give me a good reason why "guns aren't fantasy"
hard mode: no Tolkien anti industrial bullshit
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le guns in fantasy
give me a good reason why "guns aren't fantasy"
hard mode: no Tolkien anti industrial bullshit
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Just don't want 'em in my campaign.
Guns can be in some fantasy but not in others. You see industrial, cowboy, steampunk, and modern fantasy are their own genres. If you want a gun fantasy you are going for a whole different feel. And you should play Iron Kingdoms.
But then where is there room with medieval fantasy with guns? Guns did exist in medieval times.
>medieval fantasy with guns?
We get into a bit of a issue here because different people end the medieval era at different date. 1456, 1492, 1500, and 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia.
For those of use that use the first date the biggest draw that small arms had was being cheap and having easier to carry ammo. In a lot of ways small arms before 140 or so were bad.
If you want to try and get people on the same page talk about renaissance fantasy.
All those eras have guns, maybe not guns a player character would lug around (let me carry my metal tube, my wick on a stick, my monopod, and a bag of powder and balls, give me a bit to set this up, oh frick it's raining, can we take this indoors?) but they're still a thing that should be utilized.
Personally I like more baroque, ornate, and advanced weapons, sort of like WHFB but even further. Wheellock style complex mechanisms are the norm, each gun is crafted by hand and extremely expensive except for army mooks who get a tube and a wick. A knight might carry a brace of wheellock pistols and a one-use 1.00 caliber rifle built into his lance so he can blast a fist sized hole in a dude and skewer the guy behind him, the king's royal gunners might have wheellock muskets or breech loading rifles ala the Ferguson rifle, and a nobleman going hunting might use a 4 foot long wheellock rifle similar to a Kentucky long rifle or jezail instead of a bow like some peasant.
So if the PCs want to practically use rifles they'll be expensive, expensive to maintain, but they'll be highly lethal and effective. A breech loading wheellock rifle thingy will be more accurate, lethal, and longer ranged than a longbow, but enough to equip a knight with his full non-firearm panoply.
>but they're still a thing that should be utilized.
Why?
Firearms and cannon predate 1456
They were used in many wars before that
>Firearms and cannon predate 1456
>For those of use that use the first date the biggest draw that small arms had was being cheap and having easier to carry ammo.
Did you read past the first line? Look early cannons were a game changer for sure. Early personal fire arms not so much. They did have some draws but they were a pain in the ass to use.
Only one nation, Hungary, had guns replace bows and crossbows as the primary ranged small arms before. They did that in 1458. It turned into so much of a mess the hungering ended up changing back to
crossbows over inside twenty years.
* before 1520.
The Italian wars and the campaigns of Henry the 8th go over the period the personal firearms get to the point that they do overtake crossbows.
Ive always found 1525-1550 or thereabouts it the general cut of for vague "medievalism" at least in warfare terms and aethetics.
A good cutoff, since that's when firearms became unambiguously superior primary weapons of war.
well, also the rise of professional armies, general trends of modernization, increased centralization, Protestantism becoming, and a massive change in fashion sense from the medival high colorism and contrast, to early modern wide brimed hats and collared shirts and stuff. Pike and shot taking over. a number of things.
Militarilly at least I think renaissance is more of a subcategory, and is more important for the artistic world, military wise it was largely a continuation of the mediavl world.
I would say the first post medieval war , as in the method by which it was fought is developed after the medieval period, is the Burgundian Wars. Written army regulations, complex combined arms, tables of ranks, a growing part of the army being professional salaried soldiers, and a good idea of how to use field artillery's.
>you should play Iron Kingdoms
I really have a soft spot for IK as a game setting
perfect example of how incorporating higher tech can deepen a setting and magic system. and having gun-based magic sub in for a lot of standard "throw fireball" type spells just works really well both thematically and mechanically.
guns don't have the same level of mythological association as other weapons. Mythology is full of magically significant swords, bows, axes, hammers and spears, but not guns.
That's only because those myths came from a time before guns. The time for us to create mythological guns is NOW.
Yah, but that doesnt detract from the fact that they dont have those conotations.
Are you such a weakling that you let that stop you? Give them those connotations. Be the change.
No, because that misses the point of the setting. its about invoking a tone first and formost. Just hamfisting an element that is removed from that is counterproductive and reactionary. the fact that you NEED to justify guns already calls it into question.
Im not anti gun, and they can be in more classic fantasy, but I hardly think they are a natural mainstay depending on the tone you are going for. If you want a timeless "medievalism" to the setting, not having them helps to foster that sense of things. that's not weak, that's just being cohesive.
For example, I liked How worlds without number implemented guns to retain tone, its a latter earth type setting where the laws of reality are weird and sometimes even firearms dont work in certain places, allowing for eternal arthurian kings to exist in full 1200s splendur, as well as conan-esque bronze age war tribes in another.
Its about HOW you do somethingand its relivence to the greater tone rather than WHAT you do which is important.
If you need to force something into a setting its going to stick out by its brashness.
Many also come from a time before swords, hammers and probably bows. A time where the axe and the mace were barely different. Myths evolve. We just have rejected our previous myths and adopted new ones that we refuse to accept as myth.
>The time for us to create mythological guns is NOW.
Based.
>The gun that killed Hitler has amassed negative karma through the act.
Whoever wrote this either was a woke blackpilled alpha male or a typical capeshit writer who didn't stop to think about what words mean.
It's a gun owned and used by Hitler himself and during a suicide pact so that why it's covered in bad energy
>but Hitler based alpha trad pill
Nah.
I think he got that first bit anon, its more that there were two ways that one could see the authorial intent.
Silver bullets made from steel crosses, the magic bullet, guns used to attack Buddha, how it could easily fit a thundergod, etc
cringe
based
/tg/ actually made a game about that, back in the day, Aces & Eights: Sons of the Gun. Or something like that.
>Mythology is full of magically significant swords, bows, axes, hammers and spears, but not guns.
Behold, the legendary American weapon, crafted by the hands of a complete novice in firearms design Yes I know he got an actual expert to help that's not the myth, coveted by gun owners, destroyer of cars and credit cards, banned in California, indicator of either the biggest or the smallest dick in a room, depending on how much you wave it around.
FIX THAT
Here, grab a (You) and frick off with this blatant bait
Der Freischütz rifle?
The "magical bullet" that killed JFK?
I want the setting to feel distinct from Warcraft
Because it's fantasy, not 1-to-1 medieval Europe. >SWORD and sorcery
>SWORD
why not spear n sorcery since they were used more than swords lmfao
Not all fantasy is sword and sorcery, not even all medieval fantasy. I do have to say tho, if you're going to have guns in fantasy, make them MAGICAL. Full auto flint locks that are loaded by magic. Special alchemical powders that enable massive velocity and damage. Runic inscriptions that impart magic on the bullet. Runic rifling! You can even reflavor scifi shit to be magical. Deep Space 9 had an assassin gun that teleported its bullet to its target. You could easily do the same thing in fantasy with magic portals.
Guns can be fantasy, anything can be fantasy. There isn't even anything wrong with guns in a medieval fantasy setting, the issue is using them in a setting where everybody's still wearing full plate and using swords n' boards when logically the existence of guns should make that a lot less impractical. You might argue that it's a fantasy setting so it doesn't have to be historically accurate, but this isn't about historical accuracy, it's about verisimilitude.
What exactly are you getting at? Full plate was adopted largely to deal with guns. Full plate of the day could stop guns of the day.
Maybe I explained it poorly but commonplace firearms aren't cohesive with the standard high medieval fantasy setting, ideally if guns are part of the setting then military technology and tactics should adapt to that, most setting that add guns don't think of that
What if guns are not commonplace but niche weapons?
Plate armor could stop bullets, but not full-plate. Full plate started to get phased out in favor of thicker chest-plates when guns became more common on the battlefield. There were still guns during the time of full plate, but full plate wasn't meant to deal with them, it was meant to deal with literally everything else, in fact the guns were largely a counter to the full plate.
>full plate was adopted to deal with guns
Uhhh
>full plate of the day could stop guns of the day
Quite the opposite. Which "day" are you referring to, again?
Handgonnes were widespread by the mid 14th century. Full plate wasn't widespread until the early 15th century. While handgonnes could wreck dudes in chain, gambeson or even munition plate, a properly tailored suit of plate could absolutely resist handgonnes.
The fact that guns and plate armor existed alongside each other does not meant that plate armor could resist guns. Rather, it just meant that guns were rare enough that plate armor was sufficient for most threats. Think of guns back then as the anti-tank weapons of their day, the existence of anti-tank weapons does not negate the usefulness of the armor of a tank, since it will still protect from everything else, which is good enough for most situations.
moronic take. in the 1600's there were many clashes with guns and armor that left relics having stopped bullets. Even into the Napoleonic era you can find breastplates with dents from bullets, although you find a lot more penetrations too.
>in the 1600's there were many clashes with guns and armor that left relics having stopped bullets
You also began to see a decrease in the usage of full plate and an increase in smaller, thicker breastplates designed specifically to counter guns around this era.
And you also see it didn't work
I mean partially, but it's a lot more complicated than that. firearms and plate armor coexisted on the battlefield for centuries. hell, full articulated plate suits as most people think of it was *developed* in a battlefield environment that had already been introduced to gunpowder. it took a long time for firearms to advance to the point where they could both reliably hit a man sized target and reliably penetrate plate armor.
there isn't any voodoo magic, you understand, with a bullet's penetration vs say an arrow or bolt. in fact, arrows and bolts are better suited to penetrating plate thanks to their shape - they have greater mass and deliver the force of their impact to a smaller point. the advantage that bullets have is higher velocity, *potentially*. but that greater velocity is not automatic. primitive firearms can easily have a muzzle velocity that is less than that of a crossbow or longbow. the effectiveness of all parts of firearms - chambers, barrels, charges - increased with time, but it did take time, and a lot of it.
Even the most advanced of crossbows will have nowhere near the kinetic power of even the most primitive of guns. You're looking at about 200 joules with a powerful crossbow made for war. With an early hand cannon you're looking at at least 2,500 joules. That's over twelve times the force applied, and it's not exactly over a wider area, the musket ball is small and dense, compared to a long arrow made of mostly wood.
Basically even the earliest most primitive guns were vastly better at penetrating plate armor than any arrow or bolt could, there's no comparison to be made, they're nowhere near in the same league. Arrows main advantage was in fire rate, not penetrative power.
Guns and armor had an arms race for several centuries that eventually ended with the gun's total victory, obviously. But for quite a while, firearms and stereotypical "knight in shining armor" plate coexisted just fine.
>Guns total victory
No not whatsoever
In terms of interpersonal combat? Sure it is. Even in modern combat armor, getting shot at is a roll of the dice at the best of times.
>Getting shot is a roll of the dice
No not really, it's entirely dependant on the quality of ceramic or (lmao) steel plate, and the calibre, load and core of the bullet
And tungsten ain't too common to go throwing to every western grunt, let alone the rest of the world
Not really, no. If you get shot in a plate, odds are you will be fine if bruised and very unhappy, unless the round is one generally used for a different purpose like antivehicle or cover penetration functions.
Just the same, a well made spring steel breastplate and plackard, comprising probably 12mm total of tempered steel, could turn a lead ball but not a 5kg cannonball to the chest.
Thing is, prior to the industrial revolution high quality steel was a pain in the ass to get in large quantities, if soldiers had to buy their own kit odds would be they wouldn't be able to afford the best, or maybe even good quality armor, or armor of any kind, and if a government was paying for it they would likely prioritize commanders, officers, and specialist troops first if a choice had to be made as to who gets equipped with good armor.
But just because armor was expensive doesn't mean at any point that it was useless, the only time you might be right in making that argument is in and around WWI when the rifle stabilized high velocity spitzer bullet became commonplace and things like hybrid ceramic armor, kevlar/twaron and PTFE hadn't been invented. Even then steel armor COULD still protect a soldier, it just became impractically heavy.
I wish jackasses would stop spouting this shit. Armour was proofed against pistols, generally with a half-charge of powder. Nobody wore armour that would protect against long arms in the 16th century and later, the whole reason only shock cavalry wore armour that late is because they expected to be in close ranges where pistols, swords, pikes, halberds, and bayonets were threats.
>12mm total of tempered steel
Armour was never that thick you moron. Pic related is from the 16th century and has a maximum thickness of drumroll... 0.35 inches or about 8.9 mm. FFS does that breastplate shot by a cannonball look half an inch thick.
He's also ignoring that preventing penetration does not mean preventing injury or death. His picture shows a breast plate with a >1 inch dent in the sternum. That guy fricking died.
Rigid armour absorbs the vast majority of the impact energy, pretty much unless the armour fails you'll be fine. Even assuming that was in the sternum (it isn't I don't think you know what the sternum is) the human thorax isn't a monolithic rigid block, your chest rises and falls more than an inch when you inhale or exhale.
It's between and below your nipples, which is exactly where the dent is. Yes, the chest expands and contracts, but that's not going to prevent your bones from being shattered any more than the flexibility of your neck protects your skull from a baseball bat.
Rigid armor does not absorb impact, it distributes it. And only when it doesn't change shape. If you hit a rigid material hard enough to bend it, most of that energy is going to the other side of the impact. As an extreme example, a 20 mm gun can kill a fighter pilot through the cannopy without breaking it from the shockwave alone if it hits the right spot.
Oh shit, really, I didn't realize that a breastplate sat directly against a soldier's bare skin with so little room inside of it to move that a dent in the surface of the armor is going to create a perfectly proportional and equivalent dent in the soldier, who of course isn't wearing a chain jacket and heavy padded arming coat specifically intended to protect him from violent blows that might deform the breastplate of his armor, yes I'm sure the transfer of kinetic energy approximately equivalent to a stiff punch in the ribs killed him 100% dead.
>I didn't realize that a breastplate sat directly against a soldier's bare skin with so little room inside of it to move that a dent in the surface of the armor is going to create a perfectly proportional and equivalent dent in the soldier,
Nobody said that. It's just a frick ton of energy directed straight into the chest.
>approximately equivalent to a stiff punch in the ribs
t. Your ass
I never said it would protect against a longarm at point-blank range, but you DO realize that projectiles fired from guns, especially spherical lead projectiles fired from early smoothbore firearms, significantly lose velocity and thus penetrating power over distance due to a combination of air resistance and gravity, right anon? You aren't the victim of severe brain damage, right Anon?
Also that breastplate is lacking a plackart, if it's 9mm thick than an addon plate of just 2-3mm more metal will bring it right up to..uh...12mm. You of course know what a plackart is I'm sure, the part of the cuirass specifically designed to protect the armored cavalryman from lance and bullet strikes?
>I never said it would protect against a longarm at point-blank range, but you DO realize that projectiles fired from guns, especially spherical lead projectiles fired from early smoothbore firearms, significantly lose velocity and thus penetrating power over distance due to a combination of air resistance and gravity, right anon?
Not to the extent where you would be protected against long arms even out to long ranges.
>Also that breastplate is lacking a plackart, if it's 9mm thick than an addon plate of just 2-3mm more metal will bring it right up to..uh...12mm. You of course know what a plackart is I'm sure, the part of the cuirass specifically designed to protect the armored cavalryman from lance and bullet strikes?
Why do you think the packart would be 3mm thick? 3mm thick is about the thickness of a normal breastplate, this armour is exceptionally thick to begin with. Pic related isn't even 3 mm at its thickest part.
>Armour was proofed against pistols, generally with a half-charge of powder.
While I'm sure that happened it's not how all tests were done. Swedish army regulations from 1685 states that all breastplates delivered are to be tested by resting them against a well stuffed sack and then shooting at them from twenty paces with the standard infantry musket and a normal charge (so about 20 grams of powder behind a 20mm ball). And any private individual could of course test his armour against whatever weapon he wanted to make sure it could withstand.
The thicker breastplates were not made from tempered steel, because getting the cooling rates necessary for hardening carbon steel any depth of note into thicker pieces just isn't happening. They usually aren't even steel, but plain iron. This isn't nearly as bad as it sounds though, because the energy needed to punch through increases faster than linear with increased thickness (doubling the thickness roughly speaking triples the energy). Thus for the really thick plates the material became a lot less important, and so they shifted to cheaper stuff mostly because they could.
>that eventually ended with the gun's total victory,
Even interwar steel armour could stop pistol caliber bullets and current ceramic plates can stop the current small caliber rifle rounds from going through your person.
That's nice except you don't want to stop the bullet from going through the person, you want to stop it from getting in him
Because i want some arthurian legend shit. Knights with swords, dudes with axes, gays with bows and wizards with staffs. A gun doesnt fit in, so there will be no gun. I dont give a frick what some historic autist says.
so you agree you are moronic it seems
No he's right. If arthurian legend is what he wants, no guns is right. He should also reject full plate as well. People at that time wore chain.
tru
Full-plate, yes
But not all plate
In the arthurian era the plate you would see would be more like a "coat of plates" rather than something like a breastplate. More like a brigandine.
They can be fantasy, but they can also be seperate from the sort of specific mythic fantasy that a lot of people want to play in. In the fantasy of a song of roland, of a carolingian cycle, of a Hercules, of a beowolf or a robin hood or a Conan, guns just aren't really a thing. often times they are portrayed (even in period) as wearing the dress of late medieval, but they are interpretations of a myth that precedes modernization. it changes the tone from a mythical timeless one to a progressing one. Pirates can and are often fantasy too, but noone cares if pirates have guns because it doesnt step on the toes of THAT tone. I think understanding WHY guns are often not in mythic fantasy (because that is a trend preceding tolkein) is more useful then just saying they SHOULD be in it.
Its about invoking a certain timeless tone, while guns give a distinct and concrete sense of material progress.
false, because Arthurian legend takes place in a nebulous time period. You see a bunch of Arthurian illustrated manuscripts in anachronistic armors, but you almost never see them with guns because the stories dont have them in them. Arthurian is vaguely medieval so the sort of armor is up to interpretation.
Pseudo historian "fans" are often too myopic and dont understand the multifaceted nature of historical representation. Not actually getting the nuance of shit and different lenses like an actual historian would.
t. actual history major having to take classes in historical methodology.
Based anon. I would also add that your archetypical D&D/pathfinder fantasy as it's played today is NOT mythic fantasy. Or at least not often. It is a new theme that owes a lot to mythic fantasy but isn't part of it anymore.
You can still play a mythic fantasy game if you want but other games will be better suited for it.
I wound agree. there is nothing wrong with having them in archetypical kitchen sink dnd type game, but there is also nothing wrong with BANNING them in that sort of game too. Its niether anathema not a requisite for that general category of thing. again if you want to focus on a more mythical tone you might want to not have them, but if you want to have something somewhat inspired by myth but with its own bent you might want to have them.
Its really context specific and up to the gm and maybe group.
>In the fantasy of a song of roland, of a carolingian cycle, of a Hercules, of a beowolf or a robin hood or a Conan
>tone
>timeless
These are all Iron Age or earlier mythos, not Medieval. Our concept of fantasy actually an Iron Age timelessness that stretched across Eurasia for millennia. The actual Medieval era was relatively brief and full of constant change, at least in Europe.
What time moron? Arthur didn't exist. Knights didn't exist when the britons were fighting the saxons.
Arthur did exist, he was likely a Romano-Briton warlord around the collapse of the Westerb Roman Empire. All the myths about him and the round table are just stories though.
The romans had a noble class called the equites which were close to knights.
Not even "close to", they literally were knights - their direct ancestor. The real difference was tactics and equipment, which the term "knight" does not directly rely on.
Warrior class tied to a lord is something that's existed basically everywhere
Didn't the Chinese get rid of theirs in favor of large armies with medium-quality training and equipment pretty early on? Military aristocracies tend to pop up in fairly specific socio-cultural contexts.
Couldn't tell you about China cause I know frick all but that context seemingly crops up near everywhere at a certain stage of development
Greg Stafford included gunpowder weapons in his King Arthur Pendragon, but only for the baddies who come to end the age of chivalry and enchantment.
The initial reason guns came into use in Europe was not because of effectiveness of a single armed man but because you could give every able-bodied man in a town a gun and you'd have a dirt cheap but still useful force. Swords require a lot of training to use effectively and that training becomes expensive in the army level. It wasn't until the about the French revolution that a trained individual with a gun was roughly as effective as a trained individual with a sword.
Now in a fantasy setting were you could magically raise an army of zombies or golems at a very low cost why would the gun ever take off?
Golems are NOT low cost. A golem at least in DnD, requires high level magical knowledge that only a few possess, and materials that exceed the GDP of many towns.
Undead are lower cost but have other drawbacks. They're also usually inferior soldiers, their strength is in numbers and the toughness of being undead.
>The initial reason guns came into use in Europe was not because of effectiveness of a single armed man but because you could give every able-bodied man in a town a gun and you'd have a dirt cheap but still useful force.
The earliest examples were about how black powder could be used to miniaturize rather cumbersome siege engines. Specifically people in charge of delivering incendary charges showing off how they could use some of those ingrediences in the incendary charge to make the engine hurling the darts the size of a night pot at no loss.
The next thing I read chronologically was literally: "In this specific situation where you are using crossbow cavalry as glass cannons against heavy cavalry as your opening move, you might just as well give them hand gonnes if you got any."
It took a good while before the Hussites gave everybody gonnes and had the knights come towards them.
>It wasn't until the about the French revolution that a trained individual with a gun was roughly as effective as a trained individual with a sword
>laughs in english civil war and 30 years war 150 years before the french revolution
Guns in fantasy settings kick ass. Pike and shot being incorporated into a fantasy setting is cool as frick. Love me some WHFB. Sigmar bless the Empire.
>Occupies the same role as magical warfare.
>Significantly more expensive for relatively lesser effect.
>For the cost of five riflemen, you can get the local hedge wizard, and in the time it takes to train those men, he can be trained for war as well, and will vastly outperform those five men.
>Warfare naturally trends towards small numbers of specialists with major backing. Riflemen supported by infantry are good, but a potent war mage supported by infantry is way better.
>A wizard, druid, or cleric, does not require any significant kind of logistics or support, and indeed can provide their own for themselves and multiple other men.
Guns aren't fantasy because there's no practical reason for them outside of low fantasy where magic does not occupy that combat role. Similar to this, high level archery also struggles to compete, typically using custom arrows to support or carry magical effects, again in turn occupying the role of guns and doing a better job, even when a gun is made to fire magical ammunition.
DnD, for all its flaws, actually gets this kind of shit right. There is no reason for firearms tech to evolve beyond arty cannons for warfare, or custom made hand cannons for important people who can't do magic
Counterpoint. If magic can enhance arrows, it can also enhance bullets to greater effect. Magic also requires a certain level of intellect and way more training than gunners. Hell if you are a necromancer you could probably even make skeletons capable of loading and firing guns.
Metals mess with magic in almost all settings.
One of the reasons wizardgays don't stomp around in plate or wield metal weapons/need a natural focus.
Wizards can use metal weapons just fine. The casting problem is usually attributed to restricted movement for spell gestures and not limited to metal armor. Plus they can cast magic armor for free.
Being able to dodge gunfire is a bargain bin action hero feat in movies even to this day. And if we're talking about fantasy armor, who says mithral and adamantium cant block bullets? We have treated steels and alloys that can block bullets in the modern era! Plate armor worked for Ned Kelly, they had to shoot him a whole lot to take him down! And he was just using regular steel! As far as players being a different creature than the rest of the world, they already are in many rpgs. You can become a master in a matter of years when for others it takes decades. You can do things only a tiny portion of the population are capable of upon reaching mid levels. However you want to explaim this, demigod ancestry, chosen heroes of prophecy, favored by a god, the devil's luck, PCs and PC equivalent NPCs are not normal people or at least not average. The ceiling for what people are capable of is just higher.
>Being able to dodge gunfire is a bargain bin action hero feat in movies even to this day.
That's not even close to true. In fact the only major action movie where this is the case, is a movie about a fake world where the rules of physics are explicitly flimsy and combat is more of an abstraction of mental will and intellect than an actual physical battle.
>And if we're talking about fantasy armor, who says mithral and adamantium cant block bullets?
Okay, now I have mithtal or adamantine bullets.
>As far as players being a different creature than the rest of the world, they already are in many rpgs. You can become a master in a matter of years when for others it takes decades. You can do things only a tiny portion of the population are capable of upon reaching mid levels.
That's not being a fundamentally different kind of creature, it's just being much better than most. Being hypercompetent doesn't make you fundamentally less vulnerable to being turned into swiss cheese. It does make you more prone to being able to avoid that situation, but now you're not playing a preindustrial fantasy game anymore, you're playing a tactical shooting game.
You can just a easily make mithral and adamantium arrows and bolts that do the same thing in setting. You aren't as smart as you think you are.
Except a gun shooting a mithral bullet will be better than a bow shooting mithral arrows because guns are fricking better than bows. Any magic or exotic materials that could be used to bring hand powered weapons up to the power of the mundane gun could be used on the gun itself to make it even more dominant.
You can make it hit harder sure, but barring more complex firearms bows will shoot faster. Bows are also cheaper to feed and quieter, and require less maintenance. You also reach a point of diminishing returns with guns. You can enchant a bow to hit as hard and fast as a gun. But if you further enhance a gun this way it just overpenetrates and doesn't have good terminal ballistics. Which could be good in some circumstances but not in others.
>You also reach a point of diminishing returns with guns.
Not even slightly true. Guns get exponentially better the more tech you can pour into them, if the engineer isn't a moron. Lets take the "make arrows hit as hard as a gun" magic. Apply that to a gun with multiple small chambers and now I have a revolver that hits like a small cannon.
If that's true why has gun technology largely stagnated for 50+ years?
It hasn't. A semi auto rifle made today is more accurate than a bolt action rifle made a few decades ago. Weapons are far more reliable and ammunition is much more consistent. The US army just adopted a rifle with a scope with a range finder that adjusts the retical based on calculated drop off and angle and the fricking wind. And this is just talking about handheld rifles. Modern war between peer powers is rapidly becoming a contest of who can field the most and best autonomous bombs that just go to the target and kill it without requiring human skill or effort at all.
Also yes, ammo chemistry is a lot more stable than it used to be and guns don't make sales if they aren't as reliable as bricks in a wall.
Remember that even revolvers used to have the option to tighten the hammer spring because unresponsive primers on shit ammo were a real and constant issue anybody would have to address while shooting. Likewise were notably uneven loads. There's still match-grade ammo if you wanna be pimp, but I guess bringing match-grade quality to all military ammo is another research subject somebody somewhere is pursuing.
Pretty much all advancements have been optics becoming rugged enough for combat operations and daily handling by GIs, yes. We're just waiting for some chemist to make caseless ammunition real again and I guess for constant recoil mechanisms to be integrated into more automatic firearms designs.
It's all about making the double tap every time real without some moronicly complex mechanical system.
Basically every small arm platform today that matters today was made in the 50s or 60s
Some small arms in use are designs around a century old
New materials and engineering and peripherals make modern versions of these platforms far superior and reliable. There's also more guns than small arms. That's another benefit of guns, they can more easily and effectively be integrated into systems which surpass human physiological limitations.
I didn't claim otherwise, but the crux of discussion insofar had been revolving around handheld armament vs body armor
And yes there are better materials and engineering capabilities for manufacturing these designs, and nice gadgets to stick on the horde of rails, the actual fundamental mechanics of these firearms has barely changed
The M2 is ancient, and the US adopted the MAG like 40 years after it was designed
My point is that you can actually improve manufacturing of or add stuff to even a somewhat dated firearm design and appreciably improve it. With hand powered weapons, the limiting factor is the user. And if you make them stronger or faster or more precise, that also lets them carry more and bigger guns and shoot them better.
I guess the compound bow exists, and it is neat, but not really better than even a medeival crossbow.
>Metals mess with magic in almost all settings.
Name 5
Countercounter. There is far more variation and space on an arrow then a musket ball. You can inscribe more things, use more materials, and do more shit to it, lending to greater tactical flexibility then a musket ball, which can only hold tiny engravings and must also resist the violence of its firing.
Just make an arrow of acceleration. Enchant it in a manner that it continues to fly straight at higher velocities until the inscription or charm upon it burns away or expends itself. You've now got something as fast and accurate as a bullet, but bigger and more versatile again, like a missile.
What if you don't have a local hedge wizard? Alternatively, what if your local hedge wizard was killed? He's not easily replaceable, well if one, or even all of the five riflemen are killed you just collect the guns and give them to other soldiers.
Magic vs Technology will always be individual vs collective, and in war, the collective is far more useful.
> and in war, the collective is far more useful.
Except for the modern story where a small group of well trained and supported forces consistently do better then a large group of poorly supported or trained forces.
I mean, if the argument arises that there aren't enough mages, then you've just proven the point, because there's now no strategic or operational place for mages, because there aren't enough of them to realistically field them in war and make a difference.
Even then, their application as special forces could do incredible work.
Ahh yes. The spell components.
Half of which aren't used up.
On the spells that most end up casting with a casting focus, like a divine symbol, want, staff, amulet or book.
They'd need logistics for some major spells, but otherwise they need far lesser logistics then a large army that does battle by specifically burning up expensive powders inside artisanal weaponry, to propel a metal bearing at another person, which in all probability will be unable to be reclaimed and used again, unlike an arrow or spell slot.
Spell components are based and if you aren't using them in your setting you are cringe. Logistic lines should exist for war mages who need a constant supply of bat shit to fuel their fireballs.
Typically the aversion to firearms comes from two - often related - reasons.
One is that firearms are often assumed to indicate that the setting is progressing out of a typical fantasy tech level and/or aesthetic. The other is that firearms are often assumed to negate the utility of melee combatants, and/or (less often) spellcasters. I don't think either of these need a lot of explanation so instead here are ideas about how to make these less of a concern / more palatable to your players.
For the first case, if they want medieval stasis, make it clear that firearms are - in this setting - a very old technology. They don't represent a shift towards the scientific method or towards rapid industrialization, they're just another weapon that's been known about for a long time. Take early hand cannons from IRL, now imagine that the whole rapid technological development that happened in Europe and took firearms along with it, hasn't happened. How would firearms evolve in that case? They surely would evolve over time, but less rapidly. Perhaps rifling wouldn't be invented, and they'd be smoothbore matchlock type firearms. Very refined and well-made (since smiths would adjust to making them) but not a huge game changer. The setting is otherwise very medieval.
For the second case - just balance the game to have them not be significantly better than crossbows, which is fairly reasonable.
The goal of fantasy is hero worship. A hero looks an enemy in the eyes when killing them. Ranged weapons aren't heroic. Shooting someone from the other side of the field isn't heroic. Guns are for weaklings and cowards, not the heroes of fantasy. It's telling that WHF, a fantasy game that does guns, is a game for b***hes, bottoms, and germans.
what was that? sorry i already killed you before you could get to me
My point, exactly.
cope
BANG.
The party's paladin instantly falls dead. A massive hole has been blown through his enchanted breastplate.
Hundreds of feet away, a lone warrior stands. He wields a weapon of flint, steel, and fire. A pistol.
A terrible truth dawns on your party: the age of the knights and magic is dead, and the world is now in the age of guns and technology. Flintlocks are being mass produced, making all armor and magic useless. Bullets rip through armor from hundreds of feet away. As science advances, the world loses all faith and wonder, making all magic drain from the world.
How does your party survive in this new age of science and rationality, where the greatest of wizards has been reduced to a mundane old coot?
fricking bruh
>his parties paladin doesn't have a magic brouche that repels gunshots or other high velocity impacts
They deserve it to be quite honest
Guns existed during the times of conquistadors and the new world. Things like faith, legends, and belief of cryptids were and in the case of the former, still exist today.
Easy,
Wizard Guns
Also, Cleric Gun.
Like cool some peasant can shoot me. Whatever, my pistol is made of Blessed Steel, the very same used to forge the hammers of old. Each bullet is inscribe with my holy symbol and can turn a horde of undead or reintegrate a heretic into the soil. Prayers didn't stop working, they just got a range boost.
Pic only vaguely related, Gun Cleric doesn't seem to be a popular archetype,
>each bullet can turn a horde of undead
Little frickin' OP, dontcha think?
Have you ever read Turn Undead? All I did was present my holy symbol at the speed and range of a musket.
I'd ask the GM why he's a fricking moron, because a smoothbore pistol round fired from a something like 50+m distance would most likely fly so wide of it's target that you might not even hear the ball in flight, and even if it did actually hit a breastplate, at that kind of extreme range it would almost certainly lack the power to penetrate anything but the thinnest, poorest quality plate.
Even a common soldier's breastplate made to a serviceable standard would turn the ball, much less a high quality cuirass made of material lighter yet stronger than steel and reinforced beyond it's normal material limits by enchantment.
Plus, the introductions of firearms didn't make armor useless at all, it just brought armor closer to what we see in modernity where the places that armor go are limited to the most vital parts most likely to be hit.
>Bullets rip through armor from hundreds of feet away
Flintlock guns cannot do that. 50 feet, sure. Not "hundreds" you absolute buffoon.
Plates that stop bullets have existed throughout most of the history of firearms, and most certainly in the age of flintlock pistols
Mounted pistoleers of the 16th/17th c stuck their pistols into ones thighs not chest before firing
>Improvise
>Adapt
>Overcome
Guns in fantasy should be experimental pieces of shit that will fail on you... unless they don't and you get an unreasonable amount of damage.
I'm picturing early arquebuses and stuff like that.
ok
This is usually what I have in mind when I think of guns in fantasy
If your fantasy setting has magic then
1-magic requires an ignorance of the properties involved in its use, to some extent
2- all post enlightenment or post renaissance technology is founded on a scientific knowledge of the properties involved
3- the gun, being a post-enlightenment and semi-post renaissance technology, cannot be consistent with a world that functions on magic.
That's not to say certain people IN a gunpowder setting cant believe in magic while using guns. But once gunpowder is introduced either the magic is explainable by some as science or the magic is purely superstition anyway and functions without explanation or form.
You can totally have gun fantasy, but it creates a lot of questions and holes in the framework of a magical world.
>Guns and swords are part of natural world and obey its physics.
>Magic is supernatural and purposely twists the physics of this world.
>Divine Powers control the very concept of the physics and can do whatever he wants
How is that so hard?
Okay, sure. It's a stupid argument to carry put to a point because you CAN justify putting guns into a "fantasy" setting in any way you please. You're not wrong. Neither are you objectively right. But the reason SOME ( or most) feel that guns dont belong in fantasy is that they require a depth of knowledge in their creation that makes "magic" like alchemy seem mundane and easily replicated. Of course people still believed in the divine long after gunpowder, and you could certainly say that magic CAN coexist with it.
But most people will still say it "feels" wrong to have gunpowder and magic both widely used in a setting. And they wouldnt be totally wrong to say so either.
No, they definitely clash. It's not right for them to coexist like it's normal. For magic to be magic, it must be whimsical or mysterious, but most of all it must be alien to the mundane.
However both of them do share something alike, that they are tools, to be used however best seen fit, if at all.
Im not understanding why guns can't fit with magic though? Gunpowder was discovered by alchemists who assuredly didn't understand why it worked, theynjust understood that it did and roughly the process needed to make it. To the alchemists gunpowder was definitely am arcane and magical substance. As long as your guns operate in this framework and not one of "solved science" why can't they fit?
In my setting they're a part of the industrial process and in fact are anathema to magic, a kind of anti-magic on a macro metaphysical scale.
Nobody would take fantasy guns in fantasy because their main effect allegedly is that they drastically reduce the random encouter rate.
I have the first Alatriste comic book version drawn by that artist (Joan Mundet).
Honestly a big surprise to see pic posted here in 2022.
Shit aesthetics
Interrupt tech stasis
Result in lame combat
Give me a good reason why you care what I put in my fantasy world.
Give me a really good reason why I should give a frick what you think about my fantasy world.
cuz players want fun they will get it 😉
Players can suck on deez nuts and enjoy the salty taste.
nom
Yeah I bet you like that you lil bawd
>players
What does that have to do with gays like you that don't play games?
You might as well use sticks of dynamite if all you get out of your gunpowder weapon is a single shot each combat encounter.
I have early firearms in my setting and they are treated like any other weapon. Why wouldn't a wizard use a gun? Fricking Gandalf uses a sword. It isn't complicated you idiots are just over thinking it.
Because guns are the great equalizer. Anyone can pick up a gun and become incredibly lethal with minimal training. Fantasy, particularly RPGs, are built around the idea of there being heroes. People who are more skilled and capable than others who accomplish amazing feats. Guns invalidate this portion of the fantasy. If you have a sword master and he gets shot by some rando then what was the point of his years of practice and all the money spent on his training and equipment? Why send a band of adventurers to slay the dragon when a militia with riffles and a cannon can do the job more efficiently? Guns level the playing field so much that anyone can compete with the extraordinary few who would otherwise stand at the top. And because of this they do not belong in a fantasy setting. They get rid of the fantasy. Ie the fantasy of being powerful and capable and in control.
Doesn't that mean that if you can dodge bullets you're even more badass? In my mind bullets are great for shooting other mundanes, or killing monsters like dire wolves that are just giant angry mutant versions of normal creatures. But for shit with supernatural ability you still need heroes. Dudes with the insane reflexes needed to dodge bullets can also dodge a vampire's strike that moves too fast for normal human eyes. A warrior with a shield that can resist dragon's breath can also deflect a bullet or two, or a volley. A wizard that can cast a spell to deflect arrows can just as easily cast aside bullets, whether from a sling or a gun. That kind of stuff. For a gun user to match them, theyd have to be using magical bespoke weaponry or be some kind of gun mage themselves.
>Doesn't that mean that if you can dodge bullets you're even more badass?
Being able to dodge gunfire puts you at a completely different level of power than sword and board heroes usually have. Most systems don't have access to easy ways to just nulify a dragon's breath or a volly of arrows for a reason.
>For a gun user to match them, theyd have to be using magical bespoke weaponry or be some kind of gun mage themselves.
That's another problem. If guns exist, everyone would be a gun mage, not a regular one. War drifts very fricking fast towards the most effective strategies. People aren't going to just not use guns even if they're available for the sake of maintaining aesthetic variety.
Not really, not everything is linear progression. Guns were not universally superior to bows for a large part of their existence but they had their pros and cons. Reality nor fantasy works as a long linear march of progress. Oftentimes innovations are side-grades rather than upgrades and come with their own difficulties. As an example, elves might not like guns because they are loud amd disturb the forest. Maybe some of them use air rifles using air compressed by wind spirits, but whether or not this is also an affront to nature is hotly debated between them. Among humans, some nations may not have the industrial capacity to field guns in large numbers, and due to their existing bow hunting culture see no need to adopt them- after all their longbowmen can loose 5 volleys in the time it takes their enemy gunners to reload. Not everyone would be a gun mage for the same reasons not everyone would be a fireball slinger in a world without guns- different magicians have their own styles. A mage that summons and buffs beasts that can soak gunfire isn't going to bother shooting at the enemy, espcially if they are summoning monsters to deal with similarly tough enemies. A mage that prefers to be subtle and use illusions to distract and demoralize isn't going to call attention to themselves by shooting a gun. The fact is that guns did not replace swords or bows or crossbows overnight. Even up until the 19th century there were nations that fielded melee and archer troops, albeit they were considered backward. In a fantasy universe guns would be just one of many viable options that people could pursue depending on their circumstances and abilities. Bows and Crossbows could be magically enhanced to be on par with them but guns would provide a better baseline at the cost of more initial investment. "No excuse not to use them" is brainlet tier.
>Guns were not universally superior to bows for a large part of their existence but they had their pros and cons.
When people talk about "guns in fantasy", they mean pistols and muskets. If you want a 12th century miniature cannon on a stick, fine, but it should be as much of an obscure dogshit meme weapon in the game as it was in real life.
>As an example, elves might not like guns because they are loud amd disturb the forest. Maybe some of them use air rifles using air compressed by wind spirits, but whether or not this is also an affront to nature is hotly debated between them.
Any culture that refuses to adopt rifles will be conquered by one who does not.
>Not everyone would be a gun mage for the same reasons not everyone would be a fireball slinger in a world without guns- different magicians have their own styles.
Sure. But there aren't going to be anymore fireball mages. The conjurer might not be out of a job depending on the setting, but if he can't pretty consistently summon monsters that can withstand magic gunfire, he's going to fall back on plan B of renting out succubi for the local brothel.
>The fact is that guns did not replace swords or bows or crossbows overnight.
Actually they kind of did. Once muskets were consistently superior to man-powered weapons in the early 16th century, they were rapidly adopted as the primary weapon by every military that could possibly produce them, within decades. Even cultures without the ability to produce guns or gunpowder, such as native americans, still adopted and used them as much as they could, because guns are just that much fricking better. Nothing is "viable" compared them.
>Even up until the 19th century there were nations that fielded melee and archer troops,
"Fielded" or "maintained"? Because if it's the former, I'm going to need examples.
>Bows and Crossbows could be magically enhanced to be on par
Any magic that could make bows on par with mundane guns could be used to make magic guns.
There's no reason to assume anything about how magic interacts with guns.
There isn't a non-contrived way to explain having magic bows but not magic guns. And if you decide to include that contrivance regardless, well congrats, you've bent your setting into a prezel just to make the aesthetics worse.
Just make the ammunition the magical part. Say that arrows have space enough for magic runes, and bullets don't. Boom, done.
OUR bullets don't. In this case, instead they'll stick rune carved rods into the rifle instead, like a rifle grenade, and blow those elves to kingdom come.
>Because guns are the great equalizer
not in fantasy because there are supernaturally tough people and monsters.
>Anyone can pick up a gun and become incredibly lethal with minimal training
again not necessarily true in fantasy because you have to account for people and monsters supernaturally physiology that even allows them to fight each other
>Guns invalidate this portion of the fantasy. If you have a sword master and he gets shot by some rando then what was the point of his years of practice and all the money spent on his training and equipment?
i really dont like how in some arguments the lethality of the fiction wavers when it comes to certain things, at the same time someone can get cleaved in their abdomen, blow the frick up by a fireball, smashed into the ground by a ogre club bigger than your entire body, chomped on by a dragon whos single tooth is bigger than your entire arm, banished into hell pocket dimensions and blasted with pure death energy, but when suddenly someone gets their hands on a shitty little gun you suddenly die in real life, also a swordmaster getting btfo by a shmuck with a gun is called a bad match up, he should of invested his time into other parts of combat because range weapons are pretty common and it doesnt even matter if it was a gun, a bow would of killed his ass all the same.
(again, magically the supernatural toughness goes away when it comes to guns which is moronic.)
>Why send a band of adventurers to slay the dragon when a militia with riffles and a cannon can do the job more efficiently?
your making legendary creatures like dragons b***hes when it comes to guns, why? i dont get it, why can a dragons thick scales get pierced by a shitty ol medieval militia? why does that dragons extremely tough body turn into a wet bag when it comes to guns? a band of adventurers are already way more supernaturally powerful then a average idiot soldier with a gun, if they werent they would get curb stomped by the dragon.
Most systems, especially fantasy systems, don't have the PCs being physiologically superior, certainly not so different to make guns work well on normies but not themselves. Because that would be a weird thing to implement unless there was some system conceit about the PCs being a different kind of creature, like in white wolf games.
>he should of invested his time into other parts of combat because range weapons are pretty common and it doesnt even matter if it was a gun, a bow would of killed his ass all the same
No it wouldn't have. An arrow can be blocked by a shield or armor. An arrow can be blown away in the wind. An arrow can concievably be reactively dodged or even caught. What do you do about a gun? "Magic shield"? Okay, magic bullet. Don't you get it? It over centralizes combat. There is no excuse not to use them.
cont.
>Guns level the playing field so much that anyone can compete with the extraordinary few who would otherwise stand at the top.
why? why does guns make extraordinary people so weak? these extraordinary people who stand at the top of a fantasy world, who could be god wizards, invulnerable warriors and immortal demigods becomes b***hes?
how the frick can a shitty ass gun level the playing field that much? if they really do level the playing field it really doesnt sound like a fantasy setting at all, its sounds like normal people.
>And because of this they do not belong in a fantasy setting. They get rid of the fantasy. Ie the fantasy of being powerful and capable and in control.
its not the guns who got rid of the fantasy, its you, because you think guns are the end all be all when it comes to power and control when wizards can rape reality or warriors who can slay dragons with nothing but a sword and shield, your rejecting the fantasy by trying to inject real world lethality to legendary monsters and supernatural warriors all because of a stupid gun.
>if they really do level the playing field it really doesnt sound like a fantasy setting at all, its sounds like normal people.
PSSST. A hero is just a normal person with some extra stuff! Not every system or setting is played with or populated by living gods!
They just aren't part of the genre's tradition, overall. That's literally the only reason.
Guns in fantasy works.
New World proves it could have.
If only Amazon didn't pussy out on whole "replacing the native inhabitants" dynamic and weren't god awful at game dynamics
I don't care about your thread topic OP, I just wanted to post this pistol
oh, this is hot. an early fast(er) reload system? any info on how it works, forgotten weapons video?
>Pre-load tube
>Put tube in back
>Put powder in pan
>wiener hammer
>Pull trigger
Doubt this would be effective, you're not saving much time over reloading conventionally and losing time over drawing and firing a different pistol.
>Remove tube
>Slide new tube into place
>Fill pan with powder
>Cover pan
>wiener hammer
>Pull trigger
vs
>Draw second pistol
>wiener hammer
>Pull trigger
vs
>Fill barrel with powder
>Drop ball down barrel
>Fill pan with powder
>Cover pan
>wiener hammer
>Pull trigger
>second pistol
This isn't actually a thing. You can't store a loaded pistol in flintlocks. The ball just falls out. Which is why they always had the barrel either pointed up or forward.
>This isn't actually a thing.
Blackbeard wore six across his chest when he went into battle. Packed bullets don't fall out of the front of a musket.
>give me a good reason why "guns aren't fantasy"
I'll give you a reason: Guns imply technology progresses along a predetermined course and has no concern for societal need or war doctrine pressures that demand guns must be invented and industrially manufactured instead of more magical arrows for example. It also implies that chemistry works exactly like it does in real life and that explosives such as gunpowder must also exist and be widely used.
If your setting has "gunslingers" who are also forced to be accomplished gunsmiths because the average state military is mysteriously using swords and shortbows, your setting is moronic.
That being said I have guns in my setting, and their existence has real, tangible effects on warfare. If your enemy has a wizard though, one fireball spell will cause your own powder stores to be your undoing.
zzzz...
He gonna take you back to the past
To blow out your mother's fat ass
They're impossible to balance, they're either broken as shit or basically useless.
high damage, slow to reload. increase likelyhood to hit/cause damage at close range, decreased at far range.
but There are settings I prefer to have gunless, this is just targeting your point.
>high damage, slow to reload.
How slow, what damage? If a bow does 1d8 damage and a gun does 1d12 but fires at half the rate it's just worse, also if you have rules where reloading is essentially skipping your turn it's boring as hell.
>increase likelyhood to hit/cause damage at close range, decreased at far range
That's not accurate, but it also just makes it a situational tradeoff
>How slow, what damage?
depends on system, these are general points on how to implement across games.
> a gun does 1d12 but fires at half the rate it's just worse, also if you have rules where reloading is essentially skipping your turn it's boring as hell.
seems like a lack of dynamic thinking on your part. A pistol can be a side arm, so you fire it on one turn then charge in in melee. If you have a bayonet, then that. that is a net increase in damage from pure melee. Or you can start of in melee and use the gun when you need a single high damage attack. or when time is less of an issue, firing from cover. you dont see people complaining that flasks of oil are one use weapons.
>That's not accurate
Please see above comment of being cross system advice. in dnd armor and chance to hit are rounded together in ac, or to-hit. so in that instance the bonus to hit within range reflects armor penetration and the speed of a bullet within its effective range. the decrease at long range refers to past its effective range where a non riffled gun's ball might go askew and loose power. in games that have defence (like a dr system) and evasion as two separate things, it would be against the defense stat.
Just carry multiple guns, loser. When you get high level you can slap a quick load enchantment on it.
If a bow does 1d8, a flintlock pistol would be 2d6, and a musket would be 3d8.
"No guns in fantasy ever" is a stupid strawman that nobody has ever said, there's thousands of counterexamples in everything from urban fantasy to steampunk/gaslamp fantasy to settings based around any sort of post-medieval or even late-medieval tech level. You're tilting at windmills, or more likely just using a template bait and I ate it like a moron.
Gods purged a cointry that invented guns and changed the laws of physic so gunpowder no longer works.
don't like 'em
uncomfy and not in line with my comfy pastor fantasy ideals
simple as
Guns work just fine in fantasy. If you can survive being hit with a sword fifty times, you can survive being shot fifty times. The people crying about verisimilitude are actual autists who are incapable of even contemplating such concepts as different perspectives.
>give me a good reason why "guns aren't fantasy"
Guns are a weapon. A very small facet of an individual title in a wide genre. Guns aren't fantasy just as swords aren't fantasy. They can fit into fantasy, since fantasy is the faculty of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable, but they can also fit into non-fantasy. Guns, like all other weapons and other small details, are not inherently a genre.
Guns and cannons basically heralded the end of the medieval period with it’s romantic views of chivalry. The Ottoman Empire’s conquest of Istanbul is seen as the end of the medieval period and they did that with huge cannons.
The famous huge cannon the ottomans used was nigh useless
>luv me spears
>luv me swords
>luv me bows
>’ate guns
>’ate gnomes
>simple as
you ate guns and gnomes? damm bro
ITT: A bunch of overweight virgins try to out-"ackshully" eachother.
TLDR, if you want guns in your game, include them, if not don't!
Back in the origins of D&D, and I'm talking from roughly 1974 to 1985-ish, it wasn't crazy to even have laser blasters pilfered from a crashed alien space ship. Industrial and far-futuristic stuff wasn't a huge leap in sword and sorcery-style games.
So guns and fantasy make sense to me.
Just say that the knights are wearing armor made of ceramic plates. Boom, problem solved.
in your setting you can do whatever you want
>nearly 200 replies
This board sucks
The only reasonable post in this thread and only one that addressed OP's question was never even acknowledged. Of course this board sucks.
I have them sparingly, as it stands there are a few nations with musketmen but for the most part magic is far more prevalent. I'm planning to slowly wane the power of magic as a plot device in the next campaign I run in-world.
Well, I'm normally for it, but if I were to come up with an argument against, I'd say:
>Guns on their own? fine.
>Guns + magic? Potential recipe for absolute madness.
Just imagine using the right fantastic alloys and metallurgy combined with magic and alchemy so a player can basically have a cannon in their hand.
>>Guns + magic? Potential recipe for absolute madness.
That's what makes it fun.
gonna be honest, yeah, it does. After I hit 'submit' I was thinking to myself: you know? Having a 16-pounder cannon that's man-portable sounds pretty fricking fun.
Put the effect of a bag of holding in the magazine of a musket that autoloads it so all the shooter has to do is prime the charge for the hammer. Magic bullets. In my fantasy setting guns were largely a force equalizer for kingdoms with wizard academies. Armies with wizards still moved to guns but their wizards were basically huge force multipliers. Largely inspired by WHFB. Pike and shot was everywhere, guns are cheap to make, soldiers were cheap to train, and cheap to get lots of en masse.
Bullets that turn into large spikeballs when penetrating flesh.
Bullets that don't stop and keep going through the target.
Bullets that do stop because they become immovable objects, so in order to move you need to force the bullet out by contorting your body.
Bullets that just go straight up after penetrating, God forbid you're standing up straight.
Bullets that go straight down after penetrating, GOD FORBID YOU'RE STANDING UP STRAIGHT.
Bullets that turn into flesh-eating maggots after penetrating.
Bullets that turn into wasps if they don't penetrate.
Bullets that banish you.
It can be fun. It's also absolutely does not belong in a game where you intend to also have swords and bows being used. When there's magic guns, everyone, EVERYONE, will use magic guns.
Not true, look at 40k and WHFB.
I can't think of a good reason. A lot of my favorite types of fantasy are pretty gun heavy. Westerns, steampunk, urban fantasy, superhero stories, noir they even pop up sometimes in martial arts and samurai stories.
I think a lot of people don't want guns in their games because, tokenesque fantasy is one of those niche genres where they don't show up often.
No.
I like two handed long guns used as a vehicle for delivering somatic components of a spell.
Like a spell atlatl.
IF YOU CARY GUNS YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECAYING OF SOCIETY
GUns allow weak people to feel strong. It's a HUGE mistake.
if you own a gun you disrespect the natural order and hate the culling of genetic failures.
It’s anti-natural, thus liberal. All the atheist revolutions were due to the peasants having guns. And that’s since the 1800s.
History went to shit when guns were used. It’s a fact. Real men used swords, but with guns the peasants felt they were knights and this removed the boundary between the alpha aristocracy with the beta men.
You own a gun? then you are a liberal. Simple as. If you care about social order, YOU REFUSE GUNS. If you want to fight, you stop being a pussy gun b***h and fight with your peasant means.
RESPECT THE ARISTOCRACY, DUMP YOUR GUNS
PEASANTS ARE NOT EQUAL TO NOBLES
Guns are great. Kings all deserve the guillotine.
You will never be a real man.
Neither will you, because you apparently don't trust yourself to defend yourself by any means necessary.
I'm not spiritually a cowardly bugman oriental, unlike you.
Bugmen don't use guns because they don't value life enough to defend it. Guns allow women and the weak to not be preyed upon by bigger and stronger thugs. That is justice. Guns are the great equalizer and that's why they're god's justice bestowed to men. Pauper or prince, a bullet to the brain-pan is the same finality.
>Bugmen don't use guns because they don't value life enough to defend it.
Guns are an eastern invention you high fructose corn syrup slurping American.
>Guns allow women and the weak to not be preyed upon by bigger and stronger thugs.
I'm not a feminist so idgaf.
>That is justice. Guns are the great equalizer and that's why they're god's justice bestowed to men.
You've never lived in a justice based society.
Making guns sound based as frick right now. Frick monarchs and frick you.
Nice copypasta, but real men fight with their fists. Swords are anti-natural.
>IF YOU CARY CROSSBOWS YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECAYING OF SOCIETY
>CROSSBows allow weak people to feel strong. It's a HUGE mistake.
>if you own a crossbow you disrespect the natural order and hate the culling of genetic failures.
>It’s anti-natural, thus liberal. All the atheist revolutions were due to the peasants having gcrossbows. And that’s since the 1100s.
>History went to shit when crosssbows were used. It’s a fact. Real men used swords, but with crossbows the peasants felt they were knights and this removed the boundary between the alpha aristocracy with the beta men.
>You own a crossbow? then you are a liberal. Simple as. If you care about social order, YOU REFUSE CROSSBOW. If you want to fight, you stop being a pussy bolt b***h and fight with your peasant means.
>RESPECT THE ARISTOCRACY, DUMP YOUR CROSSBOWS
>PEASANTS ARE NOT EQUAL TO NOBLES
>give me a good reason why "guns aren't fantasy"
>guns aren't fantasy
Given that this is /tg/ and not Ganker, I'll give you the most /tg/ answers I can. It's not so much that guns aren't fantasy, it's:
>Players are thinking of modern firearms
This is the most common occurrence. Most players asking for guns aren't thinking about having an arquebus which needs a stand to rest on while it fires, or a handgonne which might explode in their hands. They're thinking about revolvers or 19th century flintlock muskets and pistols. Even if it's the latter, if they can't shoot at least once per round that's unfair to them.
>Gunslinger exceptionalism
If you let a player have guns and they are the only player with guns, they will act like they are the only person in the world with guns. Not being able to conceal their guns using in-universe ignorance is you being a shitty GM and anyone else having guns is unfair to them and grounds to kill the entire game, especially if there is an opponent who knows how to use them.
>Muh balance!
See the other two points. If you properly balance medieval firearms, they are out-classed by any other medieval weapon type and the players won't want to use them. If you stat them so that the players have what they want, they are insanely powerful and out-class everything else. If you strike a middle balance, you have a one attack per round popgun and might as well just use a bow.
Well, I gave it a go, OP.
If you want to have decent bandits or pirates u need guns
I cannot dispute this.
Bandits and pirates without guns: Lame, smelly, fodder
Bandits and pirates with guns: Dashing, roguish, many a young maid lost her baubles to their trade still smelly though