GURPS Game world setting

[Layander]

I am building a world setting for my real life players in a GURPS 4E rules set. I am going to post my ideas as I come up with them here to see if anyone can help with those minor problems that always come up. Today guns.
Its not a rules issue, its setting, I would like a traditional fantasy setting with humans and demi-humans as the PC's and monsterous humaniods as the npcs ect.
I have some players that would like to use a gun. Should I have guns in my setting, guns changed the world and the way battles were fought.
I would like to have as small of an impact in my game as possible from the old school fantasy feel.
I was thinking of a few solutions.
1. No guns. I dont have to worry about the world implications just my players throwing nachos at me.
2. Dwarves invented guns and rarely share them. This keeps guns to only the dwarves with players rarely encountering them and the typical medieval feel staying in place. But then dwarves are a more common race in my game.
3. Gnomes who live with the dwarves invented them and most people are afraid to rely on guns because you see the other things those gnomes make. Similar to the dwarves, but guns would be less common.
4. Lost technology. This would keep it so that only the character who starts with a gun or finds it in an adventure has a gun, but then, how would he find new black powder.

What do you think? I would love to hear ideas.

Edit; Is it possible to do a fantasy setting that is both traditional and renaissance would magic actualy make that more or less likely?

 

[pawsplay]

One solution is to make guns present, but early tech. Guns were not better than longbows until well into the 18th century, actually, but they had tremendous armor piercing capability and new users could be easily trained to them. If guns are unreliable, dangerous, and slow to operate, they may seem less appealing. In such a scenario, a gun-fighter would be an exotic adventurer, as exotic as a mage or a dueling swordsman or a prophetic cleric.

 

[darjr]

Somewhere I read a little something about how mana levels would interfere with the proper workings of mechanical things. Guns in particular. Something to do with the amount of pure metal in the presence of rapidly expanding gas interfering with the present mana and, at times, causing the same thing as a critical spell failure.

It might reduce the use of guns if, every once and a while, that sulfurous smell has more to do with a demonic, malevolent presence than the burning of gunpowder.

 

[Herobizkit]

If you have GURPS, you have the tools in front of you to decide what TL that Guns have progressed to in your campaign world.

If your players wants Guns, give him guns. In a GURPS world, though, Guns are Killers. I'd say go the route of the Gnomes... does GURPS have a description of early matchlock weaponry somewhere? I believe they explode on a critical failure with a high range (16-18). Of course, the Gnomes would have invented the wheellock pistol, but it would be probably just as explosive... And muskets and blunderbusses? brr...

 

[ExploderWizard]

Check out the Banestorm treatment of guns. They exist in certain parts of the world but the church takes an active role to destroy such technology.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

In the Chinese five element system fire is the element that beats metal. If you take that idea and run with it maybe guns and cannons can't work because suddenly you have fire spirits trapped inside metal and they go crazy and try to destroy the metal casing.

 

[pawsplay]

It's worth noting that carrying an early firearm is fairly dangerous. In historical times, you faced some risk of fires. In a fantasy setting there are numerous ways to set fires. How would you defend a cannon against a gang of small fire elementals?

 

[Gilladian]

Or have your guns work off something besides gunpowder. Maybe each bullet must be enchanted. Or the powder used is enchanted. There could be a whole host of different types of powder and bullets, with different magical capabilities.

Make each use of powder/bullet cost somewhere in the same range as applying a dose of "magic weapon oil" (in 3e terms, not sure how GURPS defines that). So then it just becomes another element of fantasy, no more disruptive than any other. But it puts the weapon in the hands of the fighter, who is usually less able to use magic, thus leveling the playing field a bit.

You can still have the "look and feel" of firearms, but the effect of magic.