Gravity

Hello all.

I have noticed that several people have reservations about the "binary
gravity" law employed by the spelljammer universe.  I must admit that I have
some reservations about it as well.

Several good ideas have been proposed about how to (or how not to) handle
binary gravity (sadly, I don't have them handy).  But I would like to really
mess things up, if just for fun.  >:}

Have any of you considered (gulp) DROPPING IT?!?  Dropping it in favor of a
grav system similar to that of the "real universe."  My players used to
complain about the binary gravity all the time, so I worked on possible ways
to drop it in favor of a different system closer to that of the "real
universe."

Disclaimer: Anyone who wants to make SJ totally believeable from a
scientific/physical perspective should switch to a sci-fi game, IMNSHO.  (OK,
I got that out of my system.)

Binary gravity, while it makes things easy, also removes some interesting
potentials.  If the PC's visit worlds with gravity very different from what
they are used to, some interesting situations for action and role-playing can
result.  Fights in low gravity, and trying to cope with high gravity, that
kind of thing.

Have any of you tried this?  I have some notes about how to integrate
different gravity fields (and different atmospheres) into the origin of a PC;
I'll post them later... along with my Ringworld notes, which are still AWOL.

One can safely assume that the gravity plane of a ship is a side effect of
the helm (or rune stones).  What about a small world like the Rock of Bral?
 In the real universe, it wouldn't have normal gravity, but perhaps in the
fantasy universe the Rock contains a mineral that attracts energy from a
demi-plane of gravity?  Perhaps the effective gravity of the Rock is about
0.7 or so?  Visitors will feel somewhat light when they visit, but not enough
to become impared by it.

The floating rocks in an air world would get their gravity from the planet
itself, so they don't require special treatment.  Of course, if you're
talking about a planet the size of Jupiter or Saturn, then any rocks that are
bouncing around inside of them would have VERY strong natives.

(What about a race native to the Jupiter of Terraspace that is intelligent
and may even have spelljamming, but they breath the toxic atmosphere of
Jupiter?  To them, it's perfectly normal.)

Oops.  I'm drifting into another topic.

Later folks.  This was just something to crew on.

Richard