Guns in Games: Fantasy Settings
By Cape Rust
I hope that last week’s primer was helpful to a few of you, and if nothing else you had a few cool pictures to look at. This week I’m going to discuss a few of the different settings or time periods that guns have been found in and, based on real world history, give you an idea of how those guns might behave and hopefully give you some interesting ideas to throw into your game. One thing you have to remember as a GM is that guns, like some magic items, can really unbalance your game. Most game designers take this into account when they design their rules, but if you have the kind of players I normally sit with at the table, you know they will find a way to break those rules and find just the right combination of skills, feats, templates, knacks and aspects to twink guns and the characters that wield them.
I will be honest; I am not a big fan of guns in fantasy settings, but I know there are many people who absolutely love them. Several fantasy settings have done a good job of incorporating guns into this genre (typically black powder ones), with Pathfinder being the biggest, most recent standout. Throughout their history, guns have had different levels of reliability and like most new things in their early stages, guns had numerous problems and this has to be reflected in every game involving them, no matter what time period. Most guns I have seen introduced into fantasy settings tend to actually skip a few evolutions of the development of real world fire arms and include pistols that were not around during the early, early stages of firearms. To me, any type of firearms in fantasy settings should be rare, unreliable, and powerful. The gun and ammunition should be really expensive and really hard to get. Gunpowder is in essence an alchemical mixture and in most fantasy settings magic users tend to be the best alchemists. Based on this, I would think wizards would loath the production of gunpowder as it would put the power of magic in the hands of the non-magical folk. I love giving magic users bonuses if they dislike firearms and conversely I normally give the people who use firearms a small bonus to hit magic users, but that is just me.
In the gun-filled fantasy setting, I like to enforce the rules as written as long as they respect the early development of the gun. I don’t think pistols in fantasy settings should be treated like crossbow pistols and left at that. I think things like wet weather and shoddy workmanship should play a larger factor in their normal use. They should break easier than other weapons and when they break it should be spectacular. Firearms should take a long time to load and several skills, knack or feats to operate, but when they hit it should be really cool and do a lot of damage! One trap I have seen with firearms in fantasy settings is when GMs like to make them mysterious, but after a few encounters that gets old. A good way to keep firearms feeling fresh is to introduce different types or add things like several barrels, huge barrels, or some impossible design that would only work in a world full of magic (avoid machine guns, they tend to fall into the game breaker category).
Logic would dictate that full-plate armor or even the dense chainmail armor might be able to defeat primitive firearms; but let’s face it, if there are guns in your world, how fun is it if you can only engage a few special targets? Now the sound of lead destroying undead flesh is satisfying in any genre, but as a GM you have to use common sense. Don’t allow your players to buy guns and expensive ammo and take all sorts of character options to use guns to simply gimp them during the game. Make guns a challenge, but don’t make the entire adventure revolve around just trying to find ammo or gunpowder. If you don’t like guns in a fantasy settings, don’t take it out on the players, just don’t allow them at all. If you have a player who just can’t live without a gun, negotiate the ins and outs of guns before the game starts so you both know the deal. Remember, good GMs don’t kill their players, good GMs provide opportunities for players to get killed.
Next week we will examine guns and pirates and not so civil wars.
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