How can technology be tastefully placed in a fantasy setting while keeping the main form of combat mostly limited to...

How can technology be tastefully placed in a fantasy setting while keeping the main form of combat mostly limited to blades colliding?

Black powder powered rockets to move your blades at a high rate of speed at enemy troop clusters.

If you're wondering how to do it, you're probably already doing it wrong.

Gunpowder was never discovered or can't exist for whatever reason

By doing like pic related and never truly explaining it or even having anyone think about it. It doesn't work that great in an RPG because you can't exactly join a table top story in media res. You typically have to explain it since you need more world building in a typical RPG unless your players don't mind rule of cool when it comes to the setting (which they shouldn't if they aren't faggots.)

I meant to say by doing like OP's pic. Maybe my picture could be related in a very vague way.

Production of tech takes specialists. These specialists could have skills that aren't widely spread, and their equipment can be expensive to produce. Imitations might exist but lesser models are highly unreliable.

If you could arm one guy with a six shot revolver and a single case of expendable bullets or thirty with swords, what are you going to buy?

Magic (or characters being gods etc.). Seriously, no other way around.

magic

either go with the common "old things are more magical" approach. or have people who can channel their inner power into their melee weapons (like naruto, actually). or whatever you can justify that only makes swords magic and not guns.

then introduce magic armour at the same time, which requires magic weapons to breach effectively.

or just don't include guns.

>not having magical gun powder.

wouldn't make a huge amount of difference because you don't hit people with gunpowder. magic bullets might help (especially if you want to kill JFK), except this thread is about making guns less important, not more.

It's not electric, it's magic.

It's not digital, it's arcane.

It's not analogue, it's divine.

Read Dune.

>I Couldn't Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job.

You know that was my first thought (shields) but I figured there would be much asspain of it not being medieval fantasy

>Not using gunpowder flung blades.

Using aggressive technology pisses off a violent eldritch horror that swoops down and wipes out your home. Things with no application in war don't provoke it, though.

I never watched whatever anime OP's pic is from. Is it some kind of post-apoc situation where VHS tapes are lost technology?

you can't channel your energy into the blade once you've fired it away from you. it's just a normal blade at that point.

Well, if you want to go full middy then guns probably wouldn't be much of an issue.

If you want to mix it and still keep swords, simply elevate the skills of martial artists in line with something like.. Aiki(?)

Guns and ranged weapons in general are useless, because most combatants are skilled enough to avoid where they will be. Bullets can't change trajectory (much) in flight in unpredictable ways, so the best way is still just to outplay and shank them in person.

That method also allows you to have people who break the ranged meta but

Super-durable metals in small supplies that can be easily shaped into weapons and armour.

Heroes get super-armour, but have to go up against enemies with equally tough armour with weapons made of similar materials in order to pierce it.

Guns are still a thing, but Swords and Melee weapons are considered that much more important.

Um, what? It's Naruto, dude. They're ninjas.

it's from an obscure anime called naruto. it's not post-apocalyptic, it just has every kind of technology except cars and guns.

>Um, what? It's Naruto, dude. They're ninjas.
OK, so what does
>By doing like pic related and never truly explaining it or even having anyone think about it. It doesn't work that great in an RPG because you can't exactly join a table top story in media res.
mean

Anime is for fags bro

Oh ok. That gives some needed context, thanks.

It doesn't matter if anime is for fags or not; Naruto is practically pop culture at this point. It's basically the thing that introduced most kids to Japanese culture. How the fuck have you not heard of it? I mean, it's not good or anything, but at one time it was everywhere.

>Blades colliding
>Not blades colliding with shields

Just do it like Dune.

Shields make anything but CQC pointless so it's back to swords unless you want to shoot lasers and nuke yourself.

>Not having blades on your shield
What are you, a faggot?

I've heard of Naruto. That doesn't mean I am able to instantly recognize characters from the show.

If you can't recognize a fucking Naruto ninja headband, I question your length of time spent on the internet and Veeky Forums in general.

It's like "I've heard of Superman. That doesn't mean I'm able to recognize the logo."

The planet you are on has way higher gravity and magnetic fluxuations, Fucking up bullet trajectories hard and making it not worth it all that much.

It does have guns, they're just only seen in one movie and I'm not even sure they fire them.

Also from looking this up just now also a merchant has on in chapter 19 of the manga.

You realize that you'll cut your everything simply raising that thing, right? And that swinging a weapon in your other hand would eviscerate that arm? Literally worse than katana tier pleb.

I just cant imagine a high technology society that somehow hasnt developed guns, or some form of firearms at some point of their technological development.If you guys know anything about chemistry or physics, there's more than one way to make an explosion, more than one way to conceivably make a 'firearm' given enough time.

And if guns exist, melee combat becomes near impossible. Short of, you know, people having magical shielding of sorts, or spells.

But then again, then you start getting people to dislike magic, when it starts shitting on guns and modern tactics like they were nothing.Which, realistically, if you can cast Wind Wall, or Protection from Missles, there's not much bullets are gonna do againts you.

Back on track, they use VHS in the show on a television that looks like it comes from the mid-to late-fifties. They also show a scene with a guy manning a large camera on a podium like you might have seen on a set in a recording studio in the same era. They're never mentioned, aside from the scenes they're seen in, and technology on that level isn't shown anywhere else, so it's never really explained.

Make it more explicit that adventurers are basically demigods. Abandon the pretence that their feats are realistic.

No one discovering it would be possible, as the three basic elements existed and were known for 100's if not 1000's of years before gunpowder was created.

Alternately you could say on of the basic elements don't exist, but I'm not sure what other modern technology would not be able to be made because of this.

What about the computer from the Chunin Exams, and the one Kabuto uses?

Personally, my headcanon is that chakra fucks with electronics and tech, so while civvies might use tech, Ninjas would stick to the bare minimum since it wouldn't do to rely in something that your entire existence tends to make malfunction

wizards can cast shit at range, while complex stuff is difficult making a spark in the pile of explosive powder some guy is carrying is pretty easy. With magic proofing being expensive and guns being useless unit they can shoot the wizard they never really develop .
other things work, mabye you have magical ways of distributing over an areas wider than what's hit ( though this would make blades worse too).
Your setting could also be to damp and humid for early gunpowder to light also making them more difficult and unlikely to be developed
Essentially user Identify what you want to be different in your world from ours ( guns no swords yes) identify how the change happened in our world ( many things for guns here) make a aspec of your world something that stops that. and most importantly think about the broader effects that it has on your setting.

There's also contemporary construction equipment on the bridge where that thing happens.

I saw like one episode (or three?) once and decided I didn't like the show because it kept pulling its punches instead of following through, depriving setup and scene of all payoff and meaning.

Assume for the most part that just because super-human warriors can exist doesn't mean everyone in the universe is one. Farmer joe isn't going to be so badass that he can tilt his head to the left ever so slightly a blow the bullet off its trajectory with a casual sigh.

Treat people who go through the training or whatever to get to that level as essentially human tanks. You're not going to have whole armies of these guys and when they show up you have your tanks deal with them while your average foot soldier is going to deal with the foot soldiers and the people who can punch him from 20 feet away.

Think logically about this people, even in D&D with it's crazy logic not every is some kind of nigh invulnerable god being.

Someone hasn't been keeping up.
The newest development in Naruto is a device worn on your arm that changes fucking everything about how people are going to fight.
Usually, you need to learn a technique, train with it, then use it in combat. If you don't have an affinity for the kind of technique, it's harder to get through that process.
This new device is in two parts: an arm-mounted dispenser, and a series of miniature scrolls that contain techniques. People who can do a technique put it into the scroll, someone who can't pops it out of the dispenser, crushes it in their palm and out pops the technique. No need for education, training or conditioning. Just point and click.

This is basically the Naruto equivalent of a firearm in a world of bows.

>Alternately you could say on of the basic elements don't exist
The basic components of black power are extremely common: sulfur, charcoal and potassium nitrate. The last one can be obtained from a wide array of sources, including animal waste, it just isn't feasible. But maybe you can change the rules of chemistry in your setting to make the mix of these elements less reactive.

Adventure in countries where public ownership of firearms is outlawed and pretend that it actually works.

Your forgetting cannons, only a few of them are needed to wreck most fortresses. Also on a personal scale if some one can get a magic proof powder horn/flask for adventures/wealthy/I know a wizard/alchemist who did it cheep.

The sulfur was added to early gunpowder to make it easier to light and unless it was actually wet as in rain it would fire even in extreme humidity.

Obscure? Really?

God I'm pretty sure I just fell for bait...

More like obvious sarcasm.

More like a Swiss army knife that can use rpgs. In the spin-off, they load a rasengan into the same thing and fire it off like a freaking missile. I guess the tech worked because it never came up so you would forget to question it?

The Boruto movie actually goes the exact opposite. Naruto has a laptop computer, and konoha's developed some device that allows storage of of different jutsu for later use even by somebody else, somebody who couldn't even cast it on their own.

They're limited in use because SOMEBODY'S gotta train and be awesome enough to store the stuff as ammo, but Boruto uses one to cheat.

They don't have advanced weapons. There never was any desire to design highly advanced weapons as magical blades and bows were already good. They use the more advanced manufacturing technologies to produce better swords and armour but actually trying to use black powder as a weapon seems silly when a fireball from a wizard is much more powerful, reliable AND the rebelling peasants can't steal a court wizard or quickly train to use a fire-sword while they could do a lot of damage with a better bomb or something.

The writer had a very simple rule while wondering what tech is available in the setting.

>If it would mean that ninjas and ninja tools become useless then it does not exist.

They have TVs, VCRs radios and such. They don't have guns (well apart from that other kingdom across the sea that showed up once to kick everyones ass before being driven out by the heroes) because that would reduce the usefulness of swords and kunai and whatnot. They don't have surveillance technology (well apart from the cameras) because that would reduce the usefulness of ninjas that can sense enemies.

There is no bullshit explanation that has been made up for WHY the technology is skewed so weirdly, it's just that the setting was designed for ninjas and therefore anything that would reduce the amount of ninjas and ninja-accessories does not exist.

The Amber solution: gunpowder does not exist. Things just don't explode so quickly. Non-explosive sorts of fuel still do, so industry is possible, although limited in some ways because internal combustion engines probably don't work either.
(You can also have like one guy that carves tiny exploding seals into metal balls and stuffs them into a tube to launch them super-fast.)

The high kung-fu solution: you gotta kill fast and bullets too slow. People are so badass with swords that they can block bullets like no problem, and throw shurikens stronger than guns throw bullets.

The Dune solution: forcefields block anything faster than X, so fights are determined by skill.

Pleb.

The Rurouni Kenshin way

Technology is taking the land by storm, but due to instability governments are doing their best to control its proliferation, and without their open support and infrastructure it can only turn up in benign civilian circumstances or as one-off curiosities in the criminal underworld.

Why did Sin hate machina so much?

Silverberg does it masterfully.
Majipoor is an incredibly huge planet, but it has barely any metal or fossil fuels. What tech they do have, comes from the earliest settlers and those very few occasions when a spaceship comes to visit (like, once or twice in a century).
They have blasters and vehicles capable of floating, but these are awfully rare. Even the coronal's (the planet's king, technically) private army is just lance cavalry.

Most of modern sciences have been lost or forgotten because they have no use for it.

The high-tech stuff they have is seen as highly mystical and no one really knows how they work. Prime example of this is the "judgement" system: it's basically planet-wide psychic control through nice dreams or the worst nightmares you could ever have. The people kind of worship the two main figures of the "institutes" that work these systems: the Lady of Sleep is seen as a benevolent, motherly figure while the King of Dreams is the cruel-but-lawful, scary man.

The MC takes a trip to the island of the Lady and meets plenty of people who work there, but they don't seem to be aware of the fact that it'd basically incredibly advanced tech they're using: their work is portrayed as a faithful profession of ascetic monks, meditating (sending dreams) all around the planet.

Except that guns and melee coexisted for several centuries.

As ridiculous as the weapons are in it, RWBY has Dust being both used for "magic" and technology, but Dust doesn't work the further it gets from the planet so no space travel, but the internet is around because of cell towers.

There's also a gun in chapter 19 of the manga.