Do you like Early Firearms in fantasy games?

[Domi]

I'm just wondering

[berelinde]

I like good writing in fantasy games. The weapons are just a way to make stuff dead, and one can be substituted for another just as easily.

[Icendoan]

Nor me, really. I guess I am indifferent. I wouldn't mind early firearms if they are portrayed properly. I won't have a musket not killing someone fast, you see.

 

As far as killing stuff goes guns > swords and so on, meaning I don't want sword damage to be comparable to guns, but not guns to be too powerful, you see. It is a little odd on what could be done, but I bet it is possible!

 

Otherwise, I really enjoy well written games, and even games I can talk my way through.

 

Icen

[Sorrow]

Nor me, really. I guess I am indifferent. I wouldn't mind early firearms if they are portrayed properly. I won't have a musket not killing someone fast, you see.

If early firearms are portrayed properly, then they won't be muskets but handgonnes.

 

As far as killing stuff goes guns > swords and so on, meaning I don't want sword damage to be comparable to guns, but not guns to be too powerful, you see. It is a little odd on what could be done, but I bet it is possible!

I disagree. Properly used swords (as in used by someone with at least one point of proficiency) are able to deliver horrific damage (decapitation, disembowelment, dismemberment, etc.) to an enemy if he isn't properly armoured.

 

I like the idea of putting early firearms in a fantasy game if it's done well (i.e. not like in Arcanum) and makes sense historically.

[Grunker]

For my part, weapons are not just ways to make things dead. They are part of the atmosphere, as everything else in a well-constructed world. If everything was just about good writing, then nothing else would matter, and we might as well be playing text-based roleplaying games from here to judgment day.

 

Don't mistake me - good writing is by far the most essential - but games such as PS:T and Baldur's Gate aren't the greatest only because of their writing.

 

A game such as Bloodlines actually suffered periodically from downright bad writing, but made up for it ten times by creativity and atmosphere. Couldn't have been saved if the major part of the writing was bad, but the atmosphere helped save the small parts of the game where the writing suffered.

 

In that light, I dislike firearms in fantasy-surroundings. I play fantasy to get middle-ages atmosphere and earlier, plus the whole point of fantasy in my case is to be consumed by a world in which technology plays as little a part as possible. In that light you might argue that my version of fantasy is stone-age surroundings, but of course, when I say "as little a part as possible," I mean "as little a part as possible without removing the touch of civilization and the prerequisites for war and nations."

 

So, in my subjective opinion, firearms remove a tiny bit of the atmospheric experience, while adding nothing to it

[Sorrow]

Baldur's Gate aren't the greatest

I agree with you .

 

In that light, I dislike firearms in fantasy-surroundings. I play fantasy to get middle-ages atmosphere and earlier, plus the whole point of fantasy in my case is to be consumed by a world in which technology plays as little a part as possible. In that light you might argue that my version of fantasy is stone-age surroundings, but of course, when I say "as little a part as possible," I mean "as little a part as possible without removing the touch of civilization and the prerequisites for war and nations."

Which would mean dark ages and early medieval?

 

So, in my subjective opinion, firearms remove a tiny bit of the atmospheric experience, while adding nothing to it

Early firearms are very far from high-tech. Actually they look very crude and primitive.

Here and here are YouTube movies showing how they were shot and here is a page about them.

[Domi]

When I talk about early firearms, I am hoping for Renaissance feel, rather than high-tech

[erik]

Muskets certainly doesn't detract from the fun parts of the good old The Three (& Four) Musketeers (preferably the one with Charlton Heston and Christopher Lee as the main bad guys) - lots of fun and swashing and buckling nevertheless. I'm all for a Renaissance game.

 

Ash and "Rats and Gargoyles" are both good examples, I think.

[Grunker]

Haha, I figured that Domi

 

But, guns are guns, and I simply don't feel they add anything, while I think they ruin parts by a tiny bit.

 

Which would mean dark ages and early medieval?

 

No, which would mean that I don't really care about time-periods when playing high fantasy, which again means taking the bits and pieces of technology that are necessary for civilizations and nations to interact diplomatically and by means of war.

 

When dealing with non-high fantasy, of which there sadly is very little, I mostly prefer dark age and early medieval, which incidently means no firearms (earliest gun motifs are from 1100, but it's estimated that during that time they were ultra-rare), since firearms didn't spread until the thirteenhundreds.

 

But, as everything, this is subjective opinion. The only thing I'm saying is I don't like firearms in fantasy

[Sorrow]

I like 14th - 16th century the most. Full plate armour, pole-axes, halberds, two handers, arbalests, handgonnes and all that stuff .

 

As for dark ages...

A faithful recreation of Tolkien's middle earth would be very close to them.

[Grunker]

A faithful recreation of Tolkien's middle earth would be very close to them.

 

Hardly ^^

[Domi]

But, guns are guns, and I simply don't feel they add anything, while I think they ruin parts by a tiny bit.

 

I just feel that most fantasy settings have the midnsets that are anachronistic to technology. If I explore the concept of a Perfect Prince, humanism, free thinking, reformation in the church and the formations of nations as empire colapses, I just can't see it without firearms playing some role, maybe not parraleling the real world technology exactly, but being there. Anyway, i can see that there will be a significant resistance to the idea, oh, well.

[Sorrow]

A faithful recreation of Tolkien's middle earth would be very close to them.

 

Hardly ^^

Why hardly?

[Icendoan]

Elves? Balrogs? Heck, Sauron?

 

Icen

[Alinia]

If it's a steampunk or renaissance type game, then I'm all for it. They can add to the setting if that's what you're shooting for. Ugh, bad pun.