4E DMG: No guns?!?

[Obryn]

Let's not forget the Guns of Avalon, but that might be a little too old school for many younger readers.

Also, Poul Anderson's [ame=http://www.amazon.com/High-Crusade-Poul-Anderson/dp/0743475283/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220224673&sr=8-1]The High Crusade[/ame].

Remember, though, that in the 60's and 70's, some mixture of sci-fi and fantasy was pretty much expected. In the 80's, it was perfectly acceptable and still pretty cool.

The 90's and 00's have more sharply separated Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Though there's quite a market for modern-day fantasy like The Dresden Files and most everything by Neil Gaiman, you usually won't see lasers & dragons in the same novel anymore.

I still love an oldschool mixture of sci-fi and fantasy, like the background for the Wilderlands setting, but it's not really where the center of fantasy fiction and gaming is right now.

-O

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Mighty big leap of logic there...but no, that's not it (at least for me). I just want a player who chooses a gun over a crossbow to have actually made a choice. This is the problem I have with reskinning things or just changing fluff... all I've done is give the player the illusion his choice actually matters in the game... especially when it comes to combat (which in 4e is very detailed oriented). I mean a gun might do more damage than a crossbow, but take longer to reload... or have a chance to misfire... or even have a chance to explode and hurt the character in exchange for that greater damage.

See, part of it is my experiences. Last time the DM tried to put guns into the game, they were blatantly better than anything else. The rifles did 2d8 damage for medium, shot as rapidly as a bow (held a cartridge of ten shots -- enough to get through most combats or only require one reload), and reloading was only a move action anyway. Range was superior to any other ranged weapon, too. I tried to suggest balancing it by having it be inaccurate or take at least as long to reload as a heavy crossbow, but they were "futuristic" guns, so that didn't "fit" the flavor and whatnot. I also had a similar experience years earlier. So anyone who claims they want to have guns but using existing weapons stats for it isn't acceptable, I'm immediately suspicious of.

If you want to actually balance new stats, such as more damage for worse crit and so forth, that's fine. But uncommon hindrances like possibly blowing up are really lame and a poor balancing factor. In the case of the game i was in, the "balancing factor" was that the guns were rare and so was the ammo, brought to the world by interlopers from a different dimension. So presumably, ammo would be tough to come by. Of course, that didn't change the fact the guns were broken when used, just limited the use. And since said group were our main enemy, and we would be fighting them a lot, presumably them armed with said guns, I was skeptical of it even actually being a factor. I left the game before I could find out.