so, i keep hearing... - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

so, i keep hearing...

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
jaid
Dec 26, 2006 20:50:21 on the SJEML, it has come up a couple times lately that there is supposed to be something going on to convert spelljammer to 3rd edition.

is there anything actually going on with that? more to the point, is there any plan for it? was there ever any such plan? do we have a list of what needs to be done or anything like that?

and for that matter, if there is some degree of effort going on towards this, how do we volunteer for working on stuff, playtesting, etc?

i would assume the ultimate goal is to come up with something like what athas.org has come up with?
#2
mean_eyed_cat
Dec 27, 2006 13:02:28 The only official 3rd edition conversion that I know about can be found in Dungeon 92/Polyhedron 151. It can be ordered

You can also find a wealth of 3rd edition information at the official Spelljammer fan site spelljammer.org.
#3
jaid
Dec 27, 2006 18:10:07 yeah, i know about those two...

but i'm just noticing language on the spelljammer email list which implies that there is supposed to be something going on to get spelljammer to a point similar to what athas.org has done for darksun... that is, basically created a sort of campaign setting book for it.
#4
bigmac
Jan 06, 2007 21:16:28 Hi Jaid,

There is something going on at the SJML. It isn't anything to do with Shadow of the Spider Moon. Mean Eyed Cat's second guess was the correct one. Beyond the Moons (BtM) works closely with the Spelljammer Mailing List (SJML) and the 3e conversion being worked on will all eventually be uploaded there. A small amount of material has already been finished, but the work will probably not be converted to PDF until there is enough stuff up on BtM to fill up a book.

I believe that the work has been inspired not only by athas.org (who did a great job), but also by most of the other official websites that have all got to various stages of converting other out of print TSR campaign settings to 3e. In my opinion the most successful of these conversion websites is Dragonlance Nexus, because they did so well they convinced WotC to bring back the DLCS (and licence it out to a professional publisher).

Several people have converted elements of Spelljammer since Wizards of the Coast brought out the 3rd Edition of D&D. Beyond the Moons and Shattered Fractine have done best in the fan community. The Shadows of the Spider Moon commercial product was a very good effort at a 3e version of Spelljammer. However, some people felt that it lacked the feel of Spelljammer.

The current conversion effort on the SJML is trying to create a conversion that will keep the fans of the 2e background happy as well as work with the 3e rules (and the official Conversion Guidlines).

WotC have made some big changes to how spellcasters and spells work and we had a very long discussion about existing spell conversions a while ago.

More recently, some people in the discussion felt that SJ needs fluff (background) as much as it needs crunch (3e rules). So conversation turned from the rules conversion to bringing the SJCS background material up to date.

The key elements of the original SJCS (the fluff of SJ) include The Radiant Triangle (Greyspace, Krynnspace and Realmspace), Spiralspace (the crystal sphere in the Cloakmaster books that has Bral in it), the elven navy, the scro and many other elements from all of the the RPG products (as well as the books and the comics).

After the conversation turned this way these other campaign settings had to be looked at to try to make a 3e conversion that was compatible with them all.

Because the original SJCS connects to Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms (and Planescape) a lot of the conversation on the SJML has been about how this conversion might fit in with some of the variant rules put into the 3e Dragonlance Campaign Setting, Living Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting.

Some people on the SJML advocated avoiding the crossover crystal spheres, while others thought they were essential. My personal opinion is that we need to cover the Radiant Triangle (for people who do want them) and bring in some new fully developed crystal spheres (where we can don't have to worry about continuity of other campaign settings).

Living Greyhawk isn't too much of a problem, but Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance have both made many changes. Dragonlance has changed most of all. (Fortunately for SJ fans The Chaos War, where Krynn vanishes from Krynnspace, has been placed forward a few decades and hasn't happened yet for the SJCS.)

The way I see it, the goal of the people doing this is to try to make a 3e conversion that allows a DM to use Krynn, Oerth and Toril if they want to or avoid them if they don't like them. I'm hoping that this core part of the conversion will help all the different people and that once the hard work gets done, everyone can start fleshing out the other parts of the SJ universe with fan material that suits the sort of campaign style they like.

Conversation has recently turned to dealing with the problems of Krynnspace (which in the 5th Age will turn into 2 different crystal spheres). Trampas Whiteman, who wrote "Dragonhelm's Guide to Krynnspace" was kind enough to stop by recently and give us some encouragement.

So there are several lines of conversation going on and some of them are more advanced that others.

As for "the plan", you read more about that on Beyond the Moon's SPELLJAMMER for D&D 3e webpage.

The aim is to create a series of PDFs that create a conversion that works for everyone in the SJ community. It should be compatible with Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, but it should also work well with homebrew campaigns and fan conversions of other TSR or d20 System campaign settings.

There are three different PDFs in the pipeline:
* Player's Guide to Spelljammer
* Ships in Wildspace
* Monsters of Wildspace

When all three of these are complete the conversion effort will move on elsewhere. In the mean time you can see what has been completed on BtM and see what is being worked on via the mailing list.

I'm sure any help (playtesting included) will be welcome, so please feel free to stop "lurking" and post questions on the list. Experts on Dragonlance (both Ansalon and Taladas) Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms (including Faerun, Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, Maztica and The Horde) and Planescape would be especially welcome, but all Spelljammer DMs can probably contribute something and if you can only convert/playtest one thing that is still one step further towards getting this finished.
#5
Omnirahk_half-Rahkshi
Jan 29, 2007 11:42:58 I'm intrigued. About how in-depth will this update be? I'm interested in Spelljammer, but I learned D&D some time after the advent of 3.5. Supposing there does come about a conversion to 3.5, will I need any of the original Spelljammer material to understand it? Or would it be copyright violation to release that much? Since I only know 3.5 rules, I don't particularly want to have to both hunt down the old Spelljammer stuff and learn enough of the old rules to understand it just to convert it to the system I use. Do you think there's any hope for me?
#6
jaid
Jan 29, 2007 23:04:48 for an example of what i assume the eventual goal is, take a look at athas.org sometime (it's for darksun, but is basically the same process). for a look at what progress has been made, go to http://www.spelljammer.org or more specifically http://www.spelljammer.org/sj3e

there is also additional work of various sorts going on at the overall site, if you take a look around.
#7
bigmac
Mar 24, 2007 12:00:03
I'm intrigued. About how in-depth will this update be? I'm interested in Spelljammer, but I learned D&D some time after the advent of 3.5. Supposing there does come about a conversion to 3.5, will I need any of the original Spelljammer material to understand it?

Conversions are generally about rules (crunch) updates rather than a reproduction of background material (fluff).

Jaid is pretty right on the sort of things you are likely to see. Looking at another conversion is a good way to do it. Spelljammer is a bit unusual as it does things that other campaign settings don't do.

SJ is a crossover setting - joining other campaigns together. That involves issues that other settings (apart from Planescape) don't need to worry about.

SJ is also involves spelljamming - the act of flying a ship through wildspace. In 2e this was given a different timescale and combat system. As the new D&D system (and the d20 System) have standardised combat and skill rolls it probably makes sense to alter this element of SJ during the conversion.

Or would it be copyright violation to release that much? Since I only know 3.5 rules, I don't particularly want to have to both hunt down the old Spelljammer stuff and learn enough of the old rules to understand it just to convert it to the system I use. Do you think there's any hope for me?

Wizards of the Coast own all of the TSR campaign settings, so their copyright applies even to the conversions done by other people. The end document will be something with shared copyright.

The official websites, like Beyond the Moons (or Athas.or or Planewalker), have a special relationship with Wizards of the Coast, but everyone else can also do their own conversions under a special licence that WotC have released.

WotC still sell some of the old TSR products as PDFs, so they don't really want people giving away the "fluff" for free. I would guess that when the Spelljammer PDFs were finished, you would probably have a mostly complete idea of how the SJ universe works, but not have so much knowledge of Greyspace, Krynnspace, Realmspace and other locations introduced in the original products. (This is fairly similar to the relationship between the SRD and D&D. You could play a game using the SRD and not buy the D&D core rulebooks. But you won't get everything if you do it that way. There will be some bits missing.)

There is also some talk of updating those crystal spheres on the SJML, but this is likely to be additional information rather than a rehash of the original TSR products.

However, the SJML is also creating new crystal spheres (the best of which end up on BtM) and you should be able to get a fairly good game out of using the conversion PDFs in conjunction with them. Without the TSR background material and adventures you won't get the full benifit of Spelljammer, but you should be able to play for a while and decide if you want to buy the PDF downloads. (There should be some reviews going up on BtM soon, so that you can help decide which SJ products are best value for money.)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 jaid Dec 26, 2006 20:50:21	on the SJEML, it has come up a couple times lately that there is supposed to be something going on to convert spelljammer to 3rd edition. is there anything actually going on with that? more to the point, is there any plan for it? was there ever any such plan? do we have a list of what needs to be done or anything like that? and for that matter, if there is some degree of effort going on towards this, how do we volunteer for working on stuff, playtesting, etc? i would assume the ultimate goal is to come up with something like what athas.org has come up with?
#2 mean_eyed_cat Dec 27, 2006 13:02:28	The only official 3rd edition conversion that I know about can be found in Dungeon 92/Polyhedron 151. It can be ordered You can also find a wealth of 3rd edition information at the official Spelljammer fan site spelljammer.org.
#3 jaid Dec 27, 2006 18:10:07	yeah, i know about those two... but i'm just noticing language on the spelljammer email list which implies that there is supposed to be something going on to get spelljammer to a point similar to what athas.org has done for darksun... that is, basically created a sort of campaign setting book for it.
#4 bigmac Jan 06, 2007 21:16:28	Hi Jaid, There is something going on at the SJML. It isn't anything to do with Shadow of the Spider Moon. Mean Eyed Cat's second guess was the correct one. Beyond the Moons (BtM) works closely with the Spelljammer Mailing List (SJML) and the 3e conversion being worked on will all eventually be uploaded there. A small amount of material has already been finished, but the work will probably not be converted to PDF until there is enough stuff up on BtM to fill up a book. I believe that the work has been inspired not only by athas.org (who did a great job), but also by most of the other official websites that have all got to various stages of converting other out of print TSR campaign settings to 3e. In my opinion the most successful of these conversion websites is Dragonlance Nexus, because they did so well they convinced WotC to bring back the DLCS (and licence it out to a professional publisher). Several people have converted elements of Spelljammer since Wizards of the Coast brought out the 3rd Edition of D&D. Beyond the Moons and Shattered Fractine have done best in the fan community. The Shadows of the Spider Moon commercial product was a very good effort at a 3e version of Spelljammer. However, some people felt that it lacked the feel of Spelljammer. The current conversion effort on the SJML is trying to create a conversion that will keep the fans of the 2e background happy as well as work with the 3e rules (and the official Conversion Guidlines). WotC have made some big changes to how spellcasters and spells work and we had a very long discussion about existing spell conversions a while ago. More recently, some people in the discussion felt that SJ needs fluff (background) as much as it needs crunch (3e rules). So conversation turned from the rules conversion to bringing the SJCS background material up to date. The key elements of the original SJCS (the fluff of SJ) include The Radiant Triangle (Greyspace, Krynnspace and Realmspace), Spiralspace (the crystal sphere in the Cloakmaster books that has Bral in it), the elven navy, the scro and many other elements from all of the the RPG products (as well as the books and the comics). After the conversation turned this way these other campaign settings had to be looked at to try to make a 3e conversion that was compatible with them all. Because the original SJCS connects to Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms (and Planescape) a lot of the conversation on the SJML has been about how this conversion might fit in with some of the variant rules put into the 3e Dragonlance Campaign Setting, Living Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Some people on the SJML advocated avoiding the crossover crystal spheres, while others thought they were essential. My personal opinion is that we need to cover the Radiant Triangle (for people who do want them) and bring in some new fully developed crystal spheres (where we can don't have to worry about continuity of other campaign settings). Living Greyhawk isn't too much of a problem, but Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance have both made many changes. Dragonlance has changed most of all. (Fortunately for SJ fans The Chaos War, where Krynn vanishes from Krynnspace, has been placed forward a few decades and hasn't happened yet for the SJCS.) The way I see it, the goal of the people doing this is to try to make a 3e conversion that allows a DM to use Krynn, Oerth and Toril if they want to or avoid them if they don't like them. I'm hoping that this core part of the conversion will help all the different people and that once the hard work gets done, everyone can start fleshing out the other parts of the SJ universe with fan material that suits the sort of campaign style they like. Conversation has recently turned to dealing with the problems of Krynnspace (which in the 5th Age will turn into 2 different crystal spheres). Trampas Whiteman, who wrote "Dragonhelm's Guide to Krynnspace" was kind enough to stop by recently and give us some encouragement. So there are several lines of conversation going on and some of them are more advanced that others. As for "the plan", you read more about that on Beyond the Moon's SPELLJAMMER for D&D 3e webpage. The aim is to create a series of PDFs that create a conversion that works for everyone in the SJ community. It should be compatible with Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, but it should also work well with homebrew campaigns and fan conversions of other TSR or d20 System campaign settings. There are three different PDFs in the pipeline: * Player's Guide to Spelljammer * Ships in Wildspace * Monsters of Wildspace When all three of these are complete the conversion effort will move on elsewhere. In the mean time you can see what has been completed on BtM and see what is being worked on via the mailing list. I'm sure any help (playtesting included) will be welcome, so please feel free to stop "lurking" and post questions on the list. Experts on Dragonlance (both Ansalon and Taladas) Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms (including Faerun, Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, Maztica and The Horde) and Planescape would be especially welcome, but all Spelljammer DMs can probably contribute something and if you can only convert/playtest one thing that is still one step further towards getting this finished.
#5 Omnirahk_half-Rahkshi Jan 29, 2007 11:42:58	I'm intrigued. About how in-depth will this update be? I'm interested in Spelljammer, but I learned D&D some time after the advent of 3.5. Supposing there does come about a conversion to 3.5, will I need any of the original Spelljammer material to understand it? Or would it be copyright violation to release that much? Since I only know 3.5 rules, I don't particularly want to have to both hunt down the old Spelljammer stuff and learn enough of the old rules to understand it just to convert it to the system I use. Do you think there's any hope for me?
#6 jaid Jan 29, 2007 23:04:48	for an example of what i assume the eventual goal is, take a look at athas.org sometime (it's for darksun, but is basically the same process). for a look at what progress has been made, go to http://www.spelljammer.org or more specifically http://www.spelljammer.org/sj3e there is also additional work of various sorts going on at the overall site, if you take a look around.
#7 bigmac Mar 24, 2007 12:00:03	I'm intrigued. About how in-depth will this update be? I'm interested in Spelljammer, but I learned D&D some time after the advent of 3.5. Supposing there does come about a conversion to 3.5, will I need any of the original Spelljammer material to understand it? Conversions are generally about rules (crunch) updates rather than a reproduction of background material (fluff). Jaid is pretty right on the sort of things you are likely to see. Looking at another conversion is a good way to do it. Spelljammer is a bit unusual as it does things that other campaign settings don't do. SJ is a crossover setting - joining other campaigns together. That involves issues that other settings (apart from Planescape) don't need to worry about. SJ is also involves spelljamming - the act of flying a ship through wildspace. In 2e this was given a different timescale and combat system. As the new D&D system (and the d20 System) have standardised combat and skill rolls it probably makes sense to alter this element of SJ during the conversion. Or would it be copyright violation to release that much? Since I only know 3.5 rules, I don't particularly want to have to both hunt down the old Spelljammer stuff and learn enough of the old rules to understand it just to convert it to the system I use. Do you think there's any hope for me? Wizards of the Coast own all of the TSR campaign settings, so their copyright applies even to the conversions done by other people. The end document will be something with shared copyright. The official websites, like Beyond the Moons (or Athas.or or Planewalker), have a special relationship with Wizards of the Coast, but everyone else can also do their own conversions under a special licence that WotC have released. WotC still sell some of the old TSR products as PDFs, so they don't really want people giving away the "fluff" for free. I would guess that when the Spelljammer PDFs were finished, you would probably have a mostly complete idea of how the SJ universe works, but not have so much knowledge of Greyspace, Krynnspace, Realmspace and other locations introduced in the original products. (This is fairly similar to the relationship between the SRD and D&D. You could play a game using the SRD and not buy the D&D core rulebooks. But you won't get everything if you do it that way. There will be some bits missing.) There is also some talk of updating those crystal spheres on the SJML, but this is likely to be additional information rather than a rehash of the original TSR products. However, the SJML is also creating new crystal spheres (the best of which end up on BtM) and you should be able to get a fairly good game out of using the conversion PDFs in conjunction with them. Without the TSR background material and adventures you won't get the full benifit of Spelljammer, but you should be able to play for a while and decide if you want to buy the PDF downloads. (There should be some reviews going up on BtM soon, so that you can help decide which SJ products are best value for money.)