Where does this mindset come from?

[deaddmwalking]

While this is just feeding the derail (discussion of magic-level in LotR has nothing to do with whether guns can exist in fantasy) the point about the corruption is worth looking at.

It didn't have any corrupting power that tugged on the people around Frodo, and certainly didn't turn Frodo to Sauron's side at the mouth of Mt. Doom.

Did it?

Maybe it did, and maybe it was a magical effect. Or maybe people are just easily corrupted by the lure of power. The belief that the ring had power that could be harnessed to save the world/make you a powerful walking god/force your enemies flee before you would be enough.

The fact that there was no OBVIOUS magical effect makes it difficult to truly ascertain if the magic is 'real' or not. If the story were set in the real world, we would assume that these betrayals were 'natural', not 'magical'.

Most of the magic is LotR is like modern-day religion. People ascribe a recovery after surgery to 'God wanting him to live' (ignoring the acts of the doctos and surgeons). How do you prove or disprove that position? If God exists, it could be literal divine intervention. If God doesn't exist, than no divine intervention could occur.

If magic exists, maybe the ring is using magic ju-ju to corrupt people. If magic doesn't exist, that certainly couldn't be true. But just because magic does exist doesn't mean that it's the only explanation for the observed effect in the movies/novels.

[Maj]

So what I'm getting from this thread is basically, "Yeah. There was magic in LoTR, but it was lame."

Is that right? Because that sounds like a low-level game to me.

[nockermensch]

While this is just feeding the derail (discussion of magic-level in LotR has nothing to do with whether guns can exist in fantasy) the point about the corruption is worth looking at.

It didn't have any corrupting power that tugged on the people around Frodo, and certainly didn't turn Frodo to Sauron's side at the mouth of Mt. Doom.

Did it?

Maybe it did, and maybe it was a magical effect. Or maybe people are just easily corrupted by the lure of power. The belief that the ring had power that could be harnessed to save the world/make you a powerful walking god/force your enemies flee before you would be enough.

The fact that there was no OBVIOUS magical effect makes it difficult to truly ascertain if the magic is 'real' or not. If the story were set in the real world, we would assume that these betrayals were 'natural', not 'magical'.

Most of the magic is LotR is like modern-day religion. People ascribe a recovery after surgery to 'God wanting him to live' (ignoring the acts of the doctos and surgeons). How do you prove or disprove that position? If God exists, it could be literal divine intervention. If God doesn't exist, than no divine intervention could occur.

If magic exists, maybe the ring is using magic ju-ju to corrupt people. If magic doesn't exist, that certainly couldn't be true. But just because magic does exist doesn't mean that it's the only explanation for the observed effect in the movies/novels.

Oh, I know! It's like, if someone destroys the Shroud of Turin and then the pope explodes in a flash of light and the Saint Peter Basilica melts down, then we'd have a proof that religion had real magic behind it.

If only something like that happened in LotR, we could have a definite answer, too.

[violence in the media]

Oh, I know! It's like, if someone destroys the Shroud of Turin and then the pope explodes in a flash of light and the Saint Peter Basilica melts down, then we'd have a proof that religion had real magic behind it.

If only something like that happened in LotR, we could have a definite answer, too.

You just don't understand the level of engineering involved in having an independent load-bearing toroid.

[Stubbazubba]

Yeah, the destruction of the Ring just happens to coincide with the immediate destruction of Sauron's fortress of Barad-dur, the Ringwraiths, the land of Mordor itself, and causing all of his forces to apparently forget why they were there and run off as if coming out of a spell. Either there was an amazing chain of plausible cause-and-effect relationships, or there was something supernatural tying all of those together.

Someone asked what spells the Dwarves of Thorin's company cast-

They beat on it, they thrust and pushed at it, they implored it to move, they spoke fragments of broken spells of opening, and nothing stirred.

It should be noted, however, that none of the spells the Dwarves "cast" has any effect whatsoever, so this is technically a candidate for the "superstition but not magic" category.

[FatR]

Guns create what is known as the "Grandma and Bruce Lee" Problem where a 98 .lb grandma can kill Bruce Lee if she had a gun.

She sure can't kill Son Goku, though. Bruce Lee is a low-level character in DnD terms.

That makes sword-fighting seem lot less impressive and people would have no logical reason to fight with swords. Fighting dragons at that point is a matter of luring the creature into the area with the charges and not fighting toe-to-toe.

Attempts to nullify superior firepower and mobility with traps and ambushes never make a noticeable difference in warfare, so unless dragons are dumb animals or you have plot on your side, good luck with that.

Tech makes magic and skill a lot less impressive and levels human achievement, making heroes less special because their talents aren't as overwhelming when compared to regular people.

Development of tech changes the relative importance of individual skill vs. organization vs. numbers in a non-linear fashion. In fact, right now the power of mass armies vanes, because quality of equipment increasingly trumps numbers, even in pure infantry fights.
Your statement has the kernel of truth only in the fact that the High Middle Ages were the time when the existing tech favored one's personal skills the most, and that started to change with the invention of guns. Which is probably the reason fantasy fans don't like guns.

[deaddmwalking]

Yeah, the destruction of the Ring just happens to coincide with the immediate destruction of Sauron's fortress of Barad-dur, the Ringwraiths, the land of Mordor itself, and causing all of his forces to apparently forget why they were there and run off as if coming out of a spell. Either there was an amazing chain of plausible cause-and-effect relationships, or there was something supernatural tying all of those together.

For the purposes of the novels, the 'narrator' and the audience are supposed to accept that. But it's also possible the 'Biblical Plagues' in Egypt were the result of a powerful volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean. I'd think that a powerful volcanic eruption is a sufficient 'mundane' explanation for everything that happens. If I were a solider standing at the Gates of Mordor and I watched an eruption that destroyed my ruler and all of his lands, I might run away, too.

Attempts to nullify superior firepower and mobility with traps and ambushes never make a noticeable difference in warfare, so unless dragons are dumb animals or you have plot on your side, good luck with that.

I don't mean to be offensive, but this may be one of the most retarded things I've ever heard. Rather than assume you're an idiot, I'd like to hear how an ambush never makes a noticeable difference.

First historical example that springs to mind is the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest...

[John Magnum]

I am flabbergasted at how idiotic deaddmwalking is being.

[deaddmwalking]

I am flabbergasted at how idiotic deaddmwalking is being.

Feel free to explain to me why I'm being idiotic (and be sure to use small words).

My point regarding the level of magic in Lord of the Rings is that, yes, it is a magical fantasy world. However, we accept that magic 'a priori' - if the tale were set in the real world, most everything ascribed to magic would instead be ascribed to mundane actions. Most of the magic is very subtle and discrete - as such, if we didn't know that it existed as outside observers, we couldn't be sure of the existence of magic.

In the real world, there are people that still believe in magic as a real thing. The type of magic they tend to believe in is also subtle and discrete - so if it DID exist (which I don't believe it does), it would still be dismissed by most people.

Most of the people in Lord of the Rings can live their whole life like Han Solo dismissing 'some mystical force' without it having any impact on their life. Magic is observed in the course of the narrative with great frequency, but most of the background characters (in Hobbiton, in Bree, even in Gondor) have not seen magic, won't see magic, and if they did see magic would not recognize it as such.

Edit -
Wikipedia has an article that explains the magic we see in Middle-Earth, but frequently has to explain that it is not CLEARLY magical - for example, the 'spells' placed by the dwarves when they bury their treasure.

[K]

Guns create what is known as the "Grandma and Bruce Lee" Problem where a 98 .lb grandma can kill Bruce Lee if she had a gun.

She sure can't kill Son Goku, though. Bruce Lee is a low-level character in DnD terms.

Dragonball Z characters aren't DnD characters by a far degree. In fact, Goku is more powerful than the DnD gods and the average Dragonball Z sidekick is more powerful than an epic DnD character.

DnD characters are exceptional regular people with regular defenses and occasionally superhuman attacks if a spellcaster. This means that people naturally expect a gun to be able to mow down a 19th level Fighter in plate pretty easily because this is the same guy who can die of exposure in a desert or from being held under water for a few minutes.

That makes sword-fighting seem lot less impressive and people would have no logical reason to fight with swords. Fighting dragons at that point is a matter of luring the creature into the area with the charges and not fighting toe-to-toe.

Attempts to nullify superior firepower and mobility with traps and ambushes never make a noticeable difference in warfare, so unless dragons are dumb animals or you have plot on your side, good luck with that.

Again, DnD is not like your counter-example. It's not warfare, but more akin to shadow conflicts between criminal or covert organizations. In that sense, car bombs are more powerful than individual skill if they are available options.

Traps and ambushes don't work on the scale of armies, but on the scale of killing individual covert agents they are incredibly effective.

Tech makes magic and skill a lot less impressive and levels human achievement, making heroes less special because their talents aren't as overwhelming when compared to regular people.

Development of tech changes the relative importance of individual skill vs. organization vs. numbers in a non-linear fashion. In fact, right now the power of mass armies vanes, because quality of equipment increasingly trumps numbers, even in pure infantry fights.
Your statement has the kernel of truth only in the fact that the High Middle Ages were the time when the existing tech favored one's personal skills the most, and that started to change with the invention of guns. Which is probably the reason fantasy fans don't like guns.

I don't see anything in this response that disagrees with my statements, so you should try again if you were trying to tease out a distinction.

[Chamomile]

You are seriously arguing that tossing the ring that turns people invisible, attracts undead ghost sorcerer kings, and corrupts everyone who gets near into the fires of the mountain where it was forged just so happened to result in a volcanic eruption that coincidentally caused the collapse of Barad-Dur which was dozens of miles away? And that this eruption 50+ miles behind the army at the Black Gate completely demoralized them to the point of running away from a battle they were winning?

[Voss]

Attempts to nullify superior firepower and mobility with traps and ambushes never make a noticeable difference in warfare,

I present to you the entire Vietnam war.
Congratulations on your Stupid Award

[K]

You are seriously arguing that tossing the ring that turns people invisible, attracts undead ghost sorcerer kings, and corrupts everyone who gets near into the fires of the mountain where it was forged just so happened to result in a volcanic eruption that coincidentally caused the collapse of Barad-Dur which was dozens of miles away? And that this eruption 50+ miles behind the army at the Black Gate completely demoralized them to the point of running away from a battle they were winning?

To be fair, the only person who actually knows that all those events relate is Frodo. To the rest of the world, the undead sorcerer kings are just guys in robes who ask innkeepers about rings, the One Ring is just a historic symbol of rulership that will attract people like any powerful symbol, and the volcano erupting and knocking down a nearby castle from the resulting tremors is just a coincidence. They can't even be sure that the ring makes people invisible because hobbit stealth is already well known.

Sure, the superstitious guys ran away when the volcano erupted, but that only proves that they were superstitious.

[deaddmwalking]

You are seriously arguing that tossing the ring that turns people invisible, attracts undead ghost sorcerer kings, and corrupts everyone who gets near into the fires of the mountain where it was forged just so happened to result in a volcanic eruption that coincidentally caused the collapse of Barad-Dur which was dozens of miles away? And that this eruption 50+ miles behind the army at the Black Gate completely demoralized them to the point of running away from a battle they were winning?

No. I'm arguing that 90% of the 'magic' in Lord of the Rings would not be accepted as magical IF IT HAPPENED IN THE REAL WORLD.

The invisibility of the ring and possibly the glow of the swords are really the only supernatural effects that are clearly magical in nature. Most everything else might be explained by simple superstition.

However, because magic is REAL in the world of the Lord of the Rings, mundane explanations, while plausible, are unnecssary. Gandalf could just have easily thrown a firecracker with his 'burning pine cones', but he didn't. He used magic to set them alight. The fact that he used magic is hardly impressive, though, since he likely had mundane means to achieve the same effect.

We know it's magic because it is a story and we're explicity told it's magic. My point is that an observer from within the world of the novel who has no proof if it is magic or not (no narrator telling them so) might not be convinced.

So, I agree that it's not LOW-MAGIC, but it IS low-level magic.

If it were a game, rather than a novel, the campaign would play out virtually the same if there was no magic other than the ring. In such a world, Saruman is a Diplomancer abusing the hell out of the 3.5 Diplomacy rules, and everyone else is between 3-5th level. Gandalf is as likely to be a rogue with Use Magic Device as to be an actual wizard. He's probably a modified gnome, though, since he can speak to animals 1/day.

Probably the most magical effect in the movies is the appearance of the 'horses' in the raging river. Even that is explained to be a minor illusion on top of the raging river. If I recall correctly, an elf actually used magic to make the river run high, but opening flood gates would have the same effect.

If you absolutely can't tell the difference between magic and a mundane action, the distinction becomes irrelevant. For example, if I use magic to 'project my voice at normal volume centered on my current position' or I use my voice and speak normally, does it matter that I have magic? It's functionally useless.

I don't mean to attack the Lord of the Rings. I love the novels, and I accept the magic in them explicitly. I simply recognize that if someone did not believe in magic - a skeptic - I'd have a real tough time convincing them that magic was real with basically anything that was explained as 'magic' in the books. The only exceptions I can think of are the Palantir, the glowing swords, and the walking dead; possibly the door at the Mines of Moria.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Dragonball Z characters aren't DnD characters by a far degree. In fact, Goku is more powerful than the DnD gods and the average Dragonball Z sidekick is more powerful than an epic DnD character.

Dragonball Z, sure, but even regular Dragonball Goku at the very start of his career was taking bullets to the face and responding by sitting down and yelling 'ow.'

But even real mundane people get shot and don't die all the time. Fuck, at least one guy was shot in the head with an explosive bullet and didn't die. Confirmed reports of people who are shot multiple times and proceed to kick all kinds of ass with the holes still bleeding aren't hard to come by.

A ye olde handgonne is mostly just a shittier crossbow.

[K]

Dragonball Z characters aren't DnD characters by a far degree. In fact, Goku is more powerful than the DnD gods and the average Dragonball Z sidekick is more powerful than an epic DnD character.

Dragonball Z, sure, but even regular Dragonball Goku at the very start of his career was taking bullets to the face and responding by sitting down and yelling 'ow.'

But even real mundane people get shot and don't die all the time. Fuck, at least one guy was shot in the head with an explosive bullet and didn't die. Confirmed reports of people who are shot multiple times and proceed to kick all kinds of ass with the holes still bleeding aren't hard to come by.

A ye olde handgonne is mostly just a shittier crossbow.

Again, no one thinks a DnD character can take a bullet to the face. No one thinks that people who survive 1 in a million gunshot wounds are DnD characters.

DnD characters are specifically vulnerable to most things that kill regular humans. HPs are thought of as luck in avoiding dangerous wounds and not as ability to shrug off attacks that should be deadly to a normal human.

Now, if DnD had some kind of soak and wound-level system and high-level characters could shrug off walking through infernos and other effects that are auto-damaging in DnD if you don't have special resistances, then the perception would be the opposite.

[Foxwarrior]

A level 20 Commoner with a high Constitution score can swim across a river of lava or skydive from the space station without a parachute. I can't understand how such a character couldn't take something as petty as a couple of bullets to the face.

Or are you saying that all high-level D&D characters have "summon hay bale" and "call incredibly chill breeze" implicitly?

[K]

A level 20 Commoner with a high Constitution score can swim across a river of lava or skydive from the space station without a parachute. I can't understand how such a character couldn't take something as petty as a couple of bullets to the face.

Not true. A high level commoner might survive a round of lava and might survive a fall from a reasonable height, but at extreme altitude they'd die from lack of air and two rounds of lava is death. It's not like they can actually swim a lake of lava or survive the vacuum of space by the rules (and both require a Fort save to not auto-die by the massive damage rules, something a Commoner is going to not automatically do).

HPs represent some luck in avoiding fatal damage because of the way that rules are structured, but not blanket resistance.

A high level character will die at high altitude. Hand them a burning hot rock that does 1 HP of damage a round and they'll be dead in a few minutes. Put them underwater and they will suffocate in a few minutes. Hanging is wildly fatal. The list goes on.

Again, if higher level gave more resistance then the perception would be different. In some games, a powerful character can't be killed by a campfire, but in DnD he really can be.

[angelfromanotherpin]

If hp 'luck' can handle crossbow bolts, it can handle crappy old-timey bullets.

[name_here]

Honestly, old-time guns were not very good individually. Which is actually the problem, because they were good in large groups and part of a general shift towards individuals mattering less.

[K]

If hp 'luck' can handle crossbow bolts, it can handle crappy old-timey bullets.

You can bat crossbow bolts out of the air with your hand. You can't do the same with bullets and people know that.

The HP mechanics don't create the illusion of being able to resist certain kinds of damage and not others, so people don't believe that they'll work against bullets.

[angelfromanotherpin]

You can be shot with a bullet and not even notice.

[K]

You can be shot with a bullet and not even notice.

Having been shot, I find that hard to believe.

That being said, the problem is not that you have to convince me, but you have to convince other people. They have first-hand experience with guns and know that instantly lethal gunshots are far more common and easy than grazing hits.

They'll be far more willingly to let you take a swing at them with a greatsword than let you shoot them because they know that guns are a lot more lethal.

[angelfromanotherpin]

That being said, the problem is not that you have to convince me, but you have to convince other people.

I don't need to convince anyone, Hollywood has retroactively done it for me. It's called the action movie genre, and people totally accept that action heroes can be shot and keep functioning mostly unimpaired. And that's with guns which are far more reliable and effective than a harquebus.

As usual, of course, history provides examples which put the fiction to shame.

[K]

That being said, the problem is not that you have to convince me, but you have to convince other people.

I don't need to convince anyone, Hollywood has retroactively done it for me. It's called the action movie genre, and people totally accept that action heroes can be shot and keep functioning mostly unimpaired. And that's with guns which are far more reliable and effective than a harquebus.

As usual, of course, history provides examples which put the fiction to shame.

Then why do people always make guns super-lethal in fantasy RPGs and cry foul when aren't super-lethal?

It's because people think guns are a lot more lethal than swords and bows and the action movie genre has done nothing to dispel that. Sword and bow wielders don't win versus guns in those genres.