#Worldbuilding prompt 1/13/24
Does your fantasy setting include firearms? Why not? Given that the tech used to make full plate and rapiers came after we'd been using guns for a while, what happened to keep folks from using gunpowder in your world? If you want to be more in line with history, you need to explain the lack of firearms more than their presence. #ttrpg
@Jackgiantkiller Guns exist, and non-magical species like Dwarfs/Kobolds (same thing) might make them, but they're basically useless in warfare if magic is possible.
In D&D, Level 1 apprentices can cast Magic Missile, Sleep, Charm. Level 5 can cast Fireball, Lightning Bolt like artillery (literally in Chainmail), Protection from Normal Missiles.
In non-D&D games, it can be much worse. Summoning fire will set off gunpowder, any Jinx spell will break guns. See Mary Gentle's "Grunts". #rpg#ttrpg
@Jackgiantkiller And then there's worlds where gunpowder just doesn't work, like most of the Shadows of Amber in Zelazny's books. Corwyn finds the one substance that does work like gunpowder.
Most of the social advancements that made heavy armor decline in favor of duelling weapons happen regardless of gunpowder.
@mdhughes All true. But not everyone can be a mage in most worlds, and guns take less training even than crossbows. Bows take lifelong training. I'm not sure I agree about the social advancements. But absolutely " it just doesn't work here" is valid. Just having a reason is good.:)
@Jackgiantkiller In most versions of D&D, 75% (INT 9) of the population can become Magic-Users (INT 3 in OD&D!) and we see about 10-25% of the population are Level 1 or higher.
At Agincourt, the English had 1500 infantry & 7000 longbowmen, presumably all L1+, so an equally large squad of M-U should be plausible.
Duelling weapons & loss of armor come from urbanization, which was going pretty hard by 1300s, and most fantasy worlds have very dense cities. #rpg#ttrpg
@Jackgiantkiller I use guns in D&D, but they're just regular weapons like bows. A pistol is a crossbow that you can tuck in your belt, carry around loaded, & draw/fire one-handed. Shorter range & really loud, but portability & a point-and-click interface make up for it.
Goblins, dwarves, & one human nation use flintlocks. Two other nations use liquid propellants or compressed gas air guns. Elves make semi-magical "flintlocks" that use rare crystals instead of flint & steel.
@Jackgiantkiller Archery is still preferred by elite ranged combatants because of its stealth & higher rate of fire. Guns are preferred by armies who want shorter training times for conscripts and adventurers who don't focus on ranged combat but want to have a ranged option "just in case".
Gah. The pivot to revolvers every damn time offends me. I've seen Westerns. If the players have revolvers every damn kobold should.
The firelance and hand cannons are sitting right there! Firearms should be a complementary weapon system to melée weapons. Armoured knights should pull out a bangstick.
I'm definitely going to have to write it down. >:-/
@Jackgiantkiller I don't allow firearms and never have. Players feel like they should just kill anything in one shot, and I really don't like them in a FANTASY setting. I use the different laws of physics so gunpowder doesn't work reasons. Magic rules over technology such as this.
As for other arms and armor advancements, there are other things out in the world that would encourage the development of plate armor and later weapons (rapier, etc.).
@DM_Zeppelin@Jackgiantkiller A sword can cut a mook's head off or run them through the heart in one hit, but heroes only get dramatic scratches on the cheek or arm. 1d8 damage! Enough to kill a 1HD character, but not a serious threat to a high level fighter.
Guns, on the other hand, give heroes a minor "graze" on the shoulder or leg, but BOOM HEADSHOT! to the nameless goons. Obviously, they need to do 3d12 damage with a X4 crit multiplier and cost 10,000gp plus 100gp per shot.
I just save myself the trouble and disallow them in D&D.
Were I to play a different game with different worlds, then I'd go by the default expectation. I think Warhammer has firearms? If so, then I'd allow them.
I'm no Sith, so I don't deal in absolutes (with few exceptions), so I can't say I'd NEVER allow them. I just don't allow them in my D&D campaigns or other games where firearms are not built into the system (not as an option like in D&D from the 1e days forward).
@DM_Zeppelin@Jackgiantkiller "You can't use gunpowder in a world where wizards can cast fireball! One fireball will wipe out a whole platoon of musketeers!"
Yeah. You don't have to worry about that with archers, because they're flame retardant.
Over the past 50 years of D&D, players have been happily carrying flasks of oil specifically to light stuff on fire. But you pick up one powder horn and suddenly you're a walking bomb with a target on your back for anyone with a torch.
@Jackgiantkiller The Mystara solution*: every fighter walks around in late period plate thats clearly designed to protect them from something, but nobody can quite remember what. It's like a weird gun shaped hole in everybody's head that only fills in when you leave the region. Who needs almighty gods when you can have fallible meddling immortals bumbling around.
*Yes, there are guns in Mystara, but where there aren't, it's usually cause some diety-cosplayer has forced everyone to forget. Like how half the issues with the Savage Coast stem from the immortals attempt to hide the existence of that settings Ancient Egypt for "reasons".
@Jackgiantkiller Mystara doesn't so much have lore as it has duct tape forcing together a hodge podge of early TSR products into a setting. It even has its own Blackmoor to make that even more confusing. Just like Gary's published Blackmoor campaign, it also has almost nothing to do with his famous long-running home campaign. It's the best.
"So... when you use your bow...?"
"Yes?"
"Why do you call it 'firing an arrow' when you're not actually burning anything?"
"Because... I don't know. I feel like... That's weird. I should know this..."
They exist but are mechanical novelties, usually just expensive wands in their own right.
Non-story reason: I hate dealing with them rules-wise. The rules will never square with what players want them to be because they want colt .45s in the era 'fumbling powder into a cannon on a stick' and don't really like that enemies are welcome to also bring guns to a gunfight.
Story reason: The role of an expensive, flashy, easy to use, armor piercing weapons is already filled by wands and spell-scrolls and other spell-storage devices. There is just no soil for that innovation to grow into something that can enter mass manufacture. You might hand a warlord an early gun, but he'd look at you like you were crazy once you told him that it was expensive, required complex manufacturing, would fail him once it began to rain, and that he'd better get comfortable collecting bird poop for the saltpeter. It also just wouldn't impress him as much. A loud bang, a cloud of smoke, and an armor piercing projectile are great, but it's not the weapon of shock-and-awe in a world where there are fireballs and lightning bolts cruising around, nor quite the leveler in a world where cavalry armor can keep up via magic and lighter materials.
At least in my setting, a weak wand is just as trainable as a arquebus, and carries far less logistical considerations on the battlefield. They're more reliable, easier to carry, have wider variety of functionality, and just more "comfortable" to the elites who enjoy that they can make one with a power that reflects their higher status and wealth. There are artificers who are tinkering with highly custom models, but they're complex and magical enough to just be seen as big wands with a lot of magical gizmos that require a full-time mechanic to operate, not a practical tool of war.
@Jackgiantkiller last night's game session had both a cannon and a guarding robot. Since there's a crashed starship in Blackmoor you can have anything you want in your game. Fun was had.
@Jackgiantkiller If firearms serve the setting then they are in regardless of its historical inspirations. Alchemy plus tube plus ball equal cannon. However having firearms that are fun for the players to use is another question. For me that would be match- or flintlocks at the earliest. And now we need precision manufacturing, the ability to drill barrels etc. Technologies that have larger impact than just guns and from a worldbuilding perspective perhaps more fun.
@Jackgiantkiller To add to this the weapons adventurers would equip themselves with wouldn't be run of the mill arms. Rather it would be custom hand-crafted pieces like this breechloading wheellock with cartridges from 1625
@Jackgiantkiller
My fantasy settings usually have firearms, but If I wanted to make one without, I'd probably try one two options:
No metals: Tékumel did this. On a world with a lot of heavy metals, firearms might not be a likely invention.
Psychology: Through sorcery or super-science, the concept of firearms is removed from the human imagination. You might have all the materials and technology to build guns, but you simply can't conceive of them. The very idea will not and cannot be in your mind.
@Jackgiantkiller Concentrating that much elemental fire in one place causes spontaneous elemental formation instead of an explosion. This does mean you can set traps that have cranky uncontrolled fire elementals...
@mhd Perhaps not. But it does become less likely that weapons like rapiers and smallswords develop, as they were reactions to the rise of gundpowder weaponry making armor less valuable. And the stuff that goes boom entered Europe before 1300.:) I mainly post this one because so many people say 'firearms don't match the medieval setting'...which is plainly incorrect. You obviously don't have to have them, but that's not the reason.:)
@Jackgiantkiller I'm just saying that for the "look & feel" of FantasyGygaxTimes, there's a lot of harder stuff to answer for than gun powder. The ubiquity of taverns and inns, for example.
(And gunpowder deprecating armor is way post-medieval.)
@mhd So are rapiers.:) But aye, Gygax's fantasy views were a bit skewed. I'm just saying most fantasy settings aren't medieval. They are late high medieval to Renaissance...thus the rapiers, plate mail, fancy sailing ships, and ubitquitous inns and taverns, though taverns date back to Roman times, and the ancient irish had public houses for hospitality.
@Jackgiantkiller Offering traveling strangers beer is basically the true start of civilization. ;)
I agree that the visuals we have are mostly based on a later age. But gunpowder has little effect on the looks of it.
So for me, when I'm world-building it came mostly down to the following: Does the world make less sense because it lacks GP? Answer: No.
The same can usually not be said by in-game justifications beyond "just never happened". Different laws of physics, wizard's cabals, divine intervention - all logistically troublesome and beyond my usual desired power level (I use kitchen sinks, I don't build 'em).
Just my personal approach, though. Mileages do vary.
@mhd My mein point was that people say that guns don't fit the 'time' or the genre. The first is false, the second is subjective, so I flipped the script.:)
In Rega, it's the 1100's in tech level, and while gunpowder exists in the Far East, it's been blocked from reaching the West by the Embargos of the Empire of Vyzantos. Historically, gunpowder reached Europe in the very late 1200's...so long before the tech levels of most fantasy games.