Gunpowder, fantasy and you

[jonesy]

I suppose you could posit that firearms don't advance quickly or at all because magic is so much more attractive but that seems to require a higher level of magic than most people are comfortable with...

Ahh, but does it? Magic missile vs Colt .45, which would you pick?

Edit: that's a rhetorical question, by the way. I'm assuming you'd take magic missile. I mean, I would.

 

[luckless]

Taking the 'heroic' battle concept further as practiced in a game. Consider two scenarios:

In scenario 1, the 12 year old boy of a slain lord takes his father's best weapon, a finely crafted dwarven rifle equivalent to a snipers rifle from the Civil war. He lies in wait for his father's killer and puts a bullet through his head at 200 yards.

In scenario 2, we have the same basic situation but the best weapon is his father's bow. He can't string it yet so he takes his father's sword, also a nice weapon. He springs out of a hiding place at his father's killer, inflicts a minor wound with his clumsy blow and is rapidly dispatched.

I prefer scenario 2. I don't like firearms enabling non-combatants, or in game terms, low level types. I don't like the "color" of it, but I also don't like the arguments with my technically and historically savvy players about what can be achieved with firearms and what is a reasonable progression of the technology. Why bother? As a player, I don't l ike ignoring the effectiveness of firearms or their likely progression to enjoy the game. Given a choice, I'd choose a game without them.

That's a personal preference, of course. Some people can't stand fantasy RPGs, with or without firearms. Not going to tell them, they are "wrong."

scenario 3: He takes any weapon, and takes his revenge while his target is sleeping.

Ahh, but does it? Magic missile vs Colt .45, which would you pick?

Edit: that's a rhetorical question, by the way. I'm assuming you'd take magic missile. I mean, I would.

This depends: Do I get bullets with the Colt? How many magic missiles can I cast in a day? In a round?

 

[Meek]

My setting has magic firearms (I'm actually trying to write an article on my setting blog about this that I hope to post soon) (EDIT: It's here now). However, most people in the setting who are good melee fighters learn crazy wuxia martial arts stunts, so the gun hasn't completely outmoded the sword. The common weapons use sharp-ended cartridges that contain a volatile alchemical solution. The trigger causes a hammer to strike the cartridge and launch it at the enemy. The cartridge strike has a bit more force than an arrow and it's much easier to train someone to shoot it, even if it is loud. It's also relatively safe if you've gotten training to use it.

There are also magic railguns of a sort (a certain weapon uses supernatural kinetic force to fire a bolt at an enemy, but the weapon has to be magically charged every few shots, so you either have to have an esoteric practitioner around or you have to be one to use it). There's also alchemical grenade launchers and other stuff.

Due to how very superstitious everyone in the setting is (religion is the #1 most important thing to the setting), making a magic gun takes a lot of time. Certain procedures must be done under certain constellations, prayers must be sang while forging the chasis, and if you interpret your morning tea as giving you a weird omen that's a reason to stop working until you get a good moon, and other weirdness. So that's hampered the ability of each nation (and every nation has them) to get magic guns. If you fail to do this, the common belief is at some point the weapon will turn on you, because all unsactified artifice produces genocidally unholy things.

So the guns add a cool touch and fit well into the setting's culture and help to bring certain aspects of it to light.

The setting is not tied to any RPG system (I'm making my own homebrew fantasy RPG that I'd feel comfortable using with it), though (certainly not to D&D). In D&D 3e guns would have little to no feat support and be super lame, and in 4e they would probably be thematically out of place, or too functionally equivalent to bows to really matter. My setting is also definitively not based on medieval europe like a lot of fantasy settings are, which is also a factor.

 

[Hussar]

Going back to the OP, I did vote that I'd allow firearms provisionally. Actually, I've never allowed firearms in D&D. Although, there was an excellent article for 4e firearms here on En World a couple of weeks ago, so, I might give that a spin next campaign.

I totally understand not wanting firearms in the game. It is a flavour breaker. Many of the archetypal fantasy didn't have guns, so, we probably think that way too.

As was mentioned way, way earlier in the thread, it's not so much guns that are the problem as 50 pounds of gunpowder rolling down the dungeon passage.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

To be completely honest I would allow laser blasters.

This isn't an issue of "Well if you are going to step over the line of guns you might as well hit the futuristic arms store", I really just like lasers. They have more style than bullet guns.

Plus they can fit right into the magic.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I think if there's anything we've shown it's that when you try to apply "realism" to any aspect of D&D, the whole thing just collapses like a flan in a cupboard.

 

[SKyOdin]

Taking the 'heroic' battle concept further as practiced in a game. Consider two scenarios:

In scenario 1, the 12 year old boy of a slain lord takes his father's best weapon, a finely crafted dwarven rifle equivalent to a snipers rifle from the Civil war. He lies in wait for his father's killer and puts a bullet through his head at 200 yards.

In scenario 2, we have the same basic situation but the best weapon is his father's bow. He can't string it yet so he takes his father's sword, also a nice weapon. He springs out of a hiding place at his father's killer, inflicts a minor wound with his clumsy blow and is rapidly dispatched.

I can see one big problem with this comparison that hasn't been addressed. Why are you talking about a gun thats "roughly equivalent to a snipers rifle from the Civil war"? Civil war era firearms represented about the third major revolution in firearms technology, which obsoleted Napoleonic warfare and ushered in the age of WW1-era trench warfare. Essentially, you are not comparing an early modern firearm to contemporary melee weapons, you are comparing a modern, accurate firearm to a melee weapon. If we were talking about a 16th century firearm, the kid would have had to somehow had to sneak a lot closer to his target while carrying a weapon with a lit match on it (in other words, very easy to see or smell).

And again, why do people always use swords as the point of comparison? As far as melee weapons go, they are somewhat hard to use and were rarely the primary weapon of soldiers. Why not an axe or a spear? Even a clumsy blow with an ax has the potential to do some serious damage.

 

[Haltherrion]

And again, why do people always use swords as the point of comparison? As far as melee weapons go, they are somewhat hard to use and were rarely the primary weapon of soldiers. Why not an axe or a spear? Even a clumsy blow with an ax has the potential to do some serious damage.

The point is that a ranged firearm weapon can be lethal at a distance and does not require much strength to use.

One could as easily ask in turn, why do people assume the introduction of firearms makes no difference to a setting? It sure made a difference on Earth.

 

[Hussar]

To be fair though Marcq, and I do agree mostly with what you said, the introduction of gunpowder doesn't actually have to have a massive effect. Look at China. China had gunpowder for centuries, yet did not go the European route of massive changes.

History is really too complicated to point to any one thing and say, "Yes, this is what drives the changes in society."

 

[Haltherrion]

To be fair though Marcq, and I do agree mostly with what you said, the introduction of gunpowder doesn't actually have to have a massive effect. Look at China. China had gunpowder for centuries, yet did not go the European route of massive changes.

History is really too complicated to point to any one thing and say, "Yes, this is what drives the changes in society."

China is a valid and interesting case. They certainly seemed to progress at a slower rate than Europe but looking over my posts, I did try to caveat my comments that progress need not progress as it did in Europe. China still progressed in its innovation, developing a wide range of gunpowder weapons by the 1600s. Perhaps they were slower than the Europeans but they were changing as well.

While gunpowder's role in changes in Europe from the late middle ages into the Renaissance is hard to disentangle from other factors and precisely quantify, it sometimes feels that folks argue it had no affect whatsoever when it clearly had a dramatic effect.

That said, I'll freely admit it can be integrated into interesting fantasy settings. My objections are more aesthetic objections when it is poorly integrated into the setting (as it often is).