Fantasy Gun Control: Difference between revisions

In the interest of keeping a more traditional medieval setting, many authors decide not to use guns and other explosives in their works. Sometimes reasons are given for this, usually not, despite the fact that in reality gunpowder and derivative inventions existed for most of the medieval ages. This shows up most often in fantasy (hence the name), but can appear in any genre.

* Averted in [[One Piece]]. Pirate crews typically have gunmen along with swordsmen, and neither are shown to be any less effective than the other. The only exception is the Straw Hat Pirates - the ranger of their team, Usopp, uses a slingshot instead, as it lets him use [[Abnormal Ammo]].

** There's also the fact that for hundreds of years in the current Age female Channelers have used distance attacks with the One Power. Aes Sedai are forbidden to use the Power as a weapon, true, but that doesn't stop most other groups of female channelers in the world, or Aes Sedai acting in self-defense or against Shadowspawn, which is the exception to the rule. Also Rand's Asha'man practice using the Power as a weapon, and firing it at targets from a distance, as part of their [[Training From Hell|intense training.]] And the Power is arguably more destructive than any gun, especially when used by someone who's very strong and skilled.

** Also All-World, Roland world, was once a futuristic world not that different from ours, but there was some type of apocalyptic war went down and now it's "[[After the End]]" besides other guns do show up from time it's just not many are left any more, and of those not many work (thought some new ones do come in from other levels of tower from time to time.)

* Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' does not have guns, but it does have dynamite-like munitions. These are quite nasty: In ''Reaper's Gale'', a few Malazan soldiers armed with munitions manage to fight off and seriously injure {{spoiler|several dragons, including Silchas Ruin, a [[Badass]] [[Physical Gods|Ascendant]]}}.

** And, indeed, wizards don't even appear to know what guns are, in spite of the many wars that one must assume they noticed. The Daily Prophet has to explain them as "a kind of metal wand that muggles use to kill each other." Kingsley Shacklebolt also makes a comment to Arthur Weasley, incorrectly referring to them as "firelegs" instead of "firearms," implying that they're completely off the ordinary wizards' radar.

* [[David Weber]]'s [[The War Gods|Bahzell]] series doesn't have guns, until a short novella has Wencit use magic to summon help from beyond. Bringing a pair of US Army troops in a Stryker gives people who see it ideas. And averted hard in his Safehold series where culturally the whole planet is in stasis, but cannons of varying sizes are commonplace, and then the spirit of a long dead Interstellar naval officer arrives in a cyborg body and teaches them about rifling.

** Actual standard projectile handguns were introduced recently in the form of "prayer pieces." In typical ''Exalted'' fashion, they are made of gold and fire golden bullets that are propelled by ''the faith generated from miniature shrines'' engraved on the barrel.

* The ''[[Iron Kingdoms]]'' setting makes use of guns for nearly every faction in the ''Warmachine'' game.

*** This became one of the founding pillars of the style of Scars of Mirrodin, where combining with the Machine-ideology of Phyrexia on a wholly metallic plane obviously had the implication that high-tech robots would be running amok, the designers specifically said that while things like armor, gears, levers and pistons can appear, they are to be used so that they are in no way mechanically sound, and must appear as though they're being powered by magic. The result is that most of the inhabitants had high-tech apparatuses used solely to swing around giant blades, and very little way of guns appear.

*** In Waterdeep smokepowder is illegal, and Khelben (Waterdeep's highest-level wizard, and a member of the city's ruling oligarchy) eliminates every pinch he can find, along with those who smuggled it in.

** Subverted in the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' setting, where it's noted that some enterprising tinker gnomes have created their own versions of firearms. Most people don't use them, since tinker gnomes are notorious for their [[Bungling Inventor]] tendencies.

** [[Greyhawk]] fans tend to be notoriously gun-phobic and it's generally accepted that guns simply don't work in the setting. Exceptions are sometimes made for the hero-god Murlynd and his paladins, [[Depending on the Writer|depending on the DM]].

** ...but in previous editions of the game, it was specifically noted that using out of character knowlege of the correct proportions of charcoal, nitrate and sulphur would only produce a slow burning fire, as the laws of physics in the game world was different than on earth.

* ''[[Suikoden]]'': The only group to possess firearms is the cult-like [[Murder, Inc.|Howling Voice Guild]], and even those are only issued to their most trusted (read: indoctrinated) members, apparently those of Knight Class or higher. If a non-Knight-Class-Gunner is found in possession of a gun, the Guild's response is immediate and predictable. They don't do this for the technological advantage, though: their technology seems to be of flintlock quality at best. They do it for the psychological advantage, which is why Gunners are also trained in stealth and infiltration. One character actually points out that compared to a bow guns are slower, shorter ranged, and far more expensive. Despite this the gun users are pretty much some of the coolest characters in the games, all being badasses of varying levels.

** Half the "bullets" are magical anyway, so it evens out.

* ''[[Pokémon]]'' uses the Fireball example. While the technology in the Pokémon world is sometimes more advanced than ours, usually it's on par with that of the real world. However, you will notice that, unless it's the Anime canon, there are no guns. You'd think gunpowder would have been invented sooner or later, right? Well it seems that humans in this world never had a need to invent gunpowder or dynamite - you can capture monsters that can do it for you, so it makes a bit of sense that people would turn to technology to control these creatures rather than invent stuff to do it themselves.

* ''[[Jade Empire]]'' allows the player to claim a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|pseudo-European conquistador's]] musket as a prize for besting him in a duel. It does significantly more damage than most weapons, but has a low rate of fire and doesn't work well against magical creatures.

** ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy X 2]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', and ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' have both party members and enemies using guns, but as the exception rather than the rule, and they [[Guns Are Worthless|do no more damage than melee weapons]]. Although in some games, they are able to ignore armour.

* A few variants of the Roguelike ''[[Angband]]'' add guns, though they tend to just be different flavours of crossbow aside from Animeband (obviously built on anime tropes, but it kinda sucks because development died) and Steamband, which is set in the Victorian era.

* After being played straight in the first game, this trope was averted hard in ''[[Fable (video game series)|Fable]] II'', where pistols and rifles are used alongside crossbows, swords, axes and maces. In fact, the invention of firearms seems to have been a deciding factor in the destruction of the Heroes Guild, as the availability of pistols meant that people no longer had to be reliant on arrogant Will-users.

* Averted in the [[Mortal Kombat]] series; In ''[[Mortal Kombat 3]]'', Kano is hired to teach Shao Kahn's soldiers how to use modern weaponry, and in [[Mortal Kombat 9]]'s story mode, Shang Tsung buys several rocket lauchers and machine guns from Kano.

*** Indeed. China's wealth and immense power as an empire wound up biting the Chinese in the ass in the long run, as they withdrew from international trade along the Indian Ocean(which they'd dominated for the better part of the millennium thanks to their very powerful navy) around the middle of the medieval era. As a result, they went into [[Medieval Stasis]] that they were violently jerked out of by the enterprising European countries.

* A reasonable explanation as to why a fantasy culture might eschew firearms is that, up until the invention of repeating firearms in the mid-19th century, guns were not actually as effective as longbows. For example, an English longbow from Edward III's time (1300s) had an effective range of 400yds (~366 meters) and could be fired between six times per minute (if the archer was going for endurance) to ten (in a pinch). By contrast, a musket, even in the hands of the most experienced troops, had an effective (accurate) range of only around 100-150yds, and could be fired only five times a minute by a crack company (6 if they were ''astonishingly'' good). The Duke Of Wellington, [[Genre Savvy]] as he was, actually inquired if a corps of archers could be trained for the Napoleonic Wars. Unfortunately, there were not enough men in England still able to use the weapon (it took daily training from age six to develop the muscle structure needed to draw the weapon), and the idea was shelved.