The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Suzthulhu »

DurHandler wrote:The channel I signed up for some ten years ago and the channel that is now were completely different settings, because things have changed. There are at any given time, 40+ people sitting in the channel idle and on a good night, five or six of them might go IC. People don't want firearms "Just because", they want a little more flexibility.
People aren't not going IC because they don't have firearms. Look at the other input on this thread. People just don't agree that firearms are the way to go.
DurHandler wrote:It isn't an issue of stagnation, it's an issue of wanting to break away from the same changes that saw the channel go into ruin to begin with. If folks keep hitting the "You Can't Do That" wall then they can hardly be blamed for only seeing 'The Old Regime(tm)', because that was the exact issue they ran into back then and are yet again running into now. I think at the very least there should be some consideration to trail them.

Something that encourages rp is better then "Ehh, no thanks. It's working as intended."
Firearms, steampunk, and airships had nothing in and of themselves to do with BDI's stagnation. So... how about some other suggestions then, that do not involve beating this very dead horse? There has been consideration. Almost 4 pages of a forum thread's worth, and the issue is really dead at this point.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Nymphetamine »

DurHandler wrote:It isn't an issue of stagnation, it's an issue of wanting to break away from the same changes that saw the channel go into ruin to begin with. If folks keep hitting the "You Can't Do That" wall then they can hardly be blamed for only seeing 'The Old Regime(tm)', because that was the exact issue they ran into back then and are yet again running into now. I think at the very least there should be some consideration to trail them.

Something that encourages rp is better then "Ehh, no thanks. It's working as intended."
I think this really misrepresenting what I have been saying in in this thread, Dur. Or what any of the dissenters on this issue, have been saying. We're not discouraging firearms for the sake of discouraging them, just so that things could never change, and always be the same. We're discouraging them because it doesn't feel like the fantasy BDI's come to represent. Preserving the channel as a medieval-ish fantasy or high fantasy, or something Tolkien could get behind is a prime goal.

That's not to say that we're discouraging submissions or ideas. I know that it's been a huge deal in the past to submit story lines, ideas, concepts, setting stuff, races and all of that. It was a pain in the ass to get any of your own ideas moving in BDI in the past, and -that's- what we're trying to change.

This doesn't mean that it's a blanket wide "no," no matter what. This particular idea of firearms, probably not going to work in the setting. It doesn't mean that the next idea, or the next, is going to be met with the same sort of response.

I'm not sure where this concept that the firearms debate is representative of the whole came from, and I really don't like you using it as a martyr this way.

The problems that lead to BDI its decline have little to do with the inclusion or exclusion of firearms, so sitting here, saying that everyone dissenting is discouraging RP by refusing changes is kinda way too broad stroke than it really is.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Autocrat »

But JD. Anything can be abused.

Really, I think people would be more inclined to abuse MAGIC than black powder (after all, we know the limits of early firearms and we can base them on real world examples; magic can do potentially anything up to and including removing all the oxygen around a person and suffocating them, dropping meteors from the sky, and summoning a thousand devil army). And it hasn't happened to any degree that we've had to say "we're limiting magic". Don't get me wrong, we've had plenty of demons and magic abusers but they've always been dealt with appropriately and efficiently.

JD, you yourself took care of that offender Ignis with his Male Succubus (aren't those supposed to be incubi?) and his floating testicles with eyeballs and teeth. You received a complaint. you dealt with it. There was no serious drama.

So why would black powder or any kind of combustible reaction be any different?


And AGAIN. Why or how would this somehow "destroy" the setting? There have been a number of ridiculous elements allowed in that one might think would jeopardize the setting. The dimensional traveling, perhaps? Yet BDI lives.

"Fantasy" encompasses a lot of things. Warhammer Fantasy has guns. Warcraft has guns. They look and feel right there. Elder Scrolls may not have guns, but it has shockingly advanced mechanical implements. It even makes note that the mechanical wonders are powered by steam and magic.

I am with Dur on this. That we should have greater freedom to move through this setting and not restrict ourselves to the same fantasy is 75% of the channels out there.

Most people saying no here stubbornly do so out of bias and fear without basis. They assume that the ravenous hordes will charge into the inn, blasting away with machine guns. MACHINE GUNS. But they don't notice the reality of things.

When was the last time we had twenty people in the rafters for no reason (it was apparently such a problem we decided we needed magical broken glass and spikes that somehow blended in with the wood on the rafters)? How many people have come in and sat in a dark corner looking mysterious since we moved to Darkmyst? How many Ninjas or Katana wielders have we seen spread throughout the room at any single moment? I honestly can't remember the last Monster or demon that wasn't controlled by the staff burst in and grab a random girl hostage just to get attention.

You say, Nymph, that an overwhelming number people are 100% against it. I see SOME people against it. The same people who've always been against it. And I see new faces who are open to the idea. I say we allow it. I say we give it a chance. Let those who accept it accept it, and those who don't to ignore it. Isn't that the spirit of free form?

I remember in my early days of weird or stupid incidents that some players who didn't want to get involved with a giant lizard man attacking the inn just ignored it. Likewise, when the gnolls attacked or during any of the channel wide plots, players who didn't want to be bothered, simply ignored it. Did their own thing. At best offering a cursory acknowledgement that maybe. . just maybe. . something happened in the inn.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Autocrat »

I'd also like to note that in Igor's channel, where guns DO exist, no one has tried to run in guns blazing. Granted, you are required to submit a character but the mere fact that people listen should be a sign of the times.

People will listen. People will be reasonable. You'll get some bad eggs, but you can always throw those in the trash or at someone.

And another thing I think might be the problem. People feel threatened, I get that. But no one here, as far as I know, is going to force guns down our throats. The minute we lift this archaic ban, we will not be swarmed by dozens of players with sniper rifles and AK47s. It might even be weeks or months before someone even considers a character with a firearm.

I must stress how ridiculous it is to suggest that guns will throw everything into chaos the very second we decide some form is okay. If no one has rolled up in a regular ship firing his cannons off, I doubt very much John Wayne'll walk through the door and start capping people like a California Blood.

And there's nothing wrong with saying to a player "look, you need a good reason to have this and the common sense to use it". We can control it very easily like the demons, vampires, magic, and various things we all joke about when it comes to bad role play.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Wolfram »

Autocrat wrote:Most people saying no here stubbornly do so out of bias and fear without basis.
This ad hominem doesn't belong here. The people who are arguing against firearms have given the basis, and that is "the feel of the channel was created this way, and we like it this way and not this other way." You are choosing to ignore this argument entirely because it doesn't fit with your view.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Autocrat »

KnightErrant wrote:While I can deal with the use of early type cannons and such, it does change the feel of the setting. It makes me think about how castle walls will soon become irrelevant, etc. Granted, this didn't happen all in an instant in history, but just knowing it's heading in that direction changes the feel of the game for me. And for me, it's the feel of the environment that I play in.
But they are. Realistically, a person could conjure up a storm or a dragon. Unless we make it a magical wall. And then we get more magic to counter magic, so on and so forth. But so far there has been zero limit to the levels of magic allowed in this setting.
KnightErrant wrote:I really enjoy fantasy, Tolkien, Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin, I roleplay because i enjoy making up characters to act in that kind of environment. But then again, it is a matter of bias, some people enjoy the strict medieval/fantasy setting, other's enjoy including elements to my brain, seem to belong in a different time and place.
Why can't we think Warcraft or Warhammer? Guns even appear in DnD from time to time. I remember, I think, a humanoid hippo, dressed like he was on safari, who had a pistol. These settings never truly lost their High Fantasy feeling. Warhammer in particular works in a way that guns are useful but not the be all, end all. As does Warcraft.

There are a number of other fictional settings where it is considered high fantasy but have black powder at minimum.
KnightErrant wrote:On the note of change, I do not think we need to include guns in order to have the setting and channel feel alive. If that were so, how would many fantasy authors keep readers enthralled through multiple books. I advocate change through replying on story plots, planned events and global conditions that create atmosphere. I consider this to be "active change" whereas tweaking inanimate aspects of the setting to be "passive change." And yes, I am working on some story plot ideas so that I'm not just blowing smoke. It's just been my experience, though roleplaying over the last 7 years, and running a small channel of my own at one point, that
"active change" as I described is keeps things hopping better than "passive change." That's just my opinion.

- Thalion
Okay, it's true. Firearms won't make or break BDI. But I don't think having them will destroy it, either. And I do think it, along with other elements traditionally excluded from the inn, will open up more doors for more players to create new elements to the setting and have more angles without compromising that high fantasy feel.

Honestly, I feel like people treat the BDI setting like a sacred cow. Maybe we ought to put a lead ball in its cranium and have steak because we really ought to let the players who want to branch out have the freedom to A.) do it and B.) prove themselves.

All we have to go on is what happened ten or twelve years ago with 12 year olds who if they couldn't have one over powered thing, they jumped to another and then either got kicked or lost interest and left. What we have left are responsible adults who aren't going to walk into the inn and talk about how they have a hand cannon every five seconds and then shoot a dragon's head off just for laughs.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Autocrat »

Wolfram wrote:
Autocrat wrote:Most people saying no here stubbornly do so out of bias and fear without basis.
This ad hominem doesn't belong here. The people who are arguing against firearms have given the basis, and that is "the feel of the channel was created this way, and we like it this way and not this other way." You are choosing to ignore this argument entirely because it doesn't fit with your view.
Because it's a flimsy. We're in a free form channel that at any given time has people come and go with different sense of what the setting is.

Nevermind that a fair portion don't actually look at the setting beyond it being in an inn called the Black Dragon in a city called Drache and it might be in a kingdom of Arangoth. And then we get a lot of made up countries that don't show up on the map.

And they don't need to. That's no secret. We're a free form channel. They can do that.

But it makes this whole thing about preserving the setting seem a little. . I don't know. . strange when all a player needs to know is that it's high fantasy centered around an inn in a city that happens to be a port city inside a country called Arangoth.

Some people assume there's plumbing, others assume it's a pot we shit in. I've seen people assume there's a giant forest around the city while others seem to think it's open grassy fields.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Nymphetamine »

Autocrat wrote:Because it's a flimsy. We're in a free form channel that at any given time has people come and go with different sense of what the setting is.
Oh, I'm sorry? People expressing their opinions and wanting guns out of their high fantasy is flimsy? It doesn't match your opinion, and therefore it holds no water? Really? That's asinine. You don't have to like it, but you could show a bit more respect. They don't want it. There is nothing you can say, no amount of arguing or saying it could belong, or should, or how it could fit in this way, and moderated this way... nothing is going to change people's mind that they don't want it in their setting.
Autocrat wrote:Nevermind that a fair portion don't actually look at the setting beyond it being in an inn called the Black Dragon in a city called Drache and it might be in a kingdom of Arangoth. And then we get a lot of made up countries that don't show up on the map.
Except we're not blindly speaking for everyone in the channel who reads or doesn't read the setting. Those that do, have spoken up here. Not wanting guns. You don't need to belittle our reasons, or why, or write pages upon pages of essays of why they should be allowed, and how they can be fit and moderated and all of that. It will not change the fundamental fact that those who have spoken up in this thread do not want guns.

I'm not going to reply to this thread anymore, because you're just ignoring everything I'm writing. I'm allowed to have an opinion that I don't want bloody guns in my god damned medieval fantasy. Everyone else who has stated that, is allowed to feel that way. Stop ignoring that.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Suzthulhu »

How about this. The original question was about allowing firearms, steampunk, and airships in the channel.

On the issue of individual firearms, the answer is a simple "no." People don't want them, those that run the channel don't want them, and the discussion is really over at this point.

On the issue of steampunk, the answer is also no. This is not a steampunk channel. If you want steampunk RP, go make a steampunk channel.

On the issue of airships, it sounds like this may be open to possibilities, if individual players who desire them can justify having them and understand that they aren't just going to be able to park it over the top of the Inn whenever they want.

Honestly, I suggest just locking this topic and moving on. If the people who are so adamant about change want to suggest something else, that's wonderful. But for now, the subjects of firearms and steampunk are over and done with.
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Re: The issue of firearms, airships, and steam punk.

Post by Ayanula »

My 2¢:

Black powder has realistically been around for a LONG time in recorded history and is plausible to have have been developed in BDI's setting. It has a great potential in it's application through alchemy in various aspects of the setting that go well beyond firearms and cannons. For example, black powder is a great low explosive to suit dwarven miners with while bearing the context of the setting in mind. Quarrying for minerals is also another trade use as well as for sculpting roads and trails through rigorous mountain terrain.

I don't advocate firearms, as I think the technology, even just matchlock firearms, could be potentially abused just as "modified" repeating crossbows have in BDI before. But I wouldn't discredit it altogether as a tool in alchemy. And that's were "the rules" come into play; by observing the idea that firearms are not allowed and leaving it simply at that. As a low explosive, and one that can be uniquely and creatively shaped to advance plots along by other means, I don't think black powder should be swept off the table completely.

In isolated cases where it's used to advance projectiles, especially in a plot-context; that's an area I, as a former OP, wouldn't really feel inclined to touch. Two characters challenging each other to a duel with their pistolas, I would feel there needs to be a discussion with the two players regarding the use of technology that doesn't suit the setting.

All-in-all: I just don't feel you need to take the concept of a bolt off the table just because you feel the greater machine shouldn't exist.
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