Gunpowder, fantasy and you

[Hussar]

Well, most individual campaigns don't cover timescales on which "technological" change of the setting would be visible.

The Forgotten Realms has been forced through several changes, as has the Dragonlance setting. The players always gripe about it, call it metaplot and evil moneygrubbing by the publisher.



Yes... and no.

I only bought Greyhawk materials in the way-back-when of my 1e days. Those materials mentioned the past of the setting in passng - whole cultures and peoples migrating, empires destroyed in rains of colorless fire. In the past, there were peoples with powers lost to the Greyhawk you were playing in.

Then they gave you the state of the world at a particular time. Evolving it forwards was then your own problem.



As I said above - players are conservative.

Well, sort of. Even in the prehistory cultures in Greyhawk, they're still pretty much middle ages technologically and culturally. There's no "stone age" or even "bronze age" in Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms.

 

[JoeGKushner]

That's the problem. People want firearms to make drastic changes that they never did in the first place, but don't want magic to make the massive changes they very well would.

That I'll agree to. No guns but hey, everything else is psuedo middle ages save for these dragons with massive arrays of fire breath and these wizards with wands of lightning and fireballs eh?

 

[JoeGKushner]

But... but... Hussite War Wagons!

Despite the wargame origins, I don't think D&D was initially designed to accurately simulate real-world history. So, the fact that historically, basic firearms appeared in the same period as feudalism and heavy armor has little bearing on the question.

The issue isn't one of historical accuracy, so much as genre. Genre doesn't care all that much about the anachronisms.

Despite specific examples you can cite, the typical image of the pseudo-medieval fantasy genre doesn't have guns. It isn't a typical trope.

Thematically, guns are the great equalizer - guns can kill anyone, any time, from a distance, with minimal training. If he has a gun (thematically, not realistically), a commoner does have a chance against your 12th level hero, or a dragon. You don't need a wizard so much when you have lots of cannons. So, in the fantasy genre guns don't appear so often. So, in the game, they don't appear so often.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Excalibur wasn't a .50 caliber, so to speak.

Indeed not. Behold Excalibur Sideplate!

 

[JoeGKushner]

There's also the fact that most D&D settings don't evolve. Or even change. Ever.

Take Forgotten Realms. We're lead to believe the setting has literally been in stasis as far as magic and technology goes more or less forever. I'm fairly certain Greyhawk is much the same. Just medieval times all the time.

Really, fantasy is just an incredibly bizarrely conservative genre.

Most fantasy.

Warhammer does move on a bit. They even have steam tanks.

Iron Kingdoms is another one with psuedo-tech. More impressive though? The elves kick ass. they are the masters of various sorcery technologies.

Rackham's Confrontation line, also has elves who kick much ass as well as various assorted technologies.

One of Glen Cook's series starts off with a cannon of silver and iron killing a powerful entity.

The genre is slowly changing but it may take much more time before people are comfrotable with it.

 

[howandwhy99]

Technically speaking gunpowder is an alchemical admixture, so it can be in D&D. But, like any magic, it has a larger impact on game worlds, if it is plentiful and readily accessible.

Imagine how different our world already is and would be with certain chemical mixtures plentiful and readily accessible.

As to campaign setting (and by association game modules) being static, they pretty much have to be static when sold. They change as the game goes along, but at start they are simply a beginning state. Writing a list of future events to happen no matter what undercuts the players' ability to succeed within it.

 

[fanboy2000]

The genre is slowly changing but it may take much more time before people are comfrotable with it.

True.

I'm starting to see why you have over 11k posts.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In doing some research for a certain upcoming adventure path, I was reading [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Half-Made-World-Felix-Gilman/dp/0765325527"]The Half-Made World[/ame].

It's Steampunk. Specifically, it's a fantastic Old West.

But it had magic in spades.

For instance:

The Agents of the Gun make pacts with demons. The demons, of course, reside in their firearms. They're famous all over the world for being dangerous (tough occasionally heroic) scofflaws, murderers, and thugs.

The Agents of the Line use advanced tech without much in the way of sorcery, but the "Engines" (essentially, trains) are sentient, and have purpose, and communicate with rumbling noises that drive others insane. They're famous for an ever-expanding empire.

The Folk are "natives," in touch with the spirit world, and perhaps hold the secret of a weapon that can end the war between the Gun and the Line. They are immortal (kill one and it will come back to life later), they can change the environment, they are very strong, but use no modern tech.

There's a spirit of healing that eats pain and suffering, but kills those that bring it to its sacred place, and there's also the West itself, since the world is still being made out there, weather and terrain all break down and become unreliable.

Guns don't ruin fantasy per se. Though they don't belong in certain genres, they're welcome in others. It's fantasy. The rules get changed out from under you.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

As for spells that change society - consider the Continual Light/Continual Flame spell.... No chance of tipping over a candle or lamp and setting Moscow/Chicago on fire. (Moscow had prefab housing in the 13th Century.... It burned down on a regular basis.)

The workday now includes the night hours - while an expensive initial investment the spell is a one time cost. This becomes important in the winter.

Can be used for communication.

Prevents you from being eaten by a grue....

The Auld Grump

 

[Umbran]

Well, sort of. Even in the prehistory cultures in Greyhawk, they're still pretty much middle ages technologically and culturally. There's no "stone age" or even "bronze age" in Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms.

Well, as I understand it, Oerth didn't come about the way Earth did. No billions of years and evolution and all that. The sentient races on it were created by their respective gods. They could well have been created with post-stone age knowledge.

But, even if not - we in the real world know a great deal about our Stone and Bronze ages because we have entire classes of people whose role and profession in our society is digging out what happened in the past. And we've only had what you'd call "good" information in the past century.

So, the (fictional) people in Greyhawk may well not have that information. And, if it isn't going to impact play, it is rather low priority on the list of things that need to be published. If your setting book page count is of a few hundred pages, the stone age that no longer is in the world isn't going to get printed.