Gunpowder, fantasy and you

[kitsune9]

I agree. Was surprised to see the old scenario where the players explored a down spaceship rating so high.

Reminds me of the old Might and Magic games where a perfectly reasonable fantasy game always ended up wondering into alien blasters and space ships. I guess the creators of the series had a thing for mixing the two. I always hated it and stopped buying the games for that reason.

What that old module called? I can't seem to remember it, but I do remember the cover where a fighter had a laster rifle.

Didn't play Might and Magic, but did play enough Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star that I enjoyed the mix brought into the video games, but couldn't see myself porting that into my rpg games.

 

[kitsune9]

This is a big disconnect between the origins of FRPGs and the interests of many people who play. Because D&D dipped heavily into LOTR for flavor, many D&D fans think of D&D as being LOTR-inspired, with its Dark Ages technology and mythological roots. In actuality, though, Gygax was principally inspired by works that were emphatically part of the science-fiction genre: Vance's Dying Earth, Howard's Conan stories, Moorcock's Elric, Norton's Witch World, Burroughs' Mars, HPL's Dreamlands. Furthermore, Gygax favored the high medieval - early Renaissance of the chivalric romances over Beowulf and Charlemagnes. From the beginning, interdimensional portals were an implicit part of the setting.

I agree with this. Wonder when that disconnect occured or how it was reinforced? I'm sure that we'll all come up with a million different answers, but I noticed that disconnect myself when I grew up with AD&D and realized that Gygax and crew liked the sci-fi stuff in their games.

 

[Haltherrion]

What that old module called? I can't seem to remember it, but I do remember the cover where a fighter had a laster rifle.

Couldn't remember at the time I made my post but later did: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (wikipedia article here). Published 1980 by Gygax. I must have played it about the time it came out.

I haven't played it since then but I wasn't impressed with it at the time. But it does seem to rate fairly highly among players in general.

Didn't play Might and Magic, but did play enough Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star that I enjoyed the mix brought into the video games, but couldn't see myself porting that into my rpg games.

If it's handled gracefully as part of the premise it can be fun. I had a blast with Deadlands whose premise includes magic, Civil War technology, and, essentially, a certain amount of tongue-in-check. It's when the stuff is casually tossed in, like when someone put Barrier Peaks into their otherwise high fantasy game that I balk.

 

[Haltherrion]

I agree with this. Wonder when that disconnect occured or how it was reinforced? I'm sure that we'll all come up with a million different answers, but I noticed that disconnect myself when I grew up with AD&D and realized that Gygax and crew liked the sci-fi stuff in their games.

Probably a number of reasons but the fact that much of the cross-genre stuff wasn't well handled (regarding consistent premise or sensible ground rules) is probably part of it.

I bet another, possibly larger factor, is that the hobby was young circa Barrier Peaks. As gamers matured (not just talking age but that's a factor) and started thinking through what they were about, basically develop a theory of gaming, ad hoc, de facto or otherwise, the mixed genres might have faded somewhat.

Speaking personally, my early dabbling with the mixed genres made me cringe even as a junior/senior in high school. They were fun at times but silly. I wanted more serious game worlds. You can have good mixed genre worlds but not as an afterthought; it needs to be designed in. For me, if I was going to spend time designing a world, I'd rather do High Fantasy. Plus, a proper mixed genre would often involve rulesets modifications; always a hassle (especially if you could never stomach GURPS, which I couldn't).

 

[kitsune9]

I had a blast with Deadlands whose premise includes magic, Civil War technology, and, essentially, a certain amount of tongue-in-check. It's when the stuff is casually tossed in, like when someone put Barrier Peaks into their otherwise high fantasy game that I balk.

Yes, there was something about blasting zombies while on a moving train with a gatling handgun that was just so awesome. I really enjoyed playing Deadlands at conventions.

Thanks on the Barrier Peaks answer!

 

[Haltherrion]

Yes, there was something about blasting zombies while on a moving train with a gatling handgun that was just so awesome. I really enjoyed playing Deadlands at conventions.

Yep plus the game mechanics were a pleasant change.

 

[Wolf1066]

That's exactly the reason I don't have such technology items in my settings. It opens up a whole chain of reasonable questions that end up changing the setting more than I care to. If you have rockets, you use them, even if it is just to spook the enemy. If you can build a musket you can see the logical progression to building an anti-personal cannon. From there it isn't much to build an anti-fortification cannon at which point fortifications must change (or be useless). Does it take a year? No, it seems to take centuries but it happened on earth.

Point taken, but the "Forgotten Phlebotinum" of fireworks and breaching charges is not the only bit of plot-driven stupidity in LOTR - the had a lot of potentially plot-breaking stuff in that universe that, had it been real, would have changed the shape of the world and the plot.

The ramifications of any magic that can induce explosions, fire, hallucinations, obscuring mists, or even bright lights would be similar to the ramifications of gun powder in so far as spooking/confusing enemies goes - and possibly more, depending how big a fireball/explosion you can conjure up.

Huge flying beasts that can be "domesticated" (or convinced) into use as flying transport (and any form of flight magic) changes the scope of the world immensely - we're talking controlled "powered" flight hundreds of years before we reached the "short-duration tethered hot air balloon" stage in our real history - that's going to have a profound effect on the world even if you don't have gunpowder or any equivalent.

An army on largeish aerial creatures flying high above bow range and carrying rocks are going to have serious impact (pun intended) and dictate that the "castles" look nothing like historical terran castles.

 

[pawsplay]

That's an interesting historical perspective and perhaps there is a disconnect between one of the games creator's view on the matter and how most of the players view it but Gygax’s world preferences are hardly sacrosanct. If many players don’t like science fiction with their fantasy and they run their games accordingly, what difference does it make if one of the early gamers liked to mix the two?

It is significant because D&D already comes significantly science-fiction flavored. If you really want to recreate LOTR, you should fire the illithid, strip out all the wierd weird deities and turn them into angelic immortals (fallen or faithful, as the case may be), remove the Elemental Plane(s), and eliminate major cosmopolitan population centers.

 

[pawsplay]

Point taken, but the "Forgotten Phlebotinum" of fireworks and breaching charges is not the only bit of plot-driven stupidity in LOTR - the had a lot of potentially plot-breaking stuff in that universe that, had it been real, would have changed the shape of the world and the plot.

The ramifications of any magic that can induce explosions, fire, hallucinations, obscuring mists, or even bright lights would be similar to the ramifications of gun powder in so far as spooking/confusing enemies goes - and possibly more, depending how big a fireball/explosion you can conjure up.

Huge flying beasts that can be "domesticated" (or convinced) into use as flying transport (and any form of flight magic) changes the scope of the world immensely - we're talking controlled "powered" flight hundreds of years before we reached the "short-duration tethered hot air balloon" stage in our real history - that's going to have a profound effect on the world even if you don't have gunpowder or any equivalent.

An army on largeish aerial creatures flying high above bow range and carrying rocks are going to have serious impact (pun intended) and dictate that the "castles" look nothing like historical terran castles.

That's an interesting perspective on LOTR. I'm thinking that the entirety of spellcasting in the world consists of five wizards and their apprentices, a few ancient elves, and some dwarven toymakers, and the flying beasts in question number in the dozens only. There are no domesticated flying beasts in LOTR. The great eagles are intelligent, and Sauron's fell beasts were unnatural, and bound to the wills of their riders (who had not been active in some time leading up to the events of LOTR).

 

[Wolf1066]

Yes, and I'd be one of the first to acknowledge that the one thing that saved Middle Earth is that Sauron's forces are even lazier than hobbitses. Thing is, tho', such airborne dangers do exist in that world and can be used - imagine what merely one Dreidecker Fokker could achieve if sent back to the Early Middle Ages and put in the hands of someone suitably power-hungry.

And such things are even more commonplace in D&D - flying steeds of various stripes from different mythologies, flying carpets and pretty much every party has got at least one wizard.

They are world-shaping things - in any universe except the "high fantasy" ones where political power resides in nice open Motte and Bailey castles despite the prevalence of large fire-breathing flying lizards and diverse other airborne threats.

IMO, it's a bit one-sided for people to argue that even primitive firearms cannot exist in such a milieu due to "the changes such technology would cause to all the pretty curtain-walled castles" and completely ignore the fact that in lands such as D&D describes, political power would have invested in underground bunkers around a thousand years before the atomic age.