Making guns palatable in high fantasy [Design Theory]

[Glade Riven]

Guns are controversial in role playing, despite their historical roles. The mechanics never seem to satisfy fans of firearms, and create more arguments over realism than anything else I've seen. But I got to thinking...how or why would a magical society even begin to develope guns? Would they even be the same as "real world" firearms?

In D&D/Pathfinder...there is no need to develope guns because wizards are very good at blowing stuff up. Why buy a cannon when you can buy a wand of fireballs? Faster attack times, got a "clip" of 50 until you run out, and you don't have to carry the volitile alchemical compound known as gunpowder. But then a phrase came to mind: I have prepared explosive runes.

In the next step of fantasy world developement, "normal" guns would have bullets propelled by explosive runes instead of gunpowder. Okay, wacky gunpowder mechanics ditched. Smooth bore reduces accuracy but increases crit, so 20/x3 on die of damage and guns are always masterwork. So you don't have d20 Modern 2 dice damages. Make ammo more expensive (a bit like a set of masterwork bolts). It's a "rich people's" weapon, now.

Then you get special "trick bullets" that cast spells, maybe in a more expensive type of gun. Price as a scroll, as they are one-time-used-and-consumed.

Please do not respond with "I hate guns in all forms in my fantasy" without contributing constructive critisism.

 

[Derren]

In D&D/Pathfinder...there is no need to develope guns because wizards are very good at blowing stuff up.

And that is exactly the reason why guns would be invented.
Wizards are rare as are magic items. Yet they are powerful and can decide battles. So it would be only naturally that people would look to make that kind of power more accessible.
Guns and cannons are a step into exactly that direction.

And I disagree with the "insanely expensive trick gun" ideas. The power of (early) guns were mass production and ease of use.
Why train and equip expensive knights/heroes when you can give guns to 100 pesants? With enough people shooting guns at a monster, the monster will be killed. And the guns still cost less than the magic items a mid level adventuring party has.

Thats the direction I would suggest for guns in fantasy RPGs. As NPC weapons and as fallback when you are not trained in bows/magic.

 

[Hassassin]

And that is exactly the reason why guns would be invented.

Also, historically firearms made armor less useful, so that might influence their adoption in a fantasy setting. If a kingdom was known for their well armored heavy cavalry, for example, their enemies might adopt even expensive firearms to counter the threat.

 

[Derren]

Also, historically firearms made armor less useful, so that might influence their adoption in a fantasy setting. If a kingdom was known for their well armored heavy cavalry, for example, their enemies might adopt even expensive firearms to counter the threat.

Partially yes, but only the advent of guns prompted the armorsmith to make thicker plate armor (which was bulletproof) which we now see as iconic for knights.
Without guns those would not have been invented and scale or chain would have been the armor of choice.

 

[Umbran]

Folks are going to go down the road of plausibility, realism, details of guns and armor. To me, that's a side issue. The real issue isn't historical or mechanical accuracy.

The real issue is genre. And fictional genre generally bears only a loose affiliation with historical, economic, political, and physical reality.

Guns aren't a typical "high fantasy" trope. If you just drop them into high fantasy, you'll find disconnects arise between your mechanics and your genre crop up all over the place. So, I say, it is probably unwise to do it that way. This is the way of, "Here are the mechanics of firearms, now what are the repercussions of those mechanics?" And the reasonable repercussions of the mechanics are usually going to be deeper than you wanted when you set out.

Instead, pick a gun-laden genre, and blend that with high fantasy (say, Three Musketeers, but with magic!), and the mechanical needs of your firearms will fall out on their own. The role and impact of firearms in your world (and thus, on the characters) will be well defined from the get-go, and you can design your mechanics to match.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think the real problem with guns is that they highlight existing problems with the game.

It is intuitively obvious to most people that a completely untrained person can pick up a gun a shoot someone, killing them instantly. It happens all the time, often without intent. This is virtually impossible to model in the D&D hit point system while maintaining any sense of balance. The same may in theory be true of other weapons or of magic, but it seems most salient with firearms.

I think that the historical context of firearm use in D&D is much easier to rationalize than the mechanical versions that have been tried. I also think that this issue is one of the largest problems with d20 Modern and a siginificant reason why roleplaying continues to focus on the fantasy genre.

 

[the Jester]

Umbran has a good point.

IMC there is a group of orcs that have worked out how to turn sunlight first into a volatile liquid and then to refine it into "sunpowder". They have built muskets, pistols and cannons, all of which have a heavy fantasy feel, are tied to the campaign lore (the orcs learned the trick by converting to the worship of the sun-god Galador, which they did in order to get accepted as a civilized people so that they can get entry into the Free Trade Alliance, etc etc) and don't run into "real guns would x" problems because they are explicitly not based on our physics.

 

[Umbran]

I think the real problem with guns is that they highlight existing problems with the game.

It is intuitively obvious to most people that a completely untrained person can pick up a gun a shoot someone, killing them instantly. It happens all the time, often without intent. This is virtually impossible to model in the D&D hit point system while maintaining any sense of balance. The same may in theory be true of other weapons or of magic, but it seems most salient with firearms.

Ah, you see, that's not a, "problem with the game," unless you define, "does not follow real-world physics and biology very closely," to be a problem.

This is entirely genre-dependent. In the real world, a man with a melee weapon is unlikely to be able to kill a grizzly bear alone. In the fantasy world, that same bear is a non-issue. The question is whether the dragon will kill him, not the bear.

This is what I mean by it being a genre issue. In the high fantasy genre, heroes are incredibly difficult to kill, by real-world standards. They're all Conans and Rambos and John McClanes. The system is designed to support that - is that then a "problem"? No. It is a design goal!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Guns are controversial in role playing, despite their historical roles. The mechanics never seem to satisfy fans of firearms, and create more arguments over realism than anything else I've seen. But I got to thinking...how or why would a magical society even begin to develope guns? Would they even be the same as "real world" firearms?

In D&D/Pathfinder...there is no need to develope guns because wizards are very good at blowing stuff up.

As mentioned above, because high-level wizards are rare (in most settings at least).

A wizard is your artillery. Powerful, but can only fire a few times per day/encounter/whatever. You still need your "grunts".

Why buy a cannon when you can buy a wand of fireballs?

Because some of a cannon's purposes don't match that of a fireball. You can't knock down a castle wall with a fireball, but you can replicate that effect with chain/grape-shot.

Faster attack times, got a "clip" of 50 until you run out, and you don't have to carry the volitile alchemical compound known as gunpowder. But then a phrase came to mind: I have prepared explosive runes.

In the next step of fantasy world developement, "normal" guns would have bullets propelled by explosive runes instead of gunpowder.

Depends on the ruleset. I don't think explosive runes cost anything, but in 4e, that's a ritual, and there's a small component cost, enough to make bullets far more expensive than arrows.

Sure, anyone can use these "gonnes", but considering the cost per shot, you'd still only give them to elite trained "gonnemen".

Okay, wacky gunpowder mechanics ditched. Smooth bore reduces accuracy but increases crit, so 20/x3 on die of damage and guns are always masterwork. So you don't have d20 Modern 2 dice damages. Make ammo more expensive (a bit like a set of masterwork bolts). It's a "rich people's" weapon, now.

But what is the point in-game? Why go to all this trouble when I can use a bow instead, and spend far less on arrows?

Only NPCs (who have more realistic training times) would favor guns, and only if they're rich. If the objective was to make guns only used by the rare NPC, then it's succeeded.

Then you get special "trick bullets" that cast spells, maybe in a more expensive type of gun. Price as a scroll, as they are one-time-used-and-consumed.

This would work quite well. We already have them for bows (arrows of death, etc) and, in the real world, "dragon rounds" and a variety of other munitions for shotguns.

 

[RangerWickett]

Guns aren't lethal all the time. If you're high level (like someone who was in combat in war), it takes more bullets to kill you, obviously.

?He?s Superman?: Marine Survives Shooting By Plugging His Bullet Wounds With His Fingers - Yahoo! News