About Crossbows And Guns In RPG Campains

 By Felipe Lohan Pinheiro da Silva

The words “crossbow” and “gun” became a taboo to many fantasy/RPG writers. Let’s clarify the things:

1 – The notion that “the crossbow is the coward’s weapons”, just because an untrained person (or someone who trained for a short time) could kill an armored warrior trained by years, don’t sustain itself. That claim is ridiculous: it’s not a coward’s weapon, but a reminder to these armored warriors to think twice before attacking other people. The crossbows/guns just gives to people that hadn’t trained for years and people with weak body types (or even disabilities) the possibility of self-defense. The only cowardice is trying to forbid the possession of the crossbows/guns, leaving people helpless.

¿ Guess why fantasy writers and RPG players/GMs are against it? Answer: because when such things happen, people in shining armors don’t have the monopoly of ƒіghting the villains and entering in the dungeon anymore...

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” (USA Constitution – 2nd Amendment – www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm

2 – The notion that the crossbow/guns were the sole responsibles for the ended of the age of knights isn’t true, since pikemen formations also played a role on it. Crossbows/guns and armors were used side-by-side w/ armors for centuries.

3 – Crossbows and guns (at least the primitive and the not-so-primitive models) were used side-by-side with bows for centuries around the world. The replacement of bows by crossbows and later of crossbows by guns happened as a gradual process. İt wasn’t something that happened in a single day.

4 – Using hollow excuses to hinder the implementation of crossbows/guns the setting of your setting will only damage the suspension of belief. Deal with that. İf your setting have space exploration technology, but the main weapons used in wars are still bows, too bad to you.

Fans keep using hollow excuses of why their favorite setting doesn’t include guns. Often is a “technical” excuse (the diƒƒіculties of drilling the barrel one of the favorites, specially by Tolkien’s fans). These excuses just don’t explain how the guns can exist in our world, or why no one tried to make primitive prototypes of guns in countless centuries. İn some parts of the world handmade cannons were made even using bamboo barrels. Furthermore, blacksmiths and people from steel industry (or even bronze industry) in fantasy settings (those working for Saruman and Sauron in the Tolkien’s case) surely could create prototypes of barrels for cannons/handguns (even if it’s not an easy thing initially), and improve these prototypes over the time. Again, deal w/ that.

That all said, embrace your guns & crossbows.