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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5376921" data-attributes="member: 4937">If it was a weapon that led to the death of feudalism, why did it persist in eastern europe until for all practical purposes the 20th century?And for that matter, if 1e - we probably ought to say Gygax - actually excluded guns in order to ensure feudalism, why are we also complaining about the vast number of supposedly anachronistic political structures (including several with no clear parallel in the real world) that coexist in the setting along side feudalism?And for that matter, if feudalism really was based on the superiority of the individual mounted warrior over the unarmored infantry man, that is to say on the martial utility of the individual aristocrat over the group of less experienced less professional combatants, wouldn't the very existance of levels, hit points, and fireballs be sufficient to ensure a feudal heirarchy regardless of what weapons are available?  I mean, we could have phased plasma rifles in the 40-watt range, and as long as we've entrenched the notion of the heroic into the basic physics of the world (there are literally heroes and not merely relatively well trained soldiers in superior armor) all other thinigs being equal we'd expect to end up with some sort of heirarchical society.</blockquote>