Canonfire!

Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:01 am Blackpowder Weapons in Greyhawk

I know this topic has been discussed on these forums more than a few times, but after a fun late night discussion with Cebrion and Gary Holian, I decided to write down my view on guns in Greyhawk for all to see. Have a look, tear it apart if you like, but enjoy!

http://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2012/01/blackpowder-weapons-in-greyhawk.html

Tue Jan 10, 2012 4:46 pm

I like the source references for support of gunpowder in Greyhawk, mortellan. However, I prefer to use them only for exceptional NPCs - like Myrlund - or in campaigns with very specific genres - light armor and weapon rennaisance or a piratey genre like your own Sea Princes campaign.

SirXaris

Edit: Fixed spelling. SX

Tue Jan 10, 2012 5:20 pm

I tend to stick with the "no gunpowder" rule, though as a DM I would not prevent a PC from blowing themselves up trying to invent the stuff. The issue rarely comes up in my undersea game.

However, in the Devils' Purse dwell the red-skinned water dwarves. They are a chemosynthetic race that dwells near hydrothermal vents and uses the black smokers to forge calciferous weapons and armor. They have discovered crystals they call "frozen thunder" (methane hydrate). The gasses released from the warming of these crystals have been known to sink passing ships.

Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:21 pm

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Also, the large clay pots of black powder in Greyhawk Ruins (Z603), acquired by Zagyg during his spelljamming days.

Wed Jan 11, 2012 12:48 am

Wed Jan 11, 2012 4:09 am

Wow, great research, though I do not recall the use of gunpowder in Doomgrinder. I have always banned gunpowder as the potential for systemic abuse by clever players is just too large. Some solutions are to make it so they cannot make more (i.e., the stash they find is all they have) or to increase the chance of a misfire. Widespread use, however, has massive ramifications for the campaign world. The Medieval feeling of Greyhawk egins to out the window when a group of characters start delivering volleys of musketry (or worse, the peasants do).

On the flip side, gunpowder does allow the lowly to stand up for themselves, perhaps against pushy adventurers. I could imagine characters who bully low-level peasants suddenly finding themselves in a position like Butch and Sundance...

Great catch on Ahlissa's coat of Arms!

Wed Jan 11, 2012 9:31 am

Nice, IronGolem! I should have remembered that one too. Embarassed

Wed Jan 11, 2012 10:29 am

Thu Jan 12, 2012 2:39 pm

Part 2 of my mad ramblings on blackpowder weapons...

http://greyhawkery.blogspot.com/2012/01/blackpowder-weapons-in-greyhawk-part-2.html

Fri Jan 13, 2012 1:31 am

Well my overly simplified reasoning is that since we have Myrlund, we have to have blackpowder weapons in Greyhawk. Sure, Gygax said that gunpowder doesn't work in Oerth but ever since Murlynd's ascension I think that comment has been officially voided.

I guess I'm just a fan of low-level and unreliable muskets and pistols. But ONLY if they are a bit crappy and prone to jam... or worse.

Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:03 am Castle Amber

Maybe some would like the take that Roger Zelazny's Amber novels took. Some worlds gun powder worked and others it didn't. On the worlds that it didn't, a special combination of materials would work where regular gunpowder didn't. The characters in those stories were known to store powder on one world where it didn't work in case they wanted to have it handy for invading another world where it did work.

So Murlynd's powder may work in Greyhawk because it's special powder and that stockpile of powder in Greyhawk Ruins might be valuable after gating somewhere else.

Fri Jan 13, 2012 11:08 am

@ Raymond

That's an interesting idea. That would prevent the PCs from equipping an army with all the gunpowder in the Greyhawk Ruins or blowing up an enemy stronghold with it, but would allow a DM to let the PCs take it into Greyspace, for example, where piratey gunfights and cannonades are more appropriate.

SirXaris

Fri Jan 13, 2012 1:49 pm

I like it! I think your ideas for exceptions to the use of gunpowder could also explain the gun-wielding dwarves in the Chainmail reboot. Wink

Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:06 am Not Really My Ideas...

They're Roger Zelazny's ideas. I just read The Amber Chronicles last year.

I gave up on reading the "classics," and started going through the recommended reading list in the 1st Edition books instead. I've enjoyed that very much so far. ...Along with revisiting Thieves' World--new and old.

I'd always been stubborn about not reading the recommendations from third-parties like even from the D&D rule books, but after all these years I see now that I was being thick-headed for no reason. Some of the stories are hard to get from a library and would have been much easier to borrow back in the 80s I'm pretty sure.

Mon Jan 16, 2012 6:30 pm

If I recall correctly, the idea that was put forth was that such "technology" doesn't work in Greyhawk, and only that Murlynd was a plane-hopping quasi-deity in the first place allowed his guns/gunpowder from another plane/dimension to work on Greyhawk(and for his items from Greyhawk to work on other planes with full functionality as well). There were actual rules for items working to a lesser, and even to no effect the farther away from their plane of origin they got. Murlynd being deified doesn't change that at all, such that this "technology" will now work for anybody. It depends on the kind of game somebody wants to run though. If somebody wants to play Warhammer Fantasy/Iron Kingdoms in Greyhawk, by all means go ahead, but that is not what Greyhawk is about.

Murlynd(and quite a few other well known personalities) really is a holdover to when they were playing in an undefined background world, or many worlds all thrown together. They felt like something "western", and so Murlynd and friends go to an "Old West" type world, and he comes back with a couple "souvenirs". Erac's Cousin basically did the John Carter of Mars thing, and even gated in Zeus once. Being from Greyhawk supposedly, how would Erac's Cousin even know of Zeus? See HERE for more on Erac's Cousin.

Things seemed to have not bee all that set in stone early on, and this was all before Greyhawk even had an actualized identity. One could say that EGGs campaign had only a loose identity, but that is how everything came to be, so all of that formative stuff really is important to what comes later.

Just read Quag Keep and you'll see the Temple of the Frog and the City of the Gods of the DA series in there, and yet we all very much know that those are features of a Blackmoor which does not literally appear as it is in the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, but in the the Basic D&D world setting. Even by 1978 Greyhawk was still all a kludge(Andre Norton didn't make that stuff up herself, it was provided to her), and with the Folio/83' WoG Boxed Set, Greyhawk was finally given somewhat of an identity, and it very purposely left out very many things. Such as gunpowder weapons.

Murlynd seems mroe of an homage to an earlier time in gaming. That's cool for the original players of EGG's campaign/games, and the people who originally played those personalities, but not so much for reinforcing any sort of identity for the World of Greyhawk which came after that. There are simply some things in the WoG background that are a lark. Murlynd is one of them. Others are EX1: Dungeonland, EX2: The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, and WG7: Castle Greyhawk.

Greyhawk isn't exactly all about Scarlet Brotherhood teaming up with the up with the Queen of Hearts, who will of course be fought against by Murlynd and the Texas Rangers, backing up the dwarves of Irongate with their batteries of artillery and units of grenadiers and fusiliers. But, it can be if you want it to be. Wink

For me, this pic will never be representative of Greyhawk(even if they are in Shield Lands colors Happy

):

Some folks just might like that Powder Monkey too much to have to leave gunpowder weapons out though. Laughing

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Mon Jan 16, 2012 7:17 pm

From what I understand, Don Kaye's PC never traveled to alternate worlds - he was just a standard magic-user who happened to dress like a cowboy and carry magic wands shaped like guns, because that's what Don Kaye enjoyed.

The Spelljammer setting noted that smoke powder (the 2nd edition AD&D equivalent of gunpowder) didn't work while in Oerth's atmosphere, but it worked in the wildspace beyond.

Mon Jan 16, 2012 7:22 pm

Ah, so they just wrote it into Murlynd's background that he appears that way, not that he's necessarily adopted something from somewhere else or is from somewhere else. Still, it is odd to set up a fantasy world campaign and have somebody be the "I wanna play a cowboy" guy, and then have the DM say "Sure, you can do that!" Happy

I don't know too many details about the formative background of Murlynd, or what Don Kaye has offered in way of explanation of him. That sort of information would be great to include in the GH Wiki. Cool

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Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:40 pm

Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:17 pm

I believe the official explanation in canon is that gunpowder and/or smokepowder become inert substances while on Oerth due to the will of the gods, but revert back to their original explosive properties when removed (by going into space or another plane or whatever). Slavers stated that the now-divine Murlynd could circumvent this effect and also allow his priests and paladins to do so as well.

Wed Jan 18, 2012 2:37 pm

Sat Jan 21, 2012 2:59 pm

I have gunpowder in my Greyhawk... albeit in a very low-key sort of way. It's only shown up once thus far, and only in the hands of a friendly NPC. None of the players have shown any overwhelming desire to use them at this point, but I like to keep the option open. It's nothing I want to saturate the game with, I prefer to keep it fairly exotic.