Clocks vs gun

[Clo]

guns in fantasy are fun, and people who don’t put them in fantasy are elf-lovers.

Looks at the class list in my fictional VRMMO.
Ah, there it is. Gunslinger.

But wait, I love elves too :(

 

[aToTeT]

Looks at the class list in my fictional VRMMO.
Ah, there it is. Gunslinger.

But wait, I love elves too :(

Is an Elven {Gunslinger} like an Army Ranger?

But instead of a big hunk of sexy metal attached to a ripped muscle man:

A big hunk of sexy metal attached to a lithe wee elven lassie?

I don’t hate elves for being better than normal people; I hate elves for being better than me.

 

[Clo]

Is an Elven {Gunslinger} like an Army Ranger?

I don't know! Maybe? I assume not!

Gunslinger in my setting is, against most expectations, a tank class. They do akimbo-style gun-kata, draw a lot of aggro with all that noise, and specialise in dodge rolls and evasion tanking.

(They’re highly inspired on one of my favourite weapon combo on the Thief class in GW2 and the Bounty Hunters from the Star Wars MMO. But also my game designer brain loves the idea of a tank that doesn't HAVE to be in melee range)

 

[aToTeT]

I don't know! Maybe? I assume not!

Gunslinger in my setting is, against most expectations, a tank class. They do akimbo-style gun-kata, draw a lot of aggro with sll that noise, and specialise in dodge rolls and evasion tanking.

(They’re highly inspired on one of my favourite weapon combo on the Thief class in GW2 and the Bounty Hunters from the Star Wars MMO. But also my game designer brain loves the idea of a tank that doesn't HAVE to be in melee range)

That’s pretty fun, NGL :)

Reminds me of my evasion tank back in the days when Rift was hard (until they patched it with the big nerf).

Noster, may you be terminated in peace. Evasion tank is fun, even when you are in melee range (rogue evasion vs elites in WoW: 50% of the time untouchable. 50% of the timed squish. Not bad for Hardcore WoW though).

A tank left the group immediately after a long queue with two friends and a random-dps during Cataclysm, friend A suggested they try their experimental Warlock Tank with searing pain and a Voidwalker while the other did Death Knight off tank; that was a weird run and very fun experience (Randy stayed with us to the end!) — as a Shaman healer that chaotic aggro has got to be one of my most fun experiences in an mmo ever (short of pulling ALL of Scholomance from the bridge by accident and miraculously surviving because Pally healer OP (there was so much fear).

Surprisingly, I’ve always enjoyed working with non traditional tanking schemas the most. Ups the challenge? Sure, but Rift introduced ‘supporter’ as a class type, and in the Defiance starting dungeon were these two (jackal?) undead on either side of a staircase harder than any boss: if you didn’t have a way to control/polymorph/sap/stunlock one of them: no healer or tank configuration at the time could stop the tank from being one shot…. EXCEPT the teleporting rogue tank which could pull them around the room and hold aggro with one assistant warrior stunlocked both for control as the dps very very slowly wore them down.

Untouchable tank? Not quite. Mostly untouched tank kiting? Quite.

I’m assuming yours is narratively easier than my few forays into ‘Alternative Tanking’ xD All I know is it sounds fun

 

[Clo]

I’m assuming yours is narratively easier than my few forays into ‘Alternative Tanking’ xD All I know is it sounds fun

I have done all of the unconventional things! Tanking on Bard/Ninja in Final Fantasy 11, Combat Rogue untouchable builds, Marauder tanking in FFXIV... (even Black Mage main healing there, too). Heck, my DarkMelee/SuperReflex scrapper with no self-heals and 95% evasion on City of Heroes was such a fun tank. Raid Boss? ArchVillain? Nah, it'll never hit me.

Breaking the mold is my favourite way to play those games. Party of 6 Dragoons, no tanks, no healers? Sure, why not!

If that's your kind of fun, State of the Art, my latest novel on SH and RR, is going to be filled with similar shenanigans. The main tank of the party is an ex-raider who is currently tanking everything on her martial artist class which she knows is OP (but the community disses the class for being too squishy)

 

[RepresentingDesire]

Personally I think this is another tolkien hold over. All of these things are things that didn’t exist in middle earth, which was supposed to be a mythical pre-historic period.

Wasn't that like heavily European? I think the fallacy of equally developed technology across cultures is as well a problem.

 

[aToTeT]

I have done all of the unconventional things! Tanking on Bard/Ninja in Final Fantasy 11, Combat Rogue untouchable builds, Marauder tanking in FFXIV... (even Black Mage main healing there, too). Heck, my DarkMelee/SuperReflex scrapper with no self-heals and 95% evasion on City of Heroes was such a fun tank. Raid Boss? ArchVillain? Nah, it'll never hit me.

Breaking the mold is my favourite way to play those games. Party of 6 Dragoons, no tanks, no healers? Sure, why not!

If that's your kind of fun, State of the Art, my latest novel on SH and RR, is going to be filled with similar shenanigans. The main tank of the party is an ex-raider who is currently tanking everything on her martial artist class which she knows is OP (but the community disses the class for being too squishy)

Black Mage main healing!? XD What!? 95% evasion :0 Don’t need no heals if you never get hit! :D

State of the Art, yeah that’s worth a looksie.

 

[sbdrag]

I think it's more of a Tiffany Problem than a Tolkien problem: tl;dr, people think they know more about what's historically accurate than they actually do. Tiffany, as a name, has been in use since the 1500s as a diminutive of Theophania - but if you use it for a character in a medieval setting, most audiences will say it's too modern. Most writers aren't actually doing research into the medieval period - or they do, but they're aware of the Tiffany Problem in theory if not in name.

Golems are the literary and mythological precursors to robots (via perhaps the most infamous one of all, Frankenstein's Creature).

I think the most infamous is probably the golem of Jewish folklore that the concept comes from, but I suppose that's debatable. My argument being that Frankenstein's Creature can technically be considered a golem, but it's not the image people come up with when you say "golem."

@Splort: Anne McCaffrey wrote Dragon Riders of Pern, though it is a fun example!

There's also the classic "why would we need guns when we can cast fireball" explanation - though I did like the Onward version of "yeah, magic works, but technology is easier, so that took over." Not the first time I'd seen some iteration, but the most present in my mind.

I also just like explaining my actual anachronisms in my story (like 1800s shaving kits in a medieval setting) with "yeah, one of the past isekai champions introduced the technology from their world; took some doing, but they wanted their shave." Also why I have closer to 1700s firearms in a very vaguely 1500s setting. (My isekai champions have not appeared on screen and are mostly background lore atm, but they can come from any era in history which makes things fun to play with.)

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I think it's more of a Tiffany Problem than a Tolkien problem: tl;dr, people think they know more about what's historically accurate than they actually do. Tiffany, as a name, has been in use since the 1500s as a diminutive of Theophania - but if you use it for a character in a medieval setting, most audiences will say it's too modern. Most writers aren't actually doing research into the medieval period - or they do, but they're aware of the Tiffany Problem in theory if not in name.

That is a cool example. Never heard it before!

I think the most infamous is probably the golem of Jewish folklore that the concept comes from, but I suppose that's debatable. My argument being that Frankenstein's Creature can technically be considered a golem, but it's not the image people come up with when you say "golem."

Well, outside of those versed in Jewish lore, classic film buffs (Der Golem predated the second version of Frankenstein by about a decade - the first version was a short by, IIRC, Thomas Edison, that was not very good but showed the potential of the medium), or D&D players, I would argue more people are familiar with Frankenstein's Creature (especially the accidentally green one of the ads for Karloff's movie - the make-up was mostly gray!) than the original making him at LEAST more famous, if not infamous (and I've seen more heroic takes on the Jewish lore - my favorite being an episode of the old Superboy tv series from the 80s)...

 

[NotaNuffian]

Average jp isekai mc, making fireworks but somehow never figuring out how guns work

Then again, it was thanks to old crazy chinese emperors wanting to live forever and forcing chemical advancement.

Which made me pondered, didn't alchemy existed in ancient Greek and their life motto was to find the truth of the universe? Isn't immortality one of said truths? Why didn't they find gunpowder first?

Also, still bit miffed by seeing steam techs existing but due to the lack of metallurgy, it got put aside and the rest of the world had to wait 1000 years for it to come to fruition.

Ps. Quick google and found my reason was right; the world map caused an unequal distribution of resources, causing Greeks to have fires that burn on water but not powders that go bang.

 

[sbdrag]

That is a cool example. Never heard it before!

Well, outside of those versed in Jewish lore, classic film buffs (Der Golem predated the second version of Frankenstein by about a decade - the first version was a short by, IIRC, Thomas Edison, that was not very good but showed the potential of the medium), or D&D players, I would argue more people are familiar with Frankenstein's Creature (especially the accidentally green one of the ads for Karloff's movie - the make-up was mostly gray!) than the original making him at LEAST more famous, if not infamous (and I've seen more heroic takes on the Jewish lore - my favorite being an episode of the old Superboy tv series from the 80s)...

More familiar with the Creature, yes - but I was specifically saying that you don't immediately think of the Creature as a golem, and those familiar with the term "golem" don't think of the Creature first as the definition of the term. So I would say while the Creature is a more infamous "monster", it's not the most infamous/famous "golem."

Even if you don't know the origin is in Jewish folklore, the classic image of a golem is still that version of it (humanoid clay figure).