Why is D&D still Medieval?

[Xuc Xac]

Guns changed everything

Some of those ways negatively impact the ability to tell certain types of stories or do certain types of roleplaying. That is why D&D had to pick a default position (and create some optional content if it was worth the investment).

That's not it. D&D's default technology level is set a century or two after widespread use of handguns and several centuries after the use of cannon (even in fiction: Mordred used cannon in his siege of Camelot).

Sociologically, D&D isn't medieval either. In medieval Europe (and Asia), all the land belonged to somebody. There was no unexplored frontier waiting to be tamed where a high level fighter could just set up a fort and declare himself lord over a new territory. There were no wandering adventurers who answered to no one and who helped the local peasants to solve their monster problems. In a real feudal society, peasants under threat of being eaten by monsters would just walk to the local lord's manor and say "Hey, m'lord. Get your axe and gather up your boys, please. Kill the beast what eats our cows or there won't be any cheese or leather at tax time." There are no wandering mercenaries or hired guns that can save the village for a bag of coins in a feudal society.

D&D is a Western that dressed up for the Renaissance Fair.

[Tanarii]

Some of you are thoroughly talking down the patchwork nature of civilization in medieval times, and talking up the civilization of westerns.

Yeah, if you run a west marches campaign where it's the frontier of D&D civilization and you're exploring to see what's out there, it's kinda western-like, with the occasional cluster of hovels of settlers. But far more common is either a points of light, among crumbled ancient empires and dangerous wilderness and invading hordes, Dark ages medieval. Or a Balkanized patchwork of independent kingdoms, also among crumbled ancient empires and surrounded by somewhat less dangerous wilderness and yes still the occasional invading horde, Middle Ages medieval.

[Nifft]

D&D is a Western that dressed up for the Renaissance Fair.

Can't agree with that.

Westerns did have an influence on D&D, and there are some significant Western tropes in D&D, but it's not reasonable to wash away the Classical, Sci-Fi, Renaissance, and Eastern influences & tropes.

[King of Nowhere]

is d&d still medieval?
while the core game is, there are several options to expand it to whatever time one wants. there is a whole d20modern srd

[Imbalance]

Nobody knows Toril is a Dyson sphere...

[OldTrees1]

That's not it.

I know Guns rendering melee obsolete without BS is part of it. That might not be your reason and it is not the only component, but as MoiMagnus said, "people like Swords" and Guns change the feasibility of that dramatically.

D&D's default technology level is set a century or two after widespread use of handguns and several centuries after the use of cannon (even in fiction: Mordred used cannon in his siege of Camelot).

And yet D&D does not have handguns in the PHB because the lethality of handguns changes a lot. So while D&D is not medieval, it has chosen to be mostly in the "guns do not exist" camp which seems to effect how far it is willing to push other areas of technology.

D&D is a Western that dressed up for the Renaissance Fair.

And replaced their Guns with Swords & Sorcery.
Not a perfect analogy, but neither is "medieval".

[LibraryOgre]

Can't agree with that.

Westerns did have an influence on D&D, and there are some significant Western tropes in D&D, but it's not reasonable to wash away the Classical, Sci-Fi, Renaissance, and Eastern influences & tropes.

I don't think the generalization washes those away, though. It is a generalization but, to continue the Renaissance Faire analogy, you'll see Eastern, Classical, and Sci-Fi references at a Renn Faire, too... from people in samurai armor to Star Trek cosplayers.

[Mechalich]

Sociologically, D&D isn't medieval either. In medieval Europe (and Asia), all the land belonged to somebody. There was no unexplored frontier waiting to be tamed where a high level fighter could just set up a fort and declare himself lord over a new territory.

Um, no, not quite. All of the land may have belonged to someone on paper, but huge portions of Medieval Europe and Asia were extremely thinly settled to the point of being functionally uninhabited and you absolutely could just go out into the wilderness, clear a bunch of trees, and setup a town somewhere. The Norse actually did this on a fairly regular basis and the further back into the Medieval period you go the more viable it becomes. Additionally during some of the more lawless intervals land that was only nominally claimed was vulnerable to some dude with an army showing up and declaring themselves lord of the province by force of arms and eventually acquiring official recognition for doing so if giving the land back to the proper owners was seen as too much of a hassle. The further back you go towards the beginning of the Medieval period the more common this sort of thing was.

And this is without counting any of the various prolonged conquests and displacements by members of one cultural group over another, which absolutely did involve land changing hands and newly minted nobility (forum rules probably prohibit in-depth discussion of any examples, but they're definitely there).

There were no wandering adventurers who answered to no one and who helped the local peasants to solve their monster problems. In a real feudal society, peasants under threat of being eaten by monsters would just walk to the local lord's manor and say "Hey, m'lord. Get your axe and gather up your boys, please. Kill the beast what eats our cows or there won't be any cheese or leather at tax time." There are no wandering mercenaries or hired guns that can save the village for a bag of coins in a feudal society.

Wandering mercenary companies, if not individuals, absolutely did exist, though yes, they weren't doing a whole lot of monster hunting. Banditry and raiding threatening settlements, including raids well beyond the power of local nobility to repulse, absolutely were an issue though. They were more tied up in broad-scale intercultural conflict, such as the aforementioned Norse or the arrival of various steppe cultures from beyond the frontier (elements derived from the Golden Horde continued to raid in what is now Eastern Europe well into the 17th century), or components of prolonged wars between states - such as the tactic of chevauchee

D&D is a Western that dressed up for the Renaissance Fair.

The Western, as a genre, draws heavily on the medieval literary tradition of the Knight Errant, so it's more like the Western is a chivalric romance that dressed up for 19th century America. D&D emphasizes elements of both that are more useful for gameplay purposes than for literature - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a fine adventure tale, but would make for a terrible session of gameplay - ultimately making it in many ways the foundation of its own specific subgenre.

[Jay R]

Disney still does animation because it sells.
Ford still makes cars because cars sell.
MicroSoft still sells operating systems because they sell.
Marvel still makes modern superhero comic books because they sell.

And D&D is still its own unconvincing modern Horatio Alger world with a medieval-ish overlay because it continues to sell.

D&D is its own genre. It grew out of a poor attempt to simulate heroic fantasy, but it is its own brand of fantasy, with its own feel.

And it retains that feel because it is selling. It's the best-selling, best known rpg in the world. That is, all by itself, a reason not to change it.

[Nifft]

I don't think the generalization washes those away, though. It is a generalization but, to continue the Renaissance Faire analogy, you'll see Eastern, Classical, and Sci-Fi references at a Renn Faire, too... from people in samurai armor to Star Trek cosplayers.

You're only making concessions about trappings, though. The non-trappings tropes and activities from those genres are also relevant.

For every Western-ish plot like the Keep on the Borderlands where you are contracted by a shady stranger in a saloon to stop a nearby gathering of uppity natives, there are more non-Western tropes which don't fit that genre.


When you're playing slaves thrown into gladiatorial combat, which Western is that?

When you're solving riddles to avoid fighting a manticore in unfavorable terrain, which Western are you borrowing from?

When you're trekking across badlands to map out the burial site of a long-dead king so you can excavate his tomb and loot his riches, that's not just gold-rush claim-jumping with a veneer of fantasy.

When you're a knight-errant on an journey through foreign lands to stab monsters, secure riches, and earn honor for your glorious return, that's much like being a 6th century islamic adventurer-merchant (as represented in e.g. Adventures of Sinbad) -- though of course the knight-errant part was likely to be due to western adaptation of those stories.



IMHO it's a solid insight to say that D&D borrows from Westerns, but it's not reasonable to say that D&D is a Western.

[Anonymouswizard]

And yet D&D does not have handguns in the PHB because the lethality of handguns changes a lot. So while D&D is not medieval, it has chosen to be mostly in the "guns do not exist" camp which seems to effect how far it is willing to push other areas of technology.

I thought historically guns changed things because they were relatively simple to train your conscripts in.

There are D&D style games with guns in the player's guide, such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess or AD&D2e. And generally the more historically accurate the guns the less they matter. I'm LotFP guns have a special armour piercing effect no other weapon has, but the sheer length of the relief (10 rounds! 8 if you're a fighter, and you can reduce that sightly by taking the special bandoleer) means that unless you're carting around a barrel of loaded muskets you're not getting that more than maybe twice a combat and those will be your only actions.

Firing mechanisms also matter, LotFP points out how matchlocks, wheellocks, and flintlocks give you different chances of misfiring (which means you have to spend rounds sorting that out before you can get off a successful shot), impact reloading times due to varying complexity in priming then, and earlier firing mechanisms don't work when wet. Speaking of which, you need to make sure you keep your powder dry, or it's no guns for you.

Oh, and if you want rifling? That'll be extra cash.

Pre cartridge firearms are terrible for adventuring. Sure, rain also stops bowstrings from working properly, but the best thing to do with flintlock muskets is hand them out to a bunch of extras/nooks, train them in using them, and then having them fire once before fleeing/hiding

Also my primary all these days if I'm playing a Rogue is if I can fluff a hand crossbow as a flintlock pistol. It serves the purpose well with for most games.

[Tanarii]

Speaking of which, you need to make sure you keep your powder dry, or it's no guns for you.

Sure, rain also stops bowstrings from working properly,

Pretty sure most people don't bother keeping their bowstrings dry. It's hard enough to get them to count the .8 oz arrows they unrealistically carry 200+ of.

[Luccan]

Pretty sure most people don't bother keeping their bowstrings dry. It's hard enough to get them to count the .8 oz arrows they unrealistically carry 200+ of.

AFAIK, none of the modern versions of D&D care about bowstrings or gunpowder (if you're using those optional rules) being dry, while at least one has explicit rules about arrow recovery, so I'm not sure that's a good comparison.

Edit: What I mean is, no one is ignoring any explicit rules if they don't worry about their bowstring getting wet

[OldTrees1]

I thought historically guns changed things because they were relatively simple to train your conscripts in.

That too. Guns were basically a warfare cheat code (although not the first such revolution in history). Also you were right to point out that it was not an instantaneous transition. LotFP seems to be aiming for having guns without letting them be developed enough to negate melee. From your description I assume there is an initial volley before the melee fighters switch to melee.

Also my primary all these days if I'm playing a Rogue is if I can fluff a hand crossbow as a flintlock pistol. It serves the purpose well with for most games.

Heh, refluffing the skill of rogue pinpointing an extraordinary weak point as a gunslinger being accurate enough with a flintlock to aim the devastating weapon. Nice refluff.

[Pex]

What it comes down to is D&D is pre-Industrialization. In the real world there were still machines of sorts during that time, but historical accuracy is irrelevant for the game. How much technology your game has is up to the DM. Eberron is about magic is the Industrial Revolution. D&D is a world without Electric Power. Those who prefer SteamPunk, CyberPunk, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Modern Times, whatever are welcome to it, but D&D is not wrong being in the setting that it is.

[KillianHawkeye]

Can someone explain the supposed connection between movie special effects and why D&D should or should not be medieval fantasy? I seriously have no idea why the OP kept mentioning special effects.

[Anonymouswizard]

Pretty sure most people don't bother keeping their bowstrings dry. It's hard enough to get them to count the .8 oz arrows they unrealistically carry 200+ of.

I've known people who don't track spell points/slots, so yeah. Just trying to point out how balancing guns for realism tends to make them an NPC weapon.

Also I once made a character who carried 300 quarrels and dedicated a proficiency slot to being able to craft more, but they were a paranoid dwarf. It was all work encumbrance as well IIRC.

That too. Guns were basically a warfare cheat code (although not the first such revolution in history). Also you were right to point out that it was not an instantaneous transition. LotFP seems to be aiming for having guns without letting them be developed enough to negate melee. From your description I assume there is an initial volley before the melee fighters switch to melee.

Yeah, although a high Dex would allow a fighter to fire a flintlock maybe every other round. The book points out that dedicated ranged fighters would likely stick to the bow and crossbow, while other characters carry a gun or two, fire when they hit short range, and then switch to axes.

[/QUOTE]Heh, refluffing the skill of rogue pinpointing an extraordinary weak point as a gunslinger being accurate enough with a flintlock to aim the devastating weapon. Nice refluff.[/QUOTE]

Eh, the theory behind it is that a flintlock isn't that much more deadly than a crossbow, but being able to use the inaccurate gun and still hit weak points is incredibly difficult.


As a side note, while I've not run them yet I have written a couple of settings with less restrictive guns. One uses a magical method to ignite power in a metal cartridge (and requires them to be primed before every shot), while the other uses magical crystal based railguns where swapping magazines is a bit of a faff (takes two rounds, but you get up to twelve shots). But they have guns being dominant, so their damage and capabilities are balanced to make them roughly on par with bows so as not to break the system.

[Chronic]

I've seen people referring to western as an influence for D&d and they aren't wrong, but it's not because of the trope attached to the genre, but because the western genre is a deeply mythological one, that's why it's fairly easy to draw similarities with fantasy. Hero's journey etc.

[137beth]

I'd say that D&D isn't actually Medieval. Rather than make my own argument, I'll just quote someone else:

I don't get why people see D&D or it's derivatives as medieval european.

you have medieval knights wearing rennaiscane era armor, wielding roman era falcatas, worshipping greek gods, traveling with native american shamans wearing the hides of saharan beasts, who transform into prehistoric dinosaurs who are accompanied by modern japanese schoolgirls wielding Tokugawa Era Daisho and Wearing black pajamas, and old men wearing robes and pointed hats who chant mathematical equations to control reality, on a journey to kill brain eating space aliens, giant sentient firebreathing spellcasting reptiles and sentient jello.

[PhoenixPhyre]

D&D is, was, and always has been an amalgam of genres, ideas, and influences from across the spectrum and from across the eras of history (plus a bunch of just crazy stuff thrown in because it looked cool). Sure, some strains are stronger than others. But those who claim it isn't a good medieval simulator are right. Because that's not what it's intended to do. Nor is it a good western simulator. Or a good anything simulator. D&D does D&D. Its genre is D&D. And it does D&D pretty darn well (well, most of the time).

[Cluedrew]

So what I gather is D&D started as a dungeon-crawler with medieval Europe theming and the narrative of a western and then people kept piling on and working in new ideas until it gained sentience.

OK that last part hasn't happened yet.

I thought historically guns changed things because they were relatively simple to train your conscripts in.

I do believe there was a period where the conscripts used guns and the train soldiers used bows. There is quite a technology gap between when you can make a gun and when you can make a gun that is "better" than a bow. Its something that always annoys me when technological development is showing during a story (I'm sure some stories have gotten it right but I can't think of any write now), and a few decades of work happens in a few months.

[Mechalich]

So what I gather is D&D started as a dungeon-crawler with medieval Europe theming and the narrative of a western and then people kept piling on and working in new ideas until it gained sentience.

Technically D&D started as a modification of a tactical wargame. The 'dungeon' concept was a way to move characters through a series of tactical maps in sequence while maintaining a continual resource counter - a method still used by many board games and tactical rpgs.

D&D had 'medieval' themes, but they were drawn from a mixture of fiction that could best be described as 'loosely medieval.' Several of the key inspirational sources, such as Conan and Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are much more Bronze Age in derivation than medieval. It's also important to note that Gygax, Arneson, et al were a bunch of hobbyists from the 1970s, something that is extremely relevant when considering the historical sources they had to work with and the historical data the literary works they were drawing from had as well. The understanding of Medieval warfare someone could acquire from popular sources, in English, in 1975, was in no way comparable to what's available today. Even someone who was trying to be 100% historically accurate, which they weren't, would be considered way off now after a half century of new scholarship.

As far as narrative, D&D definitely wasn't written as a Western, but it draws on storytelling traditions that share a lot of narrative and thematic DNA with Westerns. These include the literary tradition of the knight-errant and adventure serials. A key difference between D&D and Westerns is that Westerns often include an element of homesteading. That is, whether or not the specific adventure in question involves making the land safe for settlers, that's part of the overall context. Some D&D-type stories (and actual adventure paths, like Pathfinder: Kingmaker) do include that, but many of them are simply pure romps by characters who are almost entirely self-interested. Many modern D&D inspired characters, for example Geralt of Rivia, are a mixture of both - people who don't fit into society and who undertake actions primarily for profit but whose chosen career ends up broadly improving society anyway. Tolkein, after all, posited a bunch of noble, selfless, dedicated heroes who saved the world from evil, but the Dragonlance Chronicles built a party of outcast screw-ups who did the same (there are many issues with the Dragonlance Chronicles, but the positively wacky and discordant nature of its party roster is incredibly D&D).

Ultimately though, D&D is still 'medieval' because medieval fantasy has remained popular and D&D has worked very hard to provide all possible medieval fantasy options for gameplay. This hasn't always worked particularly well, nor does medieval fantasy hold any sort of position of inherent dominance in the marketplace. While science fiction hasn't successfully challenged fantasy for the crown at any point since D&D's creation, both urban fantasy and superhero fantasy have successfully challenged are arguably surpassed traditional high fantasy at points. D&D did, after all, lose out to Vampire as the world's #1 rpg for a few years in the late 1990s.

On that note, it's probably worth mentioning a purely marketing related reason that keeps D&D 'medieval' in terms of most presented technologies. D&D is owned by a card-game company that makes a 'medieval' fantasy card game whose monetary value dwarfs that of the tabletop product. So long as D&D retains a function as an MTG tie-in product, of course it will stay medieval.

[Luccan]

On that note, it's probably worth mentioning a purely marketing related reason that keeps D&D 'medieval' in terms of most presented technologies. D&D is owned by a card-game company that makes a 'medieval' fantasy card game whose monetary value dwarfs that of the tabletop product. So long as D&D retains a function as an MTG tie-in product, of course it will stay medieval.

I don't know if this is entirely accurate. WotC has owned D&D for over 20 years now and they're only.just doing tie-ins with MTG (neither of which are even medieval fantasy). Unless there were less widely talked about 3e or 4e crossovers I'm unaware of, I think it's more likely they kept it the same just to make sure they kept the D&D-fan market share.

[Theodoxus]

Disney still does animation because it sells.
Ford still makes cars because cars sell.
MicroSoft still sells operating systems because they sell.
Marvel still makes modern superhero comic books because they sell.

And D&D is still its own unconvincing modern Horatio Alger world with a medieval-ish overlay because it continues to sell.

D&D is its own genre. It grew out of a poor attempt to simulate heroic fantasy, but it is its own brand of fantasy, with its own feel.

And it retains that feel because it is selling. It's the best-selling, best known rpg in the world. That is, all by itself, a reason not to change it.

Which is why I'm so sad that there hasn't been ANY good High Sorcery movies or even tv shows developed. If Disney could hook up with Hasbro and yank the teams from both Marvel and Star Wars, we could have some AMAZINGLY good stories and CGI to finally wash away the harsh aftertaste that was the D&D movies.

Currently, even Netflix is creating more WOD-esque gothic horror tales with their fantasy. And even then, the CGI is horrible, It looks like cut and paste fireballs from 80's explosions thrown in front of blue screens (yeah, not even green screen tech seems to be used).

I'm tired of 'The Magicians' level of magic. Or Sarina, or Wynx... I want to see D&D fireballs, magic missiles, healing spells, bloody Tiny Huts! on par with Endgame graphics. Unfortunately, I think the stink of prior High Magic projects is keeping anyone willing to invest in a quality product.

Maybe WandaVision, if they really delve into Wanda's magical prowess, will spark the next revolution.

ETA:

As a side note, while I've not run them yet I have written a couple of settings with less restrictive guns. One uses a magical method to ignite power in a metal cartridge (and requires them to be primed before every shot), while the other uses magical crystal based railguns where swapping magazines is a bit of a faff (takes two rounds, but you get up to twelve shots). But they have guns being dominant, so their damage and capabilities are balanced to make them roughly on par with bows so as not to break the system.

I really like how Modern AGE handles capacity. Basically, your gun never runs out (if you're playin a cinematic type game, which D&D most certainly is), until you botch an attack. In D&D parlance, if you roll a 1, your gun is out of ammo. (Modern AGE uses a different dice mechanic than a d20, so each weapon can have a different 'fail' number representing a larger or smaller magazine). Unless you specifically bought spare ammo, you're now using an improvised cudgel.

I don't make my players count their arrows, except for magical ones - those I just multiply by 1.5 and that's how many they get. No scrounging or nothing - but I might start using this rule for quivers. You roll a 1, it's not that you missed horribly, it's that you reached to grab an arrow or bolt, and there isn't any left. (Would probably need to do something specific for halflings and the Lucky feat... though I guess halflings could just be known to oddly never run out of arrows...)

[Anonymouswizard]

I really like how Modern AGE handles capacity. Basically, your gun never runs out (if you're playin a cinematic type game, which D&D most certainly is), until you botch an attack. In D&D parlance, if you roll a 1, your gun is out of ammo. (Modern AGE uses a different dice mechanic than a d20, so each weapon can have a different 'fail' number representing a larger or smaller magazine). Unless you specifically bought spare ammo, you're now using an improvised cudgel.

Oh, the Modern AGE rules are great, although in some cases (particularly gritty games) I'd much rather track the bullets in the gun. But it works great for what it's designed for, and helps with the 'players donm't like to track ammo' problem (as does the fatigue-based casting you can use instead of MP).

Side note: it only calls out 'must be carrying spare ammo' for gritty games. While I think it should be a standard rule I also think that Gritty is the best of the three Modern AGE modes.

God I want to play M-AGE.

I don't make my players count their arrows, except for magical ones - those I just multiply by 1.5 and that's how many they get. No scrounging or nothing - but I might start using this rule for quivers. You roll a 1, it's not that you missed horribly, it's that you reached to grab an arrow or bolt, and there isn't any left. (Would probably need to do something specific for halflings and the Lucky feat... though I guess halflings could just be known to oddly never run out of arrows...)
[/FONT]

One GM I had handwaved reloading and normal ammunition, but any special ammo you had to track. You also bought and tracked ammo by the attack, meaning it cost a lot more if your weapon ad automatic fire (not that the weapon list was very detailed in that game).

[Mechalich]

Which is why I'm so sad that there hasn't been ANY good High Sorcery movies or even tv shows developed. If Disney could hook up with Hasbro and yank the teams from both Marvel and Star Wars, we could have some AMAZINGLY good stories and CGI to finally wash away the harsh aftertaste that was the D&D movies.

Currently, even Netflix is creating more WOD-esque gothic horror tales with their fantasy. And even then, the CGI is horrible, It looks like cut and paste fireballs from 80's explosions thrown in front of blue screens (yeah, not even green screen tech seems to be used).

I'm tired of 'The Magicians' level of magic. Or Sarina, or Wynx... I want to see D&D fireballs, magic missiles, healing spells, bloody Tiny Huts! on par with Endgame graphics. Unfortunately, I think the stink of prior High Magic projects is keeping anyone willing to invest in a quality product.

Maybe WandaVision, if they really delve into Wanda's magical prowess, will spark the next revolution.

High magic is expensive. Wandavision costs a truly unbelievable $25 million dollars per episode (for reference that's like 2.5 episodes of Season 4 Game of Thrones). Disney can make super high priced streaming shows because they have deep pockets and because the streaming wars are a drawn out battle to the death. Netflix has a different strategy, which is to flood the zone with content, so they make a lot of cheap shows where attractive people run around in Lower Mainland BC or Metro Atlanta.

The big test of high sorcery is coming, in the form of Amazon's Wheel of Time series. That's the biggest high magic franchise out there and if it does well, expect more to follow, but that's a big if.

[Nifft]

High magic is expensive.

Yeah.

Cartoons might be a place to look, where the trade-off is that special effects are much easier but characters take more effort.

But that's a bit off-topic.


Dragon this back on-topic, I guess the analogue would be that modern economics are complicated, so some game settings avoid advancing into such an economy.

[Tanarii]

The big test of high sorcery is coming, in the form of Amazon's Wheel of Time series. That's the biggest high magic franchise out there and if it does well, expect more to follow, but that's a big if.

What would be amazing would be if they did Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive.

Either way, they are both super flashy Magic settings that take time to get to the really flashy Magic. So they can take their time to do the standard medieval tropes and world building with a lower budget, until the series has established itself and proven the brand. And it'd be awesome to see some of the large-scale battles from either on the big screen,

[Xuc Xac]

A key difference between D&D and Westerns is that Westerns often include an element of homesteading. That is, whether or not the specific adventure in question involves making the land safe for settlers, that's part of the overall context.

D&D as originally written (and through AD&D 2E) was all about homesteading. The primary goal was to reach "name level" when fighters could build a castle, clerics could found a temple, thieves could start a thieves' guild, etc. to attract followers. Going on adventures was considered a "side quest" or "minigame" to gain resources for the main wargame where you send your armies to fight other lords for territory. As more and more players came into the hobby specifically for the role-playing adventures instead of coming to it through wargaming, the domain management became less important. That's why 3E let PCs gain more hit dice when their levels hit double digits: they were going to keep adventuring and fighting bigger badder monsters themselves instead of sitting in a fortress and sending out their underlings to do missions for them.

[AdAstra]

I thought historically guns changed things because they were relatively simple to train your conscripts in.

There are D&D style games with guns in the player's guide, such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess or AD&D2e. And generally the more historically accurate the guns the less they matter. I'm LotFP guns have a special armour piercing effect no other weapon has, but the sheer length of the relief (10 rounds! 8 if you're a fighter, and you can reduce that sightly by taking the special bandoleer) means that unless you're carting around a barrel of loaded muskets you're not getting that more than maybe twice a combat and those will be your only actions.

Firing mechanisms also matter, LotFP points out how matchlocks, wheellocks, and flintlocks give you different chances of misfiring (which means you have to spend rounds sorting that out before you can get off a successful shot), impact reloading times due to varying complexity in priming then, and earlier firing mechanisms don't work when wet. Speaking of which, you need to make sure you keep your powder dry, or it's no guns for you.

Oh, and if you want rifling? That'll be extra cash.

Pre cartridge firearms are terrible for adventuring. Sure, rain also stops bowstrings from working properly, but the best thing to do with flintlock muskets is hand them out to a bunch of extras/nooks, train them in using them, and then having them fire once before fleeing/hiding

Also my primary all these days if I'm playing a Rogue is if I can fluff a hand crossbow as a flintlock pistol. It serves the purpose well with for most games.

The ease of training influenced things, and absolutely changed the nature of armies, but guns and powder were rather expensive. It wasn't as simple as hordes of untrained peasant hordes musketing superior archers through greater numbers. Notably, guns coexisted with crossbows and and bows for quite a while, and early on they were considered fairly prestigious, not a peasant's weapon.

The greater lethality is severe. Media tends to severely inflate the deadliness of arrows and quarrels, but armor (especially shields) dramatically reduces their effectiveness, especially at longer ranges. There are tons of instances of reasonably armored and disciplined troops weathering sustained arrow fire for periods of time that would be wholly unsustainable against musketry. Armor was not rendered obsolete by firearms (the two techs coexisted for quite a while), the increasing quality and proliferation of armor spurred their adoption. The shock value of being able to let loose a single overwhelmingly deadly volley can't be underestimated in an age of warfare where morale is critical. Also, the rate of fire that bows allow is somewhat overstated. In a short burst you can fire quite quickly, but that will tire you out very fast, especially if you're using the famously powerful bows. Over long periods your rate of fire actually isn't much greater than that of a trained firearms user, especially once you consider that arrows are bulky and expensive.

As for the overall topic.. honestly basically everything other people have said is relevant here. DND is hardly just medieval fiction, it borrows heavily from all over. Many eras of history, tons of genre conventions across just as many settings. The rise and fall of genres is not some linear progression, they're more like fashions, where something old can easily come back, and in most cases never really went away. And what reason business-wise does DnD have to move away from what has worked, and that very few have advocated they move away from? It's dungeons and dragons, and people like the dungeons and dragons. DND sets the trends just as much as it chases them.