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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5076252" data-attributes="member: 4937">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'.</blockquote>

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