What setting do you like more and why?
SPELLJAMMER
a comprehensive system of fantasy astrophysics, including the Ptolemaic concept of crystal spheres. Crystal spheres may contain multiple worlds and are navigable using ships equipped with "spelljamming helms". Ships powered by spelljamming helms are capable of flying into not only the sky but into space. With their own fields of gravity and atmosphere, the ships have open decks and tend not to resemble the spaceships of science fiction, but instead look more like galleons, animals, birds, fish or even more wildly fantastic shapes.
The Spelljammer setting is designed to allow the usual sword and sorcery adventures of Dungeons & Dragons to take place within the framework of outer space tropes. Flying ships travel through the vast expanses of interplanetary space, visiting moons and planets and other stellar objects.
Like the Planescape setting, Spelljammer unifies most of the other AD&D settings and provides a canonical method for allowing characters from one setting (such as Dragonlance) to travel to another (such as the Forgotten Realms). However, unlike Planescape it keeps all of the action on the Prime Material Plane and uses the crystal spheres, and the "phlogiston" between them, to form natural barriers between otherwise incompatible settings. Though the cosmology is derived largely from the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, many of the ideas owe much to the works of Jules Verne and his contemporaries, and to related games and fiction with a steampunk or planetary romance flavor. A strong Age of Sail flavor is also present.
PLANESCAPE
Sigil, the "City of Doors", is located atop the Spire in the Outlands. It has the shape of a torus, and the city itself is located on the inner surface of the ring. There is no sky, simply an all-pervasive light that waxes and wanes to create day and night. Sigil cannot be entered or exited save via portals. Although this makes it quite safe from any would-be invader, it also makes it a prison of sorts for those not possessing a portal key. Thus, many call Sigil "The Bird Cage" or "The Cage." Though Sigil is commonly held to be located "at the center of the planes" (where it is positioned atop the infinitely tall Spire), some argue that this is impossible since the planes are infinite in all dimensions, and therefore there can never truly be a center to any of them, let alone all of them. Curiously, from the Outlands, one can see Sigil atop the supposedly infinite Spire.
The Factions are the philosophically-derived power groups based in Sigil. Before the Faction War, the factions controlled the political climate of the city. Each of the factions is based on one particular belief system; many of the factions' beliefs make them enemies where their other goals and actions might have made them allies. There are fifteen factions in total.
Rule-of-ThreeThe first principle, the Rule-of-Three, says simply that things tend to happen in threes.The principles which govern the planes are themselves subject to this rule.
Unity of Rings The second principle is the Unity of Rings, and notes that many things on the planes are circular, coming back around to where they started. This is true geographically as well as philosophically.
Center of All
The third principle (fitting neatly into the Rule-of-Three above) is the Center of All, and states that there is a center of everything — or, rather, wherever a person happens to be is the center of the multiverse... from their own perspective, at least. As most planes are functionally infinite, disproving anyone's centricity would be impossible. In Planescape, this is meant philosophically just as much as it is meant in terms of multiversal geography.
By far Planescape.
Planescape went beyond the normal Hack & Slash, gave some victorian feel to the 2e game, and made you go beyond alignment if you went with a faction. Especially if that faction wasn't lined up perfectly with your alignment. I liked the moral grey areas it provided. Polite society, grey areas, and the paladin making nice with the 'loths. Yep, that was hilarious and fun at the same time.
Now, that's not to say that spelljammer can't be fun. I've played in a short spelljamming adventure with my fav 3.x GM, and it was a riot. The largest illithid that we've ever seen was there... and it advanced our plot back planet-side as well.
I have to go with Planescape for this one. I have most of the materials that TSR produced for the setting and found it a lot of fun. Great source material. Fantastic art, layout and style. And it was such a shift in the way you look at the game world.
I think while I like the idea of magically powered flying ships I tend to fall into the outer space in my prime material plane is just like outer space here in our universe and that natural scientific laws are just as true in the game world (so gunpowder works and gravitational force is based on the mass and distance between objects for example). True magic can override the natural order but otherwise things work as you'd expect them to. So I just didn't really get into the crystal spheres and phlogiston physics. Now if these ships are off sailing the Astral Sea or moving through the Elemental Plane of Water I'm cool with that. But here on the prime? Not so much.
L
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Three Words:
Giant.
Space.
Hamster.
Because I suspect Planescape will dominate as the favored setting in this thread, I thought I'd chime in to say I prefer Spelljammer.
SJ had as many bizarre new races and monsters as Planescape, which was awesome, but the detailed rules for ships and its space-opera history with a starborne fleet of goblins so massive and powerful it took humans, elves, dwarves and illithid to dislodge them was all I needed. The sheer amount of crazy in SJ alone would have been enough to earn my duckets. Flying pyramids filled with space-mummies and laser cannons built out of beholders? Alien vessels powered by dying slaves and a giant living ship shaped like a stingray with a city on its back and a tail that shoots Spheres of Annihilation? Sign me up.
Planescape,, hands down. Disregarding Faction War, of course.
Wow, that's tough.
Planescape by a hair, mostly due to the amount of support plus heavy reminders to the past classic of the 1e Manual of the Planes. Faction War, however, sullies the legacy of that setting AFAIC, and drags it down many, many notches.
But boy, I love me some Spelljammer. Taking over and setting up an asteroid outpost? Heck, yeah.
So far...Planescape 4 votes/ Spelljammer 2 votes. Looks like Planescape is winning this one so far.
I've always been interested in Spelljammer but I never got a chance to buy it. I sure think it's a cool setting, and I know Paizo has done some work for a later supplement of Spelljammer. So it would be cool if Paizo started a similar campaign.
Planescape is out there. The artwork was very cool, I used to have the boxset. I have lost many things throughout the years, and sold some stuff I regret now. Definitely a tripped out setting that can go several different strange places.
|
I like both settings actually. And I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite between the two...
I used Spelljammer more in my campaigns however, because it was easier for me to utilize within the campaigns I was running back then than Planescape was...
The players I had tended to not like Planescape because it showcased their characters as relatively small fish in a much bigger pond (that and they hated the overall attitude of those inhabiting the planes). Though I did run a few successful campaigns over the years...
Spelljammer all the way. Planescape was always dominated by Faction politics, making the characters pawns manipulated by greater powers.
In SPelljammer, you were almost never a pawn. The free and independent sandbox of the setting was attractive.
And who could NOT love Under the Dark Fist? Especially when it gives you the chance to blow up thousands of treacherous neogi in the phlogiston if you are clever about it?
===Aelryinth
I would have to go with Spelljammer, for a relatively subtle reason -- it inflicted less damage on the individual settings that comprised it. In Spelljammer, each crystal sphere could have different pantheons and even a different arrangement of outer planes without difficulty. Anyone detailing a crystal sphere for a given setting would have been tempted but not absolutely required to populate the rest of the solar system. There could be as much or as little interaction among different settings as you preferred.
On the other hand, Planescape basically forced every setting to be shoehorned into the Great Wheel cosmology -- with varying effects depending on how far off the original setting was from that scheme. The politics of Sigil are almost impossible to avoid -- that location is just too central to the setting.
Both. I tend to mix elements of both when my campaigns go for long enough.
Both because the Spelljammer and Planescape settings provide a coherent view of the d&d universum (Multiversum). I use both settings in my games. My ongoing campaign is a Spelljammer campaign but my players have already visited to Sigil via a portal.
But if I need to choice then I choose the Spelljammer. Of course. :)
Without a doubt both settings are great pieces of work. The art and setting of Planescape is truly amazing. However, I prefer Spelljammer.
Crazy swash-buckling fantasy in space with Neogi and Illithids hoping to find the illusive Spelljammer, and take a shot at controlling that amazing vessel. Maybe Spelljammer just fits my pizza and a beer tongue firmly lodged in cheek gameplay style.
These were my favorite two settings and for that reason I bought everything up that was put out for both.
They are the only settings I kept from second edition, prefferring the Planescape version of the planes over the Pathfinder version. I am currently using Planescape for that matter in the Savage Tide AP, two modules left.
As for Spelljammer it will see some use soon enough with Distant worlds out and all.
Oh, and I want DiTerlizzi drawings back!
I have to go with Planescape. It's kind of funny, I weas walking up the stairs in my duplex and saw my planescape boxes and got a little weepy over the setting. I really loved the who moral grey areas all over the place that it featured.
SJ was ok, but combat in space was kind of lame, and the whole Star Trek you always seem to land right where all the action is always bugged me.
|
|
This is a tough one. I never actually had a Planescape or SJ campaign, but used elements from both in my Home Brew. Some of SJ encounters with a Githyanki SJ were very memorable. But some of the Plane hopping encounters based around Sigil were very cool too. Some of the adventures I created actually had elements of both settings with SJs visiting Sigil. They both are great settings to use for the higher level campaigns. If I had to pick, I would lean toward SJ only because some of the ships were really cool.
Later,
Mazra
Looks like SpellJammer is winning this battle. Very close but there has been some people that are voting both so I didn't count those.
|
I never got to use any of the Spelljammer material in my games, but I used plenty of Planescape material as we plane-hopped at higher levels alot. The only time space-faring came up, it was done using Dragonstar rules, as it was more grounded in science than Spelljammer was.
Add my vote to Planescape.
Planescape by far. Even if Planescape wasn't as great a setting as it was, I don't go for the goofy stuff like the Giant Space Hamsters and Giff, so Spelljammer is not an option.
Spell jammer...I still treasure my issue of Paizo's old Dungeon/polyhedron relaunch of the setting for 3d ed.
Spelljammmer gave you the option to combine the feel and monsters of D&D wth the "spacebuckling" of Star Wars. The ships having the look of the creatures who used them, seperate worlds for races instead of simply seperate communities, and the idea of magic as a method of space travel itself was all cool.
I also have adapted some spelljammer ideas for more conventional campaigns with the spaceships becoming very wierd looking seagoing vessals, and islands instead of worlds. It works fine.
I also didn't include space hamsters in my capaign.
When you think about it, if magic were real and as powerful as D&D, then spacetravel would evetually happen using spells to hold the air to the deck and fly the vessel at great speed...and not much more fantasy than some of the sillier Faster Than Light methods I have seen in cheesy sci-fi.
One more for Planescape
I liked it better because the universe felt more immersive. Planescape also had more of a gritty, noir feel to a lot of it. Also, the Planescape setting was a little more cohesive, from what I saw. Spell Jammer always seemed to jump from serious to in-game pun. Don't get me wrong, SJ was a cool setting and I enjoyed the games I played in it, but it just wasn't to my particular taste.
Spelljammer forever!
Never got to play in either, I regret to say, and it is much to my disappointment.
I also missed ever playing in my favourite all time setting (DarkSun) as I was always being the GM.
|
|
I like both Planescape and Spelljammer; I find them different enough that they are hard to compare. I suppose I like both equally but for different reasons.
I have just about every product that was officially published for Spelljammer (2nd Edition AD&D); I was in a player in two campaigns that, while not exclusively ‘Spelljammer Campaigns’ had strong elements of Spelljammer in there, and I DM’d a long running Spelljammer campaign. While some of the silly stuff was ... well, pretty silly, there was a lot of awesome stuff. The ship designs, ship floor plans / stat sheets, the hex map and markers for ship to ship combat, the Rock of Bral, THE Spelljammer, ships full of all different type of beholders, ships full of mindflayers, neogi and their umber hulk slaves ... great. As good as it was, very little of Spelljammer has a place in any of the campaigns I am currently running.
I never GM’d Planescape, but have been a player in several games; a one off Planescape module for another campaign, an unfortunately short lived campaign set in Sigil, a long running (and much loved) campaign set in the Great Ring and heavily reliant on Planescape material (although Sigil and the Factions were sort of in the background) and a 3.5 Planescape game that I wish had run for longer than it did. Further, I use a lot of Planescape-esque stuff for planar elements in one of my current (3.5) games. I don’t own any of the 2nd edition Planescape stuff, but obviously Planescape influenced 3.0 and 3.5 books like the Manual of the Planes, the Planar Handbook and Hordes of the Abyss. I also utilise some of the ‘Campaign Classic’ type articles about Planescape from Dragon magazine.
I'm with the "apples and oranges" crowd. I love both settings. It is simply a matter of what the campaign needs and/or what I feel like throwing at the player characters. There have always been subtle (and in some cases, not-so-subtle) references to the rest of the universe/multiverse around the PCs, ready for future exploration if they feel like taking the bait.
Spelljammer's crystal sphere system and Phlogiston was an extremely charming call-out to mediaeval and earlier world-views, and I love the varied and fantastic ships. On the other hand, when using the setting today, I'm adapting a more scientific version (similar to what Paizo's "Distant Worlds" supplement is doing). Ships can still be fantastic though - they just have to have a forcefield to enclose that otherwise open deck! If it's magic or dilithium crystals or fusion reactors powering that forcefield, who cares? And so on.
I like the Unhuman War history, and always wanted to play or run the 2e Wildspace campaigns. *sighs* The fact that a simple groundling character could take a job on board a spelljammer in return for passage to another campaign setting - without having to be a high-level spellcaster - was great! But I still refuse to acknowledge the existence of Giant Space Hamsters! :)
Planescape was a completely different cup of tea, yet it too could tie together the various campaign settings. If a character found the right portal, then again he wouldn't need to be a high-level spellcaster to travel the planes. Since I didn't keep up with the Faction War plot, I won't pretend to know what happened there. But the concept of philosophy overriding alignment is very compelling.
Like another poster in this thread, I too am keeping the 2e Planescape setting for my Pathfinder game. (Like I did for my 3.x games - I hated the "boutique cosmologies" retcon that came in 3.x.)
I have alot of the spelljammer material, but never got to run/play any of it. It was mostly a 'make stories and fantasize' attempt for me.
On the other hand, Nothing fleshed out Planescape for me better than Planescape: Torment. Original ideas, incredible and unique characters (semi-dead hero, angry irish tiefling, obnoxious floating skull, Intellectual/spiritual succubus!) and the scenery was epic for an overhead strat game. gods i wanted to play a campaign in it so bad.
I think I'm going to dig up the game again and reinstall now that I'm thinking of it again.
Spelljammer, for all the reasons stated. Giant space hamsters turned me off, too, but the whole "Firefly with magic instead of tech" thing still appeals to me.
I find that a lot of players don't care for it, though. There were a lot of silly monsters, but far more things about it were fascinating. I even rewrote vast parts of the mechanics for 3.X.
Spelljammer, for all the reasons stated. Giant space hamsters turned me off, too, but the whole "Farscape with magic instead of tech" thing still appeals to me.
I find that a lot of players don't care for it, though. There were a lot of silly monsters, but far more things about it were fascinating. I even rewrote vast parts of the mechanics for 3.X.
Fixed it for you.
I played and enjoyed both. I found planescape more interesting, but spell jammer more playable. So..I´ll say spell jammer cuz I like the big open sand box approach.
Spelljammer of course. Hippopotamus people are a negative, but the space battles more than make up for it.
Planescape had way way better art though. It has been a while since I looked at the Spelljammer books, but even years ago I remember thinking that the art sucked. Planescape on the other hand has the best art direction of any RPG product hands down. Also, they never made a great computer game about Spelljammer.
Well looks like Spelljammer is the champion in this battle.
Well looks like Spelljammer is the champion in this battle.All it proves that there are more apple posters than orange posters in this thread.
Spelljammer was fine for the swashbuckling and mostly silly. Planescape, especially Sigil I suspect was TSR/WOTC's attempt to bring back AD%D players who had been lured away to World of Darkness.
Yeah it's all a matter of opinion. I actually thought Planescape would win this one.
Wasn't Spelljammer phased out in order to publish Planescape, or am I remembering that wrong. It was a little bit before my time.
I seem to remember some in-universe jokes about that fact.
|
|
Wasn't Spelljammer phased out in order to publish Planescape, or am I remembering that wrong. It was a little bit before my time.
I seem to remember some in-universe jokes about that fact.
I’ve never heard that, but you might be right. Spelljammer was released in 1989, the last supplements for it were published in the early 90s, probably about ’92 or ’93. Planescape was released in 1994, so the timing is about right.
I don't see the need for a contest. They're two very different settings with practically no overlap, and appeal to very different story types. More variety is a good thing.Yeah it's all a matter of opinion. I actually thought Planescape would win this one.Well looks like Spelljammer is the champion in this battle.All it proves that there are more apple posters than orange posters in this thread.
Spelljammer was fine for the swashbuckling and mostly silly. Planescape, especially Sigil I suspect was TSR/WOTC's attempt to bring back AD%D players who had been lured away to World of Darkness.
I don't see why not? Yes, we are fully aware that these are two different settings. These threads are a part of RPG experiments conducted personally for further research progress, and product idea awareness. Of course variety is a good thing, and it's nice to see what people have enjoyed more through their personal experiences.
One last question; who has rights for spelljammer? Paizo published the 3rd ed version in the old dungeon/polyhedron magazine. Did they do it for WOTC or did they get the rights? A Pathfinder Spelljammer would be sweet.
Well looks like Spelljammer is the champion in this battle.All it proves that there are more apple posters than orange posters in this thread.
Spelljammer was fine for the swashbuckling and mostly silly. Planescape, especially Sigil I suspect was TSR/WOTC's attempt to bring back AD%D players who had been lured away to World of Darkness.
actually, I have to disagree with you here.
This is a clean win for an often intentionally misunderstood setting.