D&D (2024) Firearms to be made a fixed part of the game, new Weapons Rules

[GMforPowergamers]

Smith tools for barrel and bullets, alchemy for gunpowder, tinkers for mechanism.

WHere I agree with this in many ways, and in my games 100% this, I don't see WotC saying you need 3 tool sets. (although I wish they would)

 

[Ibrandul]

I really hope they decide to move firearms back to the DMG.

Why don’t I want firearms as baseline player options? It doesn’t have to do with setting or theme. Right now we have a game filled with fantasy violence, but it’s violence of a kind that very few people actually commit in our current world. Adding firearms to the game materially changes its tone, especially for those who live in the USA, where gun violence is distressingly common.

Of course I know that DMs can always forbid player options from the PHB. But in practice, few DMs do this. Player options found in the DMG or elsewhere are always treated as opt-in for DMs; player options found in the PHB are typically treated as opt-out, especially those not marked as “variant” options. That’s a meaningful difference.

I don’t think WotC realizes how intense an issue this is for a lot of people. Right now the school where my child attends and my spouse works has official D&D clubs and even occasional elective D&D course options for kids as young as ten years old. If firearms are added to the PHB or in any way given a more prominent role in the “core game,” the school might very well ban the game entirely, as they already have with every other game that encourages players to imagine firing a gun at another person.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I get that, but at the same time, I'm okay with old timey guns that fire one shot at a time over even cartoonishly large, cumbersome gatling guns and punts. They're fantastical enough for me to see them as removed from modern people deleters.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I get that, but at the same time, I'm okay with old timey guns that fire one shot at a time over even cartoonishly large, cumbersome gatling guns and punts. They're fantastical enough for me to see them as removed from modern people deleters.

I suspect though that it's not people like us that we need to worry about. We wouldn't be the one causing a stink about it anyway. It's the people outside of the circle that I think might eventually cause the issues that @Ibrandul is bringing up with regards to firearm violence.

It's a valid concern I think, and one that needs to be thought about. And I really can't say for certain just how likely or unlikely it is that it gains possible traction as a blocking point to the game in the future. Maybe it wouldn't have any impact? But for all we know... maybe it might? We really won't know until it happens (or doesn't happen.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's a valid concern I think, and one that needs to be thought about. And I really can't say for certain just how likely or unlikely it is that it gains possible traction as a blocking point to the game in the future. Maybe it wouldn't have any impact? But for all we know... maybe it might? We really won't know until it happens (or doesn't happen.)

For true. I see where not everyone is going to draw the line at the same place and I'm certainly not going to go the 'WHY DON'T YOU HATE ALL VIOLENCE?' route or go nuts if they do move them back, but I'm personally just glad D&D has finally given up pretending to be medieval Earth entirely as represented by canonizing blatant renaissance weaponry.

Let's have more overtly fantastic weapons like slingshot ammo made from quick growing seeds and mystic beam cannons, and that hand thing from Stargate that just puts the target in agony with no practical utility.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

that hand thing from Stargate that just puts the target in agony with no practical utility.

zat gun.... the real name is a zat nick a tell but earth peeps shortened it and later to just a zat.

I have used all the Go auld stuff as magic items over the years

 

[Vaalingrade]

zat gun.... the real name is a zat nick a tell but earth peeps shortened it and later to just a zat.

I have used all the Go auld stuff as magic items over the years

Not the Zat, the third Go'auld hand device (after the pulse cannon and the healing device) Hathor and Set love so much.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Not the Zat, the third Go'auld hand device (after the pulse cannon and the healing device) Hathor and Set love so much.

hand device (such an orginal name) online some call it a ribbon but I don't know where in canon that came from

Hand device - The Stargate Omnipedia

www.gateworld.net

 

[Vaalingrade]

Huh. It;s the same thing as the pulse cannon. I thought they were different.

IIRC, I think it was called a ribbon in the episode where a Go'auld smuggled one in by horking it up in a bathroom and also in the old RPG.

 

[Ibrandul]

It's a valid concern I think, and one that needs to be thought about. And I really can't say for certain just how likely or unlikely it is that it gains possible traction as a blocking point to the game in the future. Maybe it wouldn't have any impact? But for all we know... maybe it might? We really won't know until it happens (or doesn't happen.)

Of course it wouldn’t happen everywhere in any case. But it’s a real enough concern that my spouse, who has sponsored D&D clubs and taught D&D electives at the school in the past, has already had a conversation about the leaked/scooped weapons list with another teacher who’s a current club sponsor, and they both agreed that in order to adhere to already-existing school policies, if “pistol” and “rifle” appear as player options in the revised PHB, they will probably not be able to use that PHB in official school activities, such as the game design elective classes they have offered in the past.