Gunpowder, fantasy and you

[Haltherrion]

Even so, firearms were introduced to the West by the late 1300s, as already sourced many times in the thread, and had come into regular use by the mid 1400s. So that leaves us with firearms and castles coexisting for at minimum a good 300 years...

Early firearms were not very big or easy to move. By the mid-1400s they were affecting castle design. But even so, in most FRPs with gunpowder, has the gunpowder weapon only been around for 300 years? Are you saying such weapons won't affect fortification design? Do you think it won't affect forts to the point where they don't really look like what folks think of as castles?

I think the historical record is pretty clear that it does. Star forts started evolving by the 1450s or so. That's actually pretty close to when cannons got big enough to damage walls effectively.

 

[Werebat]

I like firearms in my fantasy. When I played 3.X, my solution was to make muskets and pistols superior weapons that did slightly better damage than an equivalent crossbow. Anyone could use them without a penalty to attack. A character proficient with the weapon could reload it as a move action. An unproficient character had to take a full round action to reload.

Pretty much what I did, too. Net result? All of those characters who would be using crossbows switched over to firearms once they got the money to afford them. Yep, all one of 'em.

- Ron ^*^

 

[Haltherrion]

Deal Castle is an artillery fortress. By which I do not mean that it is not a castle. I mean it's a castle specifically designed for cannon warfare. The walls were designed to deflect cannon fire, while giving Deal's own gunners good coverage of the battlefield. So, are you arguing for or against castles+cannons?

I'm saying gunpowder causes fortifications to change to the point where most gamers wouldn't really consider them castles any more. Deal was a transitional fortification, one of the last castle-ish ones I can recall.

Let me try this another way. People seem to like the high-middle ages castles with their high walls and big dungeons. These weren't built after wall-smashing cannons came into the fore. Even Deal, which looks kind of castle-ish to the casual eye, is quite squat and thick walled.

Given that evolution in earth history, I don't really think it that unusual to ask folks to consider the effect of gunpowder in their own fantasy world. Myself, I don't care for aesthetic of gunpowder and fantasy. While one could also argue magic would affect castle design, atleast in that case, it is more hypothetical. We know what happened on earth.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Early firearms were not very big or easy to move. By the mid-1400s they were affecting castle design. But even so, in most FRPs with gunpowder, has the gunpowder weapon only been around for 300 years? Are you saying such weapons won't affect fortification design? Do you think it won't affect forts to the point where they don't really look like what folks think of as castles?

I think the historical record is pretty clear that it does. Star forts started evolving by the 1450s or so. That's actually pretty close to when cannons got big enough to damage walls effectively.

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.

 

[turnip]

Early firearms were not very big or easy to move. By the mid-1400s they were affecting castle design. But even so, in most FRPs with gunpowder, has the gunpowder weapon only been around for 300 years? Are you saying such weapons won't affect fortification design? Do you think it won't affect forts to the point where they don't really look like what folks think of as castles?

I think the historical record is pretty clear that it does. Star forts started evolving by the 1450s or so. That's actually pretty close to when cannons got big enough to damage walls effectively.

Okay, so you're arguing more of an aesthetic reason. I admit, star and rose forts are different looking than the traditional wall and keep, but to my mind I still consider them, for the most part, as castles. Just as I consider a motte-and-bailey a castle, or even an old hill fort or some crannógs.

We'll just have to have differing opinions on it; that's cool.

Hell, firearms aren't even anything I prefer in my campaign; I like a Dark Ages level world, not a Middle Ages one. I get huffy when people have plate armor!

 

[Haltherrion]

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 refs are trying to capture a particular mood or feeling and aren't evolving their setting over a long period of time. This is mostly because it isn't relevant to the game and also because it isn't exactly easy.

I do agree that given time, technology ought to change. For reasons of aesthetics, I don't care for gunpowder weapons and steam engines with my fantasy and as I indicated earlier, in settings where I do want to take a long view of history, I often posit physics that don't allow them. How do such physics work (that also allow organisms as we know them)? I don't know but it also allows dragons and magic

Can you have a setting with classic fantasy themes (like castles) and add gunpowder? Sure you can. I don't personally care for it but there's nothing wrong with it. Wouldn't make such a setting and given the choice of two otherwise equal games, one with, one without, I wouldn't choose it but when are things perfectly equal? As a player, it isn't that big a deal to me although if I ever need to get into a classic high middle ages-style castle and have a cannon available, I'm going to want to know why I can't break the curtain wall down in short order if you don't let me do that

 

[Haltherrion]

Okay, so you're arguing more of an aesthetic reason. I admit, star and rose forts are different looking than the traditional wall and keep, but to my mind I still consider them, for the most part, as castles. Just as I consider a motte-and-bailey a castle, or even an old hill fort or some crannógs.

We'll just have to have differing opinions on it; that's cool.

Hell, firearms aren't even anything I prefer in my campaign; I like a Dark Ages level world, not a Middle Ages one. I get huffy when people have plate armor!

Hmmm I love Dark Ages settings. Running one right now (although it is Dark Age in the sense of post-decline in civilization, not Dark Ages Europe).

Yeah, it's a matter of aesthetics for me.

Thinking through my knee-jerk opposition to gunpowder, there's more to it though. I like to world build which to me means, considering how would things be different given circumstance X, magic Y, etc. Given that we have a very good idea what gunpowder weapons do to warfare, fortifications included, from Earth history, I guess I balk at a world where they exist but their ramifications don't appear to occur. I still consider that an aesthetic issue but it's akin to whether you want your space fighters in your science fiction movie to make noise as they fly by. I can enjoy such movies (a great deal) but I wouldn't create such a movie (were I a producer ).

But if you've been around EnWorld for a while, you've also seen me argue for changes in castles given the presence of magic, which, for the record, I don't really feel like restarting although if someone wants to lay some ground rules and definitions and treat it as a thought exercise on what might happen (and not a declaraction on how your world should be), I'd be up for that

 

[RangerWickett]

Then again, magic should have a far greater impact on society and warfare than gunpowder does. Look how much the world has changed in 30 years thanks to the internet. And we can't even teleport.

 

[Umbran]

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

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.

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.

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.

Really, fantasy is just an incredibly bizarrely conservative genre.

As I said above - players are conservative.

 

[Umbran]

Then again, magic should have a far greater impact on society and warfare than gunpowder does.

How big and what sort of impact it would have depends on more than just magic's existence.

Players can make characters of whatever class they want, because they are the players, and the game focuses on them. This does not imply that every person in the game world can be anything they want. Or maybe they can. How many there are will largely determine how much impact the magic will have.