LogFAQs > #908231047

Zeus posted...

Going to have them be actual red-shirts or just one time characters? Also, from a practicality standpoint, wouldn't it be easier for a party to charter a spelljamming ship instead of crewing their own?

Always loved the designs in Spelljammer. Given that it's a neat setting, it's disappointing that it didn't get more in the way of videogames.

It was basically a setting designed to fail. The fact that it and Planescape exist at all is pretty much a miracle, and it's kind of obvious that Planescape has taken over whatever niche Spelljammer might have found for itself.

That being said, I sort of prefer Spelljammer of the two, because it's more fantasy. Planescape's more like steampunk sci-fi (similar to the route Eberron went down).



I_Abibde posted...

D&D day today. The party is trying to recruit a (more or less) disposable crew for their spelljamming ship before they head to the city of the cloud giants. Going to have fun with that.

I actually just spun out a crew for two different ships (one more pirate-y, one more merchant trader ship). In both cases, I just assumed the ships had about 40 or so nameless/faceless crew, but about a dozen "command officers".

I went with a model where it basically used Captain, First Mate, Second Mate (Navigator/Helmsman), Third Mate (Bo'sun/Boatswain), plus roles like Quartermaster, Master-at-Arms, Surgeon, Carpenter, Cook, and Master Gunner (though gunpower isn't really isn't a thing in Faerun, so I'm assuming ships with a ballista/crossbow/harpoon gun sort of set up).

Most of the positions are based on real world roles on board ships of the era, with their duties mostly obvious from the title itself (it's kind of obvious what the Cook or Surgeon does, for example). Some of them are somewhat combined versions of multiple jobs (ie, the Navigator is a helmsman as well as a navigator, and the Carpenter also combined elements of a ship's cooper), and some of them are a bit less obvious (the Bo'sun is sort of in charge of commanding the crew in day-to-say operations, while the Master-at-Arms is technically in command of military operations, and roughly corresponds to a "Striker" on a pirate ship). Plus I threw in a gypsy Bard on the pirate ship as a musician, so they can have sea shanties. About half the named command characters are lvl 1 in one class or another, the rest are all just vanilla NPCs.

In a game where the PCs are deliberately recruiting a new crew for their own Spelljammer ship, I'd assume they're going to assume the main command roles (either they're all co-captains, or Captain/First Mate/Second Mate/Third Mate/etc), unless they want to delegate responsibilities (maybe no player wants to deal with the logistics of stock and resupply as Quartermaster, maybe none of them are really qualified to navigate or steer a ship, etc). You should definitely thresh out something resembling a command structure for the crew, otherwise they're probably more likely to panic or mutiny under high-stress situations (especially if multiple co-captains are giving them conflicting orders, or not giving them orders at all).

Also, speaking of mutiny, you could do some sort of loyalty/morale mechanic, where the shittier the PCs are to their crew, the more likely the crew is to abandon or betray them at some point.


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