Conceptually, Spelljammer opens up something I think a lot of D&D fans are excited for - bringing in a bit of science fiction flavor to a game primarily set up for classic fantasy. The setting makes a lot of big leaps to justify using the same system, and creates a fantastical version of outer space that works very differently than the one we believe exists in our universe (and we have people who have actually gone into space, so at least within the range of the moon, we can be pretty confident our conception of how space works is accurate).
I'll confess that I actually prefer the more distinctly sci-fi way that Starfinder presents space, but there is a lot of whimsy to Spelljammer's presentation.
Unlike previous 5E releases, Spelljammer came in a box set. This is something that was done a lot in earlier editions. For example, the Planescape Campaign Setting set came with a Player's Guide, a DM's Guide to the Planes, a Monstrous Supplement, and Sigil & Beyond, which went into greater detail about the city and the Outlands.
I've seen complaints that Spelljammer: Adventures in Space is disappointing, especially considering all the hype around it, and the fact that it's been about 30 years since the last Spelljammer book. The fact that each book is only 64 pages, which even totaled up makes it shorter than most Campaign Setting books that have come out for 5th Edition is another source of complaints. I would argue that more pages does not inherently make a book better or more useful. Personally, I think Eberron: Rising from the Last War goes into such minute detail that my eyes kind of glaze over - I don't think I've ever been able to get through the entire section on Sharn.
Looking through the three volumes of Adventures in Space, I think that the critiques that it's too thin and bereft of content don't really apply to Boo's Astral Menagerie or Light of Xaryxis. Boo's (as I guess I'll be calling it) gives us more monster stat blocks than I think any other setting book has. And a lot of these are quite interesting - many aberrations to serve as your weird and gross aliens, as well as whimsical stuff like Vampirates and Space Clowns (ok, the latter also being potentially terrifying).
Light of Xaryxis is thin, of course, as a full published adventure, but compared to other campaign setting starting adventures, it's really beefy - you get four full levels' worth of content that span multiple space genres - a bit of cosmic horror here, a bunch of space opera there, a weird gladiatorial fight that feels like a staple of the old "planetary romance" genre (though this happens on a space station rather than a planet).
That leaves the Astral Adventurer's Guide.
This is actually the first campaign setting (I think?) to not give us any new subclasses. I'd thought that this would have been a great opportunity for an Artificer subclass, or perhaps a Rogue that might reflect some kind of Han Solo archetype.
The setting brings six new races, all of which are pretty cool (the only one I'm not really impressed by is the Astral Elf. I think slapping another kind of elf into things is the laziest way to make a new fantasy race. But hey, people like to play hot people, and that's kind of the elves' deal.)
The actual chapter on how space travel works is pretty short, with rules about how Wildspace works and then how travel in the Astral Sea works. And we get some specific worldbuilding about the Rock of Bral.
But the bulk of the book is taken up by ship deck plans. This is all well and good, and actually genuinely useful for designing encounters. The emphasis here, I think, is to make ship-to-ship combat run smoothly and easily.
But there's basically zero guidance on how to actually build a Spelljammer adventure.
Here, I'm going to have to trot out my favorite book they've made for 5E, which is Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. Van Richten's has an extensive exploration of the horror genre, and then a dense and detailed guide to creating domains of dread and their darklords. There is a section of optional rules to enhance the feeling of horror. There's a section on using safety tools to ensure that everyone at the table is having a good time. And even with the guide on homebrewing domains, there's also a chapter that gives many canonical domains pretty thorough descriptions, each with a different guide on how to build adventures specific to those domains - running a plague cycle in Richemoulot, or a siege in Falkovnia, for example.
The AAG relies on the Light of Xaryxis to be an example of how a Spelljammer adventure could work, but it doesn't get into how to build one of your own.
There's also no real description of specific Wildspace regions. We don't get what worlds can be visited in Realmspace or Krynnspace or Greyspace. And while, yeah, I'm a big homebrew guy who likes his own setting, if part of the appeal of Spelljammer is the ability to travel between these settings, it'd be nice to get at least a sketch of what the various Wildspace areas are like.
I'd also love to have seen some details on how you might change the availability of certain items. Giff, for example, have a racial proficiency with firearms. But should DMs just open up all firearms in the DMG? Or just renaissance ones?
I think the AAG could have been so much more if they'd given it room to breathe. As it is, the catalogue of ships and deck plans - something that absolutely should be in the book - feels like a waste of space simply because the other elements are so thin.
I'm actually kind of shocked that there isn't some DM's Guild supplement like Domains of Delight, which came out alongside Wild Beyond the Witchlight. I'm not exactly a fan of D&D DLC as a concept, but I think the three-book concept here might have actually really held WotC back when making this product.
Is the set useless? Absolutely not. And I'm going to be running some Spelljammer in the near future (taking on two homebrew campaigns is... maybe ill advised, but here we go!)
I just think the AAG, which seems like it should be the primary book of the set, should have been more substantial.
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