Topic: HARP Spelljammer PBP

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Had some trouble putting together a local group for a HARP game-- using the Spelljammer setting-- so a friend of mine offered me some forum hosting on the boards for his PBP/PBEM game, Eden Above.

Spelljammer is a space fantasy game in which Gith Pirates strike without warning from the Astral, the Imperial Elven Navy is slowly losing its control over the spaceways, and there are adventures to be found on an infinite number of worlds. There's going to be a lot of swashbuckling, intrigue, and brutal ship to ship battle and I'll be running the game in a "sandbox" style where characters are free to more or less go or do whatever they want. Players are free to run heroes or villains, and choose whether or not to join parties.

Most of the players hadn't heard of HARP before this, so I'll be providing a lot of rules help to anyone that needs it. Willing to use a lot of optional material, and I'll be suggesting things to players who don't have access to it, so if there's something you want your character to be able to do, just ask.

Anyone's interested, the game's at HARP Spelljammer.

[Nejira]

Awesome, I love Spelljammer 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Yeah, so do I. Glad to see there's still some more love out there for it.

[Zhaleskra]

Spelljammer always seemed like an interesting setting. One of my friends at my first college had everything for the setting except The Astromundi Cluster. I never did get a chance to play. Settings like Dark Sun, Planescape, and Spelljammer intrigued me because thy shy away from "another pseudo-medieval world with the same old, same old." "Vanilla" fantasy got boring after a while, I guess.

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Well, plenty of space available if you're interested. Got a good mix of people so far.

[Nejira]

Settings like Dark Sun, Planescape, and Spelljammer intrigued me because thy shy away from "another pseudo-medieval world with the same old, same old." "Vanilla" fantasy got boring after a while, I guess.

Yep I agree. Generally prefer settings with their own feel/flavor rather than the "lets put everything in so we end up with nothing" approach. My favorite is Planescape as it really used the DnD cosmology to it´s full effect, and gave it an interesting touch. Funny thing I played in so many "vanilla" settings, but only played Dark Sun, Planescape and Spelljammer once each.

So here´s hoping for Korimyr´s spelljammer campaign will live long and prosperous And not too many spacehamsters please

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I appreciate the sentiment. As we're getting closer to starting, I'm getting more excited about it.

And yeah... I never "got" the humor of Spelljammer. Would have preferred that they allowed Gnomes to actually be good at building things, and had fewer things like Dohwar and Miniature Giant Space Hamsters.

[Zhaleskra]

I took a look, and I understand that you're trying to keep some of the D&D spirit while running it in HARP. Somewhere in the changes to magic it seemed a little too . . . in between . . . for my tastes. Thank you for the invitation anyway.

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Hell, the magic house rule there is standard for any of my HARP games. Isn't a matter of trying to make it "more D&D", though I suppose it could be an influence-- it was my game of choice less than three years ago-- but trying to let spellcasters be more flexible.

I appreciate you taking a look, though.

[Zhaleskra]

You're welcome. I always have to give things at least a look before I decide one way or the other.

[Maelstrom]

I find the change to magic an interesting way to increase the power of spells while limiting access to spells.  A very interesting way to use HARP's rules flexibility.  It's a change that I'm considering for one of my gaming worlds.

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I find the change to magic an interesting way to increase the power of spells while limiting access to spells.

Just remember to take Eloquence off the table. If all of your spellcasting is based on 3-4 skills, you don't need the big +25 to compensate.

A very interesting way to use HARP's rules flexibility.  It's a change that I'm considering for one of my gaming worlds.

One thing I'd suggest is to use a variable cost to learn spells instead of a flat 10 DP, and don't give away free spells with Arcane Power/Circle/Dabbler. I think that was a mistake on my part, since it makes a lot of big spells much cheaper. (Free spells of up to 6 PP for 1st level casters is good, though.) 2x Base PP seems closest to standard rules, but everything between 1x and 4x would be reasonable depending on the effect you're looking for. I'm playing around with some other variants in my head, but they all seem rather problematic.

And I'm really glad you liked my idea.

[Maelstrom]

A very interesting way to use HARP's rules flexibility.  It's a change that I'm considering for one of my gaming worlds.

One thing I'd suggest is to use a variable cost to learn spells instead of a flat 10 DP, and don't give away free spells with Arcane Power/Circle/Dabbler. I think that was a mistake on my part, since it makes a lot of big spells much cheaper. (Free spells of up to 6 PP for 1st level casters is good, though.) 2x Base PP seems closest to standard rules, but everything between 1x and 4x would be reasonable depending on the effect you're looking for. I'm playing around with some other variants in my head, but they all seem rather problematic.

And I'm really glad you liked my idea.

Actually, I think a flat 10 DP is fine especially with fixed DP during levelling.  It makes you choose between getting another spell or 5 ranks in favored category skills.  That's no small decision.  I'm interested to see how Riven develops and will probably be a large part of my decision.

The world I'm considering implementing this in will have a large number of schools that the spells will be split into.  Each school will have between 10 and 20 spells in it that must be learned individually and requires purchasing a "talent" like Arcane Circle before being able to acquire spells in it.  Additionally, TPs granting that talent might be the only way to gain access to those spells.

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The world I'm considering implementing this in will have a large number of schools that the spells will be split into.  Each school will have between 10 and 20 spells in it that must be learned individually and requires purchasing a "talent" like Arcane Circle before being able to acquire spells in it.  Additionally, TPs granting that talent might be the only way to gain access to those spells.

That sounds very thorough. Sort of detail that really brings a campaign world to life.

[Thom @ ICE]

It's probably also a good transition to incorporating aspects of Spell Law. Using the Spell Lists as a basis for these new "schools" of yours would be a hybrid between the two systems.

[Viktyr Gehrig]

My first attempt didn't get off the ground for a variety of reasons, but I'm taking another stab at it here at the Real Roleplaying forums. This is more of a re-envisioning of the Spelljammer setting using HARP rules, so it should feel more familiar to HARP players.

[Thom @ ICE]

In case someone did not notice - the "here" in the previous post contained a link to the page at RealRoleplaying.com

http://www.realroleplaying.com/rmsmf/index.php?topic=5720.0


Best of luck with the game...  I played a Spelljammer pbem years ago that was a lot of fun.