Back when I was a wee lad it was the typical dungeon crawl, to go in with as many retainers as you could purchase and your Charisma stat allowed. So D&D parties were really big troupes (not in the sense of "troupe" style play, the GM ran the retainers, though for the most part they were all pretty faceless, with a few notable exceptions).
Yet somewhere down the line that paradigm changed completely, so that it turned into "the party goes in alone"; I think for my groups its something that happened more or less with the advent of 2e, but I can't be sure, I think that retainers kind of slowly died out as a species in our worlds...
Anyways, I'm sure some of the "Old schoolers" here will jump in to claim that they always used and keep using retainers, blah blah blah but I'm mostly interested in questioning why that paradigm changed, and if people think it was something intentional on the part of TSR, or due to some other social phenomenon and not really the fault of 2e at all, or what.
RPGpundit
This is my totally uninformed opinion. I started RP'ing around 2002, so take it as you wish.
OD&D (Swords & Wizardry) Stat Card (From Memory):
*Random Human Wizard or Fighter
Str 12
Dex 13
Con 15
Int 16
Wis 9
Cha 5
HP probably 3-4.
AC either 10 or 4-6.
(Magic Missile, Prestidigitation, Something)
(Staff, Darts, Robe, Spellbook)
(Weapon, Armour, Shield, 10' Pole, Rations, Caltrops, Flaming Oil, Something, Something, Maybe Something Else)
Now, an AD&D character sheet, on the other hand...
* I rolled the stats, of course. More or less (Invisible Castle rolled them for me)
Quote from: RPGPundit;387431Back when I was a wee lad it was the typical dungeon crawl, to go in with as many retainers as you could purchase and your Charisma stat allowed. So D&D parties were really big troupes (not in the sense of "troupe" style play, the GM ran the retainers, though for the most part they were all pretty faceless, with a few notable exceptions).
Yet somewhere down the line that paradigm changed completely, so that it turned into "the party goes in alone"; I think for my groups its something that happened more or less with the advent of 2e, but I can't be sure, I think that retainers kind of slowly died out as a species in our worlds...
Anyways, I'm sure some of the "Old schoolers" here will jump in to claim that they always used and keep using retainers, blah blah blah but I'm mostly interested in questioning why that paradigm changed, and if people think it was something intentional on the part of TSR, or due to some other social phenomenon and not really the fault of 2e at all, or what.
RPGpundit
I could see 2e having something to do with it. That was my first exposure to D&D, and the only time we ever really used retainers/followers/henchmen/etc was when I had one thief hit 9th level and got his guild/gang/whatever...I fully developed those guys, to where one of them became a character in her own right.
Pundit,
Uhm for a while there...my Pathfinder group considered of something of a small army. Sure a good portion WERE actual Player characters. But we had one cohort become a PC, and then two more cohorts. It became a vertiable 8 man army in some ways...until Scarwall started to cut down the numbers and we changed locations to peoples home.
I stopped using retainers/hireelings with D&D 3.x, something about limits based on charisma.
With Castle & Crusades though, I went back to using retainers and hirelings both as a player, and in hosted games. Something about imbalanced encounters and Aihrde made me want to have a few extra minions that could take more than one hit a round and spread out the damage to the party some...
Quote from: RPGPundit;387431Back when I was a wee lad it was the typical dungeon crawl, to go in with as many retainers as you could purchase and your Charisma stat allowed. So D&D parties were really big troupes (not in the sense of "troupe" style play, the GM ran the retainers, though for the most part they were all pretty faceless, with a few notable exceptions).
Yet somewhere down the line that paradigm changed completely, so that it turned into "the party goes in alone"; I think for my groups its something that happened more or less with the advent of 2e, but I can't be sure, I think that retainers kind of slowly died out as a species in our worlds...
Anyways, I'm sure some of the "Old schoolers" here will jump in to claim that they always used and keep using retainers, blah blah blah but I'm mostly interested in questioning why that paradigm changed, and if people think it was something intentional on the part of TSR, or due to some other social phenomenon and not really the fault of 2e at all, or what.
RPGpundit
Well I am a vintage gamer, pundit, so take this as you will...my groups have always had on-again/off-again retainer use. My wife actually employed a pair of men-at-arms who got magic armor, weapons, and other magic items of their own to use as the game went on.
But that's neither here nor there, sorry. At any rate, I think the idea of running the whole troupe probably went away because DMs were just not up to the task of worrying about how possibly as many as 5-6 retainers per character might be handling the nature of the expedition. Now before anyone gets their panties in a wad, by "not up to" I mean that it can be a huge plastic hassle for
any DM; not that it is a shortcoming of the people who did DM.
Furthermore, the fantasy paradigm(s) shifted over time. When TSR started eating it's tail (or tailings, if you will...) and started basing D&D products on D&D novels, which in turn generated more D&D novels to base D&D products on, gamers were inflicted more and more with how the people who played the games that the novels became that the supplements became. If Joe Schlock-novelist writing some dreck for Dragonlance didn't use retainers in Volo's Guide to Elminster's Underwear Drawer, the subject probably didn't come up for players, either. With that said,
classic fantasy didn't seem to have much stock in the "retainer" scene, either. Sure there were large "parties" of adventurers (see the motley group of escapees from the Master Mind of Mars, or Thorin & Co., or the occasional foray by Elric, Moonglum, and some various cannon fodder), but these groups are by and large staffed with
skilled adventurer types. Very little "And then Aragorn nearly tripped over Thozdane the Linkboy" going on...! However the idea of sallying forth with a group of porters, bearers, linkboys, etc. is very...how shall I say...not sure, I guess there's a sense of pageantry to it? Like the knight going to tilt at the lists with a group of pages and armor-menders and the like, except underground.
Besides everyone knows retainers are basically the red shirts of D&D. They die and get replaced after every dragon encounter. :)
Quote from: Nightfall;387459Besides everyone knows retainers are basically the red shirts of D&D. They die and get replaced after every dragon encounter. :)
Heh; I wish I could find the stat-cards I did for the two aforementioned retainers. I think they were probably the only 0-level humans who got paid a gold allowance per loot haul (as opposed to the 1 sp/mo. you had to pay men at arms) and wore +1 chain mail and were outfitted with +1 swords, and carried their own potions of healing and so forth.
Yeah, there was a juncture at which I just quit bothering with morale checks for those two because they were fanatically loyal to the wife's PC, and indeed to the party in general.
Well as speaking purely from my own standpoint, I had my party fighter who took leadership the first chance he got, have his own little army of kids he rescued from the first chapter of Curse of the Crimson throne. Now admittedly two of them did become actual PCs (one shot time and with young kids running these characters) but I kept having them follow Grub (the fighter) around. Dunno if they'd have last after the plague and what-not...but eh.
OD&D is best played as Warcraft than as World of Warcraft.
The 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.
I don't play D&D with my retainers. That is simply gauche. What do you take me for?
I started with 2nd, but played a fair share of first. My old groups never used them.
For one, it's unethical for good aligned characters because of two:
All the mooks end up dead after the first round of real combat.
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.
I think this is it and it was probably part and parcel of the general shift from XP being mostly based on GP haul to XP being mostly based on killing shit.
I 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.
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.
Retainers was never a given in the games I played even going back to Basic. Sure there were occasional guides or porters/lanternmen that we hired, maybe a sage for translation purposes, but it was usually only a couple of people, and very situational. Henchmen were always gained through roleplaying. We never actively sought out henchmen, they just happened.
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.
Wizards still had to run in fear from housecats in AD&D2e at level 1.
Rogues were better off than that...but still had a lot to fear from straight up combat with anything bigger than a kobold.
Warriors and Priests were the only ones who could get cocky at level 1.
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;387572Wizards still had to run in fear from housecats in AD&D2e at level 1.
Rogues were better off than that...but still had a lot to fear from straight up combat with anything bigger than a kobold.
Warriors and Priests were the only ones who could get cocky at level 1.
Everyone else in the party is a henchman to the wizard. At high levels, he is the only real pc.
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.
This.
My first RPG product was the Moldvay Basic Set. It has a long list of heroic fiction in the back with the suggestion that those things are the template for D&D. Those set the tone, and the tone isn't one of the PCs and their 100 hirelings enter the dungeon.
Movies and TV shaped my RPGing too, and I would imagine they did so for everyone else. Beastmaster, Krull, Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian and Destroyer, Dragonslayer, and even Indiana Jones painted my early world of roleplaying. In those the main characters went into the dungeon. They didn't hire an army to walk point for them.
Dragon Magazine frequently had articles or comics mentioning or poking fun of the hireling phenomenon. I always shook my head at such practices. Even then I knew it all made sense in the context of reality, but not the heroic fiction I was wanted to emulate in my games.
It wasn't that it went out of style recently. The hireling tricks were dead even when I was new to the hobby in that most recent year of 1982.
I find using Conan as an example in this context quite odd. While he did certainly have numerous solitary adventures, Conan quite regularly took to the field at the head of a body of troops, whether they were mercenaries, soldiers or tribesmen.
I will, however agree about not taking 100 men into the dungeon - and on that note, I believe it was generally mentioned in older D&D rulebooks that regular mercenaries would not ordinarily accompany the party into the dungeon.
Yeah, our hirelings were more of the "make sure no one steals our horses" variety, than the "once more unto the breach!"
Though, come to think of it, we made much more use of Hirelings than Followers. Could be because Hirelings weren't considered entitled to part of the XP & Treasure. :p
Quote from: RPGPundit;387431But I'm mostly interested in questioning why that paradigm changed, and if people think it was something intentional on the part of TSR, or due to some other social phenomenon and not really the fault of 2e at all, or what.
I think there are three factors:
(1) The rulebooks did de-emphasize this aspect of the game. (And rulebooks have a huge impact on how people play the game.)
(2) An increased emphasis on characterization in roleplaying in addition to roleplaying the character as an adventurous avatar. It's difficult to maintain one character at the gaming table; trying to roleplay both your main character and retainers becomes increasingly difficult.
(3) A question of spotlight balance (http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/balance-types.html). If you're effectively playing multiple characters (your "real" character + your character's hirelings and retainers) then you're getting more of the spotlight at the table than other players.
Of course, the other way to handle retainers is to let the DM manage them the same way they handle other NPCs. (This solution was not atypical among people who got tired of their players treating hirelings like self-sacrificial lambs or meaningless tissue paper.) But, personally, I've already got enough balls in the air when I'm DMing and I don't need the extra hassle of retainers.
I think Narf got it right first time, it's the damned stats.
The last fantasy campaign I played was with the GM's own system. It was roughly as complex as AD&D2e. I rolled up a noble with a stipend, he used some of that stipend to pay for a valet and later a stableboy.
I was a bit shocked when the GM told me I was going to have to roll up and roleplay the NPCs. He just didn't want to be bothered with all the stats.
I felt it would be dishonest to play them as slavishly loyal to my character, so I played them sometimes doing things their own way. But doing that while my own character was around felt a bit silly, really. Gamers don't want to see me playing with myself, that's just nasty.
The problem with retainers and even henchmen was that they were boring. If a Lord who set up his stronghold in the hills could hire bear-man ice shamans, mountain giants, frost wyrms, and ice nymphs, people would actually bother with appropriately-sized D&D parties.
Crap.
There IS something I forgot,
How much did the presence or lack of the campaign 'Megadungeon" have to do with this?
I'm thinking about the times I dealt with retainers and stories of other GMs using them, and the 2 contexts were:
85% of the time, the huge megadungeon. Where the PCs expecting to try to stay in a dungeon enviroment for as long as possible, and where retainers meant "more area explored".
15% of the time, the huge outdoor andventure. I used them more for this, back in the day. I enjoyed having valets and squires and cooks, etc, out on large foray into the unknown.
I DM'd for the first time today (OD&D / Swords & Wizardry). The party hired two torch-bearers. It was very useful to be able to 'promote' them when players died. If player death was less common, then both DM and players would have less reason to bother with them.
Quote from: Age of Fable;388255I DM'd for the first time today (OD&D / Swords & Wizardry). The party hired two torch-bearers. It was very useful to be able to 'promote' them when players died. If player death was less common, then both DM and players would have less reason to bother with them.
Yup. I a way, when you select hirelings, henchmen and the like, you might be selecting a pool of potential PCs over the course of the campaign. Not only when "main" PCs die, mind you, but to switch back and forth between levels of experience, adapting to different party makeups for different adventures, etc.
Quote from: Age of Fable;388255It was very useful to be able to 'promote' them when players died.
That is an outstanding use of hirelings; as I recall, this was not even considered in the rules themselves. Hirelings were mostly just money sinks and occasional meatshields. Essentially, overhead to keep the players from getting too much raw wealth, although the going rates weren't particularly burdensome. Even a somewhat meagre haul of a few hundred gold would pay for half a village to accompany the players, and leave plenty to spend on a moderately opulent lifestyle. A somewhat more reasonable answer for 'the horses just stay where you left them' and mysteriously didn't need care or feeding for the day or two the party was occupied in the Heavily Guarded Subterranean Treasure Vault.
You know, curiously enough I don't think we ever did that, where in the event of a PC death the replacement PC was a retainer who got "promoted". At least, I can't remember it ever happening (and its not like we didn't have retainers, at least in those early years, like I said).
Its like it never occurred to us. Like it would have been offensive, for one of our characters to come up from "the Help".
RPGPundit
Quote from: LordVreeg;388251Crap.
There IS something I forgot,
How much did the presence or lack of the campaign 'Megadungeon" have to do with this?
I'm thinking about the times I dealt with retainers and stories of other GMs using them, and the 2 contexts were:
85% of the time, the huge megadungeon. Where the PCs expecting to try to stay in a dungeon enviroment for as long as possible, and where retainers meant "more area explored".
15% of the time, the huge outdoor andventure. I used them more for this, back in the day. I enjoyed having valets and squires and cooks, etc, out on large foray into the unknown.
My first AD&D character was a cooking swordsman...who needs retainers? =)
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;388450My first AD&D character was a cooking swordsman...who needs retainers? =)
i LOVE THIS, btw.
Quote from: LordVreeg;388453i LOVE THIS, btw.
I should clarify: It was AD&D2e...who says non-weapon proficiencies are a bad thing...=)
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;388455I should clarify: It was AD&D2e...who says non-weapon proficiencies are a bad thing...=)
Tommy, one of my fav PCs started as a cook/retainer/commoner. His guild (our game uses guilds) was the Turniper Farming Commune. He used a pitchfork and wore studded hard leather, and took most of his starting EXP allotment in artisan skills (basic agriculture, basic cooking, mass cooking, baking come to mind).
Now still playing once a month 15 years later...
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.
This must make for a good bit of it...
Maybe the 'retainers' have been abstracted into the PCs' abilities... they're there, but in the interest of telling a more epic tale of heroism they're never mentioned. Kind of like all the slaves and servants that aren't mentioned in various old epics that seem to suggest the heroes ventured out alone.
Quote from: Age of Fable;388255I DM'd for the first time today (OD&D / Swords & Wizardry). The party hired two torch-bearers. It was very useful to be able to 'promote' them when players died. If player death was less common, then both DM and players would have less reason to bother with them.
How did it go, BTW?
Quote from: LordVreeg;388468How did it go, BTW?
Ah. Good question.
Quote from: LordVreeg;388461Tommy, one of my fav PCs started as a cook/retainer/commoner. His guild (our game uses guilds) was the Turniper Farming Commune. He used a pitchfork and wore studded hard leather, and took most of his starting EXP allotment in artisan skills (basic agriculture, basic cooking, mass cooking, baking come to mind).
Now still playing once a month 15 years later...
Now that is pretty cool. Good times.