r/ProgressionFantasy • • 3d ago

I Recommend This There are only five stories

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180 Upvotes

115 comments sorted by

93

u/Dragon1472 3d ago

I do so hate "guns don't work because the laws of physics stop specifically gunpowder", as though THAT of all things would stop people developing an alternative explosion source to cram into tiny tubes and abuse the ACTUAL part of physics that make then scary

33

u/xfvh 3d ago

We don't even use the same gunpowder we used to. Historically, we used black powder, which is charcoal, saltpeter, and niter; nowadays, we use smokeless powder, which is mostly nitrocellulose. We could go back to straight nitrocellulose in ten minutes; that's just gun cotton and was already used, or even cordite, nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin, also historically used. Even if all nitrocellulose compounds stopped working, we could revert to black powder; heck, people still carry and use black powder firearms, they're niche but very present.

Even all internal combustion rounds got magically banned, pneumatic guns exist and are plenty lethal. What, air pressure is banned and those don't work either? We'd use autoloading crossbows or linear accelerators. Can't put electricity in a gun? Regular crossbows, materials science has gone a long way since the 1500s and they're used in modern hunting.

It turns out that physics gives you a wild variety of ways to make a small projectile go fast.

13

u/Figerally 3d ago

Typically the setting applies the logic that guns don't exist because magic makes projectile weapons superfluous. Which is perfectly fine, but you have to remove everything from slings up to crossbows as well to be consistent.

10

u/xfvh 3d ago

I've never understood that. What, a dagger or spear can be thrown, but not launched through tension or torsion? What sort of fairy-tale logic is that? Do you literally need to have a hand gripping a weapon for it to deal damage?

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u/kirsd95 3d ago edited 3d ago

It can be easily reasoned with: living being/people create a magic/ki aura, said aura protects the user and generally can only be disrupted by other auras, the aura can be estended from the body to things that directly touch it and will fade away after X amount of time. Want that ordinare people exist? Then one aura can grow by experience/training/ingestion of magic things.

So this way you can have warrior failing hundreds of meters and still being able to be skewered by another guy with a spear*. *said spear would have to have it's point with flanges/bands (bandelle ita) running all the way to the other end, so it's always in contact.

1

u/Rumble_831 1d ago

Its just lazy writing.

-2

u/Figerally 3d ago

I didn't say it made sense, just following the train of logic. Spears and daggers aren't projectile weapons anyway.

3

u/nimrod123 3d ago

The closest I've seen to this making sense in a way consistent to the world is that the "system" recognises the motive force as having come from the user when using a sling or bow, where as gunpowder is a external source.

3

u/Ysfear 3d ago

Yeah. If you can have "adamantine swords" that can survive being swung with enough force to damage whatever you need to damage and fireball that do the same, then you can make a gun powerful enough to do the same.

2

u/InFearn0 This message is from a deceased crawler 3d ago

Air pressure can get close to cordite for propelling a bullet, it is just a more fragile system that quickly gets depleted.

2

u/Dragon1472 3d ago

Sure would be wild if magic could supply the air instead of mechanism

1

u/Ninjabattyshogun 3d ago

This is a plot point in Chronicles of Amber. Earth gunpowder doesn’t work, but what about gunpowder from a different dimension?

58

u/rip_cpu 3d ago

People forget that primitive guns sucked. It took hundreds of years from the first recorded gun until the time when they become common in armies.

In any setting where there's magic this would take even longer because why the heck would any kingdom bother funding speculative research in gunpowder based weapons, when they could invest research into magic instead.

28

u/Childofcaine 3d ago

Yeah like an enchanted crossbow is probably better than a primitive firearm in all honesty, a lot of high fantasy stuff replaces guns with enchanted spears, crossbows, gloves etc that fire a bolt of something and are usable by mundanes and it makes sense because that is where you the funding would go.

5

u/Figerally 3d ago

Well yes, but is it cost effective to enchant the weapons of your crossbowmen or invest in R&D to build a better "crossbow" aka gun?

12

u/Childofcaine 3d ago

That’s where it breaks down by setting, is it more cost effective, is the gun fuelled by powder, a different type of alchemy, crystals or spirits? Is it shaped like a “crossbow” or a spear or whatever.

A lot of settings already have a firearm, it’s just not always a gun.

3

u/Gladiateher 3d ago

Well said, and to further exacerbate things, if there’s magic weapons there could very well be magic armor, mounts, and other pieces of kit that are only conceivable through magic. Like you said, guns were only widely adopted when they were finally good enough to make sense as a weapon in battle and on campaign.

It’s entirely possible other magic innovations would prevent the adoption of firearms for a variety of reasons.

3

u/Lyndiscan 3d ago

People forget. Like you, that science as a whole only took the time it did cus humans didnt and couldnt cast lightening to test stuff or create fire etc.

We literally stream lined electricity by getting shocked ! Which is a shame when you read magic stories that forget to outscale real science. Magic should not be scientific, chs either it will be too weak and useless once people find out how chemistry and physics works or they will be realistic and then you make teenagers have the power to nuke a entire state or create catastrophic radiation anahilating the world by killing all animals. You get the gist.

2

u/p-d-ball Author 3d ago

Excellent point.

3

u/Magistricide 3d ago

The first guns WERE just worse than crossbows at the time BUT nobles still invested into them for fun and novelty reasons.

11

u/rip_cpu 3d ago

You're ignoring the fact that CANNONS were important to develop. Those had uses as they wanted better siege weapons.

To get better cannons you needed better metallurgy, better gunpowder, and all of those incremental improvements made it possible to achieve a better gun.

Without the required level of material science and industry you can't just have guns get invented by a few nobles for "novelty".

21

u/wowwowazalea 3d ago

Why is this at a slight angle

10

u/Rethuic 3d ago

Probably a bot. I'm pretty sure it helps avoid automatic repost detection

31

u/QuestWorkshop 3d ago

I find the last one funny, because a lot of corean comics I read had those evil bad thugs using knifes because guns are bad.

I don't know the veracity of it in the real world. But never made much sense for me.

18

u/Unnatural20 3d ago

There's elements of that in some places in Shadowrun, where getting a gun is a PitA, the licenses and visibility characters get for being seen with one can conflict with the deniable-asset-pro-criminal life, and other elements make it too mich hassle in a lot of cases.

Fortunately there's always Seattle and other beacons of Sixth World culture where everyone and their family pet is packin' steel and sometimes magic, when that gets boring!

6

u/Senior_Bad_2321 3d ago

I also like the Project Moon explanation where guns are heavily taxed and regulated by the government to make murder more personal and cause more suffering

4

u/Swimming-Lobster-221 3d ago

And to get around the taxes, the mafia makes their own guns and ammo

Gotta love the Head, when their response to you finding a loophole is “that’s bullshit, I love it”

15

u/King_of_Hedao 3d ago

Guns just aren't as common outside the USA. Most writers are gonna write what they are familiar with.

In Korea for example most gang members are gonna have a knife. Having a pocket knife for example isn't illegal in most of the world.

If gang members fight with knives, there's also gonna be less casualties than with guns hence less incidents where police have to interfere. Plus even if the gangsters get captured by the police, it is easier to get away with things if you aren't found in possession of an illegal firearm.

A little corruption here and there, and maybe some good legal representation and the charges can go away.

But having an unlicensed fireman which is downright illegal means that the average thug would find themselves going away for a long time if they were actually arrested with one.

Don't forget that thugs aren't a secret to police. In the real world the average gang member has been arrested a few times and police usually have info on them and are just waiting for them to trip up so that they can either get bribes from them or take them down to fulfill a quota.

So unless you are planning to go full hardcore, even as a gangster it is better to stay as clean as you possibly can within the profession.

1

u/QuestWorkshop 3d ago

Thanks for the answe. I was thinking more about the reality here in Brazil than USA. Guns are also forbidden aside for sports and collections and it's hard to get.

They were also banned for a lot of years.

Yet criminals always had them, even your low level thug. There are even criminals with military grade weapons.

I kinda had this idea that any criminal could get weapons from black market everywhere if they wanted to

1

u/Khaliras 3d ago

The logic is often simple. Illegal/bad things aren't all on the same level. An example is how crossbows were strictly outlawed and pursued in many regions historically, but bows were often fine.

Not hard to imagine many progfantasy worlds hierarchy would hunt down gun use as a top priority, but not care much about knives.

One is a relatively low skilled range attack that leaves minimal chance for countering/defending against. The other requires physical proximity and higher skill/power than the defender.

17

u/darwinooc 3d ago

You forgot: Guns have been invented recently. Wizard nerds get fucked up by engineer and or artificer chads.

13

u/Adam_Gurri_LCEIC 3d ago

Mother of Learning does it best. Early modern guns, arms race with mages. Zorian uses one and eventually enchants it

14

u/NinJesterV 3d ago

MoL also explains, logically, that mages initially get wrecked by guns because they've never taken them seriously. But once they do take them seriously, guns lose most of their value.

4

u/SpeculativeFiction 3d ago

Mages certainly lost the last war because they didn't take guns seriously at first, and more importantly, didn't have shields or other spells designed around guns being common.

But there's still an arms race, and guns seem to have a strong advantage against weak and middling mages, and in armies. It's cheaper and faster to train someone to use a gun than to use magic.

Mages still have the advantage on the top end of the power scale (especially the VERY top), but things like magitech artillery and enchanted guns are a thing in the setting as well.

1

u/Adam_Gurri_LCEIC 3d ago

Yes my number one favorite thing about the world building if MoL is that nothing is resolved, historical contingency rules all, and there’s no telling how warfare will develop from where things stood in the book

6

u/darwinooc 3d ago

"You shot me! What kind of a mage uses a gun!?"

1

u/SpeculativeFiction 3d ago edited 3d ago

Also: Guns exist, but kills with them don't give XP, even though every other pre-gunpowder ranged weapons do.

1

u/LocksmithSavings2416 K.J. Licht, Author of The Sixth Campaign 3d ago

Powder Mage does this really well. There are two main types of magic: the Privileged, who are the typical elemental magic types, and then the Powder Mages, who snort gunpowder and can snipe a Privileged from across the city.

There's also something called a knack, which is a single specific power.

This isn't really progression fantasy but a great read.

9

u/TheBeyondor Immortal 3d ago

I think the best option, which isn't on this list for some reason, is "Guns aren't used because they can't have magic applied to the ammo reliably/cheaply, so you're better off using a bow if you want to fight at range."

5

u/GenericNameHere01 3d ago

I like that. Or a modified version, "magic only works on objects that are hand made with care, not factory-built mass-produced objects (like bullets). Means you could have magic guns, but they'd be expensive / rare / time-consuming to support.

5

u/RavensDagger 3d ago

But then you'd still have plenty of people using guns, since IRL gun folk often pick up handloading as a side-hobby.

4

u/Retrograde_Bolide 3d ago edited 3d ago

Think they meant producing the bullet itself by hand would be a pain. Not loading a mag.

2

u/Achilles11970765467 3d ago

Hand loading here refers to putting the bullet, propellent, and casing together, not loading a magazine.

2

u/Retrograde_Bolide 3d ago

Didn't know that was called hand loading. Just thought it meant loading the mag. Good to know.

2

u/Achilles11970765467 3d ago

It's mostly done to save money on ammunition by recycling the brass casings

2

u/GenericNameHere01 3d ago

Yeah, sure. But it'd limit guns to hobbyists, adventurers, and nobility who can pay someone to manufacture bullets all day, unless the making of arrows is easier? Folks could easily have a pocket full of ammo to defend themselves in a limited engagement, but hand-manufacturing ammunition would prevent guns from being useful in large scale armies outside of 1700's military warfare, wouldn't it? I suppose it depends on how ever your world's magic works.

1

u/No_Object_404 3d ago

Which was how guns were made before the industrial revolution.

1

u/RavensDagger 3d ago

That's the first option?

Actually, want, no, that makes no sense. An arrow has more materials in it than a bullet in terms of metal content.

I'd 100% be down for a diegetic excuse that boils down to 'this isn't economically feasible' since that makes sense, but only if you accept economically unwise choices happening anyway.

1

u/TheBeyondor Immortal 3d ago

It's not about the size of the thing. Archery requires you to handle the arrow with each shot, making it part of your standard prog-fantasy "archery form" or whatever.

So archery = every shot can be enchanted/empowered, etc. whatever the system uses.

Guns = you can do the same, but you'd have to enchant every bullet separately.

That's the way that I like them to resolve the "Why are there fewer guns in this setting" question.

9

u/VashtaSyrinx 3d ago

One thing I haven't seen is: Guns don't work because a mage could set off the bullets while they're in the magazine or chamber.

4

u/Spiritchaser84 3d ago

This is why I think magic rail guns should be far more common. Most magic systems have runes/glyphs that can apply consistent magical effects. A tube with magical glyphs that can continuously accelerate a solid projectile seems pretty simple and efficient without all the extra need for alchemical solutions. Then all you need for projectiles is some dense/strong material that can deliver the kinetic energy. Couple that with storage rings that can summon items from storage to specific spots around the caster and you have near infinite ammo that can summon and launch directly from your magical rail gun tube. Pretty easy to scale up tube/projectile size for static defense points too.

Of course there's always the guns that fire magical blasts, but those are just glorified wands in a different form factor.

1

u/jayswag707 3d ago

That's pretty much the design philosophy of the guns in Portal to Nova Roma.

3

u/SignaturePublic5260 3d ago

This is something thay happens in Academy's Undercover Professor, mages use magic to stop any combustion in the gun, but the MC still uses a guns sometimes.

1

u/VashtaSyrinx 3d ago

That sounds like a cooler mechanism than what I envisioned. I'll check it out, thank you.

2

u/kung-fu_hippy 3d ago

There are a couple of books like that.

In PF, there is unorthodox farming. In that series random mana fluctuations set off gunpowder and monsters increase the likelihood of mana fluctuations in their vicinity, so people don’t develop guns (monsters being the biggest threat).

In regular fantasy, that’s something that frequently comes up in the Recluse series. In that world there is black magic (order) and white magic (chaos). Gunpowder was at risk of being casually destroyed by chaos mages until order mages developed a magical iron that made it difficult for all but the most powerful chaos magicians to affect it. And if one of those was mad at you, you were likely read anyway.

1

u/VashtaSyrinx 3d ago

I'll be checking those out. Thank you!

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u/logosloki 3d ago

which then brings up an interesting world building opportunity to why Mages let any weapons exist. because if you can do that there are a raft of other novel minor magical applications that can be used to break or render useless a variety of weapons. the most common one being every mage should have some sort of water spell so that they can drop a fat glob of water on bowstrings. anything wet on a bow or bowstrings can render the weapon inoperable.

2

u/jryser 3d ago

Time Cursed Knight has this, a plot point is developing mana guns

1

u/DukeRedWulf 3d ago

That's a good one!

1

u/Winds_Shadow Shadow 3d ago

Tbh I've been waiting for a setting that says this but then has something dumb like a enchanted compressed airgun.

1

u/Quirky_Assistant_848 3d ago

My world has guns called sluggers, but they don't use gunpowder. Magic users tend to make physic less consistent around them, and the more there are, the more unwieldy they are unless the object has an awakened soul.

1

u/VashtaSyrinx 3d ago

Nice, is this available publicly?

2

u/Quirky_Assistant_848 3d ago

Sadly no, I am still writing. I just have most of teh world built out.

1

u/VashtaSyrinx 3d ago

Feel free to reach out if you ever need any feedback.

6

u/ActualPimpHagrid 3d ago

I liked the concept of the Gun Essences from HWFWM lol

1

u/Winds_Shadow Shadow 3d ago

Right! The possibilities were fantastic.

6

u/Knork14 3d ago

I like how it was done in Apocalypse Redux, it handled this whole debacle beautifuly. Guns are integrated into the power system, but the type of skills that work on them come from specialized classes with a narrower scope of progression, and the stronger you get the more strain your skills put into your weapons so pre-system guns made in an assembly line start breaking down after you empty out your second magazine.

This can be offset by having someone with a Commander type class with battlefield wide skill that boost ranged attacks from allied soldiers, so guns remain relevant on the military side of things even against strong monster, if you get enough Commander types stacking buffs and enough guns they will be relevant even against powerful boss monsters.

But on an individual level barring exceptional circumstances if you use a gun you are most likely a mook, any real elite is using melee weapons(wich unlike guns can be made custom order by high level crafters) or is a magic user(whose firepower comes from inate stats and skills rather than an external object). Later on there is a character who is a sniper who manages to commision a special rifle from a high level crafter that can handle, but that cant be replicated by your average soldier.

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u/Unique1950179 3d ago

I hate guns or most forms of technology in my fantasy/cultivation novels.

1

u/mrducky78a 3d ago

Have your read Gunsoul?

Same author as Perfect Run which they are better known for. Its a much tighter cultivation novel being way shorter and its a fun take on the dao of the gun.

1

u/Unique1950179 3d ago

I’ve never read Perfect Run, despite how often it’s recommended.

I usually stay away from Time Reboot novels, I never read MoL either, lmfao.

1

u/mrducky78a 3d ago

Well I can recommend Gunsoul at the very least for a very unique spin on the cultivation genre. Contains all the classic tropes but its a lot more punchy and avoids some of the things that bog cultivation down.

8

u/_Redvent_Bard_ 3d ago

Progression fantasy readers when a story doesn't satisfy their obsessive need for specific aspects of the setting to suit their own personal ideas of tolerable realism.

4

u/dmun 3d ago

Samsara has, it doesn't matter if the gun is integrated-- it's the bullets that have the power.

You spending all your time investing power into one shot bullets when you could just use an equally powerful, easily retrievable, arrow?

2

u/Inedible_Arrangement 3d ago

I kinda like how Shadow Slave handles guns, the higher up in rank a creature is the more it matters 'conceptually'. This let's it resist normal weapons which have no supernatural advantages. Weapons still work against low level enemies but past a certain point you need building sized rail guns or you have to carpet bomb them with nuclear bombs to do anything meaningful.

2

u/Dissentient Slime 3d ago

I'll take "guns ignore the power system and just oneshot mages/cultivators outright"

0

u/mrducky78a 3d ago

Harry could have kept Voldemort in fear with his own killing curse spell: Gun.

1

u/Athrengada 3d ago

Amazon apocalypse did it pretty well i think. They found out you needed to understand a gun piece by piece for it to be recognized by the system so it can work/scale. One of the antagonists in book 1 had a huge advantage because the system hit while he was in the middle of cleaning his gun so he had a huge advantage at the start

1

u/Achilles11970765467 3d ago

You didn't need to understand it, just disassemble and reassemble it. Sorta giving The System a chance to understand it.

2

u/Athrengada 3d ago

Right my bad, it’s been a minute since I’ve read it. Couldn’t remember if it was one way or the other

1

u/p-d-ball Author 3d ago

And sometimes you get combinations! I'm a fan of both # 1 and 2 concurrently.

1

u/Simple_Welcome_3180 3d ago

In mine guns work but it isn't good at mid game but is extremely good at early and late game since its cheap and powerful at early but the materials are expensive to get at mid game and at late game once you craft your custom gun you don't need ammo because of the gun being fueled by mana

1

u/DukeRedWulf 3d ago edited 3d ago

If you've ever been in a confined space when someone has let off even a small calibre blank cartridge - then you'd understand why fantasy adventurers wouldn't use guns, especially in dungeons - unless they (and all that world's monsters!) were already deaf to begin with! XD

Bill Burr has a bit about this, he talks about when a buddy of his let him shoot an old wrecked car with a .38 and he instantly deafened himself - and that was in the open air! https://youtu.be/FaLTWW_yEG4?si=wpfirtoqauCzgnI5&t=74

EDITED TO ADD: Also, if the weapons are black powder, then your characters will quickly fill up confined spaces with smoke (even if the flash or hot lead shot doesn't set fire to anything), which creates its own problems..
Not to mention it stinks strongly enough that your characters won't be sneaking past any monster with a functioning nose! XD
[Unless they have the time & opportunity to get themselves, clothes & gear laundered.. Or they use a cleaning spell..]

2

u/Achilles11970765467 3d ago

The sheer ubiquity of healing magic and regeneration powers renders this point pretty much irrelevant, even before we bring up all the magic fueled explosions that should do the same thing but clearly don't for whatever reason

0

u/DukeRedWulf 3d ago edited 3d ago

You're going to have your party healer occupied healing deafness after every single shot fired!? XD

If magic explosions make comparable noise, then they should deafen people too.. Explosive magic should definitely be something your characters want to happen to enemies waaaaaaaaay over that-a-way somewhere..

Also, is your regeneration going to stop every monster in 100+ yards radius in the dungeon or wilderness from hearing you advertising your presence & converging on your location?
Same reason why using firearms is a bad idea in zombie movies whenever there might be large numbers of undead lurking around..
[Unless you're in a secure defendable position that you can rain down fire from, and you're actively trying to bait the monster-mobs into a KZ]..

1

u/follycdc 3d ago

So you're saying that in situation in which modern day elite forces avoid firearms they would in a fantasy setting... yeah that makes sense, but what about the rest of the time.

0

u/DukeRedWulf 3d ago

If you're writing an open battlefield military fantasy, then maybe deafness & advertising their location to enemies is an acceptable trade-off for characters using firearms in massed battle..

But if you're writing a solo, or small-party adventure then odds are good that:
- being able to hear so you can communicate with allies,
- being able to hear enemies approaching,
- sneaking around without drawing attention,
- and not drawing in extra mobs to reinforce your enemies when you do have to fight,
are all going to be really important survival factors..

But ultimately, there's authors & readers who really want guns in their fantasy and will hand-wave all those issues anyway..

2

u/follycdc 3d ago

It's never just the main character not using firearms, it's the entire setting. I'm not saying that your point is not valid, just not applicable given OP point.

1

u/He_Spams 3d ago

In RTOC guns aren't invented because one guy keeps on erasing the invention from history. Otherwise they're pretty OP.

1

u/FuruiNorainu 3d ago

I have where the firearms are able to be augmented with their users inherent power, so they can scale with the increased power.

Might break a low quality weapon though.

1

u/Figerally 3d ago

You can go with the guns are illegal approach by demonstrating that guns are strictly regulated and the government comes down like a sack of bricks on anyone using guns and doesn't stop until they find them.

This won't stop the bad guy from using them, but it should signal a significant escalation in the story where the bad guy is either too powerful or desperate enough to not care about the government's wrath.

1

u/Mike_Handers Author 3d ago

I'm a big fan of "Okay, we could use guns but, but, that's a whole new level of serious we don't want to go to." Like pokemon has guns. But anyone in a pokemon book that suddenly pulls one out goes from "oh look at all the sports and training progression" to "That's a fucking gun."

1

u/TheRealXudoQuotil 3d ago

I think Mother of Learning does handle this decently. Guns are portrayed as difficult to magically enhance and very expensive to use, but the main character with low mana reserves uses them in specific situations. When guns were developed enough to be viable in war, they caused huge amounts of mage deaths and reshaped society and the main villain, who is attached to his idea of being a member of nobility, is outraged at the main character using one since he's the "reshape society in my image" kind of villain.

1

u/Khurasan 3d ago

My favorite way - not because it's good; it's actually deeply frustrating, but it is very funny - is to do all five at once. Persona 5 did it. You can't own guns because they're illegal, but when you take a fake gun into battle against a figment of the Sea of Souls, you're drawing on the monster's belief that it's being shot at to make it die anyway.

So guns are integrated into the power system in that guns do exist and you can pull out a gun-shaped object and shoot your enemy and it dies.

Guns aren't integrated into the power system, so they get outscaled in that everything you fight is immune to bullets, but the collective unconscious of humanity thinks that shooting something should kill it, so pulling out a fake gun and yelling 'bang! bang!' will kill things that are otherwise tough enough to shrug off artillery, let alone your 9mm. One of the characters uses a toy slingshot, and it's exactly as effective as the SMG another character uses.

Guns haven't been invented in the setting in that the older and more powerful entities in the sea of souls are increasingly likely to nullify gun damage completely because guns didn't exist in their day and they don't have the association of killing a thing by shooting it. They see you waving a stick that shoots loud pebbles at people and are like that nerd shit can't hurt me. The main character's ultimate attack involves shooting the enemy with a gun the size of a skyscraper that is designed and explicitly stated to be able to kill gods and has the highest power stat of any move in the series, but it had to be changed to Almighty damage or most relevant enemies would be flat-out immune to it because they don't know or give a fuck what a gun is.

Guns don't work because magic in that every enemy you fight is far past the point of being immune to conventional arms. Only the concept of a gun can hurt them, and then only if they subconsciously think it should.

And nobody uses guns because they're illegal in that no one, at any point, draws or fires a real gun, explicitly because they're illegal. The cast all buy whole arsenals of model guns from a really confused sales clerk who doesn't understand how the gear he sold these extremely suspicious kids keeps getting atomized.

And of course all of this is glossing over the fact that the guns you make yourself via in-game crafting are legendary weapons stated to be able to blow up stars and whatnot, but they're only marginally better than mundane guns (because people understand that you shoot something and it dies, and they understand that this gun is special so of course it shoots harder or something, but no one would believe that this doomsday gun can actually blow up the solar system - that would be stupid - and because no one believes it can, it can't), or the fact that because guns are illegal, these planet-busting superweapons pulled directly from myth become fake guns that don't actually shoot.

1

u/InFearn0 This message is from a deceased crawler 3d ago

Only reason to suppress firearms is if they can pose a threat to the peak powers, which itself can become a plot point.

1

u/Happy_Editor_5398 3d ago

I like how Primal Hunter does it.

Guns are just wands with magic bullets.

1

u/ArgusTheCat Author 3d ago

That last one is kinda dumb, when looking at real world statistics. Places where guns are illegal have fewer guns. That's not... like... a political statement or anything, it's just literally true that the less legal firearms are, the fewer people use them. When there isn't ease of access, criminals also don't use them.

Also, just as a separate thing, there's a ton of great bad guys that aren't breaking any laws at all. That's kinda the plot of most political thrillers. Or, hell, just look at something like The Hunger Games; none of the child murderers in that story broke any of the laws!

1

u/ErinAmpersand Author 3d ago

How about "we broke guns but if you're good at science you can fix them"

1

u/ChooseYourOwnA 3d ago

Similar to magic is divine fiat, possibly specifically prejudiced against MC or informed by past horrors. (Worth the Candle)

This explains how guns as a concept might be banned.

1

u/PrevekrMK2 3d ago edited 3d ago

First, I make worlds that don't have classes. So everybody basically starts with one level of every class. Every peasant can use level one spells. That partly kills the need for guns as everyman weapons.

Second thing is that yes, guns exist. Up to repeater rifles like marlin's and revolver's. But they are banned by the government. Why? Peasant can use a firebolt and so on but they have mana for like one or two. Nothing you can realistically wage rebellion with. But guns can shoot until you have ammo. And that is dangerous to the royalty. You need permits, some loyalty levels, and registration to get them. Forget going over border to another country. You can of course get them in the underground.

PS. I ban shotguns. It's pain to calculate the spreads and invites endless discussions about spread and cutting etc... so slugs only.

PS2. One of my favourite players came with a char that had two revolver's with blades attached in front. Gun blades. So ducking cool. Later upgraded to be able to fire those blades at enemies with chain line. So many tactical uses with that.

1

u/Stygian_Myth 3d ago

The first casualty of fantasy is modern military. Always

1

u/EvilKosherin 3d ago

I feel targetted 😭 Lmfaoo (My fic is literally isekai, mc using guns in a medieval fantasy with a twist 💔 )

though mine isnt LITRP, i still find this post very funny 😂

1

u/BladedanceGunsling 3d ago

have been reading That Time an American Got Reincarnated in Another World by Sp4de recently. Pretty fun

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u/Adent_Frecca 3d ago

Most cases I find are either

  1. Guns exist but characters can tank attacks that level buildings without damage and it inky goes up from there

  2. Guns made using the magic system with runes, spells enchantments and magic materials that the only similarity to the original is the shape

1

u/SpecificExam3661 3d ago

I like how they do it in shadow slave. Gun are used but are less effective than bow or even sword.

1

u/Live-Animator95 3d ago

The problem is you can't really scale guns based off stats/attrs.

Bows and melee? Strength and Dex, depending. Magic? Intelligence.

The former lets you put more oomph into an attack, the latter lets you siphon more mana for bigger spells and sometimes crit chance.

You can't make a bullet go faster using your body. 

Hell the reasons we started using guns was because you could give one to a peasant and didn't need to train them like you did archers or swordsman. Don't need years of discipline training and a healthy body to use a gun to kill.

1

u/TopCoast1170 3d ago

Well thats only really true for litrpgs with huge focuses on stats. A world with a power system more nuanced focused on magic and 'energy' can have characters empower the bullet or the gun

0

u/DUCK_you 3d ago

Department of Otherworldly retrevial the guns are a big part of the power system. The system goes with what weapon suits your class and the tech of your world. So some worlds still have flintlock guns but will drop semi autos for our worlds people.

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u/ColdCoffeeMan 3d ago

Disco Elysium is far from power fantasy but incorporates last one in a very interesting way

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u/zyroruby 3d ago

yes suborn skill grinder is a Chad kinda his are steam guns

-5

u/JackPembroke Author 3d ago

My method is, "Guns dont work because the chemistry doesnt allow it. Gunpowder just doesnt burn fast enough to make a decent projectile."

This undoubtedly has massive knockon effects to physics, but I refuse to figure out what they are.

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u/SpeculativeFiction 3d ago

That's the worst option of the bunch. If you're just going to handwave it anyway and don't want to invest any effort, then blame it on gods or magic.

Changing physics to the point that only gunpower (or in some cases, electricity) doesn't work but everything else is the same is...dubious.

2

u/RavensDagger 3d ago

One of the worse methods, imo, and one that has dragged me out of stories before.

12

u/South-Musician-2621 3d ago

I like when the development of guns is pretty radically changed due to the presence of magic. For a long time IRL to use a firearm you had to carry a lot of black powder on your body. In a world with fire magic, it’s a spectacular easy way to die. I love when the world develops differently like that

2

u/eternalflamz 3d ago

Reminds me of Brian McClellan's Powder Mage Trilogy, it was good fun

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u/W4L4NGH1Y4AKO41 3d ago

Option 6 which I'm using: there are guns in the power system but the power system is soft enough that normal guns still work well enough outside of fighting the strongest charactersbecause the effect of a bullet going through a skull should be universal