A. What is the best justification for not including gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?

that is land warfare, on ze seas, gunpoweder weapons were huge, both small hand held versions, the cannons on the ships. turkish loved their gunpowder weapons, it was one of the two things thatmade their fleet the best in the world for a very long time.

If yeh got elves that can do the woodshaping real easy with singing them or whatever in your setting, you can say the primary ranged weapon for armies (And trade good for elvish enclaves) is really fuckin quickly sung/made Bows that the elves have mass manufactured.
But obviously you can't sing Iron with woodmagic, so firearm mass manufacture hasn't come into effect yet.

A = Magic is so common that a wand of fireball is cheaper and easier to use than a gun so the tech was never made

B = Magic prevents technology from working

>A. As for the 'Banestorm' setting the Mage elìte is well aware of the implicatin of mass spread of gunpowder tech in term of power structure (warfare, siege, etc..). To mantain 'order' mages conspire togheter by hiding the knowledge and make disappear whatever person may invent the gunpowder.

B. 'Forgotten Realms' lel

A. It just doesn't happen (yet). IIRC IRL it was bunch of random discoveries and it took quite a long time for boom sticks to gain popularity. You can even have blackpowder "grenades" but no guns if you want.
B. Le magic interference changes how atoms work in very specific way that makes blackpowder useless, but everything else works exactly the same.

>In late middle-ages gunpowder did not really change the nature of warfare that much.
Tell that to the citizens of Constantinople.

What does FR does about this?

>A. The world is set in the 13th century and as such the use of powder isn't widespread yet. Plate armours are extremely rare because they are gifts of the gods. Most Knights have chainmail and are unaware plate even exist.
>B. Magic doesn't make it werk

Gunpowder weapons are not suitable for adventurers because of the noise.

>A. I don't like it
>B. I don't like it

A. They didn't invent them yet. Or, if by all indications they should have, chemistry of the world is slightly different, so gunpowder either isn't viable at all, or is pretty weak, or resources for gunpowder or barrels are hard to find.

B. Magic somehow interferes with "technology". Or >we have magic we don't need that shit

A poorly made gun can
>1. Blow up, either in your face, your hands, or everywhere.
>2. The accuracy could be something like 90% fail rate depending on distance.
>3. What the fuck dose this bit on the thing do???
It can be very simple for a poor gun to be worse than a expertly made bow/crossbow.

If i remember correctly the older edition of FR (2e) states that the world is on the verge of change (renaissance) so the introduction of gunpowder is on the run. Newer editions just freeze the shit out of the setting, revoluzionited it (spellplague) and reverted it, so the setting is a static one in a 'marvel comics' sense.

>B. 'Forgotten Realms' lel
Probably should do more research.
WotC forgot that the Realms had gunpowder weapons ever since 2e (and in fact it says that within 5 years you could find them in every properly stocked weapon shop in every larger settlement due to how fast they would spread), but as of 2e FR had been updated to a roughly mid 14th century level of gunpowder weaponry.

WotC forgot this because...well, WotC Realms is like the low-quality McDonalds version of an already barely sufficient McDonalds hamburger.

As i stated here i'm well aware of that.

In fact i just quoted the FR just for the sake of inflaming the discussion

They were more on the early 14th century level of gunpowder technology (so roughly matching that of their existing weapons and armor sciences) actually; so no “pistol” type guns but you’d get bulkier canons and handguns and the like.
They were still well away from being at Warhammer Fantasy levels of gunpowder, but given a century or so they’d get there eventually.

I’ve been including them in my home FR game actually. Naval battles just aren’t the same without canons anyhow.

Or Berserk.
Berserk has about that level of gunpowder development.

>What is the best justification for not including gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?
Because the DM said so. Any other justification is retarded and completely ignores the greatest wealth of background information and setting inspiration ever: Real Life.

>What is the worst justification for not including gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?
"They break the balance"

>Without considering the economics of mass infantry, guns are statistically poorer missile weapons than bows or even crossbows up until metallurgical development introduces the possibility for rifling that also doesn't blow up in your face.
Ah, so that is why bows and crossbows were the most common ranged weapons up until the mid-19th century.

>a poorly made thing is worse then an expertly made thing.

Gee wizz user how did you become so wise.

Idea: the place is super-damp/whatever so your gunpowder can't stay dry enough in large enough quantities to be of any military use.

How would the setting break if anti-bullet magic was cheap enough to equip peasant armies? How would non-exploitable anti-bullet magic work? Just stopping/deflecting fast moving objects approaching a person?

Every setting has oil/fat/wax, so every setting has waterproof materials.

Technology not working with magic is shit but its still better than anything that implies "muh chemistry is different", no its not

A primitive gun is literally just a tube with one end blocked up and a touch hole. If magic shuts it down then you can't even have wheels.

>anti-bullet magic is easy and common enough to make guns useless
>but any other kind of barrier magic is not because of arbitrary reasons

Its Dune all over again

Well, obviously it would shut down bows too. But beyond projectile weapons, what else moves fast enough to trigger the barrier? The Dune solution may be the best option available.

Gunpowder is just sulfur, carbon and potassium nitrate, if magic shuts it down then you cant even have basic biology

And you don't even strictly need the sulfur. But nobody said magic would shut down chemistry.

shutting down chemistry is the only way gunpowder wouldnt work

>you can't have guns without gunpowder
Hello.

If chemistry is different, it could mean that the whole periodic table is different, organics are different, everything can be different. Biology could work just because gods said so and created souls.

Nobody suggested magic making gunpowder not work as a good idea.

So the gods conveniently decided that everything coincidentally works the same as our world except for gunpowder, thats an even shittier explanation

Yes they did

It was only suggested as a 'B' option.

>>A. What is the best justification for not including gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?

They don't have it yet.

>>B. What is the worst justification for not including gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?

The DM is too fucking lazy and/or stupid to deal with the consequences.

>Without considering the economics of mass infantry, guns are statistically poorer missile weapons than bows or even crossbows up until metallurgical development introduces the possibility for rifling that also doesn't blow up in your face.

I'm going to cross post this to /k and then enjoy watching them BBQ your ignorant ass.

>So the gods conveniently decided that everything coincidentally works the same as our world except for gunpowder, thats an even shittier explanation
No, they didn't decide on gunpowder, they only created life.

Firearms predate full body plate armor

>only the chemical reactions I dont like need a scientific explanation, everything else is handwaved by the gods

OK

I don't know anything, but let's say "Worst justification" is a draw between your B and trying to explain it from the point of realism
A: "Game is set in early medieval/BC"

No ya dunce. The world works in a certain way, but then gods decide to make life possible. They don't bother about anything else. Of course in the end it boils down to what I like and what I want my setting to look like.

Dune shields are highly exploitable though, because they can explode, and because you can set the trigger speed. It needs a fixed speed, and there needs to be some justification for why it's fixed. The only suitable limit I can think of is the speed of sound, which doesn't really shut down firearms, only makes them a bit more inconvenient.

Okay, so whats the difference between your dumb handwave and just straigh up saying "I dont want gunpowder in my setting, fuck reasons"

It sounds more reasonable than coming up with a super-contrived way of avoiding it such as pretending you know how to handle a world that works through different logic

I'm not wise, I just meet a minimum standard of reasoning, for Veeky Forums I might as well be a guardian wizard.
Pointing out the obvious isn't bad, sometimes it clearly needs to be said.

The difference is that I pretend that there's logic behind things, and that helps make the world more believable for some. That's how all justifications in fiction work, now you know.

Saltpeter doesn’t occur naturally locally and its artificial creation from burning down animal faeces or whatever makes it such low quantities that it’s too expensive to use for anything but field artillery.

Thats my understanding of why guns didnt take off sooner.

Worst reason: Honour/chivalry

>Best excuse not to use gunpowder
"It's been discovered and was employed a hunned years ago to terrible effect by a sect of nutter alchemists. Today the compounds needed are unearthed, shipped to separate parts of the world and destroyed to prevent that kind of easy, wholesale destruction"
>worst reason to deny it
Pretty much all of them are bullshit. It's a shitcunt dm who can't handle guns or deliberately fucks them over to avenge himself on players

So if it's exactly different enough to stonewall gunpowder. What else happens and why, exactly does it work this way? If you're gonna be a faggot about it then I want to see the science charting out the ripples from this and then the proof that gunpowder is impossible to make

>Today the compounds needed
Rotten shit/piss, and partly burned plants. How exactly are you going to ship away/destroy those?

Honestly I don't know. I donno how exactly one makes explosive black powder, but do remember I also said pretty much all reasons are retarded. Mine is no exception

>"It's been discovered and was employed a hunned years ago to terrible effect by a sect of nutter alchemists. Today the compounds needed are unearthed, shipped to separate parts of the world and destroyed to prevent that kind of easy, wholesale destruction"
One of the worst justifications I've heard.

>A: A variety of reasons such as societal structure, metallurgy or military tactics prevent the technology from being as viable as the alternatives or restrict the use to specific niches, for now

>B: There's this one reason that makes sure there will never ever be any guns whatsoever, because SHUT UP

Nah mate, every attempt to draw lengthy conclusions out of a premise will just end up filled with mistakes or illogical things, like every alternative history setting ever or every "X is Y so that's why the culture dedveloped like this" setting, AND it will produce a less interesting setting than if you just said that stuff is the way it is. One of the reasons is the immense complexity of this stuff and the spectrum of outcomes that is literally endless. But then, that's exactly why you don't have to bother, just say that your premise leads to the world you describe and nobody will ever disprove it. Again, this is all just "I want it this way", but pretending that there is something more behind it.

(a) Wizard conspiracy, a la Banestorm and Discworld. Adds a fun element to the setting.

Also good; early medieval, classical, bronze age or stone age equivalent setting.

(b) Contrived changes in the laws of physics just to remove them. Even worse if they demonstrate terrible misconceptions about physics, miss simple work-arounds, etc.

Also terrible; 'fantasy doesn't have to be realistic', 'it's not history', 'there are dragons therefore you shouldn't apply common sense' and so on. This is the worst general attitude to fantasy world building, but is more awful when used to justify modern social attitudes / biology delusions than stupid engineering.

A. Because they don't fit the setting.

"Stop trying to push your stupid homebrew dude. No one wants to wait for you to roll tinkering and maintenance for your stupid, not-fitting, unoriginal idea every rest"

But gunpowder weapons were used in Europe from the 13th century onwards.

A) Because my setting is mostly Iron Age fantasy, with a scant few elements of Bronze Age and Early Medieval (6-8th century) tropes mixed in.

B) The God of War didn't like it, so he changed the laws of physics so gunpowder simply doesn't work.

A) is actually my own. B... Well, i have, unfortunately, seen B claimed without the slightest hint of irony or self-awareness.

>Because my setting is mostly Iron Age fantasy
Oh, like Tolkien.

The god's want the people to stay in perpetual combat in the middle ages, they followers/prophets discourage any new discovery and the attempt at new secretadvancement is met with excommunication and execution from all churches. Gods also periodically send natural disasters and start holy wars of extermination against kingdoms who try to ignore this teaching of the church. magic and magical advancements are OK because magical power come from worship of the different gods.

B. Magic makes it unnecessary.

>i want my guy to be the guy who invents gunpowder and adventures with it but for some reason no one in the setting is interested in it and i somehow have the manpower to mine and develop all the materials for gunpowder myself (because no one else would have them) despite an adventurer lifestyle. Also, despite the generations of research it took to develop gunpowder into a viable weapon for personal use, I have mastered the required chemistry, metallurgy and craftsmanship by 20

How long did china have gunpowder without making anything but firelances and rocket arrows?

Tolkien is early middle ages.

Are you stupid? They started making bombs after just a few centuries or possibly earlier. They didn't make firearms and cannons because they didn't have the capability to produce metal that strong.

They used bombs (shot out of catapults) during the Jurchen invasion at the very least, and a bronze cannon dated to the early-to-mid 13th century was found in 1980.

>A.
Pic Related
>B.
Turns out pic related also.
Thieves stole the recipe of gun powder from Not! Sekhmet.
She's pissed now.

Please give proof to any use of firearms in Europe in the 13th century.

Gunpowder appeared in the 9th century, fire lances appeared in the 10th century, first guns appeared in the 13th century, possibly earlier.

>Please give proof to any use of firearms in Europe in the 13th century.

The poster wrote "gunpowder weapons", fuckwit, and not firearms. All firearms are gunpowder weapons, but not all gunpowder weapons are firearms.

The Mongols used gunpowder against Europeans at a battle in what is now Hungary in 1241. Roger Bacon next wrote about the use of gunpowder and explained how to make it a book written several years later. Various gunpowder weapons then begin showing up in tapestries, art, illuminated manuscripts, and the like over the next few decades.

I don't have a copy of it to hand but Chase's Firearms: A Global History to 1700 mentions Mongol use of guns in Europe; certainly they used it elsewhere.

Bacon mentions the recipe for gunpowder in about 1250 and the earliest visual records of guns; handguns and artillery, is from the1320s, which implies they were in use well before then as they wouldn't be depicted in a manuscript of the type it was in without being common enough to have been seen. That's also the earliest surviving one that we know of; it's likely that guns were first used in the late 13th century and began to be used more commonly in the 14th.

That manuscript was a treatise on Aristotelian mathematics; essentially ballistics, so they must have been established enough to not only be recogniseable to someone who would be interested in the manuscript, but also in use enough for people to have realised that one can apply mathematics to their use.

A: The gods were throwing one of their tri-millenial parties, it was BYOB of course, So 'Splodey the God of gunpowder told Zeus, "Don't worry brah, Imma bring sum killer kegs brah." Well little did Zeus and the other Gods know that 'Splodey had a bit of a trickster steak in him and instead of kegs filled with boozahol they were stuffed full of boomdust. Now 'Splodey made sure to show up reasonably late, ensuring the partygoers would already be too buzzed to catch on. And so he sat, and waited and spied when Zouche filled his cup and drank down the black grain. A ruckus arose, "Fuck you Zeus you fucking cunt stealing every goddess from me as a different animal everytime..." 'Splodey exclaimed lighting the charges he planted earlier killing everyone but himself and the dorky uncool gods who weren't invited 'cept Obad-Hai, who was so high he forgot where the party was. And so, Pelor the new president of the God council cast out 'Splodey and swore to use his new power to ensure his sparkpowder will never work.

B: Literally anything else.

It's far from the best, but the way I have it is that, up until recently, there was never a need for it. Wizards found out pretty early on that if a certain magical mineral was ground into dust and treated with a certain alchemical concoction, it would become highly explosive. Wizards shared this new material for profit, but guard it's creation with their lives, effectively controlling the market. Attempts have been made to find an alternative free from the wizards' control, but none so far have been successful.

>>A. What is the best justification for not including gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?
The gunpowder cannot be created, it's an impossibility.
Or even the absolute best of the "gunpowder" just can't be used for anything that could be called a gun, even stretching it, because it just sucks way too much.
>why isn't the settings reality 1:1 with the bits of our reality I want?
Because it doesn't need to be and is as justified a decision as magic, superhuman martials, non-human races, actual evidence of gods and all other fantasy shit are.

The only thing people can spew in retort is an extremely glaring contradiction.

Anyone who wants to pussyfoot and be disgustingly hypocritical (like , ) on this needs to fuck off.

>A. What is the best justification for not including gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?
The creatures that you're expected to fight are immune to non-magical attacks and the setting hasn't reached a point where magical bullets are in high circulation.
>B. What is the worst justification for not including gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?
It'd be overpowered.

They were. 18th century officers in the British army advocated a return to longbowmen based on direct comparison of the results of bows to muskets. They were rightfully laughed away, but it's not for the reason you would expect. Bows were incredibly expensive to both build and train with compared to any kind of firearm, and this was the era of literally putting men in a line and exposing them to near-certain death in order to grind down the enemy.

Read more carefully. Firearms vs. other missile weapons in Europe was largely a decision of the economics of warfare rather than technical superiority. That only changed with the advent of rifling.

There is one more caveat: firearms were assuredly more lethal, but, again, not for the reasons you would expect. Someone was more likely to be struck with an arrow or bolt and be stopped, but they would have good chances of survival after the battle. Bullets would become deeply lodged and difficult to safely extricate with the resources available to an army until... shit, probably the 20th century. And when you were close enough to tear an exit wound, they were probably not even going to make it that far.

>Firearms vs. other missile weapons in Europe was largely a decision of the economics of warfare rather than technical superiority.
Lol no dude. There's a reason why full plate went out of fashion. It protected well enough against bows and even crosbows, but not muskets. Plus, firearms are more expensive to produce than crossbows.

A. Alchemy could work, but my favorite explanation is from a 5e artificer I played a while ago. I spewed a handful of pseudo science jargon that simplified down to "I'm using magic to create electricity to create an electromagnet to propel iron slugs." ie a magic powered railgun.

B. Because I said so

A. I don't want to
B. Literally any other reason, because it's just a poorly-fitting disguise for A that anyone with half a brain can see through.

Full plate could protect from firearms but it was very expensive to make that way. They were still preferred over crossbows for various reasons.

There was a great article I read recently that went through a lot of these myths through primary sources but I can't remember where I found it.

If that's your "best" I'd hate to see your worst.

You are an idiot

>The difference is that I pretend that there's logic behind things, and that helps make the world more believable for some.

Only those as dumb as you are

This is wrong. Firearms were as accurate as any bow or crossbow meamt for war.

>"Because it doesn't fit the theme of the campaign."

>"Because magic made it so that development of gunpowder was unnecessary"

please link to the thread for our viewing pleasure

>A. What is the best justification for wanting to include gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?
>B. What is the worst justification for wanting to include gunpowder weapons in a fantasy setting?

Explain.

/k/fag here.
Firearms have the benefit of piercing armor.
Longbows also can pierce armor, but realistically, they take more training time and money.

The world is secretly a LARP pleasure world in 40k all magic and monsters are just mechanical illusions