Limiting Gunpowder

[lyndon@pobox.com (Lyndon]

My main concern on limiting gunpowder in any campaign I would run
would be its strategic effect on power. Cannons made it possible to
knock down medieval castles fairly quickly. This meant that larger,
more centralized, more absolute states were possible. After that the
sizes of states, armies and wars tended to grow, so armies would be in
the tens of thousands, and individual characters less significant, and
more run over by the games of kings.
This is not absolute, many people have been able to write
adventure stories where individuals were significant (for instance
THETHREE MUSKETEERS), but I often prefer a smaller scale.

Once cannons come in, middle ages go out. (The Ottoman Turks used
cannons successfuly in the seige of Constantinople, just before it
became Istanbul in 1453). Offensive wars gain a great deal of
offense.

I am less concerned about individual guns. This took centuries of
development to be signficiantly more effective than crossbows, let
alone trained longbowmen (a big gun advantage was that basic training
took so much less time. )

I like the idea of Realm magic causing gunpowder to explode. Simple,
elegent, raises questions:
What about swamp gas? Natural gas in mines? Coal? Other
flammables? The real world bombadier beetle for instance.

Realm magic cast by true mages is derived from clerical magic, from
the power of the blown up gods. What about clerical spells (realm or
otherwise). If everytime a cleric cast Bless or Heal, gunpowder in
the several yards around went Boom, either clerics or gunpowder would
be less widespread. Gunpowder looked suspeiciously hellish in our
worlds, this would be additional evidence ...

If Realm spells would make gunpowder spontaneously explode (notice
there have been a whole lot of "ifs" in the last few paragraphs), what
about godly spells in the millenia preceding?

Need to do more thought experiments.

Lyndon

[James Ruhland]

My main concern on limiting gunpowder in any campaign I would run
would be its strategic effect on power. Cannons made it possible to
knock down medieval castles fairly quickly. This meant that larger,
more centralized, more absolute states were possible. After that the
sizes of states, armies and wars tended to grow, so armies would be in
the tens of thousands, and individual characters less significant, and
more run over by the games of kings.

Which wasn't possible before gunpowder; only petty empires like the Roman,
Chinese, and Mongol empires were possible. 8-). Anyhow, the same
individuals who can survive ground zero of a fireball can probably do fine
in the blast zone of a cannon. Also, these early devices were...volitile.
PCs (or whoever) who rely on them on the battlefield will come to grief
often enough to not make it worthwhile. Plus, what about adventures?
Spending time in dank underground areas with water dripping from the
cealing, or trudging through swamps and snowdrifts getting beset by all
manner of foul beasts, can't be good for keeping your firearms in working
conditions (plus, make more use of specialized monsters; just as their are
monsters specialized to make, say, psionics, more chancy, their could be
monsters who just love to feed on gunpowder. Small, microscopic,
undetectable ones...) Another solution, which already has AD&D Precidence
is to make gunpowder require some "mystical" component, a la the gunpowder
described in Spelljammer. This makes it rarer, more expensive, and harder
to duplicate (perhaps gunpowder requires some component that can only be
attained in quantity from a few mines in Aduria? Then it would be hard for
Cerilian powers to produce it in quantity, while still being available to
the Adurians, at least the ones who control the mines. Just a thought for
thouse of you who are interested in adding gunpowder weapons to your
campaigns, but don't want them to dominate...)

Once cannons come in, middle ages go out. (The Ottoman Turks used
cannons successfuly in the seige of Constantinople, just before it
became Istanbul in 1453). Offensive wars gain a great deal of
offense.

Did you know that M. the C. almost gave up the siege? That his vaunted
cannon had trouble breaching the walls? and that, when he decided to mount
one more assault on the Queen of Cities, it was not the cannon that
breached the walls, but a gate left carelessly unatended (well, we didn't
have that many defenders left at the time, not that this is an acceptable
excuse) that allowed the Turks to enter the city? So, in this example,
individuals still mattered (Guistiniani, a Mercenary leader in our employ,
was wounded, and when he left the battle, his men went with him. Mehmet the
C. was more than instrumental in firing his troops up for the battle; even
though their were probably over 100,000 of 'em, the actions of the "regent"
of the turks was still important. To say nothing of the heroism and digity
of Constantine XI Paleologous, last Emperor of the Romans, who, in defeat,
managed to salvage much of the honor and legacy of a realm that hadn't seen
much of either in its last few centuries of existance.) So, even in the
gunpowder age, even in real history, individuals do, and did, matter. I
wonder what the name of that soldier was who found the unguarded gate that
let them enter the Queen of Cities?

[Sorry, personal buggabo: Constantinople wasn't renamed until this century.
It remained (officially) Constantinople throughout Ottoman times, being
renamed by K. Ataturk after WW I. Of course, it still is Constantinople,
because illigitimite ocupiers have no right to name or rename anything.]

Porphyrogenetus,
Avtokrator Kai Basilius Rhomaion

[lyndon@pobox.com (Lyndon]

Thank you for your informative post. I'm responding several times to
different subjects in it.

=46irst though, my posts will always have deficiences due to two main
reasons:
Haste
Ignorance

Haste is likely to be a perenial long-term problem. Ignorance is
partly, but never fully treatable.

In some areas we may be in substantial agreement, in some we may be on
a parallel courses. For instance I fully agree that early gunpwoder
devices were volatile, and would become even less ideal after trudging
through swamps and snowdrifts.

Requiring special componenets for gunpowder in magic world goes back
at least to Zelazny's NINE PRINCES IN AMBER and GUNS OF AVALON (not
sure of copyright dates, I read them before I read D&D, though D&D was
out there ...)

In one campaign world I had microrganisms that tended to munch free
sulfer promptly. Purifying sulfer and keeping it pure required a
hermetically sealed alchemists lab. Sealed bullets could
theoretically have been imported from a crossover world, but the
intermediate steps would be squashed enough to prevent local
development.

Anyway I think we are in agreement that:

Gunpowder would not immediately overrun a campaign
Gunpowder can be limited in a number of ways by the individual GM=20
Gunpowder can be flat out stamped out and forbidden by indidivudal
GM by a variety of means.

Lyndon

[Robert Harper]

Another reason for not 'fearing' firearms is that the various skill
improvements in weapon use generally favour melee weapons over missile
weapons. The rate of fire on gunpowder weapons (out of Players Option
books) is such that they can deliver a good 'punch' opening, but by the time
they're ready to use again the foe has either (a) retreated or sought cover
or (b) closed to fight hand to hand.

Firearms are also less useful against creatures only struck by magical
weapons. Even if a character has magical shot (useable once), if they load
it they must risk wasting it against mundane targets or if not loaded, but
the time they do load it once again foe has closed. A character can select
and use a magical arrow out of their quiver without slowing their bow's rate
of fire; but PC's want to carry their pistols loaded and so must chose in
advance or risk forfeiting their usefulness.

I run a campaign with firearms; generally the PC's at most use a gun at the
opening of an encounter when range/intent of opposing group favour it. In
the past few sessions the most memorable incidents involving firearms were:
gun exploding in character's hand due to misfire (per Players Option rules);
character firing gun into a melee and accidentally shooting another PC
(ironically, playing the role of first player's bodyguard) in the back;
character shooting an undead creature and cursing when bullet passed
harmlessly through it. This is not to say that several monsters have not
been badly hurt by firearms, including the open-ended damage rule. But the
most spectacular firearm inflicted death was a high level PC who decided to
insult an officer in charge of a dozen men with muskets levelled at her.

I should mention, that I rule lead bullets gain temporary magic resistance
when in flight (a combination of lead's antimagical properties and something
imparted by high speed which the wizards of the world have yet to explain or
duplicate) and ignore any magical armour class factors.

This means that a PC, even a high level one, should respect a squad of
musketeers who are ready for them - but can still heroicly make mincemeat of
them in hand to hand melee; they just have to roleplay intelligently and
strategically, make use of a few swashbuckling maneuvres etc to avoid
getting shot and close to fight.

I prefer this dynamic to one where higher level PC's feel free to treat a
party of 10 or 20 normal soldiers or guardsmen with complete disdain.

In the end, I agree it is the DM's choice for the flavour of the world s/he
wants to create. I wanted a 17th Century swashbuckling flavour (Errol Flynn
fan, what can I say) so I included firearms. If you want a Celtic flavour,
or anyone of a number of others they don't fit so well.

__________________________________________________ _________________
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| We ask ourselves if there is a God, how can this happen? |
| Better to ask, if there is a God, must it be sane? |
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| Lucien LaCroix |
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