Retainers were removed from play because they simply do not fit with the genres that D&D grew into emulating. We rarely used retainers from the start in 1980 all the way through. When we did use them was when the game presented the opportunity ie when there was a bunch of palace guards we could take with us or whatever.
Now this represents a fundermental shift in D&D when it moved from being it's own thing, a bunch of 'heroes' and their retainers raiding dungeons and stealing stuff to being a way of playing a hero like the Grey Mouser or Aragorn. In fantasy novels the heroes very rarely hire 20 guys to come with them on their raid and use them as canon fodder. Its just not an accessible trope. Thereofre once D&D moved out of the pioneer phase it was bound to mutate to emulate genre.
My group played in isolation. We were self taught 10 or 11 years old and we had this way of expressing our imaginations. We did that by trying to emulate the fantasy we wanted to copy I think that is totally predictable.

The use of retainers decreased as the power of the individual character increased.  Why hire help when you can do everything by yourself?  2e was definitely the tipping point where pc's started becoming superheroes from day 1.

Hireling and Followers/Henchmen. Very old school wargame aspects. Interesting enough I've got followers in Derelict Delver--but not hirelings; should I include them since this is a homage?

Usually we had a few followers when we played but rarely hire anyone. Just didn't seem necessary back in the day.

Quote from: mhensley;387492The use of retainers decreased as the power of the individual character increased.  Why hire help when you can do everything by yourself?  2e was definitely the tipping point where pc's started becoming superheroes from day 1.

See that is like putting the cart before the horse.The games were were moving from being their own thing, ie a game that grew out of wargames into something that wanted to emulate genres so the fact that characters got more powerful is merely one aspect of that process as is the desire to despense with the hirelings. I mean Conan doesn't walk into the town and recruit a posseto head into the cave of the demon. He might have an ally or two but not five or 5 faceless mooks.

These threads in the 'development' of D&D are all linked to the same theme
i) More powerful characters - the earlies examples are 3d6 as rolled to 4d6 drop one arrange as desired and on up
ii) Paring down the party from 4 heroes +12 'redshirts' to 4 heroes
iii) the growth of plots - from hey look a dungeon let's investigate to 'My friends I have asked you all here because I seek to recover an ancient artefact which lies in a dungeon to the south' and beyond
iv) The move into cities and the growth of the game outside combat, exploration and puzzle-solving.

My groups have always used retainers. Hirelings (aka cannon fodder) at very low levels of play and various henchmen acquired on adventures at higher power levels. The average player in my campaigns has, at mid levels, two PCs and 3-5 henchmen. However, not every PC and henchmen go on every adventure.

I think there are four major reasons this has gone out of style. First, low level characters are much more powerful in most newer games than they were in early D&D. Second, most adventure modules and gaming novels don't have much provision for them, so people don't see them in use. Third, character creation in many games can take forever, and it is hard to find time to do this for a secondary character like a henchman. Finally, many players don't like the idea of sharing gold, magic, and experience with NPCs, especially if they might someday simply quit.

I enjoyed using retainers in my games but, like others, they often fell out of use.  In our AD&D and RC games, retainers were frequently employed at the lower levels, especially to stand in between magic-users and orcs.  After awhile though, retainers sort of fell into a donut hole of disuse after the party had higher hp's.  They weren't seen again until it was time to establish a stronghold.

I'm thinking that there must be a sweet spot in which the players favor the use of retainers weighed against the xp and monetary cost.

Quote from: mhensley;387492The use of retainers decreased as the power of the individual character increased.  Why hire help when you can do everything by yourself?  2e was definitely the tipping point where pc's started becoming superheroes from day 1.

RandallS also mentions this, and this is my take as well.  I understand the emulation theories, but I think that was secondary.  

I would certainanly add in that as the above change was going on (and still is), from heroic fantasy to superheroic/mythologic, the mortality level of the games changed as well.

Retainers were certainly cannon fodder/redshirts/trap-finders, partially.  As
many games have gone the way of more assured PC survivability, the need to have that guy with the 10' pole out front has also decreased.

Quote from: Imperator;387483I remember that most of my players hated sharing XP in D&D or MERP. Also, there was the isue of payment, and (in MERP, where they played a band of 'commandos' for the White Council) retainers being really bad for stealth and infiltration.

There's that, too.  Even the best intentioned and well-briefed retainers are just commoners with the guts (or without the common sense) to go traipsing around in dangerous places.  Assuming you kept the same group of them, as time went on they'd get better about realizing that that wooden rod protruding 1" from the wall is probably a poor place to hang your shoulder bag, or that shouting GOOD LUCK M'LORD! when the party's ranger goes off by himself to investigate something down the side corridor are bad ideas.

But initially?  Yeah, you've got this big cub-scout jamboree walking two feet behind you and it's all you can do to not cast cone of cold to stop them from singing "Fal-da-ree/fal-da-rah"!

That's probably a big part of the cessation of retainer use.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;387470OD&D is best played as Warcraft than as World of Warcraft.

Awesome!

I ran a TnT campaign in the world of Warcraft I and it was awesome.  About halfway through the orc invasion, I had the Zerg arrive.

Quote from: The Shaman;387474The most common excuse I recall hearing what that henchmen cost the party experience points; they didn't want the xp pool diluted by including henchmen, particularly since players who liked henchmen benefitted more than those who didn't.

Absolutely.

I remember the division of XP and treasure to be the major issue among players.   Many groups back when would just have 2-3 PCs per player, but that was only when we had a small group.

Remember that back then it was pretty easy to find D&Ders.   If you had a table of 8 players, you already had a small army.

Quote from: Silverlion;387493Hireling and Followers/Henchmen. Very old school wargame aspects. Interesting enough I've got followers in Derelict Delver--but not hirelings; should I include them since this is a homage?

How about Crew (redshirts) vs. Sidekicks (a minor NPC the player semi-controls)?

It changed because of the gradual drift from a wargame mind frame to an emulator of "stories" etc. Both these elements were there from the start (well, sort of), though over time, the story aspect was gradually emphasized, up to and including AD&D2 (and beyond).

Not using Henchmen and Retainers in some games was nothing short of suicidal. Others preferred to play play D&D as a sort of "Buffy" TV show before the hour. It's all about the PCs, and having Henchmen and Retainers being more than footnotes and tertiary NPCs to the game takes away the PCs' "coolness" and thunder. This also goes along with the mortality of the game. When you can get killed at any point, it can come in handy to be able to just take on the role of one of your henchmen/retainers on the spot. The less lethal the game is, the less need there is for multiple potential PCs, primary and secondary PCs, etc.

All this stuff is linked.

Quote from: Benoist;387522All this stuff is linked.

Connectionist theory wins.
I concur.

Quote from: Benoist;387522It changed because of the gradual drift from a wargame mind frame to an emulator of "stories" etc. Both these elements were there from the start (well, sort of), though over time, the story aspect was gradually emphasized, up to and including AD&D2 (and beyond).

Do you mean a gradual drift in the perception/playstyle of a given group, or in the general perception of how these games are played?

My guess is that the nature of the game changed because of an ever growing influx of gamers who never viewed the hobby from the wargame angle, but from different perspectives (with story being only one of them).
Without any experience in wargames, and only the genre tropes to hold the hands of a new gamer (and I'd argue that it was mostly the genre that brought those gamers to D&D in the first place, not the wargame heritage) it was LotR and Shannara, and later Midkemia and Dragonlance, that served as a role model for the style of adventures the game was meant to emulate - whatever building blocks were present in the actual rules.

"Henchmen? Hm, ok, I can see that there might come a situation where our Fellowship might have a need for those. I guess I will be glad the game author provided us with rules - then." Only that for most gaming groups those situations never occured because it was not in their inspirational source material.

And with gamers from that second generation becoming writers of Dragon articles and modules it is only natural that the scope changed. Long before 2nd Edition.

Parties with retainers remind me of a safari, with a group of explorers or hunters and then guides, beaters, an interpreter etc. There were a lot of stories, movies etc on this theme in the past. Perhaps they're a genre which Gygax and Arneson would have been familiar with but later generations of players wouldn't?

Quote from: jibbajibba;387488Retainers were removed from play because they simply do not fit with the genres that D&D grew into emulating. We rarely used retainers from the start in 1980 all the way through. When we did use them was when the game presented the opportunity ie when there was a bunch of palace guards we could take with us or whatever.
Now this represents a fundermental shift in D&D when it moved from being it's own thing, a bunch of 'heroes' and their retainers raiding dungeons and stealing stuff to being a way of playing a hero like the Grey Mouser or Aragorn. In fantasy novels the heroes very rarely hire 20 guys to come with them on their raid and use them as canon fodder. Its just not an accessible trope. Thereofre once D&D moved out of the pioneer phase it was bound to mutate to emulate genre.
My group played in isolation. We were self taught 10 or 11 years old and we had this way of expressing our imaginations. We did that by trying to emulate the fantasy we wanted to copy I think that is totally predictable.

Quote from: Age of Fable;387547Parties with retainers remind me of a safari, with a group of explorers or hunters and then guides, beaters, an interpreter etc. There were a lot of stories, movies etc on this theme in the past. Perhaps they're a genre which Gygax and Arneson would have been familiar with but later generations of players wouldn't?

I kind of think that's more or where we're all looking answer wise.  So yeah.

Quote from: DRMy guess is that the nature of the game changed because of an ever growing influx of gamers who never viewed the hobby from the wargame angle, but from different perspectives (with story being only one of them).
Without any experience in wargames, and only the genre tropes to hold the hands of a new gamer (and I'd argue that it was mostly the genre that brought those gamers to D&D in the first place, not the wargame heritage) it was LotR and Shannara, and later Midkemia and Dragonlance, that served as a role model for the style of adventures the game was meant to emulate - whatever building blocks were present in the actual rules

I see what you are saying, especially with Midkemia and Dragonlance.  As I said earlier, I also felt that the shift in the rules from mortal to superhuman happened at the same time, but the feedback loop between gaming and fantasy literature certainly was going on here at the same time.  I remember reading Feist's early stuff, with priestly magic and sorcerous magic, and the way dragons and wight's were treated, and knowing that he had gamed from the second chapter.