So I'm reading through the Realmspace Sortie! chapter of Spelljammer Academy and when I reach the part with this map I'm completely at a loss how to properly explain this to players. Here's the map compared to how the ship technically looks.
I have no way to understand this. There are no descriptions for each room. Are these just vertical shafts? If the gravity plane is positioned as it is, it seems like you'd just fall up the tube, pass the plane, then fall back down until you just float in the middle? Then on the bottom left corner of the map, the three potato-shaped, disconnected rooms are completely unintelligible. Just 10x10 spaces? No information.
As interested I am in running this, the module is extremely light on the information given for DM use. If my players try to go off the beaten path or do anything else than the book has prepped, I have no base to improvise upon and that's stressful to me.
Okay, So the thing that bugs me is that the module says that the players are dropped off at the Cargo Deck, but according to the map there isn't really any entrance to that level unless you enter through the Hollow Deck and then go down into the Command Deck and then go around to a shaft and up up up to the Cargo deck. I think I'm going to add an entrance or two to the inside of the Cargo Deck, that makes sense to me. The Meditation Pods/Deck even says on the map with notes that they aren't sure what that is for. I also wonder if the outside appendages are stationary or if they are malleable.
So I'm reading through the Realmspace Sortie! chapter of Spelljammer Academy and when I reach the part with this map I'm completely at a loss how to properly explain this to players. Here's the map compared to how the ship technically looks.
I have no way to understand this. There are no descriptions for each room.
As a starting point, the image shown has the ship oriented with the cargo bay (bottom level on the map) away from surface of the planetary background. The image is effectively upside-down from the map. Part of the disorientation of being in space might be the lack of a gravitational "up" being constant in a specific direction. In one of the following encounters, the orientation of the ship changes, so "up" might wind up being "left" in the right circumstances. Regardless, invert the image and match up to the map. The rooms are not described in any significant detail, which allows the DM to inject what they feel fits the environment best.
As a side note: the "Entrance" to the cargo might well be the "gaps" in the hollow deck that allow acces to the larger Cargo Holds in the Cargo Deck. It appears that the alignment of the access shafts put those gaps above one or two of the larger chambers.
Are these just vertical shafts? If the gravity plane is positioned as it is, it seems like you'd just fall up the tube, pass the plane, then fall back down until you just float in the middle? Then on the bottom left corner of the map, the three potato-shaped, disconnected rooms are completely unintelligible. Just 10x10 spaces? No information.
For the shafts, yes, you might fall. Without a successful Acrobatics or Athletics check, there might be some falling damage incurred from striking the sloping walls on the way by. The top-right blackout rendition of the map indicates the individual levels/layers of the ship. The very uppermost layer (Meditation Deck) can be found in detail on the bottom-left of the map. The three potato-shaped, disconnected rooms, probably used for meditation by the beholder(s) that built and flew this ship.
As interested I am in running this, the module is extremely light on the information given for DM use. If my players try to go off the beaten path or do anything else than the book has prepped, I have no base to improvise upon and that's stressful to me.
I might suggest starting from the viewpoiint that the ship was built and inhabited by Beholders that have been somehow relocated. For some ideas about beholder lairs, you might find some help in the description of the beholder itself. Keep in mind that you might not be able to describe everything that is present there, as we (humans) have no point of reference to what a beholder might consider to be an acceptable interior design or architectural aesthetic. The entire structure is literally alien to us.
Lastly, this adventure is intended to be completed in one game session of about two hours length. If the party has a desire, or need, to fill a longer time-slot, the DM will most likely have to fill in with other encounters and challenges. My suggestion might be to prepare some other challenges for your party, should they decide to wander off the beaten path. By the looks of it, the adventure is laid out in such a way, that whenever the party completes a task and decides to go exploring they are met with a new task to pull them back on track. Using these as inspiration to create more encounters of this type might prove useful.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Those shafts having openings to the hollow deck makes sense, but that also being the entrance to the ship doesn't - if you enter there and start the session in the cargo hold, that means you've already passed by the clockwork horrors and should have had that encounter immediately on boarding.
This encounter begins when the characters investigate strange sounds coming from the tyrant ship’s Hollow Deck. The sounds begin after the ship is well underway and millions of miles from home.
I suppose you could run them first, but that doesn't give the party anything to do while the ship is underway. The vibe I get from the last two encounters is that they are there to fill the time between getting the ship underway, and delivery at destination.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Yes, that's my point - that the hollow level can't be the entrance for that reason. It would also make entering the bridge trivial, since you wouldn't need to use the tubes. The cargo hold being the entrance makes sense for both the plot and loading reasons, but the map is bad because it doesn't have some kind of external port, and the adventure never describes one.
So because an encounter happens a significant amount of time later, in an area that is open to anyone/anthing that happens along as you are traveling, that can't possibly be the entrance to the ship? This can't possibly be a random-encounter-turned-story-beat. If that's how you want to run this adventure, I'll not fault you for it.
Entering the bridge is already trivial in that:
Petty Officer Winston Ryeback instructs the characters to place the spelljamming helm on the tyrant ship’s Command Deck (even though the helm can function anywhere on the ship).
The purpose for the party being dropped in the cargo hold, is to provide them the opportunity to explore the commuter pathways of an alien species. To get the challenge if trying to navigate this alien terrain. There's no reason that they have to leave the cargo hold to install the helm. Also, they could easily enter the Command Deck directly from the Hollow Deck, but that doesn't provide the experience that the author intended for the party. This has nothing to do with map design, and everything to do with adventure design. The elements that are presented are there to give the characters something to do. Something to make them feel like they accomplished some task. For mechanical purposes, the helm could be installed on the outside of the ship, and operated from there. No need to go in. That solves all of the mechanical issues, but doesn't make for a fun game.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The reason to install the helm in the command deck is because that's what they were instructed to do - using it from somewhere else doesn't fulfill that objective. If they came in through the hollow deck then they would have had to install rope ladders already to get to the cargo hold in the first place, which the adventure certainly implies has not been done. You're also ignoring that the adventure tells you the clockwork horrors are already there when the party enters the ship AND the adventure says the party is dropped into the cargo deck.
You’re dropped unceremoniously into the tyrant ship’s Cargo Deck, along with a crate of supplies, an navigational map, and a shiny new spelljammer helm. Petty Officer Ryeback pulls up the rear wearing a backpack laden with cooking implements. Pots clang and clatter as he turns and waves goodbye to the Flighty Foundling, which has already set a course back to the academy.
Which makes more sense - a few words (and drawing) describing a hatch somewhere in the cargo level or all the leaps of logic that you're making? Ignoring the incomplete portions of map design and/or writing doesn't make it complete.
If you start your party in the cargo hold and then go on to tell the players they entered through the hollow deck, passing the wrecked autognomes and scavenging CH's without seeing them (until they return here later), and climbed up to the cargo hold without making rope ladders on the way, they're going to have a low opinion of the DM and/or the adventure. Don't treat your players like they're idiots, they won't appreciate it.
The reason to install the helm in the command deck is because that's what they were instructed to do - using it from somewhere else doesn't fulfill that objective. If they came in through the hollow deck then they would have had to install rope ladders already to get to the cargo hold in the first place, which the adventure certainly implies has not been done. You're also ignoring that the adventure tells you the clockwork horrors are already there when the party enters the ship AND the adventure says the party is dropped into the cargo deck.
What I'm ignoring is the part that isn't in the adventure: How did the party get onto the ship? From the players' point of view, there is a cut from them waking up at the Academy and being briefed, and then after the DM narrates some travel, they are dumped in the cargo hold of the ship. You need an explanation for how they get there? Make one up. I've offered my solution to your made-up problem. You want there to be another hole in the ship, put one there and then let your party fly through it. As I've said before, do what you need to do to make this fun for your players.
As for my ingoring the clockwork horrors that were already on the ship. Yep, hiding as stowaways. Even says when the encounter is supposed to happen and the source of why the encounter didn't happen before now. I'm not ignoring it. I was trying to guide you to a reason why the party isn't supposed to find them at the begining of the adventure. You didn't seem to want to accept the way it was written:
Part 2: Like Clockwork! The recruits begin their trek across Wildspace, only to discover that their new ship has stowaways. A fight erupts between the recruits and some clockwork horrors hiding under some wreckage.
But hey, you do you.
Which makes more sense - a few words (and drawing) describing a hatch somewhere in the cargo level or all the leaps of logic that you're making? Ignoring the incomplete portions of map design and/or writing doesn't make it complete.
If you start your party in the cargo hold and then go on to tell the players they entered through the hollow deck, passing the wrecked autognomes and scavenging CH's without seeing them (until they return here later), and climbed up to the cargo hold without making rope ladders on the way, they're going to have a low opinion of the DM and/or the adventure. Don't treat your players like they're idiots, they won't appreciate it.
What doesn't make sense, is that you, as a DM can change anything about any published source material, and yet instead of making a thing your own, you would choose to dismiss it as bad, poorly written and poorly designed. Dismissive rejection that divolves to arguing and condescension over a make-believe group of space-gnomes and a floating beholder-space-castle. That makes great sense.
I see that you have taken the time to attempt to work through this, but starting at the beginning and then segueing to the trip there feels clumsy to me. I really appreciate that you're offering advice on how to run games and treat people from your own experience and failures. It's useful to have that perspective for others to work from.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The way the module is designed the details of each deck is written in each of the events. So you need to read forward and pull out some things . They are basically just empty rooms made of stone though.
Here is what I don't get about the map: The to me the relationship between the hollow deck and the command deck. There is a hole going to the command deck on the hollow deck. but not one on the command deck. While there is a spot, but its not open nor looks like a door or hatch. is it a magic one way door in the floor?
The spot you are referring to is a dotted line to represent the hole being there, but that the command deck has an enclosed ceiling. The access holes aren't dotted, suggesting that they make a looping u-turn out of the command deck. The openings in the ship are just openings, no doors or hatches.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
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So I'm reading through the Realmspace Sortie! chapter of Spelljammer Academy and when I reach the part with this map I'm completely at a loss how to properly explain this to players. Here's the map compared to how the ship technically looks.
I have no way to understand this. There are no descriptions for each room. Are these just vertical shafts? If the gravity plane is positioned as it is, it seems like you'd just fall up the tube, pass the plane, then fall back down until you just float in the middle? Then on the bottom left corner of the map, the three potato-shaped, disconnected rooms are completely unintelligible. Just 10x10 spaces? No information.
As interested I am in running this, the module is extremely light on the information given for DM use. If my players try to go off the beaten path or do anything else than the book has prepped, I have no base to improvise upon and that's stressful to me.
Okay, So the thing that bugs me is that the module says that the players are dropped off at the Cargo Deck, but according to the map there isn't really any entrance to that level unless you enter through the Hollow Deck and then go down into the Command Deck and then go around to a shaft and up up up to the Cargo deck. I think I'm going to add an entrance or two to the inside of the Cargo Deck, that makes sense to me. The Meditation Pods/Deck even says on the map with notes that they aren't sure what that is for. I also wonder if the outside appendages are stationary or if they are malleable.
As a starting point, the image shown has the ship oriented with the cargo bay (bottom level on the map) away from surface of the planetary background. The image is effectively upside-down from the map. Part of the disorientation of being in space might be the lack of a gravitational "up" being constant in a specific direction. In one of the following encounters, the orientation of the ship changes, so "up" might wind up being "left" in the right circumstances. Regardless, invert the image and match up to the map. The rooms are not described in any significant detail, which allows the DM to inject what they feel fits the environment best.
As a side note: the "Entrance" to the cargo might well be the "gaps" in the hollow deck that allow acces to the larger Cargo Holds in the Cargo Deck. It appears that the alignment of the access shafts put those gaps above one or two of the larger chambers.
For the shafts, yes, you might fall. Without a successful Acrobatics or Athletics check, there might be some falling damage incurred from striking the sloping walls on the way by. The top-right blackout rendition of the map indicates the individual levels/layers of the ship. The very uppermost layer (Meditation Deck) can be found in detail on the bottom-left of the map. The three potato-shaped, disconnected rooms, probably used for meditation by the beholder(s) that built and flew this ship.
I might suggest starting from the viewpoiint that the ship was built and inhabited by Beholders that have been somehow relocated. For some ideas about beholder lairs, you might find some help in the description of the beholder itself. Keep in mind that you might not be able to describe everything that is present there, as we (humans) have no point of reference to what a beholder might consider to be an acceptable interior design or architectural aesthetic. The entire structure is literally alien to us.
Lastly, this adventure is intended to be completed in one game session of about two hours length. If the party has a desire, or need, to fill a longer time-slot, the DM will most likely have to fill in with other encounters and challenges. My suggestion might be to prepare some other challenges for your party, should they decide to wander off the beaten path. By the looks of it, the adventure is laid out in such a way, that whenever the party completes a task and decides to go exploring they are met with a new task to pull them back on track. Using these as inspiration to create more encounters of this type might prove useful.
Hope this helps. Good luck, have fun.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Those shafts having openings to the hollow deck makes sense, but that also being the entrance to the ship doesn't - if you enter there and start the session in the cargo hold, that means you've already passed by the clockwork horrors and should have had that encounter immediately on boarding.
Except that the Clockwork Horrors happen much later.
I suppose you could run them first, but that doesn't give the party anything to do while the ship is underway. The vibe I get from the last two encounters is that they are there to fill the time between getting the ship underway, and delivery at destination.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Yes, that's my point - that the hollow level can't be the entrance for that reason. It would also make entering the bridge trivial, since you wouldn't need to use the tubes. The cargo hold being the entrance makes sense for both the plot and loading reasons, but the map is bad because it doesn't have some kind of external port, and the adventure never describes one.
So because an encounter happens a significant amount of time later, in an area that is open to anyone/anthing that happens along as you are traveling, that can't possibly be the entrance to the ship? This can't possibly be a random-encounter-turned-story-beat. If that's how you want to run this adventure, I'll not fault you for it.
Entering the bridge is already trivial in that:
The purpose for the party being dropped in the cargo hold, is to provide them the opportunity to explore the commuter pathways of an alien species. To get the challenge if trying to navigate this alien terrain. There's no reason that they have to leave the cargo hold to install the helm. Also, they could easily enter the Command Deck directly from the Hollow Deck, but that doesn't provide the experience that the author intended for the party. This has nothing to do with map design, and everything to do with adventure design. The elements that are presented are there to give the characters something to do. Something to make them feel like they accomplished some task. For mechanical purposes, the helm could be installed on the outside of the ship, and operated from there. No need to go in. That solves all of the mechanical issues, but doesn't make for a fun game.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The reason to install the helm in the command deck is because that's what they were instructed to do - using it from somewhere else doesn't fulfill that objective. If they came in through the hollow deck then they would have had to install rope ladders already to get to the cargo hold in the first place, which the adventure certainly implies has not been done. You're also ignoring that the adventure tells you the clockwork horrors are already there when the party enters the ship AND the adventure says the party is dropped into the cargo deck.
Which makes more sense - a few words (and drawing) describing a hatch somewhere in the cargo level or all the leaps of logic that you're making? Ignoring the incomplete portions of map design and/or writing doesn't make it complete.If you start your party in the cargo hold and then go on to tell the players they entered through the hollow deck, passing the wrecked autognomes and scavenging CH's without seeing them (until they return here later), and climbed up to the cargo hold without making rope ladders on the way, they're going to have a low opinion of the DM and/or the adventure. Don't treat your players like they're idiots, they won't appreciate it.
eta - I love that there's an ignore button now.
What I'm ignoring is the part that isn't in the adventure: How did the party get onto the ship? From the players' point of view, there is a cut from them waking up at the Academy and being briefed, and then after the DM narrates some travel, they are dumped in the cargo hold of the ship. You need an explanation for how they get there? Make one up. I've offered my solution to your made-up problem. You want there to be another hole in the ship, put one there and then let your party fly through it. As I've said before, do what you need to do to make this fun for your players.
As for my ingoring the clockwork horrors that were already on the ship. Yep, hiding as stowaways. Even says when the encounter is supposed to happen and the source of why the encounter didn't happen before now. I'm not ignoring it. I was trying to guide you to a reason why the party isn't supposed to find them at the begining of the adventure. You didn't seem to want to accept the way it was written:
But hey, you do you.
What doesn't make sense, is that you, as a DM can change anything about any published source material, and yet instead of making a thing your own, you would choose to dismiss it as bad, poorly written and poorly designed. Dismissive rejection that divolves to arguing and condescension over a make-believe group of space-gnomes and a floating beholder-space-castle. That makes great sense.
I see that you have taken the time to attempt to work through this, but starting at the beginning and then segueing to the trip there feels clumsy to me. I really appreciate that you're offering advice on how to run games and treat people from your own experience and failures. It's useful to have that perspective for others to work from.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
The way the module is designed the details of each deck is written in each of the events. So you need to read forward and pull out some things . They are basically just empty rooms made of stone though.
For example the command deck has:
Which is written in the spin cycle trap section
a bit of pain but you'll have to read the whole thing and take your own notes for the description
Here is what I don't get about the map: The to me the relationship between the hollow deck and the command deck. There is a hole going to the command deck on the hollow deck. but not one on the command deck. While there is a spot, but its not open nor looks like a door or hatch. is it a magic one way door in the floor?
The spot you are referring to is a dotted line to represent the hole being there, but that the command deck has an enclosed ceiling. The access holes aren't dotted, suggesting that they make a looping u-turn out of the command deck. The openings in the ship are just openings, no doors or hatches.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad