Re: (TFT) TFT Industrial Revolution

[raito@raito.com]

Under certain circumstances, firearms are more capable than bows. Part 
of those circumstances involve ready access to ammunition. 

Bows are more capable, overall, than firearms when the industrial base 
is low. All you really need to make a bow is a knife, and the right 
types of plants in the area. This will allow you to make a crude bow 
effective enough to bring down a small mammal and a bird or two. Now 
you've made a technological leap to gut strings and feathered arrows. 
Even better if you have some flax-like plants around for strings. Under 
such circumstances, nearly everyone can have a bow. 

Forearms are more capable, overall, than bows when the industrial base 
is high. Guns can be manufactured en mass, as well as ammunition. 
Because, after all, a gun without bullets isn't even that good a club. 
But under such circumstances, nearly everyone can have a gun. 

But as soon as everyone can have a gun, nearly everyone forgets how to 
make bows. 

The same applies to magic. The sorts of things that are more capable 
when the base of magic is low is very differentr than when the base is 
high. I think that we tend to industrializew magic because we are 
products of the industrial revolution, and so we naturally try to bring 
economies of scale to any endeavor. 

I recall an old Shadowrun discussion that pretty much proved that their 
character generation system was crap, especially for charactersa who 
were former corporate employees. They wouldn't have been taought a 
large number of skills, but been insanely proficient in eactly the one 
skill they were paid for, since the training came from the corporation. 

This sort of thing in the milieu can have a very large effect on a campaign. 

In my campaign, magic has been extremely industrialized, but the 
industrialization has been kept out of the public eye. It's hard for 
someone between 20 and 80 to outwit a cabal of people who have been 
alive for centuries (potion of youth anyone?). It's a shame no once 
ever actually figured out that there was more to the Thorsz than met 
the eye. I really wanted the players to try to fgure out how to take on 
the magical-industrial complex. It certainly could have been done, but 
probably more through politics and the masses instead of a strong sword 
arm. One lesson I really wanted the players to learn was that temporal 
power is a much bigger multiplier than personal power. Your 20 DX 
doesn't matter when the other guy can send a hundred guys after you, or 
a single good lawyer. 

Anyway... 

So in order to balance forearms and bows, regular TFT seems to take the 
stance that the industrial base is low enough that the power of a 
firearm is offset by its unreliability, high cost, and rarity of skill 
and weapon, while the bows weakness is offset by its reliability, low 
cost, and availability of weapon and cost. 

If you want to see a time and place where archery and gunnery were 
approximately equal, look to the mid Sengoku in Japan. You had untis of 
archers, but also units of matchlock-bearing troops. The balance was 
that the gunners could get minimal training quickly, but the volley was 
required to get effect. The archers took more training, but each man 
was more effective. 

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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