Dungeons & Dragons' Spelljammer: Adventures In Space Preview – The "Final Frontier" Of Fifth Edition

thegamer.com:

Dungeons & Dragons’ fifth edition is entering its twilight years. We already know an updated edition is coming in 2024, and we’ve started seeing elements of it creep into the game already. This year’s Monsters Of The Multiverse introduced some of the big changes to race and morality we’ve been expecting from the new edition – such as completely disentangling races for ‘inherent’ alignments.

But Sixth Edition – or 5.5e, or D&D Next, or whatever you want to call it – is still at least 18 months away. We have a whole calendar year of 5E to go before the big change, and for its final few months Wizards of the Coast has decided to let loose and get weird. Enter Spelljammer: Adventures In Space, the return of one of D&D’s most-loved settings updated for Fifth Edition for the first time. I had the chance to sit down with Wizards of the Coast and lead designer Chris Perkins to see what’s going on in the Astral Sea.

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For those who’ve never encountered Spelljammer, it’s easier to say what it isn’t than what it is. This isn’t the “sci-fi setting” many people think of when they first see “D&D, but in space”. Spelljammer takes place in the gaps between universes, in the high seas of deep space. While it uses the cosmic imagery of galaxies, nebulas, and meteorites, it’s more of a Lovecraftian nautical experience. The spaceships carrying people across the stars are more Jolly Roger than USS Enterprise, and you’ll have to deal with anything the multiverse has to throw at you: Mind Flayers, Beholders encrusted in comets, Space Pirate Clowns, the works.

Spelljammer: Adventures In Space has the overall page count of your average sourcebook,