Guns and Fantasy

One thing we've wondered is why people are so reluctant to bring firearms into fantasy.

Alright, we get it. A lot of D&D and fantasy gaming is inspired by things like Conan, and Elric, and Lord of the Rings, and they didn't have guns. This makes sense, since they're all in the ancient past or in another world that's completely different from Earth's. Sure. You've totally got a point there.

But here's our counterpoint.
Conan was set in the ancient past. Armour? Rare. Swords? Heavy. A lot of weapons you see in games like D&D didn't show up in Conan. Or in Elric. Or in Lord of the Rings. Because it was expected to be 'a long, long time ago'.

In Conan, you rarely (if ever) saw crossbows. They were considered an incredibly rare, 'civilized' weapon compared to the more primitive weapons of the time. The Hyborian Age, which Conan's set in, was a blend of various historical periods, sure, but it generally leaned more into the Bronze and Iron Age, with a bit of early medieval thrown into the mix. There was one or two more 'swashbuckly' areas, but they leaned more into the cutlass than say, the rapier.

Okay, so let's talk about the feel of the swords-and-sorcery genre. Conan was about primal, savage combat, front-line sword-swinging, spear-chucking, frenzied battles when they happened and guns don't quite fit that feel. With Elric, you had a slowly dying, decadent empire that relied on ancient magics and the feeling of decay. Not quite a place for guns either.

Fine, we'll grant you that.

Here's the thing, then.
Setting. If you don't want guns in the game, you need a setting that gives a feel for why guns wouldn't exist. Conan? They didn't have the technology, and the feel of combat didn't really go for the 'shoot them' approach. A good fantasy setting that didn't have guns could be set in the mid-to-late Bronze Age or into the early Iron Age.

But oops. Conan's world had cannons. And if you have cannons, you're going to eventually go down the logic tree towards firearms. Smaller cannons, easier to move around and load. Smaller shots. More elegant design. And away we go.

So, maybe more Bronze Age and less Iron Age.

Elric's setting, you can say a lot of technology and such has been lost, so it doesn't exist anymore. This is a setting about tragic decline, after all. Even the young kingdoms are limited in what they've got, technologically speaking.

So yes, let's talk setting.

If you're going to get rid of firearms, you should look at the level of technology needed to get to that point. So, remove gunpowder. Remove fireworks and bombs and explosives. You're also going to want to get rid of the swishyp0ke-sword, and the kind of armour used in the late Iron Age and into the Renaissance, definitely.

Then there's looking at the kind of empires and kingdoms that would exist in those kind of eras. What was considered the 'state of the art'? In Legend of the Five Rings, for instance, the crossbow was forbidden technology. They had gunpowder, but they didn't have cannons, and they didn't have guns. It was firework-fuel for the most part, but also used as an explosive - and that was forbidden, so it really wasn't widely spread.

"But this isn't Earth".
Yeah, we get that. But here's the thing: logical progression. If you want a consistent, believable world for people to explore in, there's got to be some logic to what's going on. And waving your hand and saying 'magic' is lazy. Don't be lazy.

Also, be careful what you allow in the game.  No firearms, but you've got steampunk? Then you're going to get steam-powered firearms. Because some player's going to come up with some sort of gearpunk weapon that fires sharpened metal bolts at high velocity.

So, what would exist in your world? What niche does it fill? What would the counter to those weapons be at the time, armour-wise? What makes sense?

The more your world makes sense, the better off it is. The players can get into it better if there's no dissonance.  This armour was made to deal with this kind of weapon - but if that kind of weapon doesn't even exist, what's the need to make that kind of armour?

And yeah. Magic can be an answer for some things, but again, it needs to make sense. We've heard time and again 'well, with magic, there's no need for this'.

And we tend to reply with: how common is magic, again?
Do the common folk get ready access to mages and clerics? Does every house have a live-in miracle-worker? No?

Then people are going to invent shit. Because if finding a cleric to cure disease and heal wounds is hard to find / too expensive, then someone's going to eventually stumble upon medicine. Magic does a lot, but unless it's readily available to the common folk, then someone's going to come up with something to fill those gaps. That's how technology works. "Necessity is the mother of Invention."

"Well, the Gods don't allow it"
Again. Lazy. However...
There's something to be said for heroes overthrowing the tyranny of the gods. There's an entire d20 campaign setting set in the stone age, where any advancement beyond a certain point is crushed by monsters. Not the gods, the gods are pretty weak all things considered - but by some greater force.
And it's understood, written into the GM section, that at some point the PCs will be strong enough to face down these monsters -- and win. And what happens when the force behind those monsters can't stop the advance of the world any longer?

That's epic storytelling.

Is it that guns are 'game breaking'? We don't know - it works fine in 7th Sea, and in Pathfinder we've had revolvers and that didn't break the game.

Is it the feel of the game? Hmm. Well, consider this. Do you think the Three Musketeers fits into a fantasy setting? If so, remember they're musketeers. Yeah, they can duel. They can also shoot. How do you feel about the Victorian era? The Edwardian era? How about piracy in the Caribbean? Guns really don't detract from those settings, now do they?

Anyway. If you don't like guns, then maybe think about some serious world-building. Maybe the tech hasn't gotten that far yet. In which case, make sure the weapon / gear lists match that aesthetic, too. Maybe it's a matter of societal collapse, which is pretty cool - the technology is lost, and you've still got some fancy armour and weapons from that period, but even making those is becoming more and more a lost art. Maybe there's a higher force preventing it -- whether it's the crown / church / the gods -- but those are meant to be overthrown -- sooner or later, and perhaps the PCs are the ones to do it?

There's nothing game breaking about guns, but if it doesn't fit the aesthetic, just hand-waving it away doesn't serve anyone. If you build a setting with the right feel to it, where things make sense just by looking at it, then cool. You've got some solid world building there.