Gunpowder, fantasy and you

[pawsplay]

Whether or not it could be a science would depend upon how the magic worked. One can imagine a magical system upon which the scientific method is thoroughly ineffective.

I cannot.

For example - the scientific method depends on the laws governing a phenomenon behaving reproducibly. If I take action X, and get result Y, pretty much every time I take action X, I will get result Y (with margins of error for my not doing *exactly* X each time).

Yet there must be some actions X which are spells, as opposed to all the things that are not.

So, if magic does not act reproducibly, such that effect does not follow clear cause, then science would fail to apply.

It would be impossible to practice. However, science would be necessary to uncover various ways in which to avoid casting horrific spells.

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.

Howso? I can think of nothing more interesting to science than the verifiable existence of powerful, reality-bending entities. Simply determining some pattern to their interests, however capricious, would eclipse all other fields of endeavor in importance. What use to build empires, when an inscrutable entity might turn an empire, overnight, into a vast garden of talking turnips? In the face of superenatural superpower, nothing would be more pertinent than science.

The only things impenetrable to science are things that have no causes behind them, which describes... nothing.

 

[luckless]

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...

Personally I like the option of modeling early Firearms as more powerful than bows or crossbows, but with shorter ranges and other drawbacks: Harder to reload, ammunition can be very hard to come by, it is LOUD so everyone in the area is going to know you just fired it, cause limited 'obscuring mist' like clouds (A drawback or a bonus, depending on the location.), and lastly, walking around with a sack of gun powder at your hip is not the best of ideas if you're fighting something that can breath fire,...

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?

There are references to the smoldering match/fuse being tied into hair or stuck under hats. Blackbeard is the only one I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[RangerWickett]

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.

The way I'm gearing them is intended to fit with the current Character Builder, so you can equip 'crossbows,' and make a few quick changes to get a gun. This might change when I see the new Character Builder.

The basic gist is, a pistol is a hand crossbow and a musket is a crossbow, but they are brutal 2, high-crit, and load 2 standard (it takes 2 standard actions to load, and you can't quickload it with powers like twin strike). So you might carry a loaded pistol or musket, fire it, then charge into combat.

The 'Firearm Expertise' feat works like all the other weapon expertise feats, and it's special bonus is to reduce load time to a minor action. So for the cost of a feat, you can basically get a brutal 2, high-crit crossbow, which I think is about equivalent to spending a feat to get a superior weapon.

That's where I am right now. I'm open to suggestions to make it more interesting.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

My favorite periods for gaming are the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - the so-called Age of Reason.

Magic is becoming a science - rules are being codified. Arcane magic is not sanctioned by the Faith, though one major church does License it (think Papal indulgences), which leads to frictions between the faiths. (Including the spread of a fictional book titled De Re Magica)

Science is also becoming a science - the rules of observation propounded by Thales are coming into play. Experiment is becoming a matter of proof. And the printing press has given birth to the multiple record and the cross reference. Practices once kept as trade secrets are now being spread and utilized over a wide are (including the real book De Re Metallica).

Gunpowder is well understood, and has become a martial proficiency, but tactics have not yet fully caught up with the ramifications (units of handgunners thirty ranks deep...), but new schools of warfare are being born, allowing smaller armies to stand off against larger but less efficient ones (think the Dutch schools of warfare).

I lean toward short ranged, high damage gonnes, without the armor penetration that some insist on (crossbows were actually better at that then guns, so good that they were forbidden by the church). Handgonnes were faster than crossbows, but less accurate at range, and poor at piercing armor.

So I do like guns in my fantasy, but run with an atypical period.

The Auld Grump

 

[Diamond Cross]

People are forgetting one thing.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

And personally I've always wanted to be in a colonial era setting myself.

 

[fanboy2000]

People are forgetting one thing.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Ah, but, as Isaac Asimov once asked, is magic indistinguishable from advanced technology?

 

[Mark Chance]

That's where I am right now. I'm open to suggestions to make it more interesting.

Shoot me an email to mark at spesmagna dot com and I'll get you a copy of my firearms rules. They are geared for Pathfinder, but could be helpful.

 

[prosfilaes]

As for "Science is hard, therefore we would only use magic if we had it", I still call bull. Science is hard, but not everyone in most settings can use magic. Either way why would people stop researching?

Research is expensive and complex. There has been very little research into mechanical computing post-1950. There has been no space probe ever sent to Pluto. Leprosy has got a miniscule share of the medical research dollars. Just because something is there, doesn't mean that it lures researchers.

As for magic being a science, there's no reason to assume that magic can be experimented with successfully. All magical research may be scrabbling to transcribe the words of magical creatures, and any experimentation may be more likely to cause a quick and painful death then any useful results.

Personally, I like cannons more then guns; I can see a role in making guns something 0-level NPCs are handed and sent out to fight wars with, but not something that PCs would actually use. If the barrels of gunpowder is a problem, then they're simply not stable; anyone who doesn't want to die a quick death needs to keep gunpowder in smaller containers.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I said "yes" even though my answer is actually "no." However, my actual response of "No, actual rifles without the stupid fumble rules or black powder garbage belong perfectly fine in fantasy" didn't appear to be in the poll, and "yes" was the next best answer.

I haven't read the thread but if "verisimilitude" was brought up once congrats you are objectively wrong.

 

[Leatherhead]

The main reason why people don't "mix" guns with fantasy?

Gun rules are convoluted. I bet if the rules for guns were traditionally simpler, like say as simple as using a crossbow, then they would be more accepted. It's really the same problem grapples and the katana have had for so long.

If anything most people can tolerate "point and click" guns in fantasy, just look at WoW.