Spelljammer Banestorm

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Though you can get a certain amount of joy in limited contact with parallel universes in a space campaign. Mirror universes and the like. Similarly there are several IW worlds where they have solar system travel.

Sure, but if you are going to make space travel the focus as in Spelljammer, then you don't want parallel world travel to be also the focus which it is in Banestorm as written.

[Kromey]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Sure, but if you are going to make space travel the focus as in Spelljammer, then you don't want parallel world travel to be also the focus which it is in Banestorm as written.

Not necessarily -- PCs get sent to Mars to investigate the sudden loss of communication with the new colony there, and find that it got swept up in a freak Banestorm; now they need to jump worlds (either via parachronics or magic or what-have-you) to find and somehow rescue those colonists.

Just one example of an adventure/campaign that could effectively use both parachronics and interplanetary travel. (Twist: They finally find the colony, but it's been attacked by that universe's Venusians, with the colonists carted off as slave labor for the ice mines of Io.) In fact, the plundering of resources from parallel worlds could be what enables interplanetary travel in the first place, given that the latter is inherently resource-intensive.

I will readily agree that not all plots require both interplanetary/interstellar travel and parallel world travel -- and some could certainly suffer for having both -- but neither do all plots preclude one over the other. In fact, an entire sub-plot could revolve around moving a parachronic projector and conveyor from Earth to Mars, while interplanetary pirates try to intercept those devices for their own ends (infinite worlds = infinite wealth, as we know from the IW setting, and interplanetary piracy pales in comparison to the wealth that could be obtained from parachronic piracy!); or vice-versa, build an adventure around tracking down a rogue parachronic projector being used by interplanetary pirates to further their own empire, using both parachronic and interplanetary travel to track down clues, intercept and capture pirates, etc.

[Miles]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Sure, but if you are going to make space travel the focus as in Spelljammer, then you don't want parallel world travel to be also the focus which it is in Banestorm as written.

Is parallel world travel really a focus of the Banestorm setting? It's all one way, so it seems more like a background element and an occasional source of PCs. Expanding the scope to other worlds won't hurt too much.

In an Infinite Worlds game that touches on Yrth, you have a point. However, Yrth is just one world, and not an easy one to access. If the IW setting can support worldlines like Caliph, Cyrano, Etheria, Roma Universalis, and Azoths 1-7, I doubt a Spelljammer styled Yrth will break the game. The trick is not to keep the PCs on a "large scope" worldline like that for very long if it isn't intended to be the entire focus of the campaign.

[Delvidian]

I love the Infinite Worlds. My other, more adult campaign centers on the missions of an ISWAT team.

My Banestorm campaign is for my kids (now teenagers) and is by-the-book fantasy focusing on areas and plots outside the Megalan Empire. I'm interested in the Spelljammer concept to take them off Yrth so I can have more creative freedom with my adventures. I want their game universe to have elements brought in from other realities (read as "steal from everywhere"), though I'm not ready to actually send the PCs to other realities.

So right now I have the following elements stirring in my cauldron:

- Yrth: No knowledge of spelljamming. Is it just another secret the Ministry of Serendipity keeps or are the Moon elves shielding the planet from visitors? If so, why?

- The Moon: There are spacefaring high-elf types on the Moon. Enigmatic, isolationist. Working title: Moon Base Elf-a (forgive the pun, I couldn't help it).

- The scope of the adventuring takes place on and between the inner planets: Mercury analog, Mars analog (Gabrook), Venus analog, the asteroid belt. Somewhere in here I place Loren'dil and Olokun. The outer planets are a frontier area fraught with peril.

- Gabrook will draw elements from Space 1889 Mars. Once magically and technologically advanced, constant religious warfare among the Goblins, Hobgoblins and Lizard Men ravaged the planet. In the end, Bozdaag won out over Uunkuy. Goblins will be common off-planet (and drawing some elements of tinker gnomes).

- There will be dragons, though I will not specify a home world and retain that mystery from Yrth.

- Of course the space dwarves dominate the asteroid belt. Can't. Stop. Myself.

- I want to work the insect men in. On Yrth, they are a small and primitive population, descended from a crashed ship. I think it would be fun to expand on them and give them a homeworld. Not sure how to model them. Perhaps the Droyne?

- I'd like to use the Illithid as The Big Bad (did I mention I like to steal stuff?). They make a perfect fantasy sci-fi reality-hopping villain: Smart, horrific, mysterious.

I realize I am shameful in my borrowing, but keep in mind this campaign is more fantastical than realistic. Other ideas?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Delvidian

- Yrth: No knowledge of spelljamming. Is it just another secret the Ministry of Serendipity keeps or are the Moon elves shielding the planet from visitors? If so, why?

I'd say the Moon Elves are shielding the rest of the universe from Yrth. It has a dangerously busted world-aura which causes all sorts of incursions from other realities; some dangerous disease, species, or idea could pop up any time and make the place uninhabitable. And anywhere else that it can infect. Of course, this means you need a reason for the Moon Elves to not kill the adventurers.

Another issue you need to think about is Spelljammer physics. Are you going to have Spelljammer gravity and air envelopes? If so, that makes space travel much safer, but you need some idea of why the planets orbit the sun, moons orbit planets, and so on. The idea of having a spelljamming drive retain the ship's air envelope is dangerous - if the drive ever goes off, everyone dies. You also need to decide how operating a spelljamming helm interfaces with GURPS magic.

Are you going to have a crystal sphere, and a Flow outside it, or will you limit the setting to a single solar system?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Delvidian

I I'd like to use the Illithid as The Big Bad (did I mention I like to steal stuff?). They make a perfect fantasy sci-fi reality-hopping villain: Smart, horrific, mysterious.

There's an.......uh, let's call it an "homage" to the illithid in Gurps Cabal. see "Ythogu" p.120. The write-up does use 3rd ed psionics.

[Delvidian]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Another issue you need to think about is Spelljammer physics. Are you going to have Spelljammer gravity and air envelopes? If so, that makes space travel much safer, but you need some idea of why the planets orbit the sun, moons orbit planets, and so on. The idea of having a spelljamming drive retain the ship's air envelope is dangerous - if the drive ever goes off, everyone dies. You also need to decide how operating a spelljamming helm interfaces with GURPS magic.

Are you going to have a crystal sphere, and a Flow outside it, or will you limit the setting to a single solar system?

Making Yrth a "quarantine world" makes sense.

I was intending to have crystal spheres/Flow but not planning to expose the PCs to these details until after they have dealt with the Illithid/Y'thogu (thanks, Fred!), who have come from outside the sphere.

As for the physics, I haven't settled on how I'm going to handle them. My first instinct was to convert the Spelljammer treatment to GURPS. Someone on the web has done a bit of this already. Having read a couple reviews of the Spelljammer system, and seeing your questions, I realize the need for more research. What's your advice?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Another issue you need to think about is Spelljammer physics. Are you going to have Spelljammer gravity and air envelopes? If so, that makes space travel much safer, but you need some idea of why the planets orbit the sun, moons orbit planets, and so on.

Spelljammer gravity is of course irrelevant to the movement of celestial bodes. The way they move is probably controlled by the resonance of the crystal sphere or something. Since the players aren't going to be moving planets, it's not really an issue.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Delvidian

As for the physics, I haven't settled on how I'm going to handle them. My first instinct was to convert the Spelljammer treatment to GURPS. Someone on the web has done a bit of this already. Having read a couple reviews of the Spelljammer system, and seeing your questions, I realize the need for more research. What's your advice?

My World of D'y'r't game eventually went Spelljammer after I ran out of the Classic D&D (and Hackmaster) modules I was committing atrocities on.

The only people who worried about Gurps mechanics (or any game mechanics) were myself and my friend Craig and we were both Spelljammer fans and we naturally just went with Spelljammer physics.

It was after learning Spelljammer, where gravity is constant in intensity but limited in range that I understood that this is how all artificial gravity needs to work.

If you wonder, Gurps does not have an existing spell that creates artificial gravity though air envelopes can be arranged at ruinous expense. If you go with Spelljammer physics you need neitiher and it is all that much simpler and cheaper.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Spelljammer gravity is of course irrelevant to the movement of celestial bodes. The way they move is probably controlled by the resonance of the crystal sphere or something. Since the players aren't going to be moving planets, it's not really an issue.

"They do this because it's the way the world works" is an answer to how they move, as is "They ride on the backs of invisible turtles". But you have to abandon the idea that Newtonian gravity is involved, which means you have to look carefully at any existing information about Yrth's solar system.

Originally Posted by Delvidian

As for the physics, I haven't settled on how I'm going to handle them. My first instinct was to convert the Spelljammer treatment to GURPS. Someone on the web has done a bit of this already. Having read a couple reviews of the Spelljammer system, and seeing your questions, I realize the need for more research. What's your advice?

Personally, I would not try to use Spelljammer with GURPS. The game system seems, to me, to have too much inbuilt realism and rationality. However, many people do not see it that way, and there's no real reason why they should.

Do you have the Spelljammer core rules? You absolutely need those because - it being a TSR product - there is a lot that is only explained vaguely there, and assumed elsewhere. The key stuff in there is about how all objects generate gravity fields, how these are always 1G out to a radius dependent on the size of the object and then drop to zero, about how air clings to them and doesn't leak away at the zero-G line, and how long air lasts with people breathing it (a lot longer than is realistic). You can have less fantastic physics if you assume that the gravity and the air envelope are produced by the spelljamming drive, but you then have the problem that if the drive goes off-line (and it works by having a magician sit on it and draining his spell energy) the air all leaves and everyone dies. You can get round that by having proper spelljamming ships enchanted to do it, separately from the drive, although that means you can't take a sea-style ship, mount a drive on it, and set off into space. That's a trope within the setting, and provides a way to get into space.

You can get round the trope with plot: for example, have your PCs rescue the crew of a crashed Moon-elf ship and taken into space because they know too much, then have them capture a pirate ship and set up in business for themselves.

Then there's the spelljamming drive. This has two modes, "tactical", the only one possible if there's a significant mass nearby, and what I call "overdrive", which makes 1AU/day or so. There are a lot of forms of it, but the commonest requires a spellcaster to operate, takes all his spells for the day as soon as he sits on it, and moves at a tactical speed dependent on his level. "All his spells for the day" isn't really a GURPS concept, and the definition of spellcaster is also complicated. But the point of it is to make boarding actions important and avoid D&D-style artillery mages making the ships seem like "egg-shells armed with sledge-hammers". Since ordinary GURPS mages aren't so destructive, you don't need to quash them so hard.

Say something like this: spelljamming requires at least Magery 0, and costs an energy point (fatigue or energy reserve) to start up, plus one per hour to operate. You don't get to recover while you are on-line, but you don't feel the fatigue until you stop. It isn't a spell you are casting, so you don't get to use Powerstones.