Trivia / Spelljammer

• Creator-Driven Successor: "The Aether Sea," a Fate World of Adventure written by Lara Turner, which takes place in a science-fantasy space inspired in turns by Spelljammer and Treasure Planet.
• Executive Meddling: The production of Spelljammer was a dark time for game development in TSR. It's origins are actually a good Real Life example of making lemonade when the Pointy-Haired Boss of a gaming company hands her writers lemons; really crafty writers can realize that the only difference between "They Just Didn't Care" and "Protection from Editors" is perspective. See "the secret history of Spelljammer" in Jeff Grubb's blog.
  • The year was 1989. It was a dark time for gaming. Although the influence of The Fundamentalists upon gaming had diminished, the forces of TSR had fallen under the control of Lorraine Williams, who was forcing talented and dedicated writers to turn out reams of poorly-thought out, poorly-written crap. One piece of crap she demanded they create was a Standard Sci Fi Setting, believing she could cash in on a trend to squeeze yet more money from innocent gamers. But the writers hit upon a Zany Scheme; though they were denied time to playtest the game, they could cram the poor thing with as much awesomeness as they could, as she wasn't paying attention to them. So was born Spelljammer - the most bizarre and wonderful setting ever seen in gaming.
  • Williams got her revenge on her disrespectful staff however, by refusing to publish more than a single run of the books during her tenure at TSR.
• Writer Revolt: Is there an opposite of "Torch the Franchise and Run"? When told they had to schlock out a Space Opera, they decided to actually put some effort into it.

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