Gunpowder, fantasy and you

[Dausuul]

I might make it Load Move, otherwise characters would only be able to fire once every two rounds and that wouldn't make the increased damage die worth it.

Well, that's the point. You're not supposed to use a gun as your primary weapon; the idea is to fire the gun on the first round, then drop/holster it and pull out your cutlass (or whatever). It's a lot like how fighters use javelins in 4E. You chuck a javelin as you close to melee range, then draw your sword and go to town.

It would work best if using the inherent bonuses rule, since you obviously don't want to waste a lot of resources on magically enhancing a weapon you only use once in a combat.

If you really wanted to have an option for gun specialists, you could add a feat that reduced the reload time to a move or a minor action.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, in considering my setting I realized that in that setting magic, not gunpowder, is the emerging technology.

Arcane Magic was, for more than a millennium and a half, suppressed by the faith of a largely monolithic and monotheistic religion - it was hard to do and unreliable, mostly not working at all. Not to mention the good folks in the red robes who enforced the laws against arcane magic with flame and rope - whether or not the attempt was successful. (Or even happened at all... witchfinders are paid by the head....)

As the monolithic faith began to break apart in a series of schism the walls of faith grew weaker - a matter made worse by the the largest faction was corrupted, selling indulgences in the form of a license to commit the mortal sin of Arcane Magic.

So the rules of magic are being rediscovered, texts from the times of Thales and Aristotle being scrutinized for any structure that might be present.

It is worth mentioning that the Eastern branch of the faith schismed early, and had no trouble with arcane magic, considering magic to be one of Gods greatest gifts. Priest-mages form a third branch of the Eastern Faith, along with secular and monastic priests. (This came about when I discovered that Albertus Magnus is a saint on the Eastern Orthodox calender....) Not as big a difference as you might think - magic still did not work all that reliably, with priest-mages more likely to succeed than a pure mage.

Technological advance does happen - in the course of the primary timeline for the game the flintlock (snapchance) replaces the wheellock, spreading rapidly across the field of battle, and taking the gun from the field and into the woods, since it is now reliable and common enough to hunt with.

The Auld Grump

 

[Shades of Green]

I've written firearm house-rules for BFRPG, which should probably be useful with most pre-3E editions...

 

[Umbran]

Except that there's been more then enough examples of technology doing exactly what you claim as a "dubious enterprise."

Please allow me to restate:

The basic argument given earlier was that those who didn't like guns in their game were anachronistically wrongity-wrong-wrong, as firearms were supposedly common in the time when Europe had heavy armor like D&D uses.

But now you're saying, "Well, they don't have to be common". This undermines the original logic for their presence in the fantasy realm. If they don't have to be common, matching the real-world, they don't have to be present at all, either!

Have magical items. Have alchemical items. Learn firearms usage, cleaning, and maintenance.

See I can do it too.

Yes, but not so well, for two reasons...

1) The reason guns are the great equalizer is the ease with which their use and maintenance is learned. Putting a musketeer cannon-crew in the field should not be equivalent to putting a wizard in the field.

2) As a GM, I can dole out magic items as I wish as one-time things. To be useful in game, firearms need an infrastructure and continuing supply of consumable support (gunpowder), which implies something rather more than one-time distribution. In order to be plausibly useful, mundane guns shouldn't be unique items, while magic and alchemical items can.

 

[Derren]

The basic argument given earlier was that those who didn't like guns in their game were anachronistically wrongity-wrong-wrong, as firearms were supposedly common in the time when Europe had heavy armor like D&D uses.

Thing is, without firearms heavy armor has no reason to exist.

2) As a GM, I can dole out magic items as I wish as one-time things. To be useful in game, firearms need an infrastructure and continuing supply of consumable support (gunpowder), which implies something rather more than one-time distribution. In order to be plausibly useful, mundane guns shouldn't be unique items, while magic and alchemical items can.

In 4E yes. In previous editions you also needed a large infrastructure for magic, likely even larger than for guns, because of all the spell components. And rituals in 4E need an infrastructure (components), too.

 

[Umbran]

Thing is, without firearms heavy armor has no reason to exist.

So it has been asserted.

But that is neither here nor there. As I noted previously, I don't think the historical reason for the development of the armor matters to most folks, any more than they are bothered by the image of a warrior saint from the late 3rd century wearing the stuff.

In 4E yes. In previous editions you also needed a large infrastructure for magic, likely even larger than for guns, because of all the spell components. And rituals in 4E need an infrastructure (components), too.

By in large, I think you'll find that most spell components are largely unprocessed materials. Black powder is, by comparison, highly processed, and requires specialized knowledge to produce. Just getting the saltpeter is a process that can take a year or so by methods of the day.

I think the apt comparison is not to spell components, but to other alchemical items. You want a character to have a tanglefoot-thrower or thunderstoner as a regular weapon, then you need a constant supply of thunderstones or the stuff in tanglefoot bags. You want that many alchemists around, putting out that much product, well, that's fine.

 

[SKyOdin]

As many have said before, the only reason guns are not standard in D&D is due to long-standing genre conventions. However, genre conventions change over time, and I think Fantasy Gun Control is one of those genre conventions that is changing.

Look at one of the most popular fantasy worlds across all media right now: Azeroth as seen in World of Warcraft. It has guns, both as regular weapons of war and as weapons for heroes. Heck, it even has anachronistically advanced cartridge-based, repeating guns. Likewise, the fairly popular video game series Fable uses repeating clockwork guns.

I think steampunkish setting elements such as fantastic clockwork guns are beginning to become a more mainstream part of fantasy these days. Pretty soon, guns and steam engines might be included as part of generic vanilla fantasy.

 

[pawsplay]

Please allow me to restate:

The basic argument given earlier was that those who didn't like guns in their game were anachronistically wrongity-wrong-wrong, as firearms were supposedly common in the time when Europe had heavy armor like D&D uses.

But now you're saying, "Well, they don't have to be common". This undermines the original logic for their presence in the fantasy realm. If they don't have to be common, matching the real-world, they don't have to be present at all, either!

I think you're going to have to show your work on tht last sentence. In the real world, firearms ranged from common to uncommon, contemporary with advanced steel making (rapier/katana/articulated plate). They do not range from common to nonexistent. You can argue "different physical laws," but not if the physical laws permit a number of other explosive effects.

You can either ignore the discrepancy, which is not wrongity-wrong-wrong, but is senseless. Not necessarily bad, but not necessarily good, either. Or you can rationalize it, which has the advantages of not having guns, while not being seneseless, either. There are reasons for each approach. I think rationalizing the situation is definitely the ideal, but may not be worth the effort for some campaigns.

And here's the thing. You can introduce any element you want by fiat. If it is an anachronism, it will be fine with anyone who is unaware. It will also be fine with anyone who is aware, but does not find it jarring. But if someone is aware, and finds it jarring, that's a disadvantage in creating your imaginary world.

There's that King Arthur movie. I could forgive a lot, but not its claim of historicity. After all, it was set in the post-Roman era, the "Dark Ages," yet it included Lancelot. Lancelot, as we know, is French, and was introduced to the mythos in the 12th century. It's pretty much impossible to not notice Lancelot's presence, which becomes all the more jarring every time they throw in "historic" details, like Arthur's still-anachronistic but slightly less anachronistic allegiance to Pelagius. It makes the whole movie, irrespective of its merits, smell like bull pockey. If the movie had been called, say, King Zarion, and took place in Zinoland, it would have merely been a lightweight action film with lurid yet shallow commentary on civic order.

 

[SKyOdin]

Please allow me to restate:

The basic argument given earlier was that those who didn't like guns in their game were anachronistically wrongity-wrong-wrong, as firearms were supposedly common in the time when Europe had heavy armor like D&D uses.

I don't think people were saying that is was wrong for people to not have guns in D&D. Rather, I think the pro-gunpowder side was just preemptively debunking the silly "Medieval Europe didn't have guns, so why should D&D" argument, as well as the just as silly and much more pervasive "guns eliminated knights, heavy armor, castles, and feudalism" argument. There is a lot of ignorance and misinformation about this topic that needs to be addressed whenever this topic comes up. In general though, this is just a defense against the claim that guns don't belong in D&D, rather than an argument that guns must be in D&D.

In my experience, people without a lot of historical knowledge tend to be familiar with the Middle Ages in general (but not the fine differences between the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages) and with the era of colonialism, revolution and Napoleon, but not so much with what was between those two. As such, in regards to the structure of society, technology, and so on, most people tend to mentally jump from the mid-15th century to the late 18th century with little regard for the large gulf of time between those. And I find the 16th and 17th centuries to be a particularly interesting time in world history that is a great place to draw inspiration from for D&D. It was the era where guns, castles, armor, swords, and pikes were all part of the battlefield worldwide, from the English Civil War, to the wars of the Sengoku period in Japan, to Cortez's invasion of the Americas.

As for the castle discussion, I think claims that castles stopped being castles when they began to change in their appearance are very faulty. Defining castles based on their appearance is very problematic because the stereotypical castle is nothing more that a particular style of castle from a particular time period and a particular part of the world. It is also worth pointing out that architecture is equal parts practicality and fashion. While castles were built based on practical needs, they were also defined by trends in architectural fashion and local traditions. A major shift in architectural trends affected castles as well. Defining castles based on their appearance would mean that Indian or Japanese castles wouldn't qualify as castles, which is just silly.

 

[Haltherrion]

I don't know how to refute you, since I would just be quoting the same passages back at you, which describe the transition from mid-14th centurty to the 16th century, during which time cannons became increasingly effective against castle walls. But long-barreled cannons are definitely 16th century and on. That's more than two hundred years of bombards, grapeshot, wall cannons, and hand cannons in action, all of which coincided with feudalism, and castles.

Selectively coloring text in Wikipedia doesn't make you right, I'm sorry. You're cherrypicking quotes from a very general overview, written by a team of amateurs and edited by no one, and you're still not making your point, anyway.

The coloring simply comes through from the cut-and-paste from wikipedia. The articles provide plenty of references if you want to research them, some included in the cut-and-paste and the rest available on the page links provided.

These quotes and the overall articles are in-line with everything I've read on this period. I could go dig up some direct quotes but I think they make the case pretty clearly: while cannons did not change things over night, they had a clear and profound change on fortifications. The type most often seen as castles were shown to be very weak against cannons, not the early anti-personal weapons called cannons but anti-fortifications cannons available in the mid 1400s.

I guess we'll just leave it as my admittedly casual attempt to provide supportung material for my position versus your bald assertions.