Gunpowder, fantasy and you

[RangerWickett]

This seem kind of disingenuous, given that fantasy setting regularly break the laws of physics as we understand them. Take the second law of thermodynamics, fireball breaks it. Many, many, 5th level wizards take it and use it, but where does the fire come from? Where does the energy come from? We don't have to answer these questions because it's magic, it's supposed to break the laws of physics.

The last campaign I ran followed normal laws of physics, with the difference that there are parallel realities and energy can permeate between this world and those. All energy has to come from somewhere, and magic is the result of people figuring out that how it all works.

Fireball is a powerful spell, and so it's complicated, but it works like this. You use thoughts and words to create the local conditions in this world that let energy seep through from another world. You gather the energy you need, and use more thoughts and words to form it into a fiery bead. Then you use yet another element of the incantation to propel the bead where you want it to explode.

Bulls**t pseudo-science, but it let me explain why magic worked the way it did, and encouraged the PCs to go find locations where the barrier is weaker, and planar locations they could tap more easily. A very Magic: the Gathering-esque logic to it all.

 

[RangerWickett]

Divine magic, for example - if the operation of magic is dependent on the will of a fickle divine being, then it might well remain impenetrable to science.

Or all priests would just become psychiatrists, con men, or marketing executives (but I repeat myself) specialized in making divine entities want to give them these things.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I struggle to understand why firearms would be developed in a society with as much readily available offensive magic as the D&D world.

Also, in the real world, the musket brought an end to the armored knight, a staple of fantasy gaming. It changed combat significantly, to something that I would say is much more "modern" that what I want in a fantasy game.

I prefer to keep guns away from fantasy, in general.

 

[amerigoV]

I struggle to understand why firearms would be developed in a society with as much readily available offensive magic as the D&D world.

'Cuz stupid/ugly/airheaded people cannot cast spells. But they are still mean and like to kill stuff. Plus, I bet they can go get more bullets before the caster can get their spells back

 

[Jack Daniel]

I struggle to understand why firearms would be developed in a society with as much readily available offensive magic as the D&D world.

Swords are a technology. Is it a struggle to understand why the sword was invented in a world where offensive magic exists? What about agriculture? That's a technology too, but it seems pointless when the tribe shaman can create food. By this kind of logic, I should think that fantasy worlds ought never to have any inventions or civilizations at all.

 

[Mark Chance]

Swords are a technology. Is it a struggle to understand why the sword was invented in a world where offensive magic exists? What about agriculture? That's a technology too, but it seems pointless when the tribe shaman can create food. By this kind of logic, I should think that fantasy worlds ought never to have any inventions or civilizations at all.

You'd still need agriculture since it's necessary for the creation of beer. Unless, I guess, that shaman had a create beer spell. Then all bets are off.

One thing that's always puzzled me in these recurring firearms-and-fantasy threads is the idea that firearms must be treated realistically to a degree that nothing else is subjected to the same treatment. Thus, firearms take forever to reload, they explode or misfire often, they do horrendous amounts of damage, they punch right through armor, et cetera (and ignoring the fact that this realism is often not terribly realistic).

The firearms system I used in my game wasn't designed to be realistic. It was designed to be usable, balanced with other mundane weapons, and fun. I think I achieved those goals pretty well.

The PCs coveted firearms, especially the flintlock pistols. Most combats started with a volley of bullets followed by a quick charge for melee. One player's character ended up with several matchlock pistols thanks to aggressive looting. He kept smouldering wicks tied in his beard so that he could more quickly bring his pistols to bear.

Realistic? Hardly. But it was a hoot.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The biggest problem with firearms isn't guns, muskets, or the like but barrels of gunpowder. If you introduce the gun, you also introduce 'put 100lbs of gunpowder under the problem and light a match'.

Not at all. Gunpowder works however you want it to work. It can be a magical substance or alchemical. If you want it can be no more powerful than what's needed to propel a small metal ball out of a tube no matter what quantity it's gathered into. It can obey or defy whatever physical laws you want it to - just as, say, dragons do by flying.

The ONLY problems arguable with firearms in the game are either that of flavor/crossing genres, or if the DM does make them excessively powerful.

 

[luckless]

I struggle to understand why firearms would be developed in a society with as much readily available offensive magic as the D&D world.

Also, in the real world, the musket brought an end to the armored knight, a staple of fantasy gaming. It changed combat significantly, to something that I would say is much more "modern" that what I want in a fantasy game.

I prefer to keep guns away from fantasy, in general.

Actually, professional armies brought the era of the armoured noble knight to an end, not firearms. After all, suites of full plate armour rose along side the firearm. They didn't come onto the field for centuries before, and then suddenly disappear overnight when guns hit the fields. Design and development of armour has as much to do with fashion as it did with warfare. Economics and the redevelopment of cheap sheets of steel also had a big hand.

The pike and disciplined formations who could hold rank against a charge, and still be flexible enough to move as a unit on the field, limited the ability of a knight to crush infantry. Add in the ever increasing armour that was affordable to a greater part of an army, and then suddenly you have a bristling hedge hog that horses won't charge against, and can more easily survive volley fire from archers.

We eventually find a relatively inexpensive counter to heavy cavalry of the late medieval/early renaissance era with what became common infantry. Horses are expensive, and eventually it became cheaper to keep large trained infantry units than enough cavalry to truly equal them on the field.

Firearms did not drive the knight from they battlefield, they killed off the bowman instead. Bowmen were expensive and hard to train. Good bows were hard to build, required a large investment in time and money before they could be fielded, and their ammunition was bulky and required a lot of skilled labour to produce. The firearm on the other hand, could be put in the hands of anyone, given a days training, and be marginally effective on a battle field. The total time required to go from raw materials to finished product was far lower for firearms, start to finish could be days for an ordered gun, where as it could be months for a bow. (Wood had to be properly seasoned, iron/bronze didn't.) Ammunition could be produced by very limited skilled persons with only very basic training when properly supervised, and vast stores could easily be stockpiled and moved in a very compact volume as compared to arrows.

The truth is, basic firearms are seen in Europe from the 1300's onward, and possibly earlier, and they go right along side a vast majority of things people take for granted in 'fantasy'. I'm sure you can understand how lines like "It doesn't fit the period!" can really annoy people who study and enjoy history.


Don't want firearms? Then say they are nearly unheard of in the world, a fool's toy. Those who are smart enough to understand and safely use firearms are too 'upper class' to put up with staining their fine clothes with such foul smoke, or have magic that makes a cannon look like a fire cracker, and that lesser people who could actually benefit from them think guns are devil spawn and fear them too much.

Or claim they were viewed as dishonourable, and no one caught with a gun or gun powder would be trusted, or even strung up in the town square.

Therefore guns stayed as an oddity that never took off, like the electric car.

Don't claim they "don't fit" exactly where they did in history.

Most combats started with a volley of bullets followed by a quick charge for melee. One player's character ended up with several matchlock pistols thanks to aggressive looting. He kept smouldering wicks tied in his beard so that he could more quickly bring his pistols to bear.

Realistic? Hardly. But it was a hoot.

Actually, that sounds a lot like real combat with primitive firearms, smoldering matches included. Fire the loaded weapons, then charge. A lot of early firearms were even made as basically maces: Shoot it, grab the end of the barrel, and bash people's heads in with the pommel of the pistol's grip.

Smoldering matches in the beard does put you in a sticky spot when it comes to a botch however.

 

[lin_fusan]

Personally, I'm more interested in the mechanics-of-play and game design side of things:
1) If a firearm is better than a bow or crossbow, then players (and I assume smart NPCs) will prefer them over other weapons, so a GM should be prepared for his/her campaign becoming firearm-centric.

2) If a firearm is worse than a bow or crossbow, then players will refuse to use them, and it will eventually die out of the campaign.

3) If a firearm is exactly the same as a bow or crossbow, then it's a flavor thing.

4) If a firearm is more swingy, such as doing terrible, terrible damage but with a chance of exploding in your face, does that give players more choice, and does that enrich play? (It's like Wild Magic, when it works, it's an accidental "I win" button, but when it fails, the rest of the party thinks it's a waste of time.)

I'm sure there are other considerations that I haven't figured out yet...

 

[Mark Chance]

Actually, that sounds a lot like real combat with primitive firearms....

Hmm. Bad paragraph structure on my part. Mea culpa. The smouldering wicks in the beard was a bit over-the-top, but the player just loved the idea so much, how could I say no?

My firearms could also be used as melee weapons. Had one instance where a PC whomped a drunk, unconscious pirate on the head with a pistol. The coup de grace didn't kill the pirate. Instead, the pirate woke up, screaming about how he was going to gut one of his drinking buddies, who he assumed had whomped him for fun.