I play an Artificer named Batalash in a weekly D&D game. Recently we’ve been sharing our gear desires and plans for our characters with our DM. In doing so we started talking about “technology” since my character is kind of a technologist in some ways. This got us into a conversation about guns in the game.

The decision by the DM is that he didn’t want anything with a stock and barrel in the world. He didn’t dive to much into the details of why except to say that it just didn’t feel right. Which of course is totally cool since as the DM he really has the job of defining the world. I have plenty of cool options to take my character that will be just as satisfying to me.

However, the topic got me thinking about guns in the game. What follows is what I surmised around this topic and wanted to share with you. I’d love to hear your thoughts on guns in D&D 4e.

It really was no problem at all for me to avoid guns because I think the invention of the firearm into the real world brings with it a history that as players we cannot forget. guns have a history of domination and destruction. For a really great reading of this I recommend the book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. It seemed to me that because guns serve such an obvious role in our modern history, in our lives today and they represent such individual power that many players would see them as a way to dominate the monsters, which of course would fun and engaging for them. The players might want use them in ways that would give them some overbalancing advantage. While others, like our group, would be repelled by the idea of them because it would take away from the flavor or perception of game balance.

The idea of guns brings with it so many feelings and images from our modern world that often can’t be dispelled that I can totally understand our DM’s decision to not allow something that looks like them. And I can understand the desire by players to use them. What do you think about how they would impact the flavor or your game?

Whatever your conception of the idea of guns its clear that in a D&D 4e game if they were mechanically done incorrectly they’d ruin balance and make it so everyone needed one. However, it seems to me that when you consider the power sources of the game and the abilities of the characters a firearm could represent no more capability in the arms of the holder than say a Fullblade. The capabilities of the characters allow for the possibility that the introduction of guns is just a flavor item. The work of the game mechanics designer is to capture the flavor without unbalancing the rules. For example you can’t just simply say a gun has the same stats as a bow or a crossbow because their would be no flavor in their use.

It may solve the issue of the player wanting a gun but is seems just to simple in my mind. To add them with without fan fair or a flare of their own might leave the wielder of the gun with a slight feeling of being ripped off. It would me. It seems that to do the job right would take some effort.

For me today it’s a question that for now remains un-investigated. Without a place to use the rules the effort seems just too great. However, if you the closet game designer or independent decide to pursue the idea of rules for guns in D&D 4e please, let me know. Also, please, keep them rare, uniquely crafted, and balanced with other weapons and capabilities so that when you publish the rules I can use them for a cool unique character. You see if every Halfling, Dwarf, and Dragonborn had one of these bad boys I’d just have to find some other unique thing to make my character cool. It would be much more fun to me if they were complex devises requiring specialized training in the form of feats, build options for certain classes, or paragon paths.

For now, every once in a while Batalash is sitting around the camp fire with the other characters he’ll look longingly up into the night sky and wish he had his Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle! So he could shoot his eye out.