Just came across this. Spelljammer and Dragonlance? I am surprised after the multiple screw-ups WOTC made over Dragonlance.

IGN talks about both. https://www.ign.com/articles/dungeons-and-dragons-dragonlance-spelljammer-announced

Looks like a big set if it is 3 books. Astral Adventurers Guide suggests that they are moving things from the Phlogston to the Astral Plane? The space elves are now Astral Elves. That pretty much guarantees it will be set in the Astral. Also looks like the Tinker Gnomes have been reworked as robot gnomes? And Star Frontiers Dralasites make a comeback as the Plasmoids.

I'd love to get excited about this. But its WOTC and its now. So... No. That and a 3 book set is likely to be pricy. I'm betting its anywhere from 100$ to 150$ unless those are smaller than average books.

As for Dragonlance. This bit at least seems positive. IF WOTC does not botch it.

Quote"This is not a reboot of the setting, it doesn't invalidate or change any of the previous Dragonlance stories. It doesn't throw any of that away—it adds details around the edges and builds upon them."

Quote from: Omega on April 23, 2022, 01:14:45 PM
Looks like a big set if it is 3 books.

Three 64 page books.

https://www.polygon.com/23033732/dnd-spelljammer-adventures-in-space-release-date-price

"The books included with Spelljammer: Adventures in Space are, however, much slimmer at just 64 pages each. Previously released hardcover materials for 5th edition D&D are generally well in excess of 250 pages each."

I realize Polygon can be hit or miss, but it was just the first one I found to cite.

Quote from: Omega on April 23, 2022, 01:14:45 PM
Just came across this. Spelljammer and Dragonlance? I am surprised after the multiple screw-ups WOTC made over Dragonlance.

IGN talks about both. https://www.ign.com/articles/dungeons-and-dragons-dragonlance-spelljammer-announced

Looks like a big set if it is 3 books. Astral Adventurers Guide suggests that they are moving things from the Phlogston to the Astral Plane? The space elves are now Astral Elves. That pretty much guarantees it will be set in the Astral. Also looks like the Tinker Gnomes have been reworked as robot gnomes? And Star Frontiers Dralasites make a comeback as the Plasmoids.

I'd love to get excited about this. But its WOTC and its now. So... No. That and a 3 book set is likely to be pricy. I'm betting its anywhere from 100$ to 150$ unless those are smaller than average books.

As for Dragonlance. This bit at least seems positive. IF WOTC does not botch it.

Quote"This is not a reboot of the setting, it doesn't invalidate or change any of the previous Dragonlance stories. It doesn't throw any of that away—it adds details around the edges and builds upon them."

Buy the original books and if you want to play 5e (why would you anyway?) just adapt them yourself.

Spelljammer never clicked for me. Damn shame because I really wanted to like it.

$70 for the box set isn't too bad though.

I saw some fan suggestions to merge the deep ethereal with the phlogiston, but the astral plane? It has too many different rules for that to fit. This looks like an astral plane adventures setting with spelljammer tech and concepts retrofitted to it.

Quote from: UA: Dragonlance
MAGES OF DRAGONLANCE
In past presentations of the Dragonlance setting, several of DUNGEONS & DRAGON's modern spellcasting classes didn't exist. To accommodate these classes, the group known as the Wizards of High Sorcery has evolved into the Mages of High Sorcery. The group's distinct orders and signature robes remain, but the organization now accepts members from a broad range of spellcasting traditions. Members who find their magic influenced by the phases of Krynn's moons also remain part of the group, largely represented by sorcerers with the Lunar Magic subclass.

Conflicted. First reaction is to question the need to fit a list of classes to the setting. Why not exclude/create classes to stay true to the lore? At the same time, the backgrounds and feats, particularly for Knights of Solamnia, seem interesting.

5e could squeeze additional longevity into what has been a long and successful edition, but I'm not convinced this will move the needle. Plus this will most likely be soaking wet with agenda and identity politics. Happy to be wrong.

Quote from: FingerRod on April 23, 2022, 02:16:06 PM

Quote from: UA: Dragonlance
MAGES OF DRAGONLANCE
In past presentations of the Dragonlance setting, several of DUNGEONS & DRAGON's modern spellcasting classes didn't exist. To accommodate these classes, the group known as the Wizards of High Sorcery has evolved into the Mages of High Sorcery. The group's distinct orders and signature robes remain, but the organization now accepts members from a broad range of spellcasting traditions. Members who find their magic influenced by the phases of Krynn's moons also remain part of the group, largely represented by sorcerers with the Lunar Magic subclass.

Conflicted. First reaction is to question the need to fit a list of classes to the setting. Why not exclude/create classes to stay true to the lore? At the same time, the backgrounds and feats, particularly for Knights of Solamnia, seem interesting.

5e could squeeze additional longevity into what has been a long and successful edition, but I'm not convinced this will move the needle. Plus this will most likely be soaking wet with agenda and identity politics. Happy to be wrong.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of diluting settings' uniqueness to fit the generic D&D rules. That's part of the reason why I like Spheres of Power: it gives you the tools to customize magic for different campaign conceits, rather than forcing everything into a cookie cutter mold. Depending on the setting, some classes and rules may simply be inappropriate and there's nothing wrong with this.

Very. Why arent they doing new paths to fit? Seems an odd choice.

But then the original modules ran off AD&D with few changes. Mostly just what was or not in the setting. Like no orcs, etc.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 23, 2022, 01:51:43 PM
Buy the original books and if you want to play 5e (why would you anyway?) just adapt them yourself.

I like quite a few things in 5e that I've imported into my regular OSR style game, like Advantage/Disadvantage.

Spelljammer always seemed like a better idea than the execution, and I really didn't like 2e.

I won't likely be getting these new books because they will be woke as hell, no doubt.

No one will care when 6e is around the corner.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2022, 02:15:37 PM
I saw some fan suggestions to merge the deep ethereal with the phlogiston, but the astral plane? It has too many different rules for that to fit. This looks like an astral plane adventures setting with spelljammer tech and concepts retrofitted to it.

Spelljammer is fundamentally incompatible with the Astral plane, while overlapping it in other ways. And nobody's ever really known what to do with the Ethereal. I'm generally fine with trying to making the planes more coherent and playable, but I think they'll lose a lot of the charm. Spelljammer, at its best, is really weird and quirky, even for D&D.

Quote from: thomden on April 23, 2022, 03:25:24 PM
Spelljammer always seemed like a better idea than the execution, and I really didn't like 2e.

Agreed. Spelljammer is packed with crazy, wild, and fascinating ideas, but it doesn't entirely gel. A really good version of Spelljammer would run with the madness, and demolish anything needed to make it happen. But the result wouldn't fit snugly into the kitchen sick version of D&D. It would have to be its own thing.

Quote from: Pat on April 23, 2022, 04:46:34 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2022, 02:15:37 PM
I saw some fan suggestions to merge the deep ethereal with the phlogiston, but the astral plane? It has too many different rules for that to fit. This looks like an astral plane adventures setting with spelljammer tech and concepts retrofitted to it.

Spelljammer is fundamentally incompatible with the Astral plane, while overlapping it in other ways. And nobody's ever really known what to do with the Ethereal. I'm generally fine with trying to making the planes more coherent and playable, but I think they'll lose a lot of the charm. Spelljammer, at its best, is really weird and quirky, even for D&D.

Yeah, I think by replacing phlogiston with the astral (among other things) they'll lose a lot of the charm. It also breaks the cosmology because prior to this retcon we've been operating on the assumption that the prime material plane is contiguous... but now wildspace spheres just float in the astral no differently than the outer planes. Where is the logic here? Even the world axis cosmology from 4e made more sense.

I've always had issues with the planes. I used to spend a lot of time trying to devise coherent simplified cosmologies because I always found the great wheel pretty unwieldy. But I always tried to devise a logic behind why things were structured so. WotC seems to be arbitrarily simplifying things without understanding how this affects the cosmology holistically. Among other things, the astral plane has the timeless quality and the inner planes normally have not. Now it produces the bizarre result that space travel now makes you stop aging or need to eat.

I get that astral space nautical adventures and phlogiston space nautical adventures have always been redundant (which really annoyed me during my "invent my own planes" phase), but just merging them together without taking into account how this rewrites the cosmology... I'd take the Dark Dungeons cosmology over this. It's more logical.

Quote from: Pat on April 23, 2022, 04:49:49 PM

Quote from: thomden on April 23, 2022, 03:25:24 PM
Spelljammer always seemed like a better idea than the execution, and I really didn't like 2e.

Agreed. Spelljammer is packed with crazy, wild, and fascinating ideas, but it doesn't entirely gel. A really good version of Spelljammer would run with the madness, and demolish anything needed to make it happen. But the result wouldn't fit snugly into the kitchen sick version of D&D. It would have to be its own thing.

This is part of why I don't like 5e. They keep hammering out the uniqueness from the settings and reducing them to simplistic aesthetics. For example, they removed the Core from Ravenloft. As in, the primary (and perhaps only) continent of the demiplane. That's like removing Middle Earth from Arda.

If WotC wanted to make aesthetics, that's fine. But outright destroying their IPs is... ugh. If there were actual structural problems that would be one thing (e.g. anything by Blizzard), but these changes are purely arbitrary.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2022, 05:08:22 PM

Quote from: Pat on April 23, 2022, 04:46:34 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 23, 2022, 02:15:37 PM
I saw some fan suggestions to merge the deep ethereal with the phlogiston, but the astral plane? It has too many different rules for that to fit. This looks like an astral plane adventures setting with spelljammer tech and concepts retrofitted to it.

Spelljammer is fundamentally incompatible with the Astral plane, while overlapping it in other ways. And nobody's ever really known what to do with the Ethereal. I'm generally fine with trying to making the planes more coherent and playable, but I think they'll lose a lot of the charm. Spelljammer, at its best, is really weird and quirky, even for D&D.

Yeah, I think by replacing phlogiston with the astral (among other things) they'll lose a lot of the charm.

I think it could be done. The problem is, making it interesting would require radically changing how the Astral operates, which would inevitably retroactively invalidate whatever they've done with the Astral in 5e. It's not something that can just be grafted onto an existing setting.

A stand-alone phlogiston, on the other hand, can be grafted on. Which is presumably why they did that in 2e.

But the best solution would be a setting where the principles of Spelljammer become the cosmology, instead of somehow competing with the Great Wheel, the Astral Sea, or whatever.

I gave up trying to make sense of D&D's cosmology ages ago, specially how they keep revamping it every edition, without maintaining much consistency. I fully expect them to mess this up and rip the soul out of Spelljammer with this new rendition. They're just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

But I haven't cared about nuD&D in ages, so it barely affects me at this point.