I am contemplating jumping into running a game of D&D and as a new twist to the usual sword & sorcery setting I was thinking of setting the campaign in Spelljammer. I have a few questions though...
1) Would the Spelljammer setting be too much for lower-ranked characters? 2) Is the setting broad enough to support a full campaign?
My idea is to have the characters awake in the belly of a ship, with the creeking of planks the gentle swaying of a ship.... they have been shanghaied and are now in a ship. When they are allowed up to the deck, they find that they are not sailing in the ocean.... but in the stars.
The basic campaign would be the characters either becoming pirates or gaining control of the ship and becoming voyagers of their own. Still trying to come up with specifics....
First of all congrats on taking the plunge as a DM, it’s a very different experience from playing but can be incredibly rewarding.
As for the questions: 1) There’s nothing inherent about Spelljammer that makes it more deadly than any other setting, just like Forgotten Realms or Eberron it’s all about the encounters you build. Start off with smaller and easier enemies just like any campaign but dress them up for Spelljammer, a pirate crew of goblins is the same threat to a first or second level party as a goblin war band, you just have them silly hats and a parrot on the shoulder.
2) Again like any setting Spelljammer is as broad as your imagination. Your main problem will be that there’s fewer prewritten Spelljammer campaigns to spring board off than for some other settings but there’s absolutely no reason you can’t come up with a full and satisfying campaign of your own design. It also has the benefit that if you come up with a cool idea that requires a specific setting you can just create a planet with that setting, switching easily from jungles to arctic to a city just by getting the players to travel there
I have never run a campaign in spelljammer, but I think that as a DM if you want to you can make any setting work, and if you're really worried about it you could always start your characters at a higher level. I think the setting is definitely broad enough, and its a setting that if it gets boring you could just go to a different setting through it.
As cunningsmile said, the level of the characters shouldn’t be an issue.
The problem with running a campaign there, especially your first one, is that this edition’s spelljammer is kind of weak. There’s not a lot of detail, and you’ll be left doing a lot of the world building on your own. Personally, I think it works ok if your campaign is moving from one world to another, and you want to use spelljammer to spice up the journey. It might make a nice side quest arc, but there’s not enough for a long-term campaign without a lot of work from the DM.
Personally, I think it works ok if your campaign is moving from one world to another, and you want to use spelljammer to spice up the journey. It might make a nice side quest arc, but there’s not enough for a long-term campaign without a lot of work from the DM.
Yeah, the 5e SJ is written more to enable world hopping than it is for D&D! In! SPAAAACE!!!
That said, the basic tools are (more or less) there. You need to figure out how you're handling ship-to-ship combat, because it will happen, and the rules are not really extant.
Start small. Establish a central point (use the Rock of Bral if you don't want to make one up.) Separate your game from the solar system paradigm they present -- if you want a space game, the characters should spend more time on ships and stuff in space than down on planets.
Also, once you've given them a ship, you have absolutely zero control over where your players go. If they're self-starters, you're going to have to keep up on the fly. If they're not self-starters, you can arrange for some kind of mission-based setup which will be easier on you.
Don't make it a surprise. Let the players know they're leaving their world behind.
Figure out some way to avoid the "one player stays with the ship" problem. Could be an NPC. (In my SJ game, I dropped an artifact on them early whose only real power was to let them remote-control their ship. (It bears narrative complications, of course, but that's why it exists.))
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Greetings fellow DM's.
I am contemplating jumping into running a game of D&D and as a new twist to the usual sword & sorcery setting I was thinking of setting the campaign in Spelljammer. I have a few questions though...
1) Would the Spelljammer setting be too much for lower-ranked characters?
2) Is the setting broad enough to support a full campaign?
My idea is to have the characters awake in the belly of a ship, with the creeking of planks the gentle swaying of a ship.... they have been shanghaied and are now in a ship. When they are allowed up to the deck, they find that they are not sailing in the ocean.... but in the stars.
The basic campaign would be the characters either becoming pirates or gaining control of the ship and becoming voyagers of their own. Still trying to come up with specifics....
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
First of all congrats on taking the plunge as a DM, it’s a very different experience from playing but can be incredibly rewarding.
As for the questions: 1) There’s nothing inherent about Spelljammer that makes it more deadly than any other setting, just like Forgotten Realms or Eberron it’s all about the encounters you build. Start off with smaller and easier enemies just like any campaign but dress them up for Spelljammer, a pirate crew of goblins is the same threat to a first or second level party as a goblin war band, you just have them silly hats and a parrot on the shoulder.
2) Again like any setting Spelljammer is as broad as your imagination. Your main problem will be that there’s fewer prewritten Spelljammer campaigns to spring board off than for some other settings but there’s absolutely no reason you can’t come up with a full and satisfying campaign of your own design. It also has the benefit that if you come up with a cool idea that requires a specific setting you can just create a planet with that setting, switching easily from jungles to arctic to a city just by getting the players to travel there
I have never run a campaign in spelljammer, but I think that as a DM if you want to you can make any setting work, and if you're really worried about it you could always start your characters at a higher level. I think the setting is definitely broad enough, and its a setting that if it gets boring you could just go to a different setting through it.
As cunningsmile said, the level of the characters shouldn’t be an issue.
The problem with running a campaign there, especially your first one, is that this edition’s spelljammer is kind of weak. There’s not a lot of detail, and you’ll be left doing a lot of the world building on your own.
Personally, I think it works ok if your campaign is moving from one world to another, and you want to use spelljammer to spice up the journey. It might make a nice side quest arc, but there’s not enough for a long-term campaign without a lot of work from the DM.
Yeah, the 5e SJ is written more to enable world hopping than it is for D&D! In! SPAAAACE!!!
That said, the basic tools are (more or less) there. You need to figure out how you're handling ship-to-ship combat, because it will happen, and the rules are not really extant.
Start small. Establish a central point (use the Rock of Bral if you don't want to make one up.) Separate your game from the solar system paradigm they present -- if you want a space game, the characters should spend more time on ships and stuff in space than down on planets.
Also, once you've given them a ship, you have absolutely zero control over where your players go. If they're self-starters, you're going to have to keep up on the fly. If they're not self-starters, you can arrange for some kind of mission-based setup which will be easier on you.
Don't make it a surprise. Let the players know they're leaving their world behind.
Figure out some way to avoid the "one player stays with the ship" problem. Could be an NPC. (In my SJ game, I dropped an artifact on them early whose only real power was to let them remote-control their ship. (It bears narrative complications, of course, but that's why it exists.))