Heroes against gunslingers.

I'm not sure anyone really knows what your argument actually is, though...

Is it, "Firearms are too powerful as presented in the PHB"? They really aren't, but even if you felt they were, that's where homebrew and rules overrides come in. This isn't the Rules subforum. Stating "your setting, your rules" as a DMs way to get past any "problems" they perceive with the rules as written is perfectly valid as an argument. If you don't want firearms in your game as a DM, just say so in session 0. If a player has a problem with that, they can find another game.

Or is it, "People who want firearms seem to want something more 'realistic' and somehow have more power in their argument because firearms are in the PHB by default"? Again, they don't. If they are arguing for homebrew rules to make them "more realistic" then that is a simple "no" from the DM. Or, again, just don't allow them at all.

Just say no firearms or say yes firearms. I don’t see a real issue. If your dm wants guns and you don’t, that might be a bit of a problem, but if you can talk to your dm/switch groups, that could work out for you. There isn’t really a huge problem with the mechanics of guns? So the problem is probably with the lore, or the lore not aligning with the mechanics. I don’t see a solution except what I said earlier, switch or talk to your dm. If you’re the dm, then there is no freaking problem with guns because you have control over whether the party has guns or not.

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

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If you want a power fantasy, why not let your players have 30 for all their stats? Isnt that satisfying the craving for more power? Why not allow it?  Why not allow belt fed machine guns, grenade launcchers? Its a power fantasy and an m60 would be more power, wouldnt it?

 

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 It's kind of funny you are arguing something without reading posts, even if you copy paste text into your post. 

Because if you had read my posts, even the post you copied, you will know the answer to this without asking. 

I am currently the DM for a 5.5 D&D campaign set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The player party session before last defeated a Necron Destoryer lord, 10 Necron Warriors, 20 necron scarabs swarms.  Sure they had admech help for the fight, but they litterally fought a monster NPC who counts as a Tank with a heavy gauss weapon and phase blade power weapons. The Rogue trader (playing a monk) has a powerfist which does more damage on a crit than if he had 30 strength. Think the disintiigrate spell as melee punch.  This week was RP mostly, talkinng to Eldar  etc, next week will be a Rathalos fight. Because as a demented DM I let the players go big, and then give them big fights. Because it's fun. 

You see I once played an Epic AD&D game (ie max level 30) and I love seeing people have challenging fights against impossible odds and winning. As I design my mpas, monsters and RP I usually ask myself would this be in a good action film? Because thats how I run D&D for my players. 

They might ask me, hey is this idea too much, I counter with their idea improved with more "Hockey" and Black jack. I lean into the power creep, and in the 40k setting that's the normal not the exceptional. 

last comment on this, as these guys DM the way I do. 

https://youtu.be/93NlRlxDTMo?si=YlSDEBQPbqQ3XhO0 

if it's a 50% chance of death you are doing it worng. It should be a 10% at most. Only way my players die is by their choice and actions. My monsters are on the extreme deadly side, and the players come close often, death saves even. But they win, mostly because good players.  Not a perma death doesn't count as dead.  So it's a valid victory. If you are running pure statistics, you are mathing the fun out of the game. 

Quote from SunIsGettingRealLow96589 >>

 

If you want modern firearms and sci fi ray guns, you have 3 choices: (a) give the modern firearm stats that accurately reflect the guns behavior and redesign the entire game to keep balance. (B) give thr modern firearm accurate stats, keep the rest of the game the same, and fudge a lot of dice rolls so it FEELS to the players like its still somehow balanced, or (c) reskin the modern firearm as a bow or xbow, keep everything elsr the same, and the game is already balanced.

I dont want to redesign the entire game, and i dont want to fudge all my rolls, so (a) and (b) dont work for me. 

That leaves (c) for me. Reskin the firearm as a bow and off we go.

 
The fact you left out “(d) Play firearms under the rules where Wizards already did the balancing” despite many people already pointing this out to you proves beyond any shadow of a doubt you are not engaging with this thread in good faith.  You are ignoring reality to set up false choices, then engaging in rambling arguments against your own fictions rather than what others are saying.

Furthermore, the rest of your post betrays an inherent lack of knowledge of game design and narrative terminology.  For example, you talk about the term “power fantasy” as if it means “being overpowered.”  That is wrong.  In RPG design, “power fantasy” means “what set of powers do players want to live in their fantasy?”  For some, that may be being overpowered… for most it is having the powerful fantasy of using limited power to overcome great threats.

“Impossible odds” in the terms of basic narrative structure does not mean 99% failure rate.  In storytelling, as is the case with D&D, “impossible odds” is a shorthand for “seemingly impossible odds from the perspective of a non-omniscient entity in that situation.”  A 10% chance of death can be considered “impossible odds” narratively if the fight is designed such that the party feels the odds of death are 99%, even if the actual odds are lower.

It is okay to admit you are wrong. Okay to say “huh, I guess there are official rules where balance was already factored in.” Okay to say “I guess they are not fundamentally incompatible with the game.”  And okay to say “but I still don’t like the aesthetic and implications, so I’ll keep them off my table.”

What is not okay is continuing to derail this thread with “responses” to arguments no one here is making. Not okay to double down on misuse of terminology and rules when you have received corrections. Not okay to dismiss someone else’s game as “Calvinball” or similar such derisive comments.

And I will just say I disagree, given just how many conceits bypassing realism already exist within the D&D damage, AC, and HP systems. Weapon stats have very little to do with rate of attacks, penetrating capability, or how far something can effectively fly. They’re abstracts loosely tied to the weapon name balanced for the purpose of gameplay. There is no reason a laser must be an order of magnitude more powerful than a longbow aside from wanting the laser to feel more special.

Ways i have handled guns in D&D and the ways they enhance or reflect Narrative and mood.
They don't have to conflict with the narrative, they can enhance it when used right. And no they aren't ALWAYS an excuse to be ultra powerful. 
Amd again, you can just say, "I don't want guns so i won't run them." 

1: Rare, special and powerful: This meant that every round was a carefully used resource. The party was getting paid for retrieving the weapon, but also a bonus for every round they brought back. A few times it came down to "Do we make sure we survive this encounter or do we risk it and save 1000GP by using sword and spell?" 
Led to some tense navagation of situations, and the players engaged way differently than normal. Seemed to love it except for one player, but I gave him his 'cake' when I could.

2: A novel mystery: Had the players fight and defeat a Yautja (Predator) and they managed to get his gear. Since it was a party of mostly spellcasters, i described them like magic items in their function but would keep saying they weren't magical. They then spent a few session studying them in their downtime until one of the players clocked what it was they fought. They then tried to use them until they ran out of power. 
They managed to use it to approach something in a very novel way and rescue a princess earlier than I intended by using the Cloaking device since it wasn't magical and didn't set off detect magic stuff. A new player to the table then joined and played the Princess as a fighter.

3: Reskin: This has been drought up a bunch of times already. It is simple aesthetics. The Ranger was actually a modern-day hunter who had been Isekaied into Faerun, and his rifle was just a bow that made more noise (his call.) We handwaved where he kept getting ammo, and he just played along with everyone else. It would only come up when he wanted a disadvantage, like it being VERY LOUD. This worked for all his other gear. 
When the party got back to 1990s earth, the Cleric and the Wizard were more powerful than every threat they encountered.
 Turns out a modern day bar brawler isn't eager to mess with someone who can cause 5 foot sections of air to become freezing cold.

4: Underwhelming Novelty: Yeah that incindiary grenade was neat, until it was mage hand swept into the river. Or the monk catches it and throws it back at you. But it inspired the wizard to show off his version. FIREBALL!
Neat assault riffle. Too bad its ammo is explosive and the Bard is doing heat metal on your spare magazines. 
Flamethrower? Well the Barbarian is on fire, but he still seems to be running at you with an axe, while he and the axe are on fire, and he wants a hug. 

There are ways to do it that don't need official support, can be tailored to the feeling you want. Realism is a rabbit hole that can only lead to madness of comparing muzzle velocities and kinetic energy potential at various ranges, so don't bother with it unless you want to inevitably end up with the "Russian SKSs are better than Chinese SKSs so mine should do more damage" blah blah blah pile of unfounded opinions.