. That's going to be a blast (especially if Giff are involved!)

Well, I hope all of this has gone a ways towards making you excited for when Spelljammer: Adventures in Space comes out in August. Until then, remember that it's second star to the right and straight on til morning!

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