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

[Celtavian]

re

For me it depends. I don't mind guns if it is done in the right way. I have yet to see a D&D world do it in the right way.

In the real world guns developed as a way to win battles. It was an advancement in military technology that caused many changes in how we fight each other. Guns made old types of armor obsolete and bows and swords not even worth having. An army armed with guns was far superior to an army armed with bows, armor, and swords.

Is that the case in D&D? Nope.

If you go by how D&D stats their guns, you would think a bowman far superior to a gunman. Yet in the real world that is not the case at all. Guns are easier to aim and fire than bows. They have great penetrating power than bows. They are more lethal than bows. They allow a warrior to be more mobile than a bowman and use more compact ammunition. A gunman could carry far more rounds and powder than a bowman.

And given the advent of magic, I see no reason why cultures that employ powerful magic can't build extraordinary guns. It's not like they have trouble extracting the material for creating advanced guns. They shouldn't even lack the technology. Yet most D&D worlds are at flintlock technology levels. Why? They should have some seriously potent guns available that probably employ all manner of alchemical and magical rounds. They do for bowmen, why not gunman considering the gun is a superior weapon to the bow?

If it were not, we would have still been using bows during the Revolutionary War. Did you see how the native tribes of the Americas did with bows against guns?

So if you're not going to do guns right, why include them? A bowman in D&D should not be able to fire up to 6 arrows in a 6 second round why a gunman is firing 1 with a rifle and maybe 3 o 4 with the few multiload weapons someone may have made up in the game. Why are the game designers suddenly trying to get realistic with guns while they're letting bowmen shoot an arrow a second? If they want to get real, then they should make bows fire at a much slower rate. A skilled English longbowmen was considered quick if he could fire 5 arrows a minute. That is one arrow every 12 seconds or two D&D rounds.

D&D is a mix between simulation and fantasy. Why get realistic about guns to make them weaker than bows and swords? Put them in their proper technological place if you are going to throw them into a world. That means guns are by far a superior option for ranged weaponry than anything else in the game save for perhaps magic or don't throw them in the game.

Have the game designers bothered to watch The Last Samurai or read their history books in regards to guns? Once guns enter the picture, the old ways of fighting go bye, bye because all weapons prior to guns are inferior. A gun barrage can inflict far more damage than a bow barrage to a group of running soldiers over an open battlefield. Then you work in heavy artillery and we're talking Meteor Swarm type damage from non-magic based source in a huge radius.

I'd rather have the game designers not include guns if they aren't going to do them right. If someone creates a fantasy world where guns are in their rightful place at the top of the weapon food chain and have had a massive effect on warfare and culture in the fantasy world, then I'd be cool with guns. Otherwise, get them out of my fantasy world. Don't tell me some 1d8 weapon is a gun when the truth of the matter is they should do 3 or 4 times the damage of a sword or bow with far more range and penetrating power. And should have a rate of fire equal to or superior to a bow or no one would waste their time using one.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Celtavian, the question I asked earlier in this thread, I'll ask you:

Why do we expect guns to have a huge effect on the in game world if magic hasn't?

Again, a single wizard can fly around and throw cloudkill, destroying an entire army all by himself. Fireball+Enlarge Spell means you have one person with the strength of multiple cannons, five times their range and pinpoint accuracy.

 

[Celtavian]

Lots of people here don't seem to like reading

I don't care what the personal history of your campaign is. That's cool.

I don't care that you hate guns. That's cool.

The issue is when someone whinges about how guns would drastically alter the universe, or that they're totally not historically accurate to D&D medieval world assumptions.

Will they allow guns into their game if they're wrong? No, probably not. But stupid and bad logic shouldn't just be welcome with a smile and "Well, that's absolutely correct! I mean it's not, but I totally accept it!"

Let's look at one example of a complaint: If I allow guns, there's no reason to have knights. Why is this a bad argument? Because there's nothing there showing how guns would exclude knights.

The mark of these arguments is those first three words: "If I allow." The issue isn't with guns, it's with something different! We could talk until we're blue in the face about plate armor and the origin of "bullet proof" and such, but that's not the issue. "If I allow" is an indicator that says "The following is an excuse"

I'm saying, enough with the excuses, just be honest. Say you hate guns in your fantasy games and move on. Stop trying to develop excuses that make no sense.

Ben Brown - the problem is, there are no crossbow PrCs. At all. There is literally nothing you can do with a crossbow that you can't do better with a bow. Wait no, you can lie down and give yourself -4 AC with a crossbow, so there's that. Why do people take a crossbow then, if there's nothing good about it? Because it's cool. Why do people go "I'd really like a gun?" Because it's cool.

D&D was founded on "Hey, isn't this awesome?" As long as the firearms fit the game's consistency, and there's no reason they can't unless you don't want them to, which is, I see I'm forced to repeat again, perfectly fine, then there's no real reason to bar them.

The problem with "Standard D&D" is that, yes, it does get old. When your only option for "ranged guy" is either "Spellcaster" or "Use a bow," then people get really tired of the same crap repeated.

That's not true at all. Guns did eliminate the need for knightly warfare. They are vastly superior weapons to swords and bows. Vastly...as in Grand Canyon size vastness. As in if you take your sword and bow army against an army with guns, you will die.

For some of us gamers, we don't like the idea of it.

Sure, D&D is a game of loose simulations of weapons focused more on cool versus reality which is why bowmen are so potent. I get that. But don't put guns in the game and make them these wimpy little things that lack potency when people that don't even follow history to know how the gun made everything before it obsolete can see that guns are far and away superior to swords and bows. And with the heavy influence of magic, there is no reason to believe that D&D cultures couldn't create advanced guns if they set out on that technology path.

It's ridiculous when a bowman is 10 times superior to a gunman. It isn't even close to true in the real world. Once guns were advanced, bows becamse obsolete. Of course, not in the D&D world. C'mon now. Do guns right or don't include them.

If I made a world that included gun technology, I'd do it right. Especially given the amount of magic in the world. You'd have flamethrowers, automatic weapons with alchemical rounds, rocket propelled magic grenades, and armies of warriors armed with advanced guns that annihilated most common armies. Then I'd probably have the elves counter with arcane advancements to their bows and the like. Then their would be battles over ore and the necessary components for gunpowder creation and the like.

That being said, if you can be happy with the occasional far weaker than a bow gun in your game for the coolness factor, then go ahead. I wouldn't be. I know how potent guns are and the D&D version of guns is ridiculous. I'll keep my players using bows, slings, and crossbows unless I feel like working in proper guns and their affect on warfare into my campaign.

 

[Bagpuss]

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).

And yet the introduction of magic changed nothing? I agree with the introduction of the cannon, castles changed (over many years). But don't you think the introduction of teleporting, passwall, flight, and fireballs would have changed castle design too? Yet it doesn't.

How can you worry about the effect the introduction of cannons and guns has on a society and then completely ignore the effects of the introduction of magic?

 

[Celtavian]

Celtavian, the question I asked earlier in this thread, I'll ask you:

Why do we expect guns to have a huge effect on the in game world if magic hasn't?

Again, a single wizard can fly around and throw cloudkill, destroying an entire army all by himself. Fireball+Enlarge Spell means you have one person with the strength of multiple cannons, five times their range and pinpoint accuracy.

Uh. I don't know about your game world, but magic has had a serious effect on my game world. The army with the more powerful wizards wins. Try and send an army without wizards against an army with wizards and see who wins.

The assumption in a fantasy world is that powerful wizards are rare, thus they are coveted by kings and rulers and the like. That is why campaign worlds like Forgotten Realms had so many powerful wizards that kept the peace or forces like Alustriel's mage force in Silverymoon or the War Wizards in Cormyy. They helped keep the peace in those kingdoms.

Even Greyhawk was often ruled over by wizard councils or their most powerful and prominent characters were wizards like Bigby, Mordenkainen, and Tenser.

And who rules drow society? Priests. With what? Priestly magic.

Do you read game settings at all? I would say that magic has altered the way they fight and the balance of power in almost every game world ever created whether it was wizards that destroyed massive areas of the world or is it is wizards running the world.

Even in books like Lord of the Rings, Gandalf has far supeior power to all others in the book save for maybe other wizards or creatures like the Dark Lord. In a book like Tigana two wizard overlords battling. In the Wheel of Time it is the Dragon Reborn an the various wizard groups running things. In a Song of Ice and Fire the rebirth of magic has brought back dragons and priestly powers for the fire gods that are raising the dead and changing how people fight.

So what exactly are you talking about? Magic in every fantasy story changes the way the world wars and the balance of power. Writers acknowledge it. Game designers acknowledge it. Setting writers acknowledge it. If anything the advancement of guns would either work with magic or directly against it. Only guns could match magical destruction without a magical source as their basis.

Did you really just state that magic hasn't altered the gameworld in D&D? I find that hard to believe. Yet 99% of the campaigns I play in, the group without a wizard or priest is going to lose to the group with both of those classes unless they are far superior. The entire reason a D&D party can defeat a dragon or similarly strong creature is because they have a wizard and a cleric backing them up.

Magic has dramatically altered the D&D world compared to the real world. The only reason you may not have noticed is because D&D has always been that way.

 

[Celtavian]

And yet the introduction of magic changed nothing? I agree with the introduction of the cannon, castles changed (over many years). But don't you think the introduction of teleporting, passwall, flight, and fireballs would have changed castle design too? Yet it doesn't.

How can you worry about the effect the introduction of cannons and guns has on a society and then completely ignore the effects of the introduction of magic?

What are you talking about?

It lead to the development of spells like Forbiddance. Magic led to counter magic. Thus kings and rulers that wanted their kingdoms protected had to have wizards and priests backing them up or they will lose.

What king could hold their kingdom together against a wizard intent on killing him in D&D? Wouldn't happen. All the wizard would do is turn the tide of every battle by decimating his army and if the king or ruler didn't find a wizard or priest right quick to help him, he would be doomed.

This has always been factored into every game setting. And it has dramatically altered the world. Not only do you have to construct your castles to repel armies, but you have to have your own wizards and to a lesser extent priests to provide the magical defenses of the castle.

Did you notice in the D&D fortress builder book a massive number of magical options for castle defense? That was a D&D example of how magic altered how people defend their castles and the like.

Do you think any powerful wizard builds a tower and doesn't put magical defenses on it if he is able knowing how easy it is for a magic user to get in?

There a whole bunch of spells with no combat game use whatsoever, purely for defending where you live. []Glyph of Warding[/i], Guards and Wards, Forbiddance, and Permancy in combination with other spells to provide more defense against magical incursion.

Magic has changed the world. But it's already written into the game books in the form of crunch and fluff.

 

[Starfox]

IEarly firearms were useful only in mass quantity... have a big bunch of men shoot lots of bullets to do a middling amount of damage. The PCs lacked the numbers to do all that much with their pistols (especially with the high misfire modifiers I gleefully applied). Basically, pistols were a one shot item they used and then put away as the dragon closed in...

This is an important observation. What is good for adventurers is not automatically good for an army and vice versa. An army has completely different concerns, such as supply, ease of use, shock effect and use in formations. Take the pike as an example. A very powerful weapon in massed formations, but a single pike is only useful is special situations.

A gun in DnD should be a good option for a low-level commoner or warrior, but not necessarily for a professional adventurer.

How can you worry about the effect the introduction of cannons and guns has on a society and then completely ignore the effects of the introduction of magic?

If I recall, one of the reasons given early on for why dungeons were built in the first place was that they offered intrinsic defenses against magic and the supernatural. Afraid a dragon will breath on your troops as you marshal them? Put the marshaling yard underground. Afraid a lightning bolt will blast your thin, high castle wall? Use yards of earth instead (as historical fortifications did, only above ground). And magic also makes those dungeons possible - spells like dig exist to make dungeons feasible.

Of course, some players prefer their fairy castles and a less simulationistic game, so dungeons as defenses were not universal.

 

[Nebulous]

In general i don't like guns in D&D either because they seem out of place, but my campaign just reached a part where it is heavily pirate based, and almost all of the pictures features guys (and gals) with pistols. So...i said it is a locally popular weapon, and even has some magical versions of pistols. I'm running 4e so a pistol is just a rechargeable power for pirates, does some decent damage and a condition effect. Nothing complicated. PCs don't have the right feats to use such an exotic weapon efficiently, although they might later.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Given that 4e bows go, what, 200ish feet? No need to do anything but give them, say

+2 Acc
d6/d8/d10 damage to taste
20/40 range increment

And you're good. Only decision is whether they're simple, military, or superior.

Brad

For guns of that era, though, I would go with 5/10 as a range increment. I'd probably keep them as simple weapons, but make them expensive.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm just being colorful in showing that you're kind of missing the forest for the trees.

If you want to educate and enlighten, you need to be gentle.

Please note the inherent humour in beginning with the first and ending in the second.