Fixing the Fantasy of Fantasy Gaming

[MGuy]

The problem is you can easily get into the fallacy that the musket was the uber weapon that killed armor when this was never the case. Even when accuracy was improved, as the British found out when they discovered that even though their rifles could kill the guy charging at them with a wicked weapon, it didn't stop the fatally wounded man from reaching them and chopping off their heads before they died.

You could but you don't have to. That's the point of good design. You "can" make it so that rifles penetrate armor better as long as you give them a drawback significant enough to make other ranged weapons better in other cases but not so damning as to make someone not want to use rifles at all. What I would like, and have worked on myself in the ruleset I'm making, is to make weapon choice "matter". Making certain weapons better for X and other weapons better for Y at the very least encourages the use of different weapons so your choice doesn't have to come down to "Which does the most damage/has the highest crit threat range".

[fectin]

The problem is you can easily get into the fallacy that the musket was the uber weapon that killed armor when this was never the case. Even when accuracy was improved, as the British found out when they discovered that even though their rifles could kill the guy charging at them with a wicked weapon, it didn't stop the fatally wounded man from reaching them and chopping off their heads before they died.

You could but you don't have to. That's the point of good design. You "can" make it so that rifles penetrate armor better as long as you give them a drawback significant enough to make other ranged weapons better in other cases but not so damning as to make someone not want to use rifles at all. What I would like, and have worked on myself in the ruleset I'm making, is to make weapon choice "matter". Making certain weapons better for X and other weapons better for Y at the very least encourages the use of different weapons so your choice doesn't have to come down to "Which does the most damage/has the highest crit threat range".

Like crossbows, which are slow to reload and definitely kill iterative attacks.

[Avoraciopoctules]

My method of dealing with problems raised by the technical details of historical muskets and rifles is to make D&D equivalents starkly different in some respect. That's part of why I'm contemplating magnetic slugthrowers.

The problem with this is that it takes up more conceptual space and makes it difficult to get a vaguely scientific understanding of how the tech works. Is it better to come up with something where I can precisely explain how it works?

[PoliteNewb]

My method of dealing with problems raised by the technical details of historical muskets and rifles is to make D&D equivalents starkly different in some respect. That's part of why I'm contemplating magnetic slugthrowers.

The problem with this is that it takes up more conceptual space and makes it difficult to get a vaguely scientific understanding of how the tech works. Is it better to come up with something where I can precisely explain how it works?

You mentioned magical heat/lightning guns...why not make the slugthrowers telekinesis-powered? The Catapult spell (from Comp Scoundrel) is pretty much "throw something really fast", sounds like some variation could be used to make a device that hurls metal pellets at fairly high velocities.

[K]

My method of dealing with problems raised by the technical details of historical muskets and rifles is to make D&D equivalents starkly different in some respect. That's part of why I'm contemplating magnetic slugthrowers.

The problem with this is that it takes up more conceptual space and makes it difficult to get a vaguely scientific understanding of how the tech works. Is it better to come up with something where I can precisely explain how it works?

DnD land is at a default more advanced in terms of technology than most times in history, so I don't see why one would have to go historical at all.

I mean, we are talking about cultures where mechanical men are simply rare and alchemy is advanced enough to be available in even small hamlets, so getting together the workmanship to build a simple gun shouldn't be hard at all.

Game mechanically, you can't make guns more powerful than bows and arrows or throwing daggers or else no player will ever use anything but guns. That's just a simple fact.

[A Man In Black]

Guns and fantasy don’t mix well, but not for the reasons you might think. and some other stuff

This is a great example of the sort of "Fantasy represents muscle-powered weapons well but not firearms because they are special" claptrap that leads to Optional Realistically Deadly Gun Rules that nobody plays with ever.

[Ice9]

Doesn't seem that difficult to balance - what if guns required a feat?
For the cost of a feat, it can be significantly better than your basic bow. But how does that even make sense, given that a major advantage of guns was the reduced training required? I'd make it a feat to reload. So without the feat, you can still fire it just fine, but it takes a move action or longer to reload, making it useless past low-level. With the feat, you can make iterative attacks. So who uses guns?
* People who spent a feat on it.
* Low-level people.
* People who take a single shot, then drop the gun and switch to another weapon.

Which seems pretty much on point, actually.

[kzt]

I've heard of the same incident, but it's normally attributed to the fact that some people find it hard to shoot other human beings, and if placed in a big group where no one can tell if they are shooting or not, sometimes don't shoot. The "poor boy" in question probably just kept loading, raising his gun, pretending to shoot, then loading again.
(source "On Killing", Dave Grossman)

Grossman is not an idiot, but the starting point for "On Killing" is the studies SLA Marshal did in "Me Against Fire". Except that it turns out that SLA Marshal MADE IT ALL UP!! http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/SLA_Mar ... g-Data.htm

So no, the most likely answer IS that the gun misfired.

[Prak]

So, I've been thinking you could balance guns doing more damage by making them more expensive, figuring there had to be some correlation between damage and cost, since wealth is really just power in a numerical scale.

...there seems to be no such correlation.

[kzt]

In most cases, if you shoot a man with a large caliber flintlock, he's not going to reach you and chop your head off. He's probably going to be busy screaming and bleeding.

If you don't hit a major bone or CNS, no. Pain often get ignored, even from severe wounds. A determined guy will keep going. I had an instructor that chased an escaped inmate across the desert for a mile after the inmate was shot in the back by a 12 gauge shotgun slug. The round entered his buttocks, and skidded down his femur and lodged against the back of his knee. What stopped the guy was the cramps it eventually caused him, 20 minutes or so later. He spent quite a bit of time the hospital after that.

Then there is the example of one Michael Lee Platt. He was wounded at the start of the fight, taking an unsurvivable hit to a major artery. He then proceeded to advance and kill two FBI agents and wound 5 more. In the process he got shot 11 more times in the several minute long gunfight.

Motivated people are sometimes really hard to stop.

[kzt]

If you restrict them to muzzle loaders without minie balls or percussion caps, the reload will take a while.

Historically archers had better range and faster fire than guns up until the 1800s. Guns are better at penetrating armor, but that's about it. Whether this offers any advantage in a game depends on mechanics.

The main thing that gunpowder in a fantasy game offers that no other weapon will have is hand grenades.

[K]

Gunpowder offers the ability to create siege weapons, so people can load level 1 of the Lich King's castle with powder and blow it and collapse the castle rather than fighting their way up for four or five levels of various mobs.

Magic can have weird restrictions on it to prevent people from killing the Lich King unfairly, but reality as people know it has no such restrictions.

[Koumei]

...if they can actually get it into the ground floor there. This would sort of involve incredible sneaking about, many invisible teleportations, or simply murdering the ground floor then loading it up.

Honestly getting it all there makes for a good enough adventure that you DESERVE the huge explosion to work. Everyone actually would feel pretty satisfied as a result of that.

[Prak]

...if they can actually get it into the ground floor there. This would sort of involve incredible sneaking about, many invisible teleportations, or simply murdering the ground floor then loading it up.

Honestly getting it all there makes for a good enough adventure that you DESERVE the huge explosion to work. Everyone actually would feel pretty satisfied as a result of that.

Bonus xp for Fight Club references... at least in my game...

[PoliteNewb]

I've heard of the same incident, but it's normally attributed to the fact that some people find it hard to shoot other human beings, and if placed in a big group where no one can tell if they are shooting or not, sometimes don't shoot. The "poor boy" in question probably just kept loading, raising his gun, pretending to shoot, then loading again.
(source "On Killing", Dave Grossman)

Grossman is not an idiot, but the starting point for "On Killing" is the studies SLA Marshal did in "Me Against Fire". Except that it turns out that SLA Marshal MADE IT ALL UP!! http://www.theppsc.org/Grossman/SLA_Mar ... g-Data.htm

So no, the most likely answer IS that the gun misfired.

I appreciate the heads up on the bad data. That said:

1.) There is considerable doubt about the accuracy and supporting evidence of Marshall's claims...but that's not the same as saying he "made it all up", which I haven't seen anyone (even on your link there) say that.

2.) Even if Marshall (and thus, Grossman) are incorrect...I still find the misfire explanation to be lacking. 10 misfires? And the guy never noticed that his gun wasn't actually firing? I suppose it's possible, but is it more reasonable than the explanation that he simply kept reloading without actually firing?

If you don't hit a major bone or CNS, no. Pain often get ignored, even from severe wounds. A determined guy will keep going. I had an instructor that chased an escaped inmate across the desert for a mile after the inmate was shot in the back by a 12 gauge shotgun slug. The round entered his buttocks, and skidded down his femur and lodged against the back of his knee. What stopped the guy was the cramps it eventually caused him, 20 minutes or so later. He spent quite a bit of time the hospital after that.

Then there is the example of one Michael Lee Platt. He was wounded at the start of the fight, taking an unsurvivable hit to a major artery. He then proceeded to advance and kill two FBI agents and wound 5 more. In the process he got shot 11 more times in the several minute long gunfight.

Motivated people are sometimes really hard to stop.

While I don't doubt both those accounts are true, they are also anecdotal, and you can find equal examples of people shot with relatively minor injuries but who nevertheless collapsed from shock. I said "most often", though I will now admit I don't have any statistical data. Do you have any to support your claim of "people "often" ignoring pain and wounds?

[K]

...if they can actually get it into the ground floor there. This would sort of involve incredible sneaking about, many invisible teleportations, or simply murdering the ground floor then loading it up.

Honestly getting it all there makes for a good enough adventure that you DESERVE the huge explosion to work. Everyone actually would feel pretty satisfied as a result of that.

We are talking explosives here. The adventure runs like this:

1. Blow hole in wall.

2. Run in with wagons of explosive, casting Walls of Force and the like to keep people off you.

3. Drop Walls, and cast Delayed Blast Fireball, possibly off a scroll.

4. Win.

Or, the adventure runs like this:

1. Cast Gate.

2. Roll in wagon with fuses burning.

3. Win.

Considering most DMs would spend days writing up levels of encounters, they aren't going to like either of these options.

[Avoraciopoctules]

You mentioned magical heat/lightning guns...why not make the slugthrowers telekinesis-powered? The Catapult spell (from Comp Scoundrel) is pretty much "throw something really fast", sounds like some variation could be used to make a device that hurls metal pellets at fairly high velocities.

I could, but then I'd miss out on all of the wacky exploits players might come up with if they found a warehouse full of industrial magnets. There's all sorts of ways to mess with magnetic guns since we actually do have the capability to answer "Fucking magnets, how do they work?" with a bit of online research.

Then again, telekinesis is magical enough that I could make up some stuff that gives the tech exploitable flaws. Maybe all the slugs leave glowing trails, leaving it clear where shots are coming from and/or a shield against magic stops gunfire cold.

My method of dealing with problems raised by the technical details of historical muskets and rifles is to make D&D equivalents starkly different in some respect. That's part of why I'm contemplating magnetic slugthrowers.

The problem with this is that it takes up more conceptual space and makes it difficult to get a vaguely scientific understanding of how the tech works. Is it better to come up with something where I can precisely explain how it works?

DnD land is at a default more advanced in terms of technology than most times in history, so I don't see why one would have to go historical at all.

I mean, we are talking about cultures where mechanical men are simply rare and alchemy is advanced enough to be available in even small hamlets, so getting together the workmanship to build a simple gun shouldn't be hard at all.

I agree. However, if something is described as a "rifle" or "musket", players will have a number of preconceptions that will likely vary from person to person and potentially lead to arguments over the mechanical implementation of the weapons. I can avoid some of these by making the standard gun a "rail rifle" or something.

Then again, I also might be able to resolve the issues by just explaining how and why things work the way they do in the gun handout the players get. And more conventional rifles mean highly exploitable explosive propellant, so the PCs can get missions to blow up ammo stores. Or collapse lich castles. Both of which could be pretty cool.

Game mechanically, you can't make guns more powerful than bows and arrows or throwing daggers or else no player will ever use anything but guns. That's just a simple fact.

Yeah. So I let PC archers use exploding or otherwise exceptional arrows and simply reconcile myself to the fact that lots of the sharp pointy things people could conceivably chuck at their foes will be outdated.

[Fuchs]

We are talking explosives here. The adventure runs like this:

1. Blow hole in wall.

2. Run in with wagons of explosive, casting Walls of Force and the like to keep people off you.

3. Drop Walls, and cast Delayed Blast Fireball, possibly off a scroll.

4. Win.

Or, the adventure runs like this:

1. Cast Gate.

2. Roll in wagon with fuses burning.

3. Win.

Considering most DMs would spend days writing up levels of encounters, they aren't going to like either of these options.

I am not sure that anything that is a challenge for a character with access to Wall of Force (much less gate) should be easily taken out by a wagon full of gunpowder.

[kzt]

While I don't doubt both those accounts are true, they are also anecdotal, and you can find equal examples of people shot with relatively minor injuries but who nevertheless collapsed from shock. I said "most often", though I will now admit I don't have any statistical data. Do you have any to support your claim of "people "often" ignoring pain and wounds?

This is hard. There are two ways people get convinced to stop doing whatever they were doing that caused someone to shoot at them.

1) They take damage that makes them physiologically incapable of continuing the fight. This is typically a CNS hit (brain/spine), breaking a major bone, losing use of their hand(s), or bleeding out.

2) They are convinced to stop whatever they were doing without being physiologically incapacitated. They don't even need to be hit, the fact that their armed robbery has become a shootout might cause some people to beat feet or surrender. In addition the fact that they did not get physiologically incapacitated by gunfire doesn't mean they they didn't take a fatal wound. Having the guy who killed you die in the trauma bay 20 minutes later from the wounds you inflicted is a less than optimal outcome.

This is why there is huge difference between a determined/committed attacker and one who isn't. People who are willing to get killed to get to you are a lot harder to stop than someone who didn't really expect this whole "being shot" hassle.

"There is one way to instantly incapacitate an intended target: This mechanism is to destroy the brainstem, which is the part of the brain just above the spinal cord that is the “master control” center for all body functions. It controls heart beat, breathing, responses, etc. This is the sniper’s domain and would be considered the location of the instant “stop and drop.” This small area is difficult to hit with a handgun for a variety of reasons and beyond the scope of this article. The second way to quickly incapacitate is to have the body lose enough blood so that the brain is no longer capable of normal function due to loss of oxygen to the brain tissue. Destroying the heart, causing enough major blood vessels to open and leak the blood out of the arteries and veins are the means to this mechanism of incapacitation. Unfortunately, voluntary act­­­­­­ions (a bad guy’s gun shooting at you) can continue for up to 15 seconds after the heart is completely destroyed! This places the tactical officer at tremendous risk for injury if their target still is able to function."

It's not exactly possible to conduct a controlled scientific study where people get shot, so you can tell exactly what happened. People who have been in a lot of gunfights typically have seen multiple people who "took a lot of killing". They have also seen people who didn't even realize they were injured until the fight was over.

[K]

I am not sure that anything that is a challenge for a character with access to Wall of Force (much less gate) should be easily taken out by a wagon full of gunpowder.

That stuff is just scrolls. A decent UMD Rogue would pull off casting them at a pretty low level at a fraction of party wealth.

Considering that you get to then rummage the rubble for loots, it's totally worth it.

[Username17]

As long as people insist on enemies that can be seriously inconvenienced by "a guy who totally has some training and also a sword", then a wagon full of gunpowder will always be "overpowered".

-Username17

[Fuchs]

I am not sure that anything that is a challenge for a character with access to Wall of Force (much less gate) should be easily taken out by a wagon full of gunpowder.

That stuff is just scrolls. A decent UMD Rogue would pull off casting them at a pretty low level at a fraction of party wealth.

Considering that you get to then rummage the rubble for loots, it's totally worth it.

If I had access to gate for a fraction of the party wealth at low level I'd probably could do something far more profitable than blowing up a dungeon and looting it. Same goes, if not as pronounced, for a few scrolls of wall of force.

[Judging__Eagle]

Seriously.....


anything that is motile should be "seriously inconvenienced" by a length of carbon steel.

Even golems and undead of all kinds.

A sword doesn't "chop and stab" it really.... just "breaks bones".

Eventually, medieval protection for non-armour wearing soldiers included what amounts to "steel slats" that rested along the outsides of limbs. A pair of flat steel lengths with a ring to allow the elbow to bend; and a ring at the top to attach to the shoulders became one of the better defenses on the cheap against the massive power of a sword, its ability to shatter bones with strikes.

Honestly, I'm actually someone who insists on (mundane tier) enemies being seriously inconvenienced by metal tools.

For heroic/legendary/epic tiers; having a Magic, Legendary, or Epic sword should be "more than enough" to really inconvenience a Stone Golem (CR 10); since it has, you know knees that it bends at, and all joints are weak points in quite literally every structure. The Legendary Sword is going to be what you want for a Kraken (12) or Beholder (13). While a Cornugon/Horned Devil (16), Nightwalker (16) or Marilith (17) are going to laugh at anyone who doesn't carry some sort of Epic weapon when trying to melee them.

Or, are faced by a Creature who is of those appropriate tiers.

So, since we really do want stuff like Conan being viable till "level 20"; and we don't need him to 'have' to have a gladius that has a "Purple" name. He's an Epic level creature, and seriously has Epic Technique 6, Epic Physique 6, Epic Canny Dodge 4, and Epic Assassinate 5 on his character sheet.

Of course, I want a point buy system; where PCs "buy" abilities "for their tier". They can buy lower tier abilities with current points, except that you seriously get 10 lower tier points per every higher tier points. Being a near master of Mortal Techinque, leader of Mortal Followers, owner of Mortal Weaponry, and seven other Mortal tier things isn't quite as good as being a near master of Heroic Technique, since Mortal Tier attacks are stuff like "Single Target attack" and Heroic "starts" at "Hit everyone within your reach, on your normal attack".

I think that having discrete power tiers that are pre-established; and not a level 1-20 "list" will help people actually clue in that Aragorn is a Mortal character, he only ever attacks one guy at a time. Sir Kay seriously "fights like three people" while only using one weapon and a shield, that's Heroic/Legendary right there.

Of course, the knight of King Arthur's table who has the ability "always completes quests" is.... seriously powerful, and while he adventures with Sir Kay, nothing guarantees that everyone will survive the adventure except Mr. Auto-win.
====


Edit:

Other characters, since Form is powers people can just buy into, we can do Hercules (Some category of Form [Currently: Innate/Achieved/Transformed]: Innate (Son of Zeus)

[tzor]

Loading was somewhat slow (slower than a smoothbore musket, anyway), but wikipedia cites 1 minute, and I think it was faster with patched balls.

That means that you might have been able to hand wave them in 1E, but in the later editions with 10 second rounds, you are screwed, that's a full 10 ROUNDS to reload. Back in 3E days, that means one shot per combat. 4E combat lasts longer, but it still means one shot (perhaps 2) per coumbat and you are stuck doing nothing but reloading the entirity of the encounter.

Of course, once you realize that reality has absolutely nothing to do with fantasy combat, you can start to understand the process of fluff and intergration that would be necessary to make them practical in any rule system. Never the less, you have to defenestrate reality in order to get it to work.

(edit: I can never spell that word even when I am staring it in the face.)

[sabs]

This is why.. close combat tended to look like.

I fire my preloaded pistol at you, and then anyone still alive I fight with a sword. Or, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, and I carry 4 pre-loaded pistols on me, at all times.