There has been something that always bugged me about 'other fantasy roleplay' games: Why do guns work in WFRP, but are shunned in D&D?

jh

Emirikol said:

It's part of the accepted setting in Warhammer and takes place in a different timeframe. D&D is Medieval/dark ages time frame and Warhammer is in the renaissance (pre-industrial) era.

Both work independently of each other. In D&D it's kind of forced to fit it into the system.

There's a fairly long thread about just this gunpowder topic in rpg.net not so long ago: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=503450

There are DnD settings where it's used most notably Ravenloft.

Guns disrupt the standard fantasy world by adding another element that can threaten heavily armoured warriors. This isn't fatal, but it does change the balance.

D&D and guns don't get a long very well because of the deficiencies in D&D's game mechanics. The armour class system simply doesn't handle weapons that are good at penetrating armour well at all. Adding to this is the built in "magic gear arms race" and you have a system that isn't firearms friendly.

Because after you visted the Barrier Peaks there was no reason to use guns.

Guns, unless I forget my D&D, were included in the AD&D hardcover DMG. They've been mentioned in every core product until 3.5. They just don't fit the 'generic fantasy' setting D&D's known for the same way they fit in Warhammer or Iron Kingdoms.

Let us not forget that the Warhammer World is a whole lot od darker and, well, dirtier than the overall D&D worlds.
Guns, and the quite badly developed gunpowder fit the Warhammer - Setting much better then the *full-of-mafic-worlds*
that D&D mostly is consisted of.

I always assumed that the biggest reason was that if you had a +3 Longbow or a +3 Crossbow in every small town's weapon shop (Not to mention the +4 Crossbow of Frost Shock), there was little need for inventors to come up with new designs for ranged weaponry. Magic and magical items are so ridiculously commonplace in the standard D&D setting that invention in general isn't nearly as necessary.

Someone in Warhammer has great reason to invent a handgun, because without it, they have far fewer ways to fight heavily armored Chaos Warriors. They can't just summon the nearest Wizard to call down a Meteor Swarm, after all.