Hi folks. I need to learn how to map the *entire* Spelljammer universe

[robertsconley]

I've been looking at maps drawn by others for a few years now, but need to learn how to make them myself. Robert S. Conley (from Bat in the Attic) has put up some sandboxing tutorials which I hope to adjust to create a process that will help me create (or expand) Spelljammer worlds. Robert has made me realise that I need to design the geography of the world alongside its history and other details. Robert was really only aiming his tutorials at people designing a single world, but I'm going to want to knock out dozens of them (eventually).

BTW: I highly recommend Robert's tutorials, for anyone who wants to flesh out their own world maps, but isn't sure how to do the non-cartographic stuff.

Appreciate the compliment.

As for adapting my sandbox tutorial I do have a Traveller Sandbox post. What I am trying to do with my How to create a Sandbox tutorial is manage the amount of detail you need to create. I focus on a 200 by 150 mile regions due to my experience with D&D style fantasy campaigns but different sub-genres and campaign styles could have different focuses. As you observed Spell Jammer wouldn't focuses on such a small area.

What I would recommend is that you use the Traveller Sandbox to get your broad overview and then apply the Fantasy Sandbox steps to various worlds "of interest". Substituting world for region. For example the home base I describe in Fantasy Sandbox could be the main city or rather the most interesting city.

Good luck.

Rob Conley

[Big Mac]

Appreciate the compliment.

You're welcome.

Thanks for materialising in my thread!

As for adapting my sandbox tutorial I do have a Traveller Sandbox post.

I've seen that. It is good. Spelljammer might actually have been better organised if it had the sort of hex maps that Traveller has for sectors and subsectors. Instead Jeff Grubb made gigantic spheres, in which you get a fantasy solar system. And outside of that, you have The Phlogiston, which was never really mapped out in the early days. So it is pretty hard to do SJ on the sort of scale that Traveller maps are done on.

But, despite the fact that you designed this for Traveller, I think that some elements in the Traveller Sandbox post would help with sandboxing the crystal sphere that a spelljammer planet was located in. They certainly would add to the suggestions in the Universe Building rules in Chapter 5 of Concordance of Arcane Space. And I suppose that that needs doing before the worlds get worked on, so I should go back and make a Sandboxing a Crystal Sphere thread, so that interplanetary politics can be worked out and the number of spelljamming ports can be decided upon.

Thanks for the poke!

What I am trying to do with my How to create a Sandbox tutorial is manage the amount of detail you need to create. I focus on a 200 by 150 mile regions due to my experience with D&D style fantasy campaigns but different sub-genres and campaign styles could have different focuses. As you observed Spell Jammer wouldn't focuses on such a small area.

Logically, Spelljammer should be dealing with a much larger area than your sandbox campaign area, but in actual TSR SJ products the complete opposite has always been the case. The PCs come into a system of several planets (but a couple of them are uninhabitable), they get to the world the need to go to and despite being able to land any-where, they inevitably land in a small area the size of a town or city.

Believe me: your sandbox is a big improvement on that, because it will allow fans to build a buffer zone around that small "railroad" landing site and allow the GM to deal with PCs who move off of the edge of the map (or description) that TSR provides.

What I would recommend is that you use the Traveller Sandbox to get your broad overview and then apply the Fantasy Sandbox steps to various worlds "of interest". Substituting world for region. For example the home base I describe in Fantasy Sandbox could be the main city or rather the most interesting city.

Good luck.

Thanks. I think I'll try that.

Maybe I'll go back to my Sandboxing Plata experiment and go a couple of steps backwards (to create a crystal sphere around it).