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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SKyOdin" data-source="post: 5081144" data-attributes="member: 57939">When did I say that horse archers were a new invention of the Mongols? I clearly stated that horse archers from Central Asia had been conquering everybody else for most of human history. Don't forget the reason we are talking about the Mongols in the first place. You were arguing vehemently that bows are useless as a weapon of war, so someone then brought up the Mongols as an example of a military force that predominantly used the bow. You then countered with the argument that the Mongols only won using sheer numbers (with the clear implication that their numerical advantage was so significant that it didn't matter what weapon they used). I just brought up China because its population is so large that it can field really large armies, which negates your "numbers is the only thing that matters" point. Once we bring in factors other than numbers (such as tactics, organization, mobility, and weaponry), your arguments begin to fall apart. In any case though, what brought the Mongols their victories wasn't numbers or horse archers alone: it was tactics and organization. Genghis Khan was a brilliant military and civil leader, who not only unified the Mongol tribes but transformed them into an organized state. Not the least of his contributions was inventing a writing system for the Mongol language. Moreover, the Mongols as a whole were masters of fear. They were unspeakably brutal, razing cities that defied them to the ground, and they used that track record to terrorize other cities into surrendering peacefully.Calling the Mongols a horde of barbarians who relied completely on overwhelming numbers is a complete misrepresentation. Of course, this whole Mongol thing is a complete tangent that has little to do with the main point of the thread, so I suppose we should just drop it and focus on the subject at hand.I wasn't posting that just for benefit; most of the latter part of my post was directed more towards the topic as a whole and for the benefit of everyone else on reading this thread. Points 1 and 2 are true, eventually. It wasn't true at all with early firearms. As I demonstrated it took centuries for gunpowder weapons to advance from crude early designs into the weapons we are more familiar with. Furthermore, the amount of change guns brought about is often grossly exaggerated (and much of the changes that guns take credit for are due to other factors).As for the third point, that I completely disagree with. Most fantasy is loosed based on the Late Middle Ages with some Renaissance elements thrown in. Well, in the 14th and 15th centuries, gunpowder and early firearms were already in Europe. In other parts of the world, firearms weapons have been developed considerably. So as long as people stick to actual early firearms, rather than anachronistic 18th century flintlocks, it is possible to add in guns with no significant changes to a setting at all.In geological time or in terms of evolution maybe, but to a historian 600 years is a long time full of significant changes and a multitude of things worthy of a lifetime of study. Is the Han dynasty just a "flash in the pan"? Is the Roman Empire a "lightning strike"? What does that make WW2? It only lasted a mere six years, so by your reckoning it can't possibly be important. History is the study of what life was like in the past; a single human lifetime is not an insignificant measurement of time.You are just trying to talk about guns in D&D as being equivalent to 19th century firearms, and ignoring the reality that there were entire centuries where guns, plate armor, bows, swords and pikes were all utilized alongside each other. Yes, change did eventually happen. But guns hardly swept away everything else overnight. If guns in D&D resemble the actual weapons at use in the world of the 15th century, then there is no reason to revise anything about a setting.</blockquote>

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