haakon1 said:
In D&D, they only come from cross-overs, not from the D&D world. Someone can gate in with an AK-47 or a Colt Peacemaker, but it's essentially a unique magic item, with limited charges, for a special character.
This illustrates that it depends a lot on what you mean by gun. Of course, real-world modern firearms (or even their fantasy equivalents) like a Glock or G36 would feel out of place in Waterdeep - and I'd only ever use them as "one-shots" (excuse the pun).
Muskets and the like are, on the other hand, not so unbelievable in the sort of place many campaign settings are: Medieval, for sure, but often rather late medieval, and with a generous appliance of anachronisms (many of which are in the form of ideas and social norms, of course). A world where you'd think that it won't be too long before things like that start cropping up. Of course, a world with magic and divine powers readily available will have a less pressing need for technological advancement, but even there, you usually get some people who want something different, who like to try out something new, walk off the beaten paths. These are the inventor types, as seen in many fantasy stories that otherwise had the more classical elements.
These primitive guns can, if you want them to (and if you pull it off correctly) act as heralds of change: They're not yet a threat to the established powers like magic, and might not even be better than established ranged weapons, but said ranged weapons haven't changed in the last 200 years, or 2000 years (or even 20.000 years), while those gunnes are very early versions with much room of improvement.
They don't yet bring change, but they hint at it. No living human will probably see the changes, but their children and grandchildren might. Noone knows yet what these changes will be - will there be a war between tech and magic, or will they combine to make a better world? (I'm given to understand that Eberron has some sort of mix between classical magic and more modern things like the railroad, and many people love it). It can add a certain quality to the game.
MerricB said:
However, they are a marginal element of the setting. Guns are not part of the core FR experience. (They may be in the FRCS, but few campaigns use them).
They may be marginal only, but they're part of the FR canon - that means if you want to play in the "real" Realms (without changing things), you'll have to keep them. You don't have to encounter them, but you can't say that they aren't there without changing it.
For DDM, that should mean that they will be included (DDM doesn't care about anyone's individual FR-version - except for Ed's, of course! - so they can't pretend they don't exist in the Realms).
Not a lot of figures with guns, mind you - they're a marginal element, as you said - but a choice few minis should be a compromise for the majority of customers: Those who want get at least some figures, and the rest shouldn't have too hard a time to ignore them (1 figure every three sets is a ridiculously small number of figures to ignore. I'm sure that most of us get more than one figure - each set! - they won't use. One more or less in every third set won't make much of a difference.
I'll be the first to agree that more than a few figures wouldn't be good (though if you consider this little poll even remotely representative, the number of people who are flat-out against gunne-wielding figures in DDM isn't that large - not nearly large enough to justify not including at least some figures), but that doesn't mean that they should keep the number down at Null.
