Fantasy Gun Control

[Rechan]

I think guns have a place in a fantasy setting, but mostly if they work through magic. If they work via technology, then there is a lot of technology that needs to be accounted for.

Guns are the pinnacle of a lot of different technologies, chemical, industrial, metallurgical and so on. If those advances are ignored, it seems weird, too.

A thought:

Instead of the gameworld advancing to support guns, and its inevitable repercussions...

What if the game world was sort of post-apocalyptic? There was a Great Society that was advanced enough to handle such great leaps... and that society fell, hard. Now you just have barbarians and looters with revolvers shooting in the ruins. The Romans had freaking indoor plumbing before the Dark Ages hit, after all.

This event could happen if a large cataclysm occurred - imagine our world if Electricity stopped working, or we literally ran out of gas, while simultaneously magic came back in full force. Society would crumble, technology would go the way of the dodo, but we'd have a lot of the low tech stuff at our hands.

In fact, the "Ancient tech/magic of advanced societies" is a common fantasy trope.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

yes, it does stink something awful.
I generally restricted available guns to the earliest kinds... arquebuses and the like. I did allow crude pistols which doubled as emergency clubs. Of course, these were all matchlocks with the joy and wonder of long burning slowmatches. This is one type of firearm I have no experience with (how about you?), but from what I've read, reloading them in the heat of combat was kind of like playing a piano in the back of a moving van... plus, you had to be careful to keep hot coals around to light them, and be careful not to spill powder on the slowmatch, and if the party wasn't going to be in combat for a long time, they had to extinguish the slowmatches or they'd burn away (usually right before the giants jumped them; I'm sadistic that way ).
I modified the misfire table to 'only happens on a natural 1', and drew up a list of about 10 different things that could happen, with only one of them being 'blowed up in yur hand!". The rest were things like 'your match went out', 'hangfire', 'the primer powder fizzled', etc. I've had some of these happen to me when I was target shooting, and in my experience, a 1 in 20 chance isn't so wrong.
I've never tried a Brown Bess, or any musket, for that matter. My favorite is my replica long rifle... it's just purty all over

I know someone who has a Brown Bess that saw over a hundred years of service, in five different militaries.

Under field conditions the Bess misfired about one in sixteen shots - with proper cleaning it would improve on that. And a misfire typically just meant that it didn't fire. The flintlock was a huge improvement, cheaper, more rugged, and more dependable than a wheellock.

The only real injury that I ever suffered firing a muzzle loader was catching the webbing of my thumb in the lock. I still have a small scar from that.

The odds of a Brown Bess blowing up in your hands... are pretty slim.

The Auld Grump

 

[David Howery]

I know someone who has a Brown Bess that saw over a hundred years of service, in five different militaries.

Under field conditions the Bess misfired about one in sixteen shots - with proper cleaning it would improve on that. And a misfire typically just meant that it didn't fire. The flintlock was a huge improvement, cheaper, more rugged, and more dependable than a wheellock.

The only real injury that I ever suffered firing a muzzle loader was catching the webbing of my thumb in the lock. I still have a small scar from that.

The odds of a Brown Bess blowing up in your hands... are pretty slim.

The Auld Grump

I never had a gun blow up in my hands either (if I had, it would make typing this rather difficult ). I did suffer several common misfires, ranging from fizzling primer charges to hangfires. One time, with my replica Hawken, the percussion cap had some kind of problem, and a big chunk of it jammed into the nipple, and completely blocked the flash of the primer; I had to take the nipple off and clear it before I could use it again.
I'm not really sure about the misfire rate of matchlocks, but I'd bet it was higher than flintlocks. From what I've read, none of the early guns were really prone to blowing up in your hands; I think TSR threw that one in to balance out the high damage ranges. So, I made the chances of it rather remote, with the more common misfires much more likely to happen.

 

[Glade Riven]

Well, like most things in the RPG world, there is a lot of handwaving when it comes to realism *cough.*

Fine, I'll admit it. I'm an Iron Kingdoms fan. Labling it as "steampunk" doesn't quite do it justice, but having a pistol-grip wand is pretty much encouraged. The gun rules work for the setting, and it is one with high stakes (pain of healing, unlikelyness of resurrection). But as much as I am an Iron Kingdoms fan, the setting I am working on is not steampunk, nor full metal fantasy (in most cases).

To me, the gun is the "poor man's magical weapon." Like others have said (and a few additions) - short range (say, 10 ft for a smoothbore pistol, 20 for a musket), high crit (probably 20/x3). Blunderbuss is a conical Area of Attack (reflex half/negates, depending on feats). 1dx (x depending on gun) of damage. As far as Game Mechanics are concerned (except for the shorter range and higher crit), it's a master work crossbow.

Beyond that, there's no need to go into detail, just as one doesn't have armor type vs weapon type in newer edition.

One country in this setting has guns, mainly because they're half-elves and everyone thinks they are crazy. I am also writing this thing so that it is easy enough to either expand out to where they are common, or so that they can be removed entirely. So yes, I am trying to have my cake and eat it, too.

Magic is still far, far more destructive. This is especially true at medium to high levels.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah, yeah, a touchy subject for some people - let's try to keep it civil.

First off, I understand why guns don't feel like fantasy to a number of people. Tolken didn't have guns, therefore most modern High Fantasy doesn't have guns, and the medival folklore and literature that serves as the basis for modern High Fantasy doesn't have guns. So Guns don't equal High Fantasy - Fair enough.

Guns also can mess with the dynamics of Low Fantasy, sword and sorcery (which is light on sorcery except for the Big Bad Evil Guy). Also Fair Enough.

The third reason some people don't like guns is because the game mechanics for them either [guns = too strong] or [guns = too weak], or the mechanics are awkward and just don't feel right. Also, Fair enough.

On the other side of the coin we have people who like guns, even in their fantasy, and "guns are historic and go back farther than you think" people. They also have decent points.

My thought is that guns have a place in renasaunce-esq fantasy settings, but they are more of a novelty. Early smooth bore guns kinda sucked - accurracy was sketchy, gunpowder was dangerous and had to be kept dry, your firing mechanism had to work; chinese rocketry had the same accuracy issues. A wand of fireballs is probably cheaper than outfitting your pesantry with guns so they can line up and fire off an Area-of-Effect volley. you don't put dangerous weapons in the hands of people you don't want to have such things, and you probably have a chance to get off more than one shot before the enemy closes.

Cannons do make good siege weapons, though, even in magically locals.

I don't mind guns in my fantasy games. It really depends on the specifics of the world though. I can see a cool setting where guns were invented earlier in the timeline than in say our own history and you have some good firearms available by the start of the campaign. For me this wouldn't take away from the fantasy, but it would require some thought in terms of how that impacts the setting.

Big fan of Ravenloft, and firearms were often available in the setting. I'd have to recheck the mechanics as its been a while. But I most of these weapons were balanced well by things like reload time and such. So their biggest impact was flavor more than anything else.

 

[NewJeffCT]

My biggest problem with long reload times is that guns were faster to reload than heavy crossbows. If you are going to give guns a long reload then you have to give crossbows an even longer one.

I don't really use the D&D definition of a heavy crossbow that requires a special crank to draw. I tend to just think of the D&D heavy crossbow as just a bigger version of the small light crossbow. but not quite big enough to considered an arbalest-type crank crossbow. However, I had thought that medieval era guns were slightly slower than even the arbalest type crossbows. I could certainly be wrong, however.

Plus, I don't think I've ever had a player take a heavy crossbow in game, as they don't want to dump feats into upping the rate of fire.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Plus, I don't think I've ever had a player take a heavy crossbow in game, as they don't want to dump feats into upping the rate of fire.

Huh.

Just goes to show you- I see a LOT of HvyXBows...and nobody bothers with pumping the RoF.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I never had a gun blow up in my hands either (if I had, it would make typing this rather difficult ). I did suffer several common misfires, ranging from fizzling primer charges to hangfires. One time, with my replica Hawken, the percussion cap had some kind of problem, and a big chunk of it jammed into the nipple, and completely blocked the flash of the primer; I had to take the nipple off and clear it before I could use it again.
I'm not really sure about the misfire rate of matchlocks, but I'd bet it was higher than flintlocks. From what I've read, none of the early guns were really prone to blowing up in your hands; I think TSR threw that one in to balance out the high damage ranges. So, I made the chances of it rather remote, with the more common misfires much more likely to happen.

Yeah, I have friends who are ACW reenactors. (One of them got to be in the movie Gettysburg. There were a lot of reenactors in that movie. Tim was a Union soldier who died in about ten seconds of screen time.)

Them newfangled percussion caps.... not bad in a rifle, heck, they made breechloaders a whole lot easier, but some of the horror stories I have heard of what can go wrong with a percussion cap revolver.... Those can blow up in your hands if you get a chain fire.

For balance, I just kept the ranges really short for smoothbores. You get more range (and better penetration) from a heavy crossbow.

If you rolled a 1 and confirmed it as a fumble then you either drop the gun or you spend a round cleaning it. Blackpowder guns get fouled quickly if you don't maintain them.

I don't really use the D&D definition of a heavy crossbow that requires a special crank to draw. I tend to just think of the D&D heavy crossbow as just a bigger version of the small light crossbow. but not quite big enough to considered an arbalest-type crank crossbow. However, I had thought that medieval era guns were slightly slower than even the arbalest type crossbows. I could certainly be wrong, however.

Plus, I don't think I've ever had a player take a heavy crossbow in game, as they don't want to dump feats into upping the rate of fire.

If you don't need a cranquin to load it then it's is not a heavy crossbow. The use of a goatsfoot is pretty much the definition of a light crossbow. And they were the exception, not the rule, at least for warfare. (Unless you count the very early gastraphetes, which was drawn against the belly - thus 'gastra'.)

A heavy crossbow pretty much ignored armor that would stop a bullet from a smoothbore. It also had much, much better range and accuracy than an early gun, or a longbow in the hands of all but the best. Slow as dirt though. It could take one to five minutes to load a cranquin drawn crossbow, longer for an arbelesta.

A gun took a lot less time then that - an expert can get four shots per minute with a Brown Bess. I can get maybe three or just a bit less. (I take too long cleaning between shots, so it ends up being closer to a minute and ten seconds to get off three shots, with the third shot rushed more than it should be.) I recently confirmed my times. This is using paper cartridges. Using apostles, maybe half that rate? Firing a Buccaneer musket I didn't time it... how often am I going to have a chance to fire a gun that is more than seven feet long?

The best way to find out how long it takes to load a gun is to see if there are any reenactors in your area. Maine is lucky, and has Revolutionary War (and thus the Brown Bess), American Civil War (including an artillery group), and SCA (hey, I have helped build trebuchet!). We also have a 'Pirates and Maritime' group. Most groups are happy to give demonstrations.

Experience is a hell of a lot better than getting 'expert advice' on the interweb, and can be a lot more fun too. Go looking, you may pick up a new hobby.

The Auld Grump, then there is the joy of firing blackpowder weapons in a heavy fog... the stink just hangs there.

 

[NewJeffCT]

A gun took a lot less time then that - an expert can get four shots per minute with a Brown Bess. I can get maybe three or just a bit less. (I take too long cleaning between shots, so it ends up being closer to a minute and ten seconds to get off three shots, with the third shot rushed more than it should be.) I recently confirmed my times. This is using paper cartridges. Using apostles, maybe half that rate? Firing a Buccaneer musket I didn't time it... how often am I going to have a chance to fire a gun that is more than seven feet long?

this goes to my original point - you're comparing the Brown Bess, which is a weapon of the of the 18th and early 19th centuries to the medieval era, which ended in the middle of the 15th century with the fall of Constantinople (not Istanbul) to the Turks in 1453.

Brown Bess - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the matchlock guns from 300 or more years earlier were far slower than the Brown Bess from what I understand.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

this goes to my original point - you're comparing the Brown Bess, which is a weapon of the of the 18th and early 19th centuries to the medieval era, which ended in the middle of the 15th century with the fall of Constantinople (not Istanbul) to the Turks in 1453.

Brown Bess - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the matchlock guns from 300 or more years earlier were far slower than the Brown Bess from what I understand.

Except that I can still get more than a round a minute with apostles, which were in use in the 15th century (that's where they picked up their name as well). And a crossbow is still slower than a round a minute, so... you do the math. A matchlock without premeasured apostles is still faster than a crossbow. Strange as it sounds, the speed of the gonne, plus ease of training, was the advantage of the weapon. Not much else.

So, your original point is still more than a bit off. Again, find a reenactment group, you will have more fun than just trusting what I say, and I really want there to be more folks out there who know how to use these weapons. Just be warned that girlfriends are not all that fond of the loverly sulfurous stench that you will carry home from the field. Trust me on that one... my girlfriend left me no doubts on that score. (And it takes two showers, or, better, a shower followed by a long bath, to get rid of the stink.)

Square headed crossbow bolts pretty much ignored plate armor, and had longer range. But they were ssslllooowww.... This did not prevent William Tell and other Swiss from becoming legends for what they could do with a crossbow. (Though the 'apple on the head' trick is myth, and a borrowed myth at that.)

The gun didn't need much training, loaded faster than a crossbow, and in large numbers were deadly against rank and file infantry. Very good against soft targets, which was most people, armor was expensive.

The disadvantages to a matchlock are keeping the #@^&ing fuse lit and the pan blowing outwards and into your face. There was no trigger as such, instead there was a rather long lever, or, on even older guns, just a touch hole, and you held the fuse in your hand. This last is what was in use in the 15th century. (I prefer the 1600s - matchlocks and wheellocks both saw use.)

A unit of handgonners would spin their fuses in lazy circles, keeping them lit. At dusk and dawn this would make a very pretty line of glowing circles. It may be worth mentioning that the Turks used fuse paper to wrap broken tobacco - resulting in the first cigarettes.

I have fired matchlocks - the Bess is just my favorite. Also, the guns shown in D&D 3.X and Pathfinder are flintlocks, not matchlocks, so the Bess is actually closer than the hand cannons used at Constantinopolus.

The Auld Grump, I have fired a Brown Bess more often than I have any modern piece.

*EDIT* Now cannon... cannon were a real game changer.