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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SKyOdin" data-source="post: 5382231" data-attributes="member: 57939">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.</blockquote>

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