There is a strong possibility that the next book WotC publishes for D&D (now that Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos is out) will be a campaign setting sourcebook for Spelljammer.
I've absorbed a fair amount of the broad concepts of Spelljammer by looking through wikis and hearing people talk about it. Given that I might be starting a campaign in Realmspace soon (though our newly-a-dad Paladin said he might be able to play again starting in January, so that campaign might be a little farther down the line) I am generally trying to avoid going into a deep-dive - I plan on negotiating with my DM what will or won't be verbotten for me to read in an upcoming book.
But I wanted to get into some thoughts about what I want to see in a sourcebook.
I think Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is the best campaign setting book they've done for 5th Edition, though I'll put Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica as a runner-up, along with Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, though this latter for different reasons.
To me, the purpose of a campaign setting sourcebook is very different from that of a published adventure. While the latter should provide enough context for a DM to present the setting that adventure takes place in effectively, its concerns are much more specific. While I think a good DM should customize adventures to suit the players in them, the point of a setting sourcebook is to inspire DMs to create a homebrewed story.
Ravenloft, given the cellular nature of the setting, is particularly fertile ground for homebrewing - before getting into established, canonical domains of dread, the book has guidance on creating darklords and their domains, with an emphasis on making new mini-worlds that conform to the general vibes of Ravenloft while still be original to the folks at the table.
There's a lot in there as well that talks philosophically about the nature of the horror genre, exploring different subgenres and how they can work to define the feel of a domain of dread.
This creation-focused approach is something I think a Spelljammer book would really benefit from. To me, one of the biggest joys of DMing is creating new environments and lore for the players to discover. There are a couple benefits to this, as well. The first is that you can craft worlds that are suited perfectly to the story you want to build with the players and their characters' goals and motivations. But on top of that, by creating new stuff, you never have to worry about your players "reading ahead" as it were. For example, in my version of Ravnica, there is a region in the deep undercity called "Lost District Tartelos," which has taken on a mythic, Atlantis-like status, where most people don't think it actually exists. While I've borrowed elements from canonical Ravnica lore - like the fact that it sank beneath the city due to bizarre eldritch magic associated with the Nephilim - in practice I can do whatever I want with it, and the players aren't going to be able to read up on it (I do have a player who quickly searches MTG Wiki any time I mention a canonical planeswalker).
For Spelljammer, I would love to see them take a similar approach to spacefaring sci fi. While I think there's probably less of a variety of subgenres than horror (given that spacefaring sci fi is itself a subgenre of sci-fi overall) I do think there are a couple angles you could approach things.
For example, I see a few subgenre elements that can be mixed together.
Space opera is an epic tale of empires and star-fleets clashing with the stakes elevated by the interplanetary scale. A planet can be destroyed in a story like this, which in most stories would mean the ultimate end of everything, but here can just be one particularly brazen act of cruelty that demands justice. Star Wars is obviously a great example of this, as are things like Battlestar Galactica and, to an extent, Star Trek (though we're going to look at that form a different angle).
Used future emphasizes a "real" and gritty version of life in space that deliberate downplays the wonder to look at how people have adapted to life in this most hostile of environments. Here, I think a fantastic example is The Expanse, though we see elements of this in Alien, and even a bit in Star Wars (though more aesthetically than thematically). This is a subgenre where "street-level" conflicts still remain an issue worth exploring, just complicated by the challenges of living in a place where people aren't meant to.
Bold Exploration, on the other hand, is, I think the better fit for Star Trek - this focuses on the endless possibilities of people and phenomena that one can find in space, not necessarily as a source of high-stakes conflict (though that can certainly result) but as a challenge to our preconceptions and even just as an opportunity to discover an endless number of new worlds and peoples.
Alien Horror is essentially the big old Venn diagram overlap of Cosmic Horror and Science Fiction. While cosmic horror tends to have a contemporary setting, and a lot of science fiction has seen humanity adjust to the existence of alien life (often finding it's not all that different from ours,) alien horror sees a confident, spacefaring humanity encounter alien life that is incomprehensibly powerful and horrifying. Alien is the most famous example of this, though I'd throw Event Horizon in there as well, and, actually, for a lighter take, the Fifth Element, which blends this with Space Opera.
Planetary Romance is a subgenre I'm far less familiar with - it's typically associated with older sci-fi (basically pre-1950s,) with I think John Carter of Mars (the Barsoom series) being the classic example. This is less about traveling to different worlds than being the alien on a strange world and getting caught up in its epic conflicts.
To get back on track, I'd love for a Spelljammer sourcebook to take a similar approach to Van Richten's by emphasizing that space, as a setting, allows you to easily build your own sub-settings. You can always add new planets and new worlds. Even if a place like Realmspace is established and catalogued, the setting allows you to travel to any number of "undiscovered" crystal spheres with their own space-like environment within, and I'd love to see a strong emphasis on how to create such environments.
The next thing, which I think is really important, is strong rules for ship-to-ship combat. Ghosts of Saltmarsh had a pretty fleshed-out system for that, but none of the included adventures (which were all reprints) actually included any of it. Adding new systems to a game as complex as D&D is always a bit of a challenge, and I think the chance of failure goes up considerably when a system feels too disconnected from the familiar systems. So, while I think Starfinder having a totally separate combat system for ships still kind of works because it's considered a core system (though I haven't actually yet played, so I don't know), I think that D&D has got to tread carefully here.
I'm no designer, but my best guess would be to have a system in which it merely takes a player's action to use some in-ship system, but otherwise uses the normal combat rules. We'll see.
Anyway, one thing I really like about Starfinder as a system is its assumption that the party gets their own ship - especially how it de-couples the players' acquisition of wealth from the upgrades they can get for the ship, treating the ship less like a fancy magic item than a class to customize and level up. Granted, Starfinder has more built-in gold-sinks (every item you can get has a credit cost, and players don't just get a +1 weapon and stop worrying about upgrades,) so maybe this would provide some useful things for the players to spend gold on after they already got the Paladin and the Fighter plate armor. I'd love to see ships given enough customization to make the players feel invested in them - and I'd love to see something like a random table to determine a ship's quirks (like the Millennium Falcon sometimes not starting up until you hit a particular panel).
One thing I think we can be pretty confident about is that we'll get some player options. Already we've seen several Spelljammer-appropriate races on Unearthed Arcana for testing. (I hope they do more with the Giff, and maybe tweak the Autognome's inability to be healed by anything but the most basic healing spells, but overall they look cool). Personally, I really want to see the Artificer get a new subclass. Some other class should also get one - somehow Rogue feels like a strong option.
Naturally, I also want to see lots of cool alien monsters. We've gotten a few creatures associated with Spelljammer in previous publications, like Neogi and Giff, but I'm eager to see them bring out some new cool stuff.
One thing you might notice I haven't mentioned is any real specifics about the setting. I don't think the book should totally eschew this, of course. But I think I'm more interested in established locations as examples, rather than the firm box in which you can have these adventures. One of the issues I have with Eberron: Rising from the Last War, is that the description of the world is a massive lore dump. In retrospect, I think I'd have found it more useful as a book (though I think Eberron seems like a very cool setting - don't get me wrong) if instead there had been more an emphasis on how to achieve that pulp adventure feel that the setting is built around.
Anyway, the Spelljammer book hasn't been officially announced, but it does seem like a strong possibility for some time next year. Fingers crossed, and we'll take a look (or at least, look at what my DM hasn't asked me to skip past) if and when it comes out!
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