Why DON'T people like guns in D&D?

[Philotomy Jurament]

For me, it depends on the campaign, but I'm pretty open to guns in D&D. Especially if its something like a John Carter sword-n-planet campaign, or a Freeport style pirate campaign. I'm not as keen on it for a Conan or Nehwon style swords-n-sorcery game, or for traditional D&D fantasy like Greyhawk. But even Greyhawk had the stuff from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and I like that just fine.

Also the original D&D rules include explicit mention of things like robots, androids, and Barsoom monsters. I don't think an argument against guns/tech due to tradition holds up. At the time D&D was written, "fantasy" often included a healthy dose of sci-fi or modern elements; the lines weren't as crisp and clean as they tend to be drawn, today. I think the earliest D&D campaigns reflected that, to some degree. Certainly Blackmoor didn't shy away from mixing tech and fantasy. And in addition to the Barsoom and robot references in OD&D and things like "Barrier Peaks," Gygax mixed modern tech into swords-n-sorcery in things like the "Sturmgeshutz and Sorcery" article, which was very early (either in Strategic Review or an early Dragon, although I don't remember which, offhand).

 

[ProfessorCirno]

And though I'm more open-minded regarding later history, my primary historical interests, let alone gaming interests stops at the Rennaissance.

So guns? Too modern for my gaming interests.

...There...were guns in the Renaissance :|

Again, it's the same reason crossbows are always mechanically worse for bows. Because D&D has established itself into several tropes, and one of them is Bows Are Always Better.

I'm sorry, but saying it's an argument with tech levels is rediculous. D&D is all over the damn place historically. Plate armor made in the Renaissance next to medieval longbows next to caveman clubs, and they all use modern morality. And a fighter that uses all of those. Hell, D&D has the monk class, and it's not based on western monks, or eastern monks, but bad 70's kung fu. You have an entire class based on bad 70's kung fu. This is the game that confuses slings with slingshots.

The realism argument is equal bunk, because it, too, inevitable lands into Bows Are Always Better. A monk can punch through a wall, a fighter can wrestle with a dragon, and a ranger can string several arrows on a single bowstring and tag a target with pinpoint accuracy hundreds of yards away, but a crossbow or gun that doesn't take three turns to reload? Unrealistic!

Unfortunately, cliches such as Bows Are Always Better are incredibly hard to dislodge, because they're not just ingrained into the game, but into the minds of those that play it.

 

[Dausuul]

It's largely a thematic issue, and I will freely admit that it has as much to do with the associations of the weapons in question as with their actual historical status.

IMO, the reason fantasy appeals to people is that it emphasizes individual empowerment. (Yes, there is wish-fulfillment going on too, but there's wish-fulfillment in every genre.) We live in a world where it's very easy to feel powerless, insignificant, and ignored. Fantasy fiction envisions a world where the actions of the individual matter to the world at large--where a Frodo Baggins or a Harry Potter can, through virtue and steadfastness, turn the course of history... and where, through ruthlessness and cunning, a Sauron or a Voldemort can do the same.

Guns are part and parcel of the modern world--the chosen weapon of the mechanized, bureaucratic, impersonal warfare of today. They bring those associations with them when imported into a fantasy setting, which is why many people are reluctant to admit them, even if the setting is one in which they would legitimately fit (late medieval/early Renaissance).

There's also the fact that guns in a medieval setting don't lend themselves to many of the traditions surrounding fantasy weaponry. Fantasy is full of storied and legendary weapons with histories that go back hundreds of years, sometimes thousands. In medieval times, guns simply were not old enough for that.

Finally, because we're used to modern, mass-produced, highly accurate firearms, a lot of people have trouble with the idea that you can have guns and bows/swords coexisting. Because guns now are vastly superior to swords and bows, folks instinctively assume that guns then must have been the same way. Introducing guns to a medieval campaign requires changing those preconceptions, and changing preconceptions has a cost in terms of player focus and immersion. Why pay that cost if you don't have a specific reason for doing so?

 

[JohnRTroy]

The big problem I have with Guns, and what EGG and I co-wrote in a sidebar of Living Fantasy, is the fact that the adoption of the gun pretty much changed a lot of things that would change the historical background. (And this has nothing to do with armor penetration).

A gun enabled conscripted peasants to have a lot more battlefield power. While a mage also has that power, a mage (or cleric) is equal to an archer, somebody who has to be trained for years and can't easily be replaced.

Once you factor this into play and did research, you see the introduction of gun and cannon changed a lot of things. You didn't need to have feudalism anymore. You couldn't have the medieval castle anymore, they would logically have to be converted to star or polygon forts with sloping walls. And it completely change the dynamics of warfare so you ended up with completely different government structures to handle it. (It was the end of Feudalism and the rise of the centralized state, and the beginning of leevies instead of knights).

So, basically, I don't like guns and I dislike the introduction of them in the modern-steampunk-style use, because if you understand the history of warfare you'd find logic problems with the introduction of them at times. I think the creators of those types of words aren't providing enough logic to their world. I like Fantasy with as much realism as possible. (In other words, avoid simplistic "it's magic" type of explanations).

It's the same reasons I hate seeing the Peter Jackson LoTR movies, because he had two major human settlements without any sort of farmland surrounding them. How do those people eat. They aren't importing food from the hobbits. That sort of stuff took me completely out of the picture.

 

[Pseudonym]

A monk can punch through a wall, a fighter can wrestle with a dragon, and a ranger can string several arrows on a single bowstring and tag a target with pinpoint accuracy hundreds of yards away, but a crossbow or gun that doesn't take three turns to reload? Unrealistic!.

From reading various posts on the subject of guns here over the years this does seem to be the case. I have no idea why people accept at face value elven wizards riding on dragons but insist guns in D&D must conform to FBI ballistic data.

 

[Celebrim]

Heroic literature is associated with periods in which expensive defensive technology largely outstripped offensive technology resulting in a military period where a well equipped and well trained artistocrat was relatively immune to attack and, hense, capable of great deeds. Converse periods where offensive power tends to overwhelm defensive technology become eras of great conscript armies, which, while stirring to a wargamer aren't necessarily the stuff of heroic literature.

The medieval period with its advances in armor technology is one such period. It's a military age of aristocratic armored horse warriors. So too was the great Heroic age of Greece, when similar advances in Bronze armor and weapons left unarmored combatants with stone and wood tools in awe. Medieval Japan is a similar period of armored aristocratic warriors. Gradually, these ages were eclipsed by various advances in offensive technology: crossbows, longbows, and ultimately firearms.

For the past 400 years or so, the firearm in various incarnations has almost completely overwhelmed defensive technology. That may be changing with the introduction of new materials for making armor, but hithertoo, the firearm has been the great equalizer of men and left relatively little oppurtunity for great deeds on the field of battle given the scope of modern war, the relatively small influence a single person usually has (except in command), and the instant death that haunts even the most skilled combatant.

D&D creates a game in the heroic mold. The ablative hit point mechanic and the relatively low damage weapons caused compared to the maximum hit points at high level means that a high level D&D hero is worth dozens if not hundreds of ordinary soldiers. The hit point mechanic creates a natural narrative of being hit and yet able to resist many blows that would fell an ordinary mortal.

This narrative is strongly at odds with the narrative created by guns. To really see how the presence of guns impacts the heroic narrative, the best device is to watch Kirosawa's 'Seven Samurii' and watch how the gun plays out in the narrative as an unheroic, magical, capracious, arbitrary, and ultimately unjust tool. It's hard to be heroic when a random mook with a firearm can cut you down in your prime without even giving you a chance to defend yourself. And, conversely, if you don't have gun mechanics that let random mooks cut you down in your prime without even giving you a chance to defend yourself, the 'gun' doesn't feel very much like a gun ought to.

Most people don't like guns in their fantasy because they instinctively know that they make it harder to tell heroic stories. It can be done, preferably with a somewhat different system than default D&D, but the default setting that everyone is or less comfortable in has to go away and you end up with something a bit more 'punk'.

 

[JohnRTroy]

I have noted when Gygax used guns, they were always under the assumption that such elements were temporal anomalies from another time, and the assumption was they were good toys for the PCs but once the ammo ran out, they were worthless. This kept things interesting but it didn't do anything like change the societies.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The big problem I have with Guns, and what EGG and I co-wrote in a sidebar of Living Fantasy, is the fact that the adoption of the gun pretty much changed a lot of things that would change the historical background. (And this has nothing to do with armor penetration).

A gun enabled conscripted peasants to have a lot more battlefield power. While a mage also has that power, a mage (or cleric) is equal to an archer, somebody who has to be trained for years and can't easily be replaced.

Once you factor this into play and did research, you see the introduction of gun and cannon changed a lot of things. You didn't need to have feudalism anymore. You couldn't have the medieval castle anymore, they would logically have to be converted to star or polygon forts with sloping walls. And it completely change the dynamics of warfare so you ended up with completely different government structures to handle it. (It was the end of Feudalism and the rise of the centralized state, and the beginning of leevies instead of knights).

Bull.

Firearms weren't the death of knights, pikes, other better establish polearms, and better coordination with tactical responses to charges were. And for that matter, firearms weren't the death of plate mail - on the contrary, the kind of "full plate" that D&D has were made explicitly to deal with firearms. The technology that made that plate mail is banned, but the plate itself is fine? Yeah, ok.

Everyone chants that Crece proved "Bows are better then crossbows!" There were canons at Crece.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Honestly, the problem with quoting heroic tales of old is that they never existed. Samurai weren't katana wielding footsoldiers until long after they had been made completely irrelevant to armies and war had become almost purely symbolic in Japan - most of the time they fought on horseback with bows and lances. Likewise, swords are a rather cool weapon, but they also weren't the main arm of most knights.

The crossbow was considered so deadly and "dishonorable" that it was made heretical. And yet, playing D&D, you'd never understand why. Likewise, composite longbows would be, by game definition, exotic weapons - they were very specialized weapons that took years to train up to properly use in order to get the correct draw, sometimes disfiguring their wielder. And yet in D&D it's a plain ol' martial weapon just about anyone can grab.

D&D does not, and has never, adhered to any sort of historical accuracy. It created it's own tropes and then ran headlong into them until they became permanent.

 

[Umbran]

...There...were guns in the Renaissance :|

Quite true. However, let's think about some fictional examples for a moment. Consider, for a moment, The Three Musketeers.

These guys are from the 17th Century - tail end of the Renaissance. And they are called Musketeers - ones who use muskets.

Interesting how they are mostly known for swordplay...