Gunpowder, fantasy and you

[Haltherrion]

It is significant because D&D already comes significantly science-fiction flavored. If you really want to recreate LOTR, you should fire the illithid

Check.

strip out all the wierd weird deities

Check.

and turn them into angelic immortals (fallen or faithful, as the case may be)

Check.

remove the Elemental Plane(s)

Check.

and eliminate major cosmopolitan population centers.

Ah... not so fast. Never cared for Tolkien's demographics. Think he got that wrong. Too much civilization without enough people. Case in point: the Rhohirrim. They are classic norse warriors ('cept for the horse centricity). Trouble is, for that type of warrior culture you need lots of other norse-ish tribes to rub-shoulders with and fight. A stand-alone Rohirrim doesn't actually fit.

But close over all. I do ditch the odd-ball races. I don't have the classic D&D planes. Angels depend on the particular world but they can fit; same for demons.

In the end, there are rules (D&D core stuff) and there is setting. I've never been a particular fan of the D&D setting. Nothing wrong with it; prefer my own.

 

[Haltherrion]

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.

The difference is that we have a clear, easily understood analogues for the introductions of firearms (see earth history 101). Magic affects get harder to determine.

Do I think that D&D level magic would grossly change fortifications? Yes and the result would probably be bunker-like. But there are many who disagree with me (see many earlier threads on this).

As for my own setting, I tend towards classic castles; it's a discrepancy I'm willing to tolerate although I find it an interesting mental exercise and have been toying with a thread on the topic. Trouble is, folks get all bent out of shape when you raise the point.

That aside, the effect of magic on culture is arguable since there is no magic in our world. The effect of gunpowder weapons is not arguable. We have clear analogues.

Whether dragons would really affect castles depends on the prevalance of dragons. Same for magic. I'm up for some mental exercises to explore the matter, however. Not up for how gunpowder affects fortifications because I think it's been clearly elucidated by our own history.

BUT if you like gunpowder weapons in your settings; go for it. I'm not going to swoop down into your game and give you a fine. If you are ref'ing such a game and I'm in it, give me cannons and tell me I can't bust down high, thin walls, I will push you hard on that though.

 

[Haltherrion]

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).

Yeah, LOTR is far from the D&D realm. The magic is thin and there are few practioners. Gandalf never wielded magic on par with a mid-level D&D wizard.

It's a low magic world but that's not unusual in fiction. Describing high magic is difficult. It's difficult to plot out all the ramifications for one but more practically, it's difficult to discribe it all in the course of a novel. Much easier to have a little bit here and there. Works just fine for an interesting story.

The current threads have me thinking about my own worlds. Bluntly, I don't craft high magic worlds even though I run them as campaign settings. I don't really feel like arguing about it right now (see lots of early threads ) but I think classic D&D demographics and magic levels would dramatically alter most middle-age-ish settings.

So where does that leave me as a ref that feels D&D level of 'stuff' would alter his setting? Well, for starters, neither my players or I seem to mind; so that's all good; it works for us. As a rationale, I suppose you can imagine a little bubble of distortion that goes around the players and adds a locally higher level of magic and critters than is otherwise present in the world.

In the grander scheme of things, maybe I'll work up a setting some day that, per my own vision, does match D&D demographics and power levels. It is do-able but I think ramifications are pervasive. Succession by blood? Not likely, the next level 15+ character will probably take the throne. High middle ages castles? Don't think so; too many ways to defeat that big, expensive pile of rock. Etc., etc.

Before we go too far down that path there are lots of other factors to consider. I think typical D&D encounter rates are far beyond what makes sense in a "real" world. Such threat levels are on par with serving on the active sections of the western front, WWI, without ever rotating out of the combat line. You'll die fairly quickly. But it makes for a fun game to ignore that and I can live with, just as I can live with castles that probably wouldn't be in a higher magic game setting.

 

[Wolf1066]

...The effect of gunpowder weapons is not arguable. We have clear analogues.

Whether dragons would really affect castles depends on the prevalance of dragons. Same for magic. I'm up for some mental exercises to explore the matter...

Hard to find analogues for a lot of magic - the stuff that doesn't create fireballs or Blow Stuff Up, anyway - but dragons and other airborne menaces have an easy analogue in fighter/bomber aircraft - and we all pretty much know what they do.

As to prevalence, barring a large and very successful extermination campaign, there would be quite a large population of them in order to sustain future generations - a lot more of them than the number of aircraft in WWI, I suspect (and that's just for one sub-species of dragon, of which there are plenty in D&D). Same for winged horses and other airborne steeds I've encountered in D&D.

BUT if you like gunpowder weapons in your settings; go for it. I'm not going to swoop down into your game and give you a fine. If you are ref'ing such a game and I'm in it, give me cannons and tell me I can't bust down high, thin walls, I will push you hard on that though.

And I'd expect you to, of course - if you could find any with high, thin walls still in operation thanks to those bastidges to the north and their triple-damned Airborne Cavalry...

 

[Hussar]

But close over all. I do ditch the odd-ball races. I don't have the classic D&D planes. Angels depend on the particular world but they can fit; same for demons.

In the end, there are rules (D&D core stuff) and there is setting. I've never been a particular fan of the D&D setting. Nothing wrong with it; prefer my own.

So, in other words, in order to get D&D to do what you want it to do, you strip out significant elements and house rule the rest. Or, to put it another way, you barely play D&D anymore.

See, it wasn't that D&D handled mixing science badly (or other genres for that matter) in the early days. They were being inspired by the source material of the time. Heck, Conan has aliens from other planets in it*. Ravenloft borrows from Gothic Horror. Dark Sun mugs survival SF and gives a good magic wedgie.

Mixing genres has a pretty strong tradition throughout D&D.

Now, as far as suspension of disbelief comes into it, which is basically what we're talking about, that varies for everyone. Sure, you can question why having fireworks, Gandalf doesn't use them. Then again, there's a metric ton of questions like that in D&D. Given cheap permanent light sources, why hasn't a D&D world hit the industrial revolution? ((Being able to work at night would have an ENORMOUS impact on a world))

It all comes down to what you (and I mean you in the general sense) can ignore without flinching.

*[sblock]You think Conan doesn't have aliens? From The Tower of the Elephant:

There are many worlds besides this earth and life takes many shapes. I am neither god nor demon, but flesh and blood like yourself, though the substance differ in part and theform be cast in a different mold.

'I am very old, o man of the waste countries; long and long ago I came to this planet with others of my world, from the green planet Yag, which circles for ever in the outer fringe of this universe. We swept through space on mighty wings that drove us through the cosmos quicker than light...

That's pretty much stock SF right there.[/sblock]

 

[Alexander123]

A few things, first, I am generally opposed to having gods and angels in my game, (although I am not opposed to demons and devils.) because good always seems to have an edge over evil in D&D (compare solar to balor.) and because gods and angels do tend to become oppressive. If gods and angels existed they would most likely forbid technology for the same reason that God forbid Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge and life. (at least according to the serpent, that being that God feared that man would become a god himself.) As far as technology is concerned, I don't allow guns although explosive powder does exist in my games. I don't allow it for the reason that after about 300 years of scientific reasearch, the whole D&D setting would have to be re-written to exclude things that existed in the past. (like adventuring parties, and most martial classes would be replaced.) It loses the whole mythological story-telling aspect similar to greek mythology and the Illiad and the Odyssey. In fact, I treat the whole issue in the same way that greek mythology treats it. I simply remove them from the game. I think someone was saying that if you allow even the smallest bit of technology and you have allowed laser pistols. (although I am find with many things which we would consider technology I just don't allow this to get to the point where in 200 years men would be flying airplanes, helicopters etc.)

I am in fact, okay with including technology but then you would have to take it all the way and that includes getting a book on the history of scientific discoveries and inventions and slowly transforming the world into a futuristic fantasy setting. Explanations like guns are inefficient to use lead nowhere, for the simple reason that all technology began as inefficient and then gradually it was made efficient. And I don't have any higher power in my game. (demons and devils are considered a race living on another plane. No particular dominance over man.) Although I have seen movies where magic and technology are mixed, so it certainly is not impossible the only question is whether the mixing is done well or not. Now that I think of it, I would be interested in knowing what a race of beings like demons and devils would do with technology.

 

[SKyOdin]

I am in fact, okay with including technology but then you would have to take it all the way and that includes getting a book on the history of scientific discoveries and inventions and slowly transforming the world into a futuristic fantasy setting. Explanations like guns are inefficient to use lead nowhere, for the simple reason that all technology began as inefficient and then gradually it was made efficient. And I don't have any higher power in my game. (demons and devils are considered a race living on another plane. No particular dominance over man.) Although I have seen movies where magic and technology are mixed, so it certainly is not impossible the only question is whether the mixing is done well or not. Now that I think of it, I would be interested in knowing what a race of beings like demons and devils would do with technology.

Okay, there is a lot of stuff in your post that I don't want to touch with a ten foot pole, but I have to refute the idea that introducing guns would mandate some kind of general technological progression.

Technological progress is not some straight line path where someone needs to take steps 1, 2, and 3 in a certain order, nor is technological progress something inevitable or predestined. On the contrary, technological progress is ruled by random chance and the weird quirks of fate. The biggest example is that the industrial revolution only happened when and where it did because England happened to have coal mines that were prone to flooding, as opposed to dry ones (according to one theory anyways). If someone ever wanted to halt the technological growth of their campaign setting at pre-industrial levels, it would be as easy as saying: "this setting doesn't have any reserves of coal or oil". There are a number of reasons that would be a perfectly reasonable thing to be true about a setting, and it would completely shut down industrialization and almost all forms of advanced technology (including anything resembling modern chemistry and explosives).

And as a random side note on Demons and Devils using guns, Milton used the idea when he wrote Paradise Lost a few hundred years ago. In his depiction of the war between Lucifer and Heaven, the fallen angels invented guns on the second day of warfare.

 

[Hussar]

The problem with saying something like, "There are no reserves of coal or oil" is, it only stops a real world industrial revolution. In a fantasy world, there are so many alternatives to coal or oil that are pretty easily available.

 

[SKyOdin]

The problem with saying something like, "There are no reserves of coal or oil" is, it only stops a real world industrial revolution. In a fantasy world, there are so many alternatives to coal or oil that are pretty easily available.

That depends. If by "alternatives to coal or oil", you are referring to magic, then the ability of magic to act as a substitute for fossil fuels is highly dependent on how magic works and what it can do. Since the how and why of magic is controlled by the person who nixed coal and oil in the first place, it is possible to shut down a magic-industrial revolution even more easily than a realistic one.

 

[Wolf1066]

That depends. If by "alternatives to coal or oil", you are referring to magic, then the ability of magic to act as a substitute for fossil fuels is highly dependent on how magic works and what it can do. Since the how and why of magic is controlled by the person who nixed coal and oil in the first place, it is possible to shut down a magic-industrial revolution even more easily than a realistic one.

Providing said person thinks of all the possible ramifications of the magic they allow in the campaign well in advance.

Continuous light, as others have pointed out, means shifts can work around the clock. Fire magic that can be used to create heat/flame for any length of time with no more effort than a nth-level wizard yelling shazzam! is going to facilitate an industrial revolution faster than the replacement of charcoal with fossil fuels did here on Earth.

Think on it too much and pretty soon you've removed a lot of "easy" magic from the world as magic - of the wave the hands and say a magic word variety - is a lot easier than actually mining minerals, transporting them etc and would bring about an industrial revolution with greater ease than we've ever known.

If you don't think it through in advance, you'll find players saying "hey, we can use an "Eternal flame" spell or two to power a simple steam engine..." and could rightfully get rather testy if you try to hand-wave why they cannot.

You would need to come up with a coherent idea of how magic works and what limits it - i.e. set scientific rules that magic must follow - in order to prevent it from being used as "like coal, petroleum and natural gas, 'cept ya don't actually have to do any real work yourself."