Why so few guns in fantasy RPGs?

[Humbaba]

Ok that title was bait, I know why: the mechanics of blackpowder firearms are not really conducive to a tabletop RPG setting.

1. They take a while to reload, about 2 minutes irl. A round is usually understood to represent a time span of only a few seconds so if you were to implement realistic reloading times, a character with a musket would have to spend like 20 rounds doing nothing but reloading.

2. They are difficult to differentiate from other ranged weapons in a system that does not model accuracy in some way. Early firearms are famously a lot less accurate than a bow or crossbow. Having to implement accuracy mechanics only for the purpose of having guns is probably an unnecessary hassle for most designers.

3. If they are implemented they usually represent a lot of missed design potential. For example, the reason why guns eventually rendered bows obsolete is that it was much easier to train a musketeer than a bowman. This ease of use is difficult to model. You would have to for example implement a system of elaborate skill trees where musketeers advance much faster than bowmen.

4. They are not really an adventuring weapon i.e. one that is meant to be used by a single person. Muskets especially are mainly a formation weapon that is extremely ineffective on its own due to its low accuracy among other things. There also other thematic issues that have to be resolved if firearms exist within the setting. For one, what stage of development is the industry at? If there are flintlocks, there shouldn't be many matchlocks still in use unless the world is in some sort of transitionary period. But that again requires a lot of designing effort for the sake of only including this specific weapon type.

All in all this means that firearms are just to complicated for tabletop. Thankfully, we have evolved as a species and have harnessed the power of the personal computer. Now, any added complexity for modelling accuracy or implementing more elaborate skill progression is rendered a non-issue. For a cRPG points 2 and 3 are irrelevant from that perspective.

This leaves points 1 and 4. For point 1 I think you would just have to sacrifice realism in that regard but that's a slippery slope. Pillars of Eternity had guns and truth be told that was the thing that convinced me to buy that heap of shit. My firearms based PC eventually got so good at reloading fast that the animation looked really silly and the rate of fire became implausible. We're talking like a shot every 5 seconds here. Takes you right out of the world.

But speeding up reloading (to a reasonable degree) still leaves point 4, the biggest hurdle in my opinion. I think on that front you would have to completely axe firearms based classes, so no musketeer or gunslinger. By the same token it is completely implausible for a guy to go dungeoncrawling with a musket. If anything, an adventurer would use a pistol or several even if he's really cool. But even then, it would never be his main weapon; unlike a bowman a pistoleer cannot be expected to chill in the back and accurately hit his shots, meaning that a pistoleer would have to get into near-melee range to be effective. This then means that he gets off 1 shot per pistol he's carrying and then has to transition into close combat. At best, you would be a fighter with a gun as some sort of burst option not a fully fledged gunslinger sort of class.

Speaking of which, firearms usually do way too little damage. A gunshot from a solid lead ball should drop any normal sized humanoid or animal in one shot. This would be the balanced out by the fact that you could only ever fire 1-2 shots per combat and that you'd have too carry around a lot more and heavier equipment than a bowman would. But then the argument could be made that a well placed arrow or sword strike should drop the average bandit in one hit as well. Granted at lower levels 1-2 hits can put you away if you have low HP but that's a characteristic of low level characters not the system itself and does not carry over to higher levels.

And this is where we reach a dead end. In an average gameplay system, in which enemies can survive a lot more than they could in a real life scenario, a firearm becomes absolutely useless because it either presents no meaningful advantage to bows or swords or it is completely OP and implausible. Personally if I were to create a setting I would just make combat super deadly and dangerous, where muskets and such would not feel out of place with their lethality. This in turn would deemphasise regular combat encounters which may or may not be a bad thing depending on your outlook.

But that's just my take. What do the esteemed codexians think?

 

[JamesDixon]

Idiot posts up something stupid to create drama and ignore what people say just to troll them.

 

[Cryomancer]

About muskets being inaccurate, sure, they are less accurate than a .338 lapua magnum rifle but they aren't completely inaccurate.

However

the exact position of the men on either shore cannot be determined so we can only say that the minimum distance was a bit over 1000 feet, or 350 yards. https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/10/long-shot-september-1776/

Many video games and movies seems to portrait earlier firearms and shotguns as extremely inaccurate.

 

[JarlFrank]

I really, really love early gunpowder weapons so I gotta reply.

Ok that title was bait, I know why: the mechanics of blackpowder firearms are not really conducive to a tabletop RPG setting.

1. They take a while to reload, about 2 minutes irl. A round is usually understood to represent a time span of only a few seconds so if you were to implement realistic reloading times, a character with a musket would have to spend like 20 rounds doing nothing but reloading.

No.

Timestamped loading procedure here, this is a replica of the most primitive handgonnes, this is the slowest and most awkward that gun handling is ever gonna get:

50 seconds and he's explaining the loading procedure and doing it very slowly. You can easily shave that down to 30 seconds if you're quick and know what you're doing, which a character specialized in gunnery is definitely gonna be.

Bonus: speedshooting a flintlock musket

2. They are difficult to differentiate from other ranged weapons in a system that does not model accuracy in some way. Early firearms are famously a lot less accurate than a bow or crossbow. Having to implement accuracy mechanics only for the purpose of having guns is probably an unnecessary hassle for most designers.

What the fuck are you talking about. Most RPGs, especially CRPGs, have accuracy mechanics. Even some pen and paper systems do. And those that don't... lol just substract 1 or 2 points from the hit roll and you're good.
Ever noticed how in most CRPGs, you get hit chances that range from 1% to 99%?
That's accuracy.

Also, early handguns weren't that inaccurate. There's plenty of target shooting experiments with smoothbores and depending on the range and how big the musket ball is (the tighter it fits into the bore, the straighter it flies, but a tight fit makes reloading harder) a smoothbore firearm is roughly similar in accuracy to a crossbow. Crossbows aren't pinpoint accurate either, especially in windy weather conditions and at longer range. So your argument makes zero sense.

3. If they are implemented they usually represent a lot of missed design potential. For example, the reason why guns eventually rendered bows obsolete is that it was much easier to train a musketeer than a bowman. This ease of use is difficult to model. You would have to for example implement a system of elaborate skill trees where musketeers advance much faster than bowmen.

Yes and? What's wrong about having complex skill trees? We are talking about CRPGs here (you posted this thread in CRPG discussion not pen and paper discussion), complexity should not be an issue.
And even then, it's not really that complex. You can represent the ease of use with a simple numerical skill system, maybe adding some automatically unlocked perks at certain skill values. I think Age of Decadence did that, with the special effects of weapons becoming more pronounced the higher your skill got (like daggers getting better and more frequent criticals the higher your dagger skill is).

The musketry skill might only go up to 50 while all other weapon skills go up to 100, but they also unlock specials in shorter increments. Other weapons give a new special effect every 10 points, muskets give them every 5 points. Bam, you just represented the ease of use and faster training time. But to balance it out you can make the special effects less impressive than what a highly skilled bowman can do, so the musket becomes the quicker development path while the bow takes longer but gives a better payoff if you stick with it.

But all things considered, musket drills aren't that easy since they require a lot of repetition and mechanical know-how, and a lot of shit can go wrong. You need to really train your reloading drill and become intimately familiar with how your weapon works, or you'll fuck it up. Examples: in the English Civil War, a lot of badly drilled soldiers forgot to remove the ramrod before firing, which led them to shoot the ramrod into the enemy lines... leaving them without the ability to reload lmao. In the American Civil War, soldiers under stress just repeated the reloading process over and over again, ending up with a dozen balls in the musket but never firing. Then there's issues like loading too much powder which can make your barrel explode, misfires, etc etc.

You could have guns be the weapon that's potentially very powerful even in untrained hands, but there's a high risk of misfires when you're not good at using the weapon.
Kinda like how Arcanum gave guns a critical failure rate that increased for magic-users (because magic interferes with technology in that setting), except you don't tie it to magic but to the character's skill at handling guns.

4. They are not really an adventuring weapon i.e. one that is meant to be used by a single person. Muskets especially are mainly a formation weapon that is extremely ineffective on its own due to its low accuracy among other things. There also other thematic issues that have to be resolved if firearms exist within the setting. For one, what stage of development is the industry at? If there are flintlocks, there shouldn't be many matchlocks still in use unless the world is in some sort of transitionary period. But that again requires a lot of designing effort for the sake of only including this specific weapon type.

The low accuracy meme again lol.
Muskets are a much better solo adventurer weapon than crossbows because in a pinch, you can use the thing in melee. Whack someone over the head with the heavy iron barrel, or even better, with the butt of the weapon. That's what people did all the time in 18th century battles when it got to melee combat. And of course, there's also bayonets to make your musket even better at melee combat.

Hunting muskets have been a thing from the very early days of gunpowder weapon development, and that's pretty much a solo/small group activity.

Also, pistols. Pistols are a pretty great personal defense weapon because they're not too big, easily fit on your belt, and offer a deadly ranged combat ability to ward off attackers. One pull of the trigger and your attacker is toast. Sure, you only get one shot, but in a self-defense situation that's all you need. Pistols were also used heavily in naval boarding action because of how small and handy they are for close quarters combat. Pirates always carried one or two of those things along with their cutlass - what, you never watched a pirate adventure movie? There were even specialized boarding pistols with axe-heads on them lmao.

 

[Bester]

OP, you're thinking too much inside the box. Here's some tips:

- Since we're talking fantasy, that world's technological progress is guaranteed not to be like ours. Stop thinking like you're on Earth. The addition of any type of magic would change how a world progresses drastically.

In terms of guns, suppose theirs aren't powder based. They're powered by void crystals (miniature black holes) and eat space in whatever they hit, based on material density they touch. So if they hit a civilian, half their torso is gone. If they hit an armored guy, it'll leave a small dent in the armor if he's lucky. Also, they don't travel at powdered bullet velocity, but rather slowly and they're not affected by gravity. Problem solved - you have guns so to speak, but they're not OP.

- You can have projectile based guns, but suppose everyone has velocity wards. Meaning that matter can't penetrate those wards if it travels too fast. Bows can, though. Now guns exist, but are not OP and maybe aren't widely used for that reason. Make a plot twist out of it.

 

[JarlFrank]

One cool idea I always had for guns in a fantasy setting is "wizard locks" as an alternative to matchlock, flintlock, percussion lock etc.
Only wizards can use it because there's no mechanism to ignite the powder... wizards use a spark spell to ignite it and go pew, the gun is completely useless to anyone else.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

any setting where you can be a wizard by studying hard is going to have vastly different technology from what we have
think of basically every invention/discovery/etc., we have and realize many of the people responsible would have likely chosen to study in some field of arcana instead

Ok that title was bait, I know why: the mechanics of blackpowder firearms are not really conducive to a tabletop RPG setting.

1. They take a while to reload, about 2 minutes irl

a musket can be reloaded in about 10-15 seconds

2. They are difficult to differentiate from other ranged weapons in a system that does not model accuracy in some way. Early firearms are famously a lot less accurate than a bow or crossbow.

define:'early firearm'
rifles were being used in the 18th century, see: pennsylvania long rifle

 

[InSight]

Common/popular/widespread depiction/portrayal/image of RPG fantasy settings mimic what referred to as "medieval period"(approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries)which include the use of metal armor (its pinnacle the plate armor).
This makes plate armor iconic/symbolic/traditional to most/many/major fantasy settings.

The introduction of firearms ends/nullifies/negates the use of armor which made one impervious/resistant/immune to wounds/cuts/bleeding's(external). It begins/spells/lead to the end of armored warriors as the formidable force/unit/power of its time/period. Resource-wise armor is more complex to produce and requires custom fit measurements that cannot be mass produced with efficient results compared to firearms/guns. It also a threat to magic users and magical/fantasy/fictional creatures nullifying/demising/lowering their threat. These too are iconic/symbolic/characteristic to fantasy settings. Firearms lessen the need for the skill, bravery , awesomeness required against such obstacles/challenges/feat fantasy settings often emphasize(they make such acts less special, less magical, less awesome).

A longbow can under circumstances penetrate plate armor serving the same objective firearms provide. Yet they require severe long training that malform the body, thus making them rare, not necessarily obsoleting the iconic armor, making it useless. They also do not deliver the shock bullets do so these hit by arrows can continue fighting. Thus they are more tolerable(can co-exist without wiping the other) in context of skill, valor, bravery, heroism fantasy settings highlight/enlarge/emphasize.

Games are a measure of skill. fantasy settings provide world/settings/situation where the degree of skills needed is higher. Swordplay/melee/arms require more skills to be efficient compared to guns/firearms which is why most duels in America involved pistol over swords, it was preferable, gave more equal ground. Gun/firearm lower/lessen the degree&depth of skills depicted, less variety in motion and marks/begins the end of a world/period they are required in.

That is why their will be fewer/limited/constricted guns/firearms in fantasy RPG's.

 

[Humbaba]

Idiot posts up something stupid to create drama and ignore what people say just to troll them.

So much for ignoring me you insipid autist. Have a sip

About muskets being inaccurate, sure, they are less accurate than a .338 lapua magnum rifle but they aren't completely inaccurate.

However


Many video games and movies seems to portrait earlier firearms and shotguns as extremely inaccurate.

That article talks about a weapon with an extraordinarily long barrel though, also it's a 18th century weapon, what I meant was like renaissance type muskets.

I really, really love early gunpowder weapons so I gotta reply.



No.

Timestamped loading procedure here, this is a replica of the most primitive handgonnes, this is the slowest and most awkward that gun handling is ever gonna get:

50 seconds and he's explaining the loading procedure and doing it very slowly. You can easily shave that down to 30 seconds if you're quick and know what you're doing, which a character specialized in gunnery is definitely gonna be.

Bonus: speedshooting a flintlock musket




What the fuck are you talking about. Most RPGs, especially CRPGs, have accuracy mechanics. Even some pen and paper systems do. And those that don't... lol just substract 1 or 2 points from the hit roll and you're good.
Ever noticed how in most CRPGs, you get hit chances that range from 1% to 99%?
That's accuracy.

Also, early handguns weren't that inaccurate. There's plenty of target shooting experiments with smoothbores and depending on the range and how big the musket ball is (the tighter it fits into the bore, the straighter it flies, but a tight fit makes reloading harder) a smoothbore firearm is roughly similar in accuracy to a crossbow. Crossbows aren't pinpoint accurate either, especially in windy weather conditions and at longer range. So your argument makes zero sense.



Yes and? What's wrong about having complex skill trees? We are talking about CRPGs here (you posted this thread in CRPG discussion not pen and paper discussion), complexity should not be an issue.
And even then, it's not really that complex. You can represent the ease of use with a simple numerical skill system, maybe adding some automatically unlocked perks at certain skill values. I think Age of Decadence did that, with the special effects of weapons becoming more pronounced the higher your skill got (like daggers getting better and more frequent criticals the higher your dagger skill is).

The musketry skill might only go up to 50 while all other weapon skills go up to 100, but they also unlock specials in shorter increments. Other weapons give a new special effect every 10 points, muskets give them every 5 points. Bam, you just represented the ease of use and faster training time. But to balance it out you can make the special effects less impressive than what a highly skilled bowman can do, so the musket becomes the quicker development path while the bow takes longer but gives a better payoff if you stick with it.

But all things considered, musket drills aren't that easy since they require a lot of repetition and mechanical know-how, and a lot of shit can go wrong. You need to really train your reloading drill and become intimately familiar with how your weapon works, or you'll fuck it up. Examples: in the English Civil War, a lot of badly drilled soldiers forgot to remove the ramrod before firing, which led them to shoot the ramrod into the enemy lines... leaving them without the ability to reload lmao. In the American Civil War, soldiers under stress just repeated the reloading process over and over again, ending up with a dozen balls in the musket but never firing. Then there's issues like loading too much powder which can make your barrel explode, misfires, etc etc.

You could have guns be the weapon that's potentially very powerful even in untrained hands, but there's a high risk of misfires when you're not good at using the weapon.
Kinda like how Arcanum gave guns a critical failure rate that increased for magic-users (because magic interferes with technology in that setting), except you don't tie it to magic but to the character's skill at handling guns.



The low accuracy meme again lol.
Muskets are a much better solo adventurer weapon than crossbows because in a pinch, you can use the thing in melee. Whack someone over the head with the heavy iron barrel, or even better, with the butt of the weapon. That's what people did all the time in 18th century battles when it got to melee combat. And of course, there's also bayonets to make your musket even better at melee combat.

Hunting muskets have been a thing from the very early days of gunpowder weapon development, and that's pretty much a solo/small group activity.

Also, pistols. Pistols are a pretty great personal defense weapon because they're not too big, easily fit on your belt, and offer a deadly ranged combat ability to ward off attackers. One pull of the trigger and your attacker is toast. Sure, you only get one shot, but in a self-defense situation that's all you need. Pistols were also used heavily in naval boarding action because of how small and handy they are for close quarters combat. Pirates always carried one or two of those things along with their cutlass - what, you never watched a pirate adventure movie? There were even specialized boarding pistols with axe-heads on them lmao.

I suppose I confused the reload times of muskets and rifles. It was rifles that took a while to reload. As for accuracy, bows specifically were much more accurate than firearms from what I've read. Also gunswords or axe pistols were extremely rare.

>We are talking about CRPGs here (you posted this thread in CRPG discussion not pen and paper discussion), complexity should not be an issue.
Please finish reading the post.

define:'early firearm'
rifles were being used in the 18th century, see: pennsylvania long rifle

I thought it was clear that when talking about fantasy settings I didn't mean the 18th century but to clarify: what I mean by early firearm is muskets and pistols as were in use between the 15th and early 17th centuries.

 

[Strange Fellow]

I don't think there are that few guns, actually. All three of the major early CRPG series (Wizardry, Ultima and Might and Magic) feature guns in some form, and then there are games like the Pillars which feature them prominently and have given some thought to their inclusion. It's mainly DnD/Faerun/whatever you call it-based games that shy away from any and all guns, which makes sense since that setting clearly based on the early Medieval period or even earlier, to the extent that it has a historical basis at all.

 

[Cryomancer]

Other thing that we could have. Bizarre guns like

 

[V_K]

The bigger issue is that if you introduce guns, you'll have to do something more creative with mages than just having them be walking flamethrowers. And most RPG designers don't have the brains for that.

 

[Sunri]

Pillars of eternity has guns and i loved them i wish more fantasy games had them i love the sound and weight they have

 

[JarlFrank]

I suppose I confused the reload times of muskets and rifles. It was rifles that took a while to reload. As for accuracy, bows specifically were much more accurate than firearms from what I've read. Also gunswords or axe pistols were extremely rare.

I mean it depends, once you use rifles (which do take longer to reload) you get some really good accuracy even at long ranges. There are 18th century hunting rifles that were also used in a military context for light infantry skirmishers which are really accurate.

Check this Hungarian bro's videos, he collects replicas and originals and even uses them for actual deer hunting in the wild:


This video shows the operation of an original 18th century rifle, with reloading process + firing at a range to check accuracy.

Here he tests accurate replicas of 17th century wheellock pistols:


At the typical engagement ranges of RPGs, their accuracy is perfectly serviceable.

As for gunswords and axe pistols, they weren't common but armories around Europe, the Middle East and India (where such combination weapons were popular) are filled with the things. If you were a lord or even just a super rich merchant who wanted to brag with his high tech custom weapon, you probably had one of those. Probably a really fancy one, too, just for bragging rights. The axe-pistols weren't uncommon among naval personnel and pirates because of their usefulness in the close combat of boarding operations. Specialized weapons for specialized purposes.

Of course, compared to the millions of regular muskets and pistols produced for military use throughout the gunpowder age, those weapons are extremely rare.
But RPG player parties aren't regular soldiers, they're mercenaries who amass considerable wealth throughout their adventures. In games like Baldur's Gate 2, you end up carrying an entire arsenal of unique magic weapons like swords, pikes, bows, crossbows, scimitars, flails, maces, axes, etc enchanted to deal fire, frost, lightning, stunning, paralyzing, confusing etc effects.

An RPG party in a gunpowder age setting would definitely be able to get their hands on cool shit like gunswords, axe-pistols, halberd-guns (yes even those existed IRL) etc.

 

[Netch]

AD&D 2e has rules for arquebuses

 

[Dorateen]

Grimoire has quite a variety of firearms, and the characters can learn the requisite skill accordingly.

 

[Humbaba]

I suppose I confused the reload times of muskets and rifles. It was rifles that took a while to reload. As for accuracy, bows specifically were much more accurate than firearms from what I've read. Also gunswords or axe pistols were extremely rare.

I mean it depends, once you use rifles (which do take longer to reload) you get some really good accuracy even at long ranges. There are 18th century hunting rifles that were also used in a military context for light infantry skirmishers which are really accurate.

Check this Hungarian bro's videos, he collects replicas and originals and even uses them for actual deer hunting in the wild:


This video shows the operation of an original 18th century rifle, with reloading process + firing at a range to check accuracy.

Here he tests accurate replicas of 17th century wheellock pistols:


At the typical engagement ranges of RPGs, their accuracy is perfectly serviceable.

As for gunswords and axe pistols, they weren't common but armories around Europe, the Middle East and India (where such combination weapons were popular) are filled with the things. If you were a lord or even just a super rich merchant who wanted to brag with his high tech custom weapon, you probably had one of those. Probably a really fancy one, too, just for bragging rights. The axe-pistols weren't uncommon among naval personnel and pirates because of their usefulness in the close combat of boarding operations. Specialized weapons for specialized purposes.

Of course, compared to the millions of regular muskets and pistols produced for military use throughout the gunpowder age, those weapons are extremely rare.
But RPG player parties aren't regular soldiers, they're mercenaries who amass considerable wealth throughout their adventures. In games like Baldur's Gate 2, you end up carrying an entire arsenal of unique magic weapons like swords, pikes, bows, crossbows, scimitars, flails, maces, axes, etc enchanted to deal fire, frost, lightning, stunning, paralyzing, confusing etc effects.

An RPG party in a gunpowder age setting would definitely be able to get their hands on cool shit like gunswords, axe-pistols, halberd-guns (yes even those existed IRL) etc.

Based channel.

Rifles are indeed very good long range weapons. The infamous afghan jezail comes to mind

Playing a fantasy sniper would be interesting I suppose. I never expressed any issues with pistols.

As for those hybrid weapons, I agree that adventurers would eventually get their hands on those fancy things but they would or should not be particularly effective. Afaik the issue with those things was that you basically get an unnecessarily heavy pistol and an unbalanced axe i.e. a suboptimal weapon for either role. But in a fantasy setting I guess you could disregard that for the cool factor.

 

[Apostle Hand]

cuz guns haven't existed in those times

 

[RaptorRex888]

Because we know from being alive that guns > all other forms of combat (except magic). So it would be very hard for you to rationalise seeing a gunslinger vs a swordsmen and think its somehow fair.

 

[Gregz]

Firearms in fantasy settings is even more decline than psionics.

 

[Wunderbar]

Because RPG developers think "fantasy = medieval europe but with orcs and elves", and guns did not exist in medieval Europe.

 

[Wunderbar]

Firearms in fantasy settings is even more decline than psionics.

that's another good reason - guns dilute the setting and make it feel less fantasy.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Because we know from being alive that guns > all other forms of combat (except magic). So it would be very hard for you to rationalise seeing a gunslinger vs a swordsmen and think its somehow fair.

early firearms displaced the (cross)bow, not melee weapons.
the ranges that cRPG combat nearly always happen at make little sense for bows to begin with, and strongly favor early firearms.
if anything, the reload time on crossbows in cRPGs is way too short.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Because we know from being alive that guns > all other forms of combat (except magic). So it would be very hard for you to rationalise seeing a gunslinger vs a swordsmen and think its somehow fair.

What if it's a gunslinger vs. a swordsman with a katana?

 

[deuxhero]

Because they weren't in Conan or LotR and thus weren't in D&D. Fantasy RPGs still copy shamelessly from these things to the point of repeating blatant mistakes. Look at how many fantasy settings have 1800s liquid fuel lanterns because D&D devs saw a picture of a medieval lantern (as in a box to put a candle in) heard oil lamps were things in medieval times, and decided these were totally identical to those antique kerosene lanterns people keep in case of power outages (besides direct D&D descendants, TES, Zelda, and Dragon's Dogma are all guilty of this off the top of my head).

That aside, the biggest advantage of matchlock/flintlock firearms is that they can be stored loaded. Crossbows can be kept loaded on a tactical level, but the bow is under so much tension and the string so loosely held trying to actually store it that way is stupid.

As for reload times, muzzleloading firearm expert Balazs Nemeth says various period manuals give an average of 2-3 shots a minute for groups of men using smoothbore muzzleloaders in battlefield conditions. At the scale and manpower (rarely more than two dozen men total) most RPGs take place at, this renders the firearm something used once for the opening volley that is then either a: used as a melee weapon (either a club or spear with bayonet) b: ditched for a melee weapon and/or c: ditched for another gun. Being a secondary arm that's focused on burst damage is a perfectly valid combat niche even with bows and crossbows existing.

Short Bow: low strength requirement, low AP requirement, low damage.
Long Bow: High strength requirement, moderate AP requirement (that must all be done in one turn), high damage
Goat's foot Crossbow: A middle ground of slow to reload (but fast enough to be practical under fire) but low AP to actually fire, moderate power, and middle strength requirements
Firearms: Very slow to reload, quick to fire when loaded, powerful, stored loaded, minimal strength requirement, usable as melee weapon. Pistols are weaker in exchange for short draw time

any setting where you can be a wizard by studying hard is going to have vastly different technology from what we have
think of basically every invention/discovery/etc., we have and realize many of the people responsible would have likely chosen to study in some field of arcana instead

The problem is, Eberron and Avatar aside, fantasy settings virtually never explore the consequences of magic on society. The 3.5 Forgotten Realms book explicitly (but accidentally) says that even in non-magic run countries, Faerun has more skilled magic users than the real world has doctors and enough Clerics that the old dying of disease or minor injury is rare, but most countries don't care.

Because we know from being alive that guns > all other forms of combat (except magic). So it would be very hard for you to rationalise seeing a gunslinger vs a swordsmen and think its somehow fair.

What if it's a gunslinger vs. a swordsman with a katana?

Interestingly, early post-Sakoku accounts by westerners find the most interesting thing about Nipponese swordsmen to be how they can draw and attack in one motion. The katana's cutting ability is mentioned (over the last century+ westerners had moved to storing their swords in shitty metal scabards that constantly ruined the edge), but iai was the really fearsome part to them.