Gunpowder in your games

[Desdichado]

Absolutely! I don't like my fantasy gaming to be 100% conventional, blurs-together, standard D&D. The addition of firearms is one of the first things I tend to do, although I make them fairly primitive firearms. You fire once, and it takes several rounds to reload, for instance. There's a chance for a misfire, and when it does, there's a chance for the misfire to be catastrophic (the gun blows up, or something, instead of firing.) Currently, I prefer the Freeport fantasy rules, because they do all of these things well. I'm really curious what FFG puts in the Sorcery & Steam book, though. And I don't think the Iron Kingdoms rules are half bad (although too easy to work around the disadvantages, IMO.)

 

[JoeGKushner]

I've used it and will contiue to use it. In some parts of the campaign its more popular than others but in most cases its usually inferior to standard weaponry and is more of a novelty save when used in 'big' things like siege weapons.

It adds a little flavor and spice to the campaign without being too much of a change. While it's not strictkly fantasy, series like Indian Jones, Solomon Kane and others are in a time where men of strength and honor utilize them are are still 'fantasty' enough for me.

 

[Desdichado]

I frankly don't understand the "it's not fantasy" argument. Clearly, gunpowder can exist in fantasy. It's not standard, vanilla, D&D style fantasy, but that's a different thing altogether. As I said, I make it a point to change at least some of those standard conventions with every campaign I've ever run or developed, to give each setting a hook, if you will.

And lately, I've been very interested in integrating steampunk into my gaming!

 

[Fenes 2]

I have to correct my stement then - guns ruin D&D for me.

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

I' ve introduced gunpowder in my (FR) campaign. The characters found a couple of small barrels of it in the house of a clan member that was out to blow up the dwarven forge. Now, they carry it around, waiting for the right time to use it. They haven't found pistols or rifles yet, so they have no use for it except to blow up something when the opportunity arises.

TS

 

[Aeolius]

As my campaign is set underwater, gunpowder has yet to become an issue

Still, the water dwarves which dwell near hydrothermal vents have begun to mine methyl hydrate...what will become of this is anyone's guess.

 

[mmadsen]

The pros:
they are touch attack weapons,
pistols do 2d6, rifles do 2d8;

In a world of magic swords and magic shields, I'm not sure I'd make blackpowder pistol and musket balls touch-attack weapons. A breastplate -- especially a magical one -- should deflect a pistol ball, after all.

The cons:
It takes a half minute to reload
they are expensive 200g+ for a pistol,
they are delicate, on a roll of natural one the gun breaks and can not be used again until repairs are made
They require a seprete craft skill (gunsmithing) to build and repair.
Only humans and gnomes currently build them.
Ammo is heavy, it requires a one ounze bullet and one ounze of smoke powder to fire a single shot. Meaning just to carry 16 shots is going to weigh 2lbs

In real life, well-drilled soldiers could fire smoothbore muskets three times per minute. A half-minute sounds good for not-so-well-drilled characters. An early arquebus might take a full minute to load. (A true rifle, with a rifled barrel and snug-fitting ball, would take much longer to load than a smootbore.)

Early firearms were not terribly expensive. In fact, they were less expensive than crossbows. I suspect they were no more fragile than bows or crossbows either -- although I'm sure early powder wasn't reliable, and you could blow a breech easily enough. (Ouch.)

Powder and ball weigh less than crossbow bolts. In real life.

I highly recommend Infantry Missile Weapons in the Renaissance; it's a short article that covers just this material.

 

[mmadsen]

I frankly don't understand the "it's not fantasy" argument.

A huge element of fantasy is that it takes place in a mythic, pre-modern, pre-rationalist world. Gunpowder violently exemplifies modernity.

That said, even Tolkien's Lord of the Rings has an evil wizard providing his evil troops with evil petards to blast the walls of Helm's Deep.

 

[Carnifex]

For those of you who *are* interested in gunpowder, steam technology and suchlike, Steam & Steel: A Guide to Fantasy Steamworks is in its final stages of writing (I'm just waiting for the SRD update so I can update it to be 3.5e compatible). It was originally to be published by Horade but since that publisher seems to have died now, I've talked to EN Publishing and they're interested in it. Hopefully that means that once I've updated it to 3.5 it wont be long before it's available

 

[mmadsen]

Distill Sunlight and Nitro

The main LG god of the campaign is Galador, the god of the sun, law, authority, etc. His worship has spread almost everywhere, and there's a spell- distill sunlight- that lets his clerics turn sunlight into a volatile, very flammable sort of improved holy water. It evaporates quickly, however.

Sounds like nitroglycerin!

These orcs have learned secret techniques of taking distilled sunlight and rendering it into a powder that's highly flammable- sunpowder.

Sounds a bit like nitrocellulose.