Re: Should I make SJ "cards" using 3d or cartoon art, folks? :)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven" <steven.james.1@??????????.??.uk>
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 12:03 AM
Subject: [SPELLJAMMER] Should I make SJ "cards" using 3d or cartoon art,
folks? :)

>Going to make re-creations of all the ships I make into the "battle cards"
>like in the original boxed set: A4-sized card with deckplans (based on new
>design and info)

Great! Every ship hull type needs a card. I'd even go as far as to say that
the variant ship designs also need to have their own cards. While ships like
the Gnat (a stripped down Mosquito) look pretty much the same as the
original, other variants, such as the Stinger (another Mosquito variant)
have different weapons so really do need that card. All of the variants have
slightly different stats, so it would be nice to eventually have a "complete
collection" on BtM.

TSR also failed to give us deck plans for certain groundling ships and while
we might all agree that these ships are not very useful for SJ campaigns, it
would be nice to have them in the complete set for use with groundling
civilisations that are SJ newbies. (I'm imagining something like a Nordic
country on a groundling world that has destroyed a few slave ships making
raids and has decided to mount the helms on its own ships and take the war
up to the enemy. It would be great for the PCs to encounter a small fleet of
longships, especially if that fleet rescued if they were unfortunate enough
to be captured by a slave ship. The PCs could be employed by the groundling
nation as guides.)

>Now, would folk prefer 2d cartoon look, or 3d look for these? Also I could
>make both, cartoon with 2nd ed stats, and 3d version for 3rd ed stats, if
>folk could help/suggest stats for 3rd ed? :)

I know that other people have said "can we have both please". However,
looking at this logistically, you have only actually finished a certain
percentage of the ships so far. How long do you think it would take for you
to do every SJ ship?Given the amount of quality you are injecting into this
project I can't see you finishing any time in the near future. And if you
were to also try to do the variant hull designs you would be taking even
longer to finish each individual ship. I'm sure that you could re-use your
"new Wasp" if you wanted to create a "new Bee", "new Bumble Bee" and/or a
"new Fleet Footed Wasp"*.

* = (I do think that name, and some of the other variant names, is a bit
naff and would be happy to see the "Fleet Footed Wasp" called something like
the "Hornet" instead.)

I've got mixed feelings about 3d deck plans. I'd also like to see copies of
both types, before making a decision. However, I'd like to point out that
you seem to be the only 3d expert we have, so if we did switch to 3d deck
plans we would have to ask you to create 3d models of any fan created hull
designs. This could really slow down the process (especially in the near
future when you are going to actually be fixing all of the bugs you see in
the TSR ships).

I would suggest that for now you turn out 2d deck plans as they will be
compatible with the deck plans that people already have. If you want to make
3d deck plans (and your trial versions work for GMs) then it would be great
to have both, but I think until you have a "complete set" made people will
need to use 2d deck plans for anything you haven't done yet. So I say 2d is
a must have for at least the next few years.

However, having said that I think that 2d deck plans (or 2d deck plans plus
a back up supply of 3d deck plans) is the way to go, I wouldn't say that
same rule applies to the other side of the ship's card. TSR gave us 3d
artwork that often didn't match up with the deck plans on the other side.
You could replace that artwork with something made from your 3d models.

I think that you should also make a few experimental versions of that side
of the card in order to find the best format for it. However here are some
early thoughts:

* I like the original TSR borders so would hope you would keep them (or use
something very similar that fits in with whatever style Static is going to
use for the 3e PDFs).
* It is essential to have the name of the hull type. While you are doing
these cards you can sort out small inconsistencies in ship hull names. (I
think I've seen "Squid-ship", "Squid-Ship" and "Squidship".) You could also
create a convention for names of variant designs and cards for specific
ships. I would suggest trying a sub heading under the name of the variant
ships that says something like: "a variant of the ****" and a similar sub
heading under named ships that says "a ****" (with the stars being replaced
by the name of the hull that the ship is based on).
* As far as I know the conversion of ships and ship's combat to 3e hasn't
been finished yet, so it might be better to do 2e plans for now and save
them all as templates that can be tweaked when we have 3e worked out.

<offtopic subject="3e ship stats">
Most of the 3e details would be the same for all three GMs, but I think that
3 and 3.5e GMs will want AR (armour rating) replaced with a standard AC (as
it will help standardise d20 rolls). I'm not sure what people's thoughts are
on Hull Points, but I think we might want to use hit points and a hardness.
Alternatively we might also want to give ships statistics similar to
animated objects.

Read more about hardness here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/exploration.htm#hardness

Read more about animated objects here:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/animatedObject.htm

My personal feeling is that ship saving throws should be made by a helmsman
(if applicable) because a ship is an "attended object". (Although I don't
see why the ships 2e MC and AR couldn't also be converted into saving throw
adjustments for reflex or fortitude saves.)

I'd also argue that weapon attack rolls should be made by one PC or NPC
(with anyone else on the crew "assisting" them). This seems to be how the
PbEM people do it and it makes a lot more sense than having a ship make its
own attack rolls. (It also means that PCs and NPCs can use the "Weapon
Focus" feat and fighters can use the "Weapon Specialisation" feat. This
allows you to build spacefaring NPCs or PCs who make very good weapon
masters.)
</offtopic>

<offtopic subject="HackJammer">
It would be nice if any new cards could also work for HackJammer players, so
if you can keep all the original templates someone like Adam could give you
HJ details and you could make another set of cards to support that game.
</offtopic>

I think that the "Ship Information Form" at the back of the LotV needs to be
replaced with something a lot more like a character sheet. It would be nice
if your "ship portraits" could also be made available in a standard size
(i.e. x times y pixels) that would slot into a standard space on a new form.
Perhaps you could create a group of thumbnail pictures at some point.

>I think there should be no copyright problems, since it's re-creations not
>direct copies, not-for-profit fan art, also would like to credit original
>artist for designs, if anyone recalls who that is?

I AM NOT A LAWYER - THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE.

The Spelljammer Campaign Setting is the property of Wizards of the Coast.
They may not have trademarked their original SJ hull designs, but you *are*
basing your new work on work they own, so I'm pretty sure that copyright law
still does apply.

Wizards of the Coast have given people three legal ways to produce SJ
material:

1) Beyond the Moons

As the official Spelljammer website BtM has the permission of WotC to
produce certain types of content that other websites are not able to
produce. The easiest thing to do with your stuff is give it to Static and
have him put it on BtM.

2) The ESD Conversion Agreement

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/welcome
http://www.wizards.com/d20/files/ESDpolicy.rtf

This agreement allows you to make non-profit conversions of 2e or 1e
material (including Spelljammer or any other campaign setting) to 3rd
edition. It even allows you to put the "d20 System" logo on your
conversions. (So this logo *might* make its way onto the SJ PDFs when they
get finished.)

3) A separate legal agreement

This is what the HackJammer team did. This sort of thing is probably out of
your league, but at some point some publisher might come along and licence
the SJ campaign setting. This has already happened with Dragonlance and
Ravenloft, but it probably isn't going to happen with SJ in the near future.

As I've already said, I *think* your best route is to give this stuff to
BtM, but if you want to use the ESD Conversion Agreement you need to also
check out the Classic Download FAQ:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20010309x

This explains when your conversions can only be replacement stats and when
you can recreate the entire product as a 3e conversion. Interestingly as the
ship cards are downloadable from WotC they *seem* to be things that anyone
can convert to 3e (as long as they comply with the Conversion Agreement).
However, your ship plans seem to be "modifications" rather than
"conversions", so you might want to speak to a lawyer if you want to host
them yourself.

<offtopic subject="conversions">
Interestingly while you can only get the Spelljammer ship plans from the
Classic Downloads page, the Spelljammer Campaign Setting is mentioned in
lots of things like Undermountain Stardock and the Arcane Age campaign
setting and we could probably create new 3e PDFs from all of these
downloads.

This *should* mean that we could create a Stardock that fits in better with
Realmspace and a retro-SJ campaign set in the time period of the Arcane Age
(so you could send PCs back to fight in the First Unhuman War or explore
pre-destruction Astromundi or Zivilyn).
</offtopic>

As for the original artist, that would be Jim Holloway. He gets a credit of
"Book Cover Paintings, Illustrations, Ship Concepts". Although if you ever
do the Spelljammer then you need to credit that to Diesel (Dave LaForce).
LotV page 3 says: "Jim Holloway started playing with ship types and Diesel
began designing both the Spelljammer itself and the asteroid base that
became the Rock of Bral."

Bear in mind that this only applies to the original boxed set and you will
need to double check who made new ships for supplements like Lost Ships.

>What do you all think? :)

I think whatever you end up making, your best bet is to get Static to put
them on his site and put links to the cards on your own website.

Static is good at giving credit where credit is due so you will get the
shout out that you want. If you give each ship type its own "homepage" on
your own website, people can use BtM for the statistics and ship cards and
surf over to your page for a collection of 3d artwork featuring the same
ships. Just let Static know what you want him to do and he will help you
out.

When the complete collection of 3e ship cards are available it would be nice
to have copies of them put into the back of the "Ships in Wildspace" PDF.
(Probably as an Appendix B.)

David "Big Mac" Shepheard
Virtual Eclipse Role Playing Club
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/virtualeclipselrp/links/d20_system_001071937434/Spelljammer_001071430476
http://www32.brinkster.com/virtualeclipse/