As a rule, fantasy is about the most malleable genre of
fiction ever conceived. With scores of different possibilities, it is
inevitable that eventually a player in your game will want to use firearms
(however advanced) in your campaign. In a campaign where all involved have
agreed to a specific genre, such as my sword and sorcery style campaign, this
will be less of an issue. If, however, you find yourself in a much more
free-wheeling, open-genre endeavor, the issue of using a higher level of
technology is surprisingly likely. My inner grognard is apt to say “No!” to
such a player request, but as a person obsessed with the Spellburn podcast, I
have recently adopted and attitude of “Yes, and…” It behooves me, then to
consider how to incorporate this kind of technology into a traditional, fantasy
role-playing game. Besides, to paraphrase the mighty Jim Wampler: If I can have
a wizard with a laser-gun that is as happy as I get. So let’s turn consider
some possible settings where this sort of thing is possible.
The Early-Modern Period
A personal favorite historical era
of mine (yes, it is because of Spinoza and Leibniz), this is one of the easiest
eras to incorporate firearms. In this period, firearms were coming increasingly
available, but were very cost prohibitive. Conflicts such as the Thirty Years’
War often saw a mixture of firearms and more traditional weaponry being used
side by side. Class divide was the reason why some possessed guns and others
did not, so a DM can really flesh out the society of his/her campaign by
incorporating this aspect. If this is a route you would like to go, I
definitely recommend the combination of the AD&D 2nd Edition
sourcebook A Mighty Fortress and the
Gothic-horror inspired setting Ravenloft.
Throw in some of Robert E. Howards Solomon Kane stories, and you have yourself
a number of good sources to mine for ideas.
Post-Apocalyptic Futures
It is conceivable that your game
takes place on earth (or some other world) in which there was a great disaster
that lead to the sentient species going back to a more primitive state of
technology (a la Thundarr the Barbarian).
Even though most people will be using more antiquated weaponry, it is conceivable
that there would be a several hidden caches of weapons scattered throughout the
land. While it is unlikely that any character would begin the game with
proficiency in such weapons, sentient species are generally very adaptable and
could learn to use them over time. Depending on how far in the future you set
the calamity, this setting could open up a lot of high-tech treasure just
waiting to be found. In order to keep game balance, however, it is important to
have the technology become irreparably damaged or possess a finite source of
power and/or ammunition. Players who stumble across these artifacts will, as a
consequence, have to be choosy when it comes to their use. Another possibility
is to have “wizards” be merely those people who can invent, build, and utilize
these technologies; this makes great antagonists, by the way.
The Dying Earth
Similar to the above in many
respects, a dying earth setting is one in which firearms could be employed very
easily. In these sorts of settings, the world itself is in its death-throws.
Civilizations are collapsing due to war, decadence, and apathy. Perhaps there
are a lot of geological phenomena that are constantly effecting the landscape,
requiring great technologies to keep things together. In either case, resources
will be very scarce and the average person will be unlikely to possess higher
technologies. Given this, a character who uses firearms is likely to have a
very interesting backstory.
The Lost World
It is, at this point, old hat to
have an Atlantis/Lemuria/Thule type area which is cut off from the rest of the
world by some sort of barrier (mystical or otherwise). While often we see these
areas having creatures from a bygone era, it seems perfectly conceivable to me
that they may also have a high level of technology. For instance, let us
suppose that the inhabitants of the Lost World were the first sentient beings
on the planet. It follows that they may be more technologically advanced than
everyone else is. It could further be the case that, through the enlightenment
of their society, they decided that their technology would negatively impact the
development of other cultures (think the Prime Directive), and they chose to
seclude themselves to keep from contaminating everyone else. On the flipside,
perhaps their technology enabled them to conquer vast territories, and the
other inhabitants of the planet joined together to repel and banish their
former overlords. The lack of high technology elsewhere in the world in the
latter case may be due to joint treaty or cultural stigma.
The Magocracy
This is perhaps one of the most
over-used tropes in fantasy gaming today: a world where magic users are
politically dominant. One thing often overlooked in such a setting is the
classism that would exist in this world. In all class-based societies, there
needs to be a way in which the ruling class is able to keep their political
hegemony; be it wealth, heredity, or (in this case) magic. If a society’s
ruling class is indeed the ruling class because of magical ability, then there
would certainly be barriers to most people acquiring said magic. As such, the
ebb and flow would need to come up with some way of gaining power themselves,
and the invention of gun powder would certainly do the trick. Of course, the
possession of such technology would likely be illicit, so those with it would
have to organize into underground movements, guerilla cells, or good old
fashioned organized crime syndicates. This gives the DM and players an immensely
rich atmosphere in which to play.
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