What stops people in runeterra from all having guns, gunpowder is easy to make, and so is steel? This is an RPG question, I'm buiding a world and need a legit excuse for why everyone isn't carring? No political discussion I don't want plot holes in my storyline that's all
Sharjo6 votesDemacia's got stuff made of Demacian Steel, so they don't really give much of a toss about guns.
The Freljord's far removed from modern Runeterra, so they don't have guns.
Noxus is modular in how it arms it's soldiers in that you can use what you want, so they have guns on an individual soldier basis.
Ionia's not really been about traditional guns, focusing more on bows and arrows, but with hextech creeping its way in to their culture traditional guns might be in the cards.
Shurima's in the same kind of situation as the Freljord, but a bit better off on account of Piltover/Zaun being nearby and Noxus having influence there.
Piltover, Zaun and Bilgewater are fine for guns.
Can't speak to any of the smaller, independent places of Runeterra like Krexor, Stonewall and Holdrum.
OurLestrade3 votesAnimu fantasy physics usually make swords equal or better than guns
Fondling Gems3 votesNew technology taking time to catch on. Noxus would be quick to adapt because they like modern warfare, demacia is very steeped in culture and so there is unlikely to be a huge push for them, many other areas are removed and whatnot.
Warlord Dienekes2 votesTo be fair here the guns in LoL are fairly advanced. They really shouldn't be new technology.
TequilaZombie3 votesYou have to take in consideration that, appart from Jax, the weapons they bring to League are the best of the best. Those are not the average. Kinda like saying that today everyone has extremely fast cars because the cars in F1 reach stupidly high top speeds.
Warlord Dienekes1 votesSure, but if the setting says that cars are new so not everyone has one, but one person in the setting has a damn 2016 Chevrolet, you'd be looking at the setting as being kind of weird. Guns, for example, were around in Europe since the 13th century. There were no guns, at all, like what Caitlyn is using until 20th century. That thing Graves is using is even more insane, as I have no frame of reference to what it could be, much less how long it would take to develop it out of the arquebuses and ribalds. And those early guns, the really crappy ones that had a huge chance of misfiring were grabbed up by basically everyone in Europe that could afford them within 100 years.
It's just weird that technology appears to be developing 700 years during the time military and social change hasn't developed 100 yet.
I'm not saying, of course, that every champion needs a gun. But the armies of the nations, should probably be all using them. Unless there is some really weird magic shenanigans going on.
Fondling Gems3 votesMagic screws with technology a lot. This is a wold in which people can reach insane levels of power that others just don't have access to. In light of that technology will skyrocket to try and keep up, but there wont be much infrastructure to support it. It is mostly going to be scientists seeking ways to match and equal the power of mages rather than creating technology for the use of all.
Magic also means many nations don't believe they need technology when they have a superior power at their disposal, even if only some can wield that power. At this stage technology is going to be at a much higher price per unit as the tech isn't being designed for large scale production/use for the most part. What technology that can rival mages is going to be even harder to create, closer to a work of art by a master scientist than something made on an assembly line.
Runeterra hasn't entered an age of mass production because they haven't had to yet. Tech has only skyrocketed so high due to the efforts of a few individuals who happen to be in the only areas with decent tech (piltover/zaun for the most part) seeking to match and surpass mages. There is no large scale production or organization of tech yet.
Is it a little bit strange? Sure, but I see it as being perfectly understandable since the nations most likely to seek to set up those types of production (Noxus and Demacia) are not the ones who have the tech to do it. Only piltover/Zaun have the tech to set up that kind of production and those areas have a LOT of turmoil going on inside them. Any production would most likely be on a smaller scale run by Chem-Baron's and those aren't the type of people to share.
In all honesty I have trouble seeing the other nations actually getting anything out of Piltover/Zaun just due to how distrustful the areas seem of everything and all the internal politics. Those incidentally being the reason that scientists in those areas can work so freely and do semi-legal experiments and produce highly dangerous technology in the heart of a major city.
Warlord Dienekes1 votesYou see this might be what they were going for but there's a little problem with that.
Early guns were insanely cheap to make. Seriously they were cheaper than crossbows which was why they started to become popular. Well the cheapness and just how easy they were to use. And they weren't really massed produced like we think today as that's industrial production which was t around yet.
And we've already see Noxus use guns so the tech has gone beyond Piltover. And we know that the world backwater known as Bilgewater has canons which basically are just big guns in terms of the technology needed to make them (well the gunpowder stuff the rest actually developed out of what people knew from making large church bells).
There was a reason after the spread of guns there popped up a large number of new territories called "The Gunpowder Empires." They're cheap and easy to make, easy to learn how to use, and allow a mixed melee and ranged force to just dominate as seen in the pike and shot era of warfare.
Now, Riot can ignore all of this. That's fine, but there's holes in a lot of arguments for why the world is the way it is. And that's fine, I enjoy the setting as is. But I take the Pratchett approach to thinking about Runeterra. The world is the way it is because the author thought it would be interesting that way. (Though admittedly for Pratchett he said funny, not interesting but I think you can forgive the reworking of his words to better fit the circumstances)
Fondling Gems1 votesGot work stuff but I will reply in a couple hours with how I interpret the world in regards to this.
Warlord Dienekes1 votesI'm in no rush. I'm interested to see what you have to say.
Fondling Gems1 votesOk so we know in our world guns were cheap to make, but we don't actually know anything about gunpowder in this world. For all we know it could be fairly limited and thus while guns aren't that expensive to make, they are expensive to operate and as such it isn't worth producing them. We also don't know how easily different regions have access to gunpowder. If Noxus has to trade for 100% of their gunpowder (or conquer considering it is Noxus) then they probably can't afford to outfit their troops with gunpowder. For all we know Kled has to get it on his own or Noxus is willing to pay extra for a commander of their armies.
I can't think of any examples of Noxus using guns beyond Kled although I could totally be forgetting/missing something. Considering this is Kled we are talking about though is it really that unlikely he would kill someone with a boomstick and go "Yeee Haaaaw, I like me some blowing shit up!" and trade (possibly illegally) for bullets since we don't know what trade laws are like.
Bilgewater does a lot of raiding so I can totally see countries with gunpowder arming their ships with them against Bilgewater and if those ships get taken they could totally have that technology. Plus Bilgewater attracts people from all over so I wouldn't be surprised if among the former Pilts/Zaunites there are some who know the tech behind guns.
There is also the chance that many guns and the like are powered by hextech even if they aren't visually obvious. There is also the fact that we haven't seen much evidence of science among most of the countries. We have no idea what their teaching systems are like or how advanced they really are. Demacia seems to rely heavily on Magic for example, I can't think of a single instance of decent tech among them. Noxus is almost on the same level. For all we know the only tech these nations have access to is what they can glean from others which would explain why Demacia is further behind Noxus since they uphold a tighter code of honor.
The freljord is in the same boat except their boat is on the other side of the world so there is a barrier to even seeing the tech in the first place.
I need to brush up on Ionian lore but from what I remember while I can totally imagine them stealing the information they are far enough removed that I doubt they can keep up with the latest tech. On top of that of all the nations Ionia is the most magical of them, and thus would be the least reliant on tech. In fact it might even be a point of pride that they don't have to stoop to the level of those who seek to match their magic. I can easily see their culture pushed away from everything tech related.
Bilgewater is the best off in terms of tech of the 5, most likely due to people from all over the world living there as well as the whole raiding and plundering thing that goes on there. It is this big mash up of culture and pirating and based on that I am not in the least surprised that they have a bit of everything. Really the only area they are lacking in is magic (most likely because nations want to have control over their mages due to their power) and hextech which is a very new technology and only a few people work in the industry, almost all of them in Piltover and Zaun.
Bandle city is an interesting case though. We know they have guns, a decent amount of tech, and actually have a junkyard containing enough old machinery for Rumble to create his robot. They also clearly have some good education in place. Bandle city is on good terms with Piltover though (Probably due in part to the efforts of Heimerdinger) so I imagine this is just a case of a lot of piltoverian influence leaking in as well as piltover being more willing to share their tech with an ally.
Warlord Dienekes1 votesYou see, but to make this work you have to go through very strange steps of logic that really don't make sense.
The big one is: how rare is gunpowder? Well, all gunpowder is, is a mix of charcoal (which you get from trees), sulfur (necessary for plate movement on a planet, and just generally common), and a type of salt. The process to make it might be unknown for most people, but gunpowder doesn't make sense unless we go through very strange environmental loops just to fit a square peg in a round hole.
And it gets even more unlikely when you realize that gunpowder isn't actually necessary for guns. Now, it's one of the best for using guns (and rockets) because of how cheap and easy to make it is. But military grade guns have been made with: compressed air, alcohol, and steam. Hell, in theory any small scale explosive should work, there's just no real reason to try because there should always be enough gunpowder around.
To get the setting to work that like that you have to get into strange things like: burning trees in this universe doesn't create charcoal! Which goes so far outside the realm of what (I believe, if a Rioter wants to step in and correct me, go ahead) any author actually did when making and designing the setting. And that just opens up more questions: Charcoal is a natural occurrence from pressure, heat, and wood. How different would the wood have to be to not turn into charcoal? Would it even be possible to use a charcoal-less wood as fire at that point? I honestly, have no idea, but tampering with chemical compounds leads to very weird rabbit holes. The same is true for sulfur and saltpeter, they really just happen in abundance.
You also wouldn't really have to trade for bullets, unless you're specifically thinking of actual modern guns. Medieval to Napoleonic bullets were just small round bits of metal. Lead, usually, because it's plentiful, and easy to shape. Soldiers made more bullets on their own, melting down soft metals into a very small mold. This stuff should not be hard to come by.
As to the spread of the technology itself. I think you're a little behind on the lore here: Demacia uses mages but they're supposed to be incredibly rare. Magic in general was supposed to be incredibly rare outside of Ionia and places like Ancient Targon and Shurima. I can sort of understand modern Freljord not having guns: they have apparently a rich history of longbow use, and the Britains were late to the whole gun thing. That and they're barbarians off in some corner of the world. (Though funny thing, in the Pantheon short story, the raiders are described like Freljordians and one of them is carrying a gun, but that could be just a strange happenstance). But Targon itself? Which is supposed to be some sort of Mecca, and constantly attacked, should totally have gotten guns by now. Demacia and Noxus, also I'd say definitely.
Interestingly, Demacia has kind of amazing tech, just look at Jarvan's armor. Ignoring the fact it's impractical as all hell, that is a high end articulated plate piece. That stuff wasn't around until around the 16th century. Doing that actually takes more mechanical knowledge than creating early guns (and to get really funny, the metal processing used to make them required charcoal). And even more interesting, it's currently theorized that this type of armor only even came about because of the rise of mass cheap guns causing the escalation in armor development.
This is what I mean by jumping through hoops upon hoops of logic. Is it possible to come up with some sort of very specific set of circumstances that answer every single chemical, historical, environmental, technological, and social question in order to make the setting fit? Yeah, probably. Do I think the authors did? No. Would it just be easier for all involved to just go "Yeah, these details don't bother me, and I like the setting, I'm just going to roll with it"? Yes.
Fondling Gems1 votesHmmm, I didn't think about it that way. It definitely looks a lot stranger in that light (Also who the hell puts that much research into J4's armour?)
Well then for the sake of discussion and trying to explore different possibilities we can go over some different ideas.
Since you seem to have done the research on all this do we have any references of gunpowder in LoL lore? If not I might be tempted to say it hasn't been discovered at all and everything we see has been done through hextech machinery. (We have seen very small hextech devices so I don't doubt that they could make a projectile launcher small enough to fit in a gun, explaining why many of them don't look hextech-y.)
Alternatively whether there has been a gunpowder reference or not there is the possibility they use something else that only exists in their world (example being a nut that explodes under pressure as per the blowdart/guns in Midworld if you have read that book, could be anything really, I will refer to this theoretical material as X) If there has been no gunpowder reference then it would be easy to explain away the fact that no one has discovered gunpowder yet and they use X instead which is limited for whatever reason whether it is a rare mineral only found in certain parts of the world or a plant that can only grow in specific climates.
Now if they have mentioned gunpwder then X could be referred to as gunpwder (Probably to make it easier for readers to understand. Authors who go into details on just how some small thing functions the same but is technically different aren't the most popular and Riot likes to keep their stories short and easy to read.) and gunpwder as we know it once again hasn't been discovered yet.
Let me know if there has been a mention of gunpowder/blackpowder one way or another and I will try theorizing how it could be uncommon.
Warlord Dienekes1 votesHey sorry, I haven't been on the boards in a few days. If you're still interested in this, I'll try to give a fully detailed response sometime tomorrow.
Fondling Gems1 votesSure, I am always up to discuss world building.
Ralanr2 votesProbably because Piltover doesn't like sharing.
Guns are most likely still rather new in Runeterra and don't have cost effective designs yet for mass production.
KuroCaliber2 votesLike another commenter days, hextech, and by extension guns, are new and require a significant investment to make. Obviously magical equipment appears more reliable, and only some people, IE jhin have advanced versions of the guns. A rioter did once comment on a similar question. Idk where tho. Remember, this is a league of legends. And we are only exposed to legendary individuals. If these are around pre industrial era, it makes sense not man have guns, but those who do are special.
HalfTangible2 votesGuns in Runeterra are generally hand-crafted and difficult to maintain (see Miss Fortune, Graves and Heimer). Runeterra's starting to see how useful firearms are (especially in Bilgewater) but they're currently not mass-produced. Most of the guns we see in-game are the exception rather than the rule.
Ebonmaw Dragon1 votesBecause guns in Runeterra use magic, and magic is not easy to make.
Sharjo1 votesNot all guns.
Ebonmaw Dragon1 votesNot all guns.
But the cooler ones do!
Sharjo1 votesTrue facts.
DefNotADCMain1231 votesThx for the input guys, it really helps to hear another perspective
71883083DEL11 votesbecause adc in 2k17 lmfao
http://www.surrenderat20.net/2017/02/28-pbe-update.html
let me nerf bot more*
FloRaider421 votesI understand that the slow spread of new technology plays a big part, but doesn't the existance of magic also make guns less gamechanging? I mean Ashe is able to fire arrows as rapid as a machine gun, with some training and magic, and knights with magical armor and swords are probably able to shrug of gunfire. Considering the existance of Void and other monsters making a huge blow with a sword or big explosion (magic or bomb) is probably preferable to guns, at times.
boo9101 votesWhats the point of mass produced guns? magic dosen`t need maintenance or storage. Its more versatile to use, and everyone theoretically can learn it.
it can also do similar amounts of damage to bullets. guns are practically worthless.
Catastrop1 votesI mean, it's a world full of magic, I'd imagine it's basically the same reason we don't use swords to fight as much in the modern age.