Dissapointed With Spelljammer?
Were you disappointed with Spelljammer? Did it leave you feeling hollow and yearning for more? Maybe you loved it, but if you didn't, I have something simply delectable in store for you this week.
The Three Problems
When the original Spelljammer was announced for D&D 5th Edition, I was excited. The art and the setting was evocative, and even now, I have to admit that the books are breathtaking to behold. The images evoke a certain style of space pirates that would be absolutely wonderful to play with. I, maybe like you, was excited. Space pirates? At my table? Then Wizards announced the measly page count for the three book release. Three books, sixty four pages each. That’s one hundred and ninety two pages, people. That’s nothing, especially when you take into account how much page space is given up for artwork, beautiful as it is. I spoke on this a little in a different video around Starfinder verses Spelljammer, and I was originally concerned that Spelljammer would be too rules light, even for 5th Edition. It is this rules light approach that has actually led to three common problems that we need to touch on today.
Art by Alfven Ato
Problem One…
The first problem we need to talk about is combat, and I'm not talking about the fisty cuffs, swinging swords or fireballs, I'm talking about ship combat. The whole point of playing pirates in space is so that you can come alongside and fire cannons or whatever you want towards other Spelljammers. Keep in mind Spelljammers are the space pirate ships, or the space ships, if you will. When it comes to describing how space combat works within Spelljammer it is largely described as “just board them”. That’s it. You can of course board the other ship if you’re playing space pirates, but what if you want to shoot them down first? Or disable the engines? Or light the whole thing on fire with several blasts of fireball? Maybe you just want to blow these annoying pirates up, and go on with the rest of your day. But in Starjammers, you can’t do that.
When it comes to the rules for Spelljammers, there is nothing written down. What you will find is a few phrases that are heavily relied upon. “Refer to your GM” or “GM discretion”. This system only wants you to fight space battles in one way, and that is side by side boarding. It is a lazy way of dragging in your standard Dungeon and Dragons rule set. And after your space battles, when you’ve absolutely had damage done to your ship, because when there are people throwing around fireballs of course there is going to be some collateral damage, how do you make those repairs? Well, you could spend money, resources and time to go into port and fix up your ship, but that would just take way too long and be too complicated and too expensive. So you know how you are going to fix it? Magic. I understand where the game designers were going for here; it’s a wild, crazy thing that we’re playing with here. Who wants to spend resources, components and time fixing a ship the old fashioned way? Magic is just so much more fun. Just fireball that steering wheel in place I’m sure it will hold. Now, I understand that this is supposed to be a setting of ridiculousness, but it doesn’t quite land with me.
Art by Shamie Korczynski
Problem Two…
Another complaint about the system is the lack of rules of creation. Let’s have a look at the rules around creating worlds. Now, what’s the point of going to the astral sea, if not to explore whole new worlds? So why are there no resources to help you create these worlds? It’s baffling to me that there are not more tools included in Spelljammer for world creation. Sure, there is a D10 table for adventure hooks you can use, but in the grand scheme of things, that’s nothing. One of the most common suggestions for world creation is go read some other books to get inspiration. That is the most help that you’re going to get in Spelljammer.
Problem Three…
Don’t even get me started on the lack of customization options for the Spelljammers themselves. There is hardly anything about describing or giving ideas on how to custom design your own starships. So what do you have to do? Look at other systems. Use your GM’s Discretion. While the GM’s are responsible for much in your story, pacing, plot, NPCs, battles, keeping the characters on track (we all know we’re like kittens with rocket launchers strapped to our backs), Spelljammer continues to lean heavily on the GM for any adventure you want to have in the Astral Sea. And you know what? The GM’s life is hard enough without this extra amount of preparation, and I believe that anyone that has led a game will agree with me.
The Solution
Now, I’m not here just to talk about the problems with Spelljammer (although I have many), but if you have made it this far, you might have the same qualms that I have had. Maybe you even had more! If so, worry not my friend, I am here to give you some solutions to these problems. Some you may even know where I’m going with this. And yes, it is to just play Starfinder. Not convinced? Drats. I guess I’ll have to keep typing.
Solution One…
Solution to our first problem about the starship combat, or combat in general, is to play Starfinder. Starfinders core rulebook has a pretty in-depth explanation of combat, how it’s supposed to work, options and examples of things that you can do with your fisty cuffs or your fireballs. It also gives you a vast array of options around how to have combat, not just your standard fisty cuffs. Do you want to have ship combat? Mech combat? Do you want to have an epic car chase? Do you want to live out your fleet admiral fantasy with an entire squadron of spaceships at your disposal? You can play Starfinder strictly as a war game. How cool is that? These styles of combat, you can find them not in the core rule books, but they have their own specific supplements—entire books that are around a hundred and sixty pages each on average. How long was one of Spelljammers books? Oh that’s right. Sixty four. That’s a lot more book!
Art by Geoff Tice
Solution Two…
Our problem two, the world generation, is blown out of the park with Starfinders in-depth support for GMs who want to tell their own stories, and not just use the setting that Paizo has built. There are multiple supplements that have been released with lore included for the existing setting, the Veskarium and the Pact Worlds. There is an entire book called the Galaxy Exploration Manual that is stuffed full of world building tools, tips and tricks tables and adventure hooks. Its entire purpose is creating worlds for a sandbox space exploration experience. It’s not just for planets either, but also how to build societies that would live on these planets, how their government is run, what kind of faith they have, whether they rely on magic or technology, complete with many, many juicy roll tables. Not only that, you have Starfinders Alien Archives (think monster manuals, as they may be known by some systems). At the time of this document, there are four Alien Archives. Just the first Alien Archives not only has a wide range of aliens that you can use for your games, but it also has an alien creation tools that you can use to make your own aliens and your own monsters for your games. And I haven’t even talked about the GM tool for planet building called the Deck of Many Worlds, which as it sounds, is a card deck of planets. Need something on the fly? Flip over a card and there you go, you got a world. Starfinder has been around since 2018, and there have been other systems that have done world generation tools before Starfinder did. The simple lack of creative tools from Wizards is simply unacceptable.
Solution Three…
Spelljammer customization. Where is it? Not in Spelljammer. But we don’t seem to have that problem in Starfinder. The Starship Operations Manual is an entire supplement of strictly starship material. It has customization options, faction starships, stats for engine types, dimension bending options, fancy shields, battering rams. Why yes, you can put a battering ram on the front of your starship and slam it into other starships if you want to board. That may be the only boarding I’ll be doing in future games.
All in all, I may just be a Starfinder fanboy. And though that may be my truth, at least Starfinder has my back when I GM a game for six feisty friends that regularly destroy the plans I’ve made, and end up needing a quick escape to a whole new world with a whole new set of problems. With Starfinder, prep is easy, and it allows me to have a blast with my players.
If you’re looking to get started with Starfinder, I have a buyers guide for you here.
As always, I would like to thank my patrons and all my subscribers to my channel, all of your support is greatly appreciated. My name is Nathaniel, you’ve had a dose of Maple, and I welcome you back to the Table next week!
