Depending on the magic system, the tech niche that firearms fill might be occupied by something superior, or some factor might render them less useful than in our world.
I’ve got nothing against guns in medieval fantasy, and I would agree that in lots of worlds there’s insufficient reason given for why they haven’t been developed (yet). But there’s no inevitability in their invention. And “Who needs guns – we have magic” does sometimes make sense.
Also, if the smartest people in the setting are focusing on magic, they’re not, y’know, chemistry’ing and metallurgy’ing guns up.
This is gonna be ironic as hell coming from me, but guns in medieval fantasy suck. Pick up a sword and ride a dragon, or practice elemental or forbidden magic. That’s my preference. Literally everything else fantasy offers is way more fun than simply going kablooey!
Also, there’s more to guns than gunpowder. Effectively making barrels for cannons is expensive and technically demanding. It’s not that hard to imagine a that a society with wouldn’t see the need to invest in perfecting them, especially when you consider how the massive weight of a cannon complicates your logistical train.
Take a 12lb cannon from the Napoleonic timeframe. It weighs about a ton without ammunition and requires ~12 people or so to serve it. Each round shot for it weighs 12lbs, so you’re also probably carrying a couple of literal tons of ammunition. And each firing of the cannon takes ~2lbs of powder, so you’re carrying around a lot of extremely dangerous powder. And then all the extra fodder for the animals needed to move this extra weight, and food for the soldiers who will purely be crewing the guns, etc, etc. If you can replace all of that with a few wizards you, it would make a lot of sense to do so.
And that’s before getting into things like ‘how susceptible are powder stores to wizard attacks?’ where you could easily run into all of that stuff becoming dead weight because an apprentice wizard got within eyeshot of your powder wagon and snapped their fingers once.
(Quoting you guys specifically because the conversation got really long while I was at work so I didn’t notice it until just now.)
I would’ve been honestly fine with guns just straight up not existing at all, the reason I in particular am bothered by it is that Sera went out of her way to demonstrate how useless guns were before then tossing them out of the story from that point on.
Normally, I’m all for quick demonstrations like this to show you why certain elements do or don’t work, but as geldar and others have been saying, in this case, it works against the plot rather than for it. By showing that Wayhaven PD has and uses guns, you’re now making it seem like our detective - presumably promoted because they earned it (though that’s not necessarily the case if you choose to play a lazy bum detective) - is so wildly incompetent that they can’t even keep their holster nearby and just set their service weapon down and forget about it on the regular for no good reason.
In a story where it’s constantly being beaten over the reader’s heads that the detective, right now, isn’t as good as Unit Bravo, that’s just one more drop in an overflowing bucket. There was no reason for it, and it detracts from the story for having existed at all. All to inform the audience that, due to the author not liking guns, they will not be featured in the story - you could’ve just said that in a pre-prologue foreword for anybody who might have been concerned, and nobody would’ve questioned it.
Anyhow, that’s why I take issue with it, it otherwise doesn’t bother me overmuch. If you want guns, have them. If not, that’s cool, but you really don’t need to tell me why you don’t want them, you can just… you know, not include them.
(As for guns in medieval fantasy, my hard stance on that is, “it depends on the setting.”)
“We’ve destroyed Gond! What do we get?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean nothing?!”
“You derailed the whole damn campaign to go kill a god for telling you you weren’t allowed to have bombs, why do you think I’m gonna reward that?!”
Obviously, when you defeat Gond, he and everything he owned instantly vanishes, so bombs no longer exist.
That’s actually how Dyrellion (a country in my conworld) works. Though guns do exist. Dyrelli just don’t use them. They’re difficult enough to produce that magic is just easier.
I feel like at that point warfare wouldn’t even resemble medieval warfare at all because magic changes things as much as firearms. If there’s a reason magic hasn’t done that, there’s a reason you’d benefit from guns.
Yeah but this is about hating tropes, not banning them.
I’ve kind of gone the opposite way when it comes to traditional weaponry in my game. It exists, of course, and it’s relevant to the majority of the population, but a few thousand people (the ones you interact with) are so far above them that they kind of just shrug them off.
It’s led to a situation where guns can’t really stack up, and most of the world is playing catch-up to try and match the power of these few thousands, with their failures far outnumbering their successes (yet to have one).
It’s led to some different technological advances, though, not entirely related to warfare, as well as governments having to take a different tact when it comes to actions that would directly impact them.
After all, when someone can outspeed lightning, and not even a nuclear bomb finishes them off… can you really afford to get on their bad side?
This is why I prefer magitek in fantasy. Why stick with normal guns when you can combine them with magic to bridge that power gap.
Enchant shotgun with fire runes, finally make dragon’s breath that won’t warp the barrel.
And, you know actually do stuff, since current Dragon’s Breath is more for show than any practical application if I’m not mistaken. Maybe an emergency flare if you don’t have a flare gun handy.
(Dragon’s Breath is essentially loading magnesium into a shotgun shell, for those in the back who might not get it. Very shiny, but also impractical. Would also probably constitute a war crime if used in combat, considering how hot magnesium burns - although if used in some flavor of fantasy story, the presence of magic would likely render it just casual warfare, huh?)
Can’t have Geneva Conventions if there is no Geneva.
Geneva? I don’t even know-
No, stop it Zyri, that joke doesn’t even work.
(Just a rant. ) When a story begins with your whole family / village being massacred as a trope makes me feel nothing most of the time maybe i’m a psycho but i feel it’s been done a lot. I’m okay if it’s like backstory that you learn later on as long as it’s not the main focus of the story. Killing off a family at the very beginning feels like it’s trying to force me to care and feel bad for them. If you have this character I want to know what their personality and goals are before learning that their a sad orphan that I need to pity.
On this we agree. 
On a related note to the gun situation, I really hate it in sci-fi/futuristic settings where guns, drones and similar technology is ubiquitous. But the characters for some goddamn reason decide to get up close and personal to do melee combat.
I love how Kai Leng is universally despised by everybody.
Which is nothing less than he deserves.
It says a lot about a character when a mod that removes all it’s dialogue is a substantial improvement to the character.
