Fantasy Gun Control

[NewJeffCT]

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 wrong. 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.

I will defer to your superior knowledge on this subject. However, there was a video somebody on here posted a few years back that had a medieval era longbow vs a medieval era crossbow and that one had the longbow getting 11/12 shots off in a minute, while the crossbow got off 5 or 6. However, that was the smaller light crossbow.

That said, not sure how accurate this page is, but it does give reload times for early muskets as 2 minutes and early arquebus' as 1-2 minutes, also later saying that in the 16th and 17th century, the reload time for muskets was down to 2 minutes.

Smoothbore Musketry - ScotWars

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I will defer to your superior knowledge on this subject. However, there was a video somebody on here posted a few years back that had a medieval era longbow vs a medieval era crossbow and that one had the longbow getting 11/12 shots off in a minute, while the crossbow got off 5 or 6. However, that was the smaller light crossbow.

That said, not sure how accurate this page is, but it does give reload times for early muskets as 2 minutes and early arquebus' as 1-2 minutes, also later saying that in the 16th and 17th century, the reload time for muskets was down to 2 minutes.

Smoothbore Musketry - ScotWars

Was the crossbow spanned with a goatsfoot or a cranquin? Yeah - a goatsfoot does get a better RoF than an early gun, but actually has worse range. Much better accuracy, but less range. To be honest, given a choice between a light crossbow and an arquebus then I will take the crossbow. Given the choice between a light crossbow and a blunderbuss I will take the blunderbuss - you don't even try to aim the fowling piece. I will leave the heavy crossbow to someone who likes turning cranks a lot.

Anybody who thinks that it takes two minutes to load a hackbutt (arquebus) has either never fired one or not practiced. Sort of like cooking while reading the instructions on the box. Like anything else, you get faster after a few dozen repetitions. It may have taken me more than two minutes when I first fired a musket, but not for more than a few shots.

And again - do not take my word, or Wiki's word - go out and find some reenactors! If you like the question then you will almost certainly have fun. Stinky blackpowder fun! Failing blackpowder reenactment then hook up with the SCA, a different kind of anachronistic fun, and lots of enjoyable arguments. (My local shire is Malagentia - Land of the Bad People.)

Really, it is about enjoying things, I like firing dirty, stinky, slightly dangerous old toys what go *bang!* (Something fun - because so many Land and India Pattern muskets were made it is usually cheaper to get a real Brown Bess than to get a working replica. I got the one I used to have for about $200 in 1990. I miss that gun, but in 1999 I moved to an apartment that didn't allow firearms, so I gave it to some pirates friends of mine who still do reenactment.)

The Auld Grump

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I draw the line at guns for stylistic reasons, and convenience. I know I'm not entirely consistent about it, either, but then I'm not running a Three Musketeers game or a Pirate game, so it doesn't matter. If I were, I'd be fine with having guns--though possibly nonplussed at the mechanics thereof.

See, when I'm running, what I really want is circa 6th to 10th European century technology, with magic. Then I'll cave on, say plate armor (though limited to plate and chain mixes if i can). Then I'll cave on rapiers and halberds. Then I'll cave on later medieval infrastructure, noble titles, and a whole host of other things that are in the D&D kitchen sink, but don't really belong in a post-Roman + magic world. I might even cave on printing presses.

Even then, I don't really care about the guns. What I care about is gunpowder, cannon, and the attitude and assumptions such bring into the players' heads about available technology. If guns are out, then I don't have to fight that battle. Every now and then, printing presses cause the same issues and have to go.

I'm not unreasonable about guns. They merely happen to reside at the point at which me being "reasonable" compared to what I want has been pushed to the absolute breaking point.

Edit: Oh, and on those isolated instances when I'd concede to guns, that didn't involve someone else running the game (where they can run whatever they want), then I'm not simply going to cave on guns in my game as otherwise presented. If I'm going to guns, then I want to go to Three Musketeers territory, full bore.

 

[Herobizkit]

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.

All true, and if you want 'realistic' guns in your Fantasy world., that's fine. If you want a point-and-shoot weapon that has ammo and does 2 or 3d6, that's easier.

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.

Except that peasantry doesn't have spell-trigger activation unless they're all arcane casters. It's cheaper to give your peasants crossbows.

Bottom line, any weapon in an RPG is a set of stats: range, damage, ammo capacity, and anything else (like misfire, critical hit multiplier, ''exploding" dice for max damage on a roll, and so on).

From a 'reality' standpoint, it's cheapest to give peasant some slings, then crossbows. Either give your mages wands (doing 1d6 [damage type]), or give your fighters guns... in the end, the enemies fall down.

 

[Glade Riven]

I guess it is the "all or nothing" aspect of fantasy gun control that bugs me. It isn't about realism (especially in a world of flying eyeballs that shoot death rays and the like). "Guns are bad" but when the egregiously complicated repeating crossbow shows up, or a lever-action crossbow with a bolt magazine shows up, or any other crossbow-with-gun-parts shows up to fulfill the role of guns, I'm going to ask questions. The answer of "guns are a newfangled thing that isn't catching on because magic works better" or "gunpower is only at the stage of primitive rockets" is more satisfactory to me than "this is fantasy, therefore there are no guns, deal with it."

And now I have the urge to draw a lever action crossbow...

 

[Salamandyr]

The once per round and once every other round for crossbows was considerably slower back in 1e & 2e when a round was considered a minute long. 3e kept the rate of fire but changed the amount of in-game time a round consisted of.

I don't care for guns in my fantasy campaigns, because inevitably it seems, guns lead to clockworks, which leads to steam engines, which leads to tinker gnomes, which leads to steam powered clockwork flying aircraft that somehow work in defiance of the laws of physics while still being explicitly non-magic. And everybody seems to love it but me, whose fantasy preferences seem to have crystallized around the time of Hyborea, Thieve's World, and Lankhmar. (think I'm wrong? They're making a steampunk Three Musketeers! In what way does that make sense? "It's got swords and guns! It must be steampunk!" Okay, I'll stop now).

I think I'd be okay with guns in a historic sense, especially in a campaign with toned down magic. They exist, the good guys and bad guys will occasionally carry a pistol. NPC mooks fire off ineffectual rifle fire on occasion, but most times, real fighting comes back down to swords and sinews (kind of the way guns always seem to work in martial arts movies). But in reality, I prefer a technology level around 8th or 9th century, or even going back further, to the Classical period, with a bit of handwaving on the quality of swords available.

 

[thedungeondelver]

My problem with guns in AD&D is that eventually the players decide they're going to "intuit" ways to make them better. "My character decides encapsulating each powder charge in a brass vial would be better! Then, using a spinning cylinder or sliding box rather than hand-reloading each individual slot...!" and the next thing I know I'm dealing with .357s and M1 Garands.

SIXGUNS AND SORCERY can be fun for a one-off, and on the other far end of the spectrum, MUTANTS & MAGIC (or S3 EXPEDITION TO THE BARRIER PEAKS) can be fun for sci-fi; the latter is really fun because none of that stuff will work after a short while (limited numbers of power discs, and of course nothing short of a wish will recharge them and even that's iffy - the Gods demand balance!), but having everyone running around with a "repeating shoulder-gun" and going all A PIECE OF THE ACTION on me is tedious. And yes it's happened.

Weirdly enough, the same players don't try and make .45 ACPs and cal. .50 BMGs in WARHAMMER FANTASY BATTLE. Bastards are content enough to leave those alone .

So I leave it alone, and on the ultra-rare occasions the question has been asked I simply say that the chemistry is wrong on the campaign world for that to work.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One way to deal with the slippery slope of technological progress is to remember that it takes TIME...and oodles of it.

In part, this is because of the fact that insights occur in a trickle, not a cascading waterfall, but also because- prior to modern IP laws- such valuable secrets would be jealously guarded by inventors, guilds and states. Sometimes with lethal force. (Remember how Drow & Elves went after those who had their special gear?)

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Guns have less mystique than swords or other weapons. Guns are technical. They come in specific sizes. They come in specific types (shotgun vs SMG). Hell, they come in specific models (Desert Eagle vs Glock). And unlike swordplay, you can learn a lot about them just by reading Wikipedia. Or Google. Or Jane's. Or going to the range. Or getting a job as a police officer...

Last time I checked, a DnD longsword is a longsword, regardless of whether it is 3'7" long or 3'9" long, no matter what the handle is made of, and the bonuses are hugely expensive and/or level-dependent, since (beyond masterwork) all bonuses are magic. It's almost like they were designed for balance and playability first and realism far behind, from 1e to 4th, to Warhammer and many other settings.

That is because guns aren't current. I'm sure if we were playing D&D in the middle ages or swords were a mass production item today people would be discussing various types of sword manufacturers and the advantages of each. I am around a group of Arthurian reenactors and they spend a lot of time discussing the merits of one type of sword vs. another (just look at longsword vs. katana arguments, or watch anime when they talk about certain craftsmen). They even have specific manufacturers you can and can't buy from and they sometimes make their own swords.

As for technological advancement I use the GURPS rules. I find every silly little thing that had to be done to lead up to the development of guns and require 20 Knowledge and 20 Craft successes to do that development. If the character does it then he gets that one change (which could just be a lathe that can turn a bronze piece small enough to be chambered) and at a certain point they will have to spend one or more feats on a "Improved Progress Level" feat. That will turn them off.

 

[SkidAce]

One way to deal with the slippery slope of technological progress is to remember that it takes TIME...and oodles of it.

In part, this is because of the fact that insights occur in a trickle, not a cascading waterfall, but also because- prior to modern IP laws- such valuable secrets would be jealously guarded by inventors, guilds and states. Sometimes with lethal force. (Remember how Drow & Elves went after those who had their special gear?)

This is how I deal with it. (Somebody XP Danny for me)

Goblins have discovered gunpowder based on something down in their tunnels of the underdark. They make bombs and the rare flintlock.

This is the point the technology is at in my campaign world and during the course of the campaign won't have time to change appreciably, even if the Players want to (re)invent rifles...

So if they want the same tech they see the infamous Snarlk the bugbear assassin with, (once per encounter gun shot, occasional bomb) then they need to go into the underdark (Yay! adventure time) or catch Snarlk and steal it (Yay! adventure time).