D&D In Space! - How To Run A Spelljammer Campaign [2 Simple Tips]

[@rabbidninja79]

A random event chart is a wonderful thing to make for these types of games. Granted, I've only run one once and based off the d20modern & d20future books. Tons of fun! Story was basically star trek voyager where they had to get home. Going at max warp it would have taken 70 years. But they worked for aperture sciences so they had portal technology, which was how theyd "beam down" to planets.

[@gameon_ct]

All great advice I'll pin your comment so people see!

[@rabbidninja79]

@@gameon_ct sweet! The event chart should have everything you can think of that could pop up in an environment. From wandering asteroids to space dragons. Figure I'd add a little to it.

[@leodouskyron5671]

I don’t know if this worked but if I was to give tips: 1) Make sure you or your players have a reason you are spelljamming. If you are a military ship - there will be missions, a fleet structure and more wars. If you are an explorer then the expectation is more survival, making contact with new places and people. If it is making money then you will have to have trade routs, cargo and dealing with business affairs and pirates. If you are on the run, then who are you running from, what shops and alies to they have and why are they after you. You can mix and match these kinds of themes and there are many more but knowing this will fill out the themes, stories and mood of your starjammer setting. 2)Have a ship that is home. That first ship that your players are on should be home. They will live there, fight there and ultimately some PCs will die there. I recommend having back up sidekick characters for the 5 most likely positions that the players may connect to and may or may not have - Bosin, lookout, cabinboy, deckhand and navigator. If a player covers one that is cool but these beings should be lovable or protectable. They should be the ones that your players will consider as reasons to save the ship. If all of them don’t get the players taking the ship seriously- introduce the ships’ cat or Psudodragon - pets are an emotionally cheap way to make sure they care about the crew but do it. Then fill out the crew as much as seems practicable with other folk. The idea is to make the ship a place to protect and every thing you do is to keep the players invested in it. You know you have hooked them when they introduce themselves using the ship as in “I am the *Spelljammer of the Red Claw* Akami Dorasani”. These are the two things I think will get you and your table alive as a Spelljammer setting. But some help with tools because world building will happen a lot! I) look on line for a spelljammer (likely 2e) system generator. The original had some and there are some around. You can even use ones that are for SciFi games and fill them with fantasy stuff from Starjammer. Just keep it always slightly off. II) Get a world generator on line. There are quite a few pay and free. You can get both at Donjon.bin(dot)sh. And a great map generator at Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator. Print them up and keep them. Give them a name (or number) If they go to these random places you can easily flesh out what they find once you have these maps. Worlds don’t have to be all different and maybe this plant is run by what look like green humans at first glance (and mechanically) but on further inspection they are mobile plants. On this world you still find the critters you find mostly what you want in the DMG. The h inhabitants don’t have to be mostly humans either, they say they are all orcs (or course they don’t have to all be evil). Make it simple at first and as you get used to world making you can get more complicated. I can’t stress this enough- III) Just make notes of what is in each system. Give it a name, something they have a lot of and something they have little of. The longer the players stay the more you make up but gauge the amount you make by how long they are actually there! Make it up on the fly but keep an eye on your notes. You may mess something up so don’t be a scared ti say that was only in that other village or recon totally if you need. I know this was a bit long but these two …umm five yeah five things will help you prepare and run a Spelljammer campaign. But if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed - “Don’t panic”. It is okay if they are going to fast for you to use some “random” encounters to ground the player’s ship or cause a cliff hanger as they flee certain doom and go home and think up your next step. The players are your friends and they want to play with you in the vastness of the astral plane.

[@FacilityD20]

Keep em coming

[@QuiniansBudgetCrafts]

I am now convinced I need you to DM this for me

[@wadeosborn9919]

So are you chartering Spelljammer ships? Because I’m encouraging my players into making their own ship

[@gameon_ct]

I'll have to make a video on that 😉

[@wadeosborn9919]

@@gameon_ct they are refitting a Storm giants skull to be their ship. It’s big enough for a party of 5. The spelljammer helm. Well there’s no rules on what that is so they are enchanting it with flight so far

[@Rincewind_The_Wizzard]

@@wadeosborn9919 luckily the new book for 5e has some rules on helms. The helm is basically just a fancy chair enchanted using a 5th level spell and a 5000 gp crystal rod. You can also purchase them or find them.

[@C4P_10]

Where can i find these sources for sci-fi quests?

[@gameon_ct]

Conflabbit I realized I didn't put them in the description. Let me get some for you, also I'll be making a video on that topic as well.

[@nicka3697]

Also for more sources watch Babylon 5, Dr Who, Star Trek and steal individual episode plots and ideas. Don't do 5 year arcs (not yet anyway) but the ship turning up somewhere new each week can make for an episodic campaign where players can drop in and out so much easier.

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

Star Wars Rebels Farscape Firefly The original Star Wars trilogy The Bad Batch The Green Lantern cartoon from a few years ago. Outlaw Star Space Dandy Cowboy Bebop Possible Eureka Seven Futurama Tripping the Rift Maybe the final season of the original Reboot show where Enzo, his dog, and his mermaid girlfriend are traveling the net through random game portals. Odds are your D&D adventuring party is going to follow the formula of 3 to 8 idiots in a light freighter sized ship flying from planet to planet doing odd jobs, hunting bounties, or running from the evil empire. If your players are the command crew of a giant capital ship with anywhere from a hundred to a few thousand npc redshirts living on the ship with them then series like Star Trek are going to be your go to sources. The Stargate shows are also a good source of "What do we find on the next random planet we end up on?" But using a portal network for instantaneous travel is closer to Planescape than Spelljammer in D&D terms. Pruitt from Web DM talked about setting up his Spelljammer campaign by watching Star trek and writing down adventure hooks to slot into custom random tables. Environmental oddities of the planet they find. Main species living there they either help or fight. Plot twist or conflict the adventure revolves around. Once you know those three things you're set for planning out sessions.

[@bobc2636]

So spaelljammer ships are air tight now? No air pocket anymore? No 3d space? No orbits? We don't need a way to adapt the old rules to this set or figuring out how to handle travel, that's easy if not even able to be hand waved away and skipped. We need a rule set that helps us feel like we are on a ship in space. Immersion is not limited to only the "theater of the mind" but should be reinforced by the rules that are used. If a barbarian and a fighter had the exact same mechanics and it was up to you to make it unique, would you say that's better because it is simple? With all due respect, just saying "you're in space" doesn't cut it. The thin veil of putting space on the same old mechanics for ground play will get old fast. I'm not asking for a thousand page mess of rules, but i would like a rule set that addresses at least most of the obvious situations that may come up. Otherwise it is just a half attempt that serves no purpose but to convey you to the next ground encounter. That's fine for people who prefer ground play but not for people who expected their spelljammer game to be about a spelljammer in some relevant way other than just a ferry. It's a ship, not a cart and horse you picked up to put loot in, it's a mobile artillery platform used to project power and keep you safe. It should give more options than ram or run. Sorry if this is salty and i know this was before the books came out but this version of spelljammer really felt like a slap in the face. It's like if Star Trek said "we only made rules for away missions and boarding actions".... would you accept that? Why even have a ship then, just cut to the players getting off the ship and forget that it is even there.

[@gameon_ct]

The rules set we have been given is incomplete that's why I'm making some videos with homebrew content!

[@brandonstone2754]

This didn't age well

[@gameon_ct]

Yeah...

[@scetchmonkey007]

Not finding this useful at all, when the advise is use your extensive knowledge as a DM to fill in the void, this does not help new DM's at all nor does it relate to any other DM as we all have different methods and old notes may not even apply. Next is, in spellajmmer, ships are not airtight they have an air envelope based on the ships size and weight. So you cannot have an air leak... however you can have a large asteroid pass and its gravity sucks out some of the ships air, making your travel a bit more hectic possibly encouraging the group to make an unplanned stop to refile their air on a nearby planet or moon. The first thing you need to do a a DM is set the stage with the uniqueness of the world, make a living world. The weird physics of spelljammer really help for that. The idea that you can just flip gravity upside down on yoru ship when you move to the bottom half is weird... it makes for an interesting concept just to store cargo on your ship.. or then there are the Gith ships with two decks that exploit this.

[@gameon_ct]

I appreciate the feedback!