Quote from: DeadUematsu;438190I wouldn't use AD&D modules as an example. A good number of them were originally meant for tournament play where you couldn't show up with your favorite PC and his well-paid and loyal mercenaries.

That's a good first thought, but doesn't hold up. The tournament modules could have pregenerated loyal mercenaries along with the pregenerated characters, after all. Pregenerated characters show up in modules all the time, but no such armies.

Do note, also, that those tournament modules have nothing in them to the effect of "this was a tournament module, so the DM must devise some reason the players can't bring their soldiers along with them," when they discuss how to play the module at home, as opposed to at a convention tournament. The tournament modules have no trouble providing multiple reasons for the players going on the adventure, and multiple possible locations for the module...but not even one mention of what to do with that army that supposedly was common to all adventuring parties, an extremely important thing to address in a tournament module, after all, since an extra army could greatly change how the module was played (cf Tomb of Horrors, and I encourage everyone to read Kuntz' bio, to get an extra laugh at AM trying to indicate his situation was 'typical' in some way).

So, now we have that tournament modules actually provide even more evidence that the game was not played that way (at least, not all the time, every time, and almost certainly not commonly, either, since if it were the tournament modules would especially allow for it, with a bare minimum of saying the armies can't come on the adventure, too).

Even if you toss the tournament modules for whatever reason, you're still left with all the rest. And you still don't have a single module with something like "the party's retinue of soldiers will probably bivuac here" or "note that the party's retinue of soldiers will probably not fight the tyrannosaurus rex if they can run away" or "the king will provide lodging in the palace for the players, but their soldiers will only be allowed in the barracks" or "the village will probably be worried if the heroes show up with a great number of armed soldiers following behind them"...or anything of the sort.

Granted, there might be a module, somewhere, with something like that in it...but the fact that so few (if any at all) consider the possibility of an army, or even a dozen soldiers, following the players around, is pretty strong evidence that such armies weren't common, at the very least.

How's that link coming along, anyway?

Quote from: Doom;438189I mean, the basic blue book D&D rules don't even mention hirelings, or at least not hiring soldiers en masse, so it's pretty nuts to assume "the game is played" with hirelings in all cases, to the point that it's assumed in the wandering monster charts that the adventurers will have some sort of army with them.

I don't have my Holmes Blue Book handy, but I believe it had basically the same section OD&D did. It may be titled "Non-Player Characters" as it was in Men & Magic.

QuoteAnd, even in your quote chosen as best supporting, we have phrases and words like "at times" and "likely"...I just don't take that to mean 100% all of the time, even if that quote was from the DMG, even if it specified low level characters. Where (as in, what book) is that quote from, anyway?

Men & Magic, page 12

QuoteI really think bringing in OD&D is just muddying the waters here, and AM sure doesn't need any help with that.

AD&D is just a somewhat more rules-heavy version of OD&D plus the supplements plus articles from The Strategic Review and very early issues of The Dragon.

QuoteAt no point am I disputing that people use hirelings of some sort, or did at some point...but to assert that every group did, and always did, and it always included a dozen soldiers (or more), and that's the only way the game was ever played, is goofy.

I think you are taken AM a bit too literally. However, Am and I seem to have had very similar experiences on this issue.

Well, my blue book does indeed have something.

On page 8, almost a whole column on non player characters. While the 'band of mercenaries' is mentioned in passing, the rest of the column deals with henchmen, really, and it details their hiring. Only first level characters can be hired...gotta get them by advertising, basically hiring them one at a time. No actual rules on morale or anything like that, much less any way to hire an army in one go or the like. It really is quite a stretch to call hiring a single NPC the same thing as ten soldiers and a sergeant, at least from the actual rules.

If one were going to use the amount of rules written as a guide, one would assume the instructions on how to ink a 20 sided die (a whole paragraph) was more important than hiring a warband. Encumbrance, for example, gets vastly more coverage, and hey, some folks used that. Hiring a band of mercenaries is apparently less important (and less used) than the ESP spell, to judge by wordcount.

On the other hand, the examples of play and sample dungeon cover 5 pages...nothing there on what to do with that army that everyone is supposed to have.

Using your metric, it sure doesn't look like the 'hire an army' thing was nearly so critical in basic D&D, any more than it was in AD&D.

And, again, I emphasize, yes, sure, players might well have a band of soldiers with them at some point, at some time. But it's not my experience, not my direct observation, and not supported in the documentation that such a thing would be typical at low levels, to the point that the wandering monster charts, for example, would assume such a thing, or that the published adventures would consider it a real possibility worth spending even a single sentence on.

I'm not familiar with OD&D, I admit...but it sure seems like AD&D was something of a different game, perhaps with less of a wargame feel. I just don't see how players, reading the blue book, or AD&D books, could possibly guess that they were supposed to hire an army right away, what with no rules or mention of it and all....there's just no hint that that's what they were supposed to do, which is probably why so little of the game is supportive of that mode of play, and probably why, indeed, quite often, the game wasn't played that way.

Literally? Perhaps, but he's had opportunity to back off the claim that it was so common that the game revolved around the assumption enough that it's represented in the charts...I just don't think it was so common is all.

I mean, I could respond with "well, we'd just show the ogres we had leprosy, and they'd back off,", then swear as much as he has that, indeed, every character always had leprosy, since it's mentioned in the DMG. I too could swear that every group I've ever played with was always composed of all lepers, because that's how the game was played.

But I think the lack of any independent showing that this was common would mean something, after all.

AD&D 1e is simply OD&D + the early supplements with some cleanup.   There aren't major gameplay differences between any TSR era D&D.   Lotsa nitpicks, but nothing major.   I can take my 1980 Blue Book Dwarf or Red Book Elf into a 1997 Planescape game and it wouldn't raise any eyebrows.

I have played D&D extensively since 1978.  Different groups had different views on henchmen.   It was common for many groups to have everyone play 2 characters.  Some GMs didn't like henchmen and ruled that they would never enter a dungeon.   They were just baggage handlers.  

Other GMs made henchmen suck down XP so players dropped them because nothing is lamer than losing a few hundred XP thanks to Mr. 3 HP dying in the first round but the GM saying "hey, he was there!"

However, plenty of GMs allowed players to hire a bunch of henchmen and then became the issue of who roleplayed them and how much they would obey the PCs.

And this wasn't a level thing.   It was common for the Wizard at 1st level to have lots of extra gold and spend it on the henchmen.

Quote from: The Butcher;438150Regarding the "ready to fanatically die" part. Isn't the DM supposed to roll morale for hirelings, retainers, etc.?

Dude, he is completely making up shit about 'hirelings' anyway, so why get into a discussion of reality at this point?  

Quote from: Spinachcat;438200AD&D 1e is simply OD&D + the early supplements with some cleanup.   There aren't major gameplay differences between any TSR era D&D.   Lotsa nitpicks, but nothing major.   I can take my 1980 Blue Book Dwarf or Red Book Elf into a 1997 Planescape game and it wouldn't raise any eyebrows.

I have played D&D extensively since 1978.  Different groups had different views on henchmen.   It was common for many groups to have everyone play 2 characters.  Some GMs didn't like henchmen and ruled that they would never enter a dungeon.   They were just baggage handlers.  

Other GMs made henchmen suck down XP so players dropped them because nothing is lamer than losing a few hundred XP thanks to Mr. 3 HP dying in the first round but the GM saying "hey, he was there!"

However, plenty of GMs allowed players to hire a bunch of henchmen and then became the issue of who roleplayed them and how much they would obey the PCs.

And this wasn't a level thing.   It was common for the Wizard at 1st level to have lots of extra gold and spend it on the henchmen.

And this is a perfectly reasonable position. Some did, some didn't. No reason at all to assume any particular group did.

Quote from: Doom;438210And this is a perfectly reasonable position. Some did, some didn't. No reason at all to assume any particular group did.

I seem to recall hiring a cleric once, because we were short a couple of times and needed one 'on-call', but he was more like an NPC than a hireling.  Other than that, we didn't have the wargaming roots, so it never occurred to us that we needed additional help; besides, it was a game about our accomplishments (or lack thereof), not our management skills.  

Quote from: Doom;438193That's a good first thought, but doesn't hold up. The tournament modules could have pregenerated loyal mercenaries along with the pregenerated characters, after all. Pregenerated characters show up in modules all the time, but no such armies.

What did you fail to understand? The tournament modules were primarily designed to challenge a group of pre-generated PCs. The reason why you don't have listings of hirelings and henchmen was mainly the tournament module wasn't designed for them.

QuoteDo note, also, that those tournament modules have nothing in them to the effect of "this was a tournament module, so the DM must devise some reason the players can't bring their soldiers along with them," when they discuss how to play the module at home, as opposed to at a convention tournament. The tournament modules have no trouble providing multiple reasons for the players going on the adventure, and multiple possible locations for the module...but not even one mention of what to do with that army that supposedly was common to all adventuring parties, an extremely important thing to address in a tournament module, after all, since an extra army could greatly change how the module was played (cf Tomb of Horrors, and I encourage everyone to read Kuntz' bio, to get an extra laugh at AM trying to indicate his situation was 'typical' in some way).

Providing motivation and location is easy to do. Providing strategies to challenge the module's players beyond the most general of advice is nigh impossible because of the wide variety of player strategies that the module will be up against.

QuoteSo, now we have that tournament modules actually provide even more evidence that the game was not played that way (at least, not all the time, every time, and almost certainly not commonly, either, since if it were the tournament modules would especially allow for it, with a bare minimum of saying the armies can't come on the adventure, too).

Actually, you don't have any evidence. You have evidence that the tournament modules themselves excluded such possibilities.

QuoteEven if you toss the tournament modules for whatever reason, you're still left with all the rest. And you still don't have a single module with something like "the party's retinue of soldiers will probably bivuac here" or "note that the party's retinue of soldiers will probably not fight the tyrannosaurus rex if they can run away" or "the king will provide lodging in the palace for the players, but their soldiers will only be allowed in the barracks" or "the village will probably be worried if the heroes show up with a great number of armed soldiers following behind them"...or anything of the sort.

Stop being dumb. All of these are things that the DM is supposed to decide.

QuoteGranted, there might be a module, somewhere, with something like that in it...but the fact that so few (if any at all) consider the possibility of an army, or even a dozen soldiers, following the players around, is pretty strong evidence that such armies weren't common, at the very least.

In my opinion, it is much more likely that most modules published during that time were designed to setup a basic scenario within 32 pages and to address all of the various player strategies for that one scenario would easily exhaust triple or more that page limit.

Quote from: Doom;438189I mean, the basic blue book D&D rules don't even mention hirelings, or at least not hiring soldiers en masse, so it's pretty nuts to assume "the game is played" with hirelings in all cases, to the point that it's assumed in the wandering monster charts that the adventurers will have some sort of army with them.

When you say "blue book" do you mean Holmes? He discusses hirelings on page 8:

"In all probability the referee will find it beneficial to allow participants in the campaign to 'hire into service' one or more characters. At times this may be nothing more than a band of mercenaries hired to participate in and share the profits from some adventure. However it is possible that players will be desirous of acquiring a regular entourage of various character types, monsters, or an army of some form. Non-player characters can be hired as followed:" (section continues from there, emphasis added)

Moldvay discusses them on B21.

Mentzer introduces them on pg. 26 of the Expert Set.

AD&D1 PHB has them on pg. 39.

AD&D2 PHB has them on pg. 114.

Rule Cyclopedia has them on pg. 132.

D&D3 DMG, pg. 105.

I don't think there's actually a single pre-4E version of the game which doesn't feature hireling guidelines. Although I'll admit that 2E and 3E de-emphasized their role considerably.

Quote from: DeadUematsu;438212What did you fail to understand? The tournament modules were primarily designed to challenge a group of pre-generated PCs. The reason why you don't have listings of hirelings and henchmen was mainly the tournament module wasn't designed for them.

Exactly! If ordering an army around was such a basic thing, then OF COURSE the tournament modules would include it because that's how the game is played. I mean, the game is played with wizards, clerics, and thieves, and the tournament module always has those. If the game was played with armies, then those would be represented in tournaments just like all other aspects of the game were represented. So, good of you to point out yet another reason tournament modules demonstrate my point.

On the other hand, there are adventures where characters start without equipment...and the modules explain that, since, after all, characters typically have equipment.

But explanations on where the encampment of hirelings went? Nope, no such thing. Never. Well, about as common as why the whole party isn't infected with leprosy, at least.

QuoteProviding motivation and location is easy to do. Providing strategies to challenge the module's players beyond the most general of advice is nigh impossible because of the wide variety of player strategies that the module will be up against.

Again, agreed. But it would have taken one sentence to indicate such a possibility...a sentence that never appears, ever. I can find plenty of examples of, say, what happens if players use True Seeing or some obscure spell that only comes up a handful of times at best in a campaign, but the supposedly everyday event of players having a dozen soldiers in tow?

No comment. Oddly. Just like there are no comments regarding what to do if the whole party has leprosy.

QuoteActually, you don't have any evidence. You have evidence that the tournament modules themselves excluded such possibilities.

Agreed...but where's the evidence that this possibility was ever considered? Again, there modules that consider what happens if the player is female as opposed to male...what happens if the party decides to talk instead of fight...all sorts of possibilities discussed, but nothing on that supposed army that was supposedly commonly found.

Why was this everyday occurrence never considered. Did your level 5 characters really cast True Seeing far more often than they hired an army?

I'm not saying having an army in tow was as common as the whole party having leprosy...but certainly it was unusual enough not to be considered worth addressing in a module.

QuoteStop being dumb. All of these are things that the DM is supposed to decide.

Again, the DM is supposed to decide where the module takes place, and why the players are doing it. But, the modules help with that all the time. The DM is supposed to decide what happens if the players take some sort of action. But, the modules help with that all the time.

And there's nothing on what happens if there's even a handful of soldiers following the players around.
Nor is there anything on what happens if the entire party has leprosy.

For the same reason, I conjecture.

QuoteIn my opinion, it is much more likely that most modules published during that time were designed to setup a basic scenario within 32 pages and to address all of the various player strategies for that one scenario would easily exhaust triple or more that page limit.

Well, that certainly is an opinion...but the lack of a single sentence across so much work is indicative of just how likely the writers and publishers thought the "what if they bring an army?" scenario was.

And, how's that link coming along?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;438216When you say "blue book" do you mean Holmes? He discusses hirelings on page 8:

"In all probability the referee will find it beneficial to allow participants in the campaign to 'hire into service' one or more characters. At times this may be nothing more than a band of mercenaries hired to participate in and share the profits from some adventure. However it is possible that players will be desirous of acquiring a regular entourage of various character types, monsters, or an army of some form. Non-player characters can be hired as followed:" (section continues from there, emphasis added)
.

I've already corrected myself re: the blue book, go re-read post #426.

And, go read the rest of that section. There's *nothing* on hiring an army of some form. What you've listed is it, merely saying that it can happen if the DM wants. What you've listed is the ENTIRETY of the 'rules' for hiring an army. So, yeah, you're being a bit unfair in your quote, by a wide margin.

Similar to your other references. Yes, there's mention of things that players can get. Again, the DMG lists +5 Holy Swords...doesn't mean everybody always gets one. You've came in mid-conversation, I'm afraid. My position isn't that PCs hiring an army is impossible or not supported in the rules, of course such things are possible, of course they're in the rules...it's that it was such an unusual event (particularly at the levels being discussed pages ago, sub-level 6) that the random encounter charts, for example, didn't assume PCs had an army with them. Even at higher levels, it was unusual enough that the published adventures very seldom considered it a possibility.

Show me the page where it says, for example "All level 5 characters should be hiring if not already have, armies in the following structure....". Not name level stuff, that's a different matter entirely. I mean, I can find a price for a large masted ship, but it really doesn't mean that every character is going to have such a ship. Same thing for those hireling lists. Just because it's somewhere in the rules doesn't, in my opinion, mean every single player in every single campaign is going to have it.

Quote from: Doom;438220Uh, go read the rest of that section. There's *nothing* on hiring an army of some form. What you've listed is the ENTIRETY of the 'rules' for hiring an army. So, yeah, you're being a bit unfair in your quote, by a wide margin.

You seem to be very fond of saying "let's not move the goalposts" and then immediately trying to move them yourself.

What you said was: "I mean, the basic blue book D&D rules don't even mention hirelings, or at least not hiring soldiers en masse..."

And yet I was able to produce a quote from the blue book specifically saying precisely that. Unless you're using some definition of the word "mention" drawn from an alternate dimension, you can now admit that you were wrong, apologize for being an asshole about it, and then move on.

But while we're on the subject of your hypocritical moving of the goalposts, let's go back to AM's original claim vis-a-vis hirelings: "You could probably count on a squad of 10 light footmen (or even heavy footmen) with a sergeant."

Over the past several pages of the thread you have systematically exaggerated AM's original statement until "10 light footmen" have become "soldiers en masse" and "an army of some sort". But I'm not going to get sucked into your bullshit. Despite the fact that the blue book actually does talk about hiring armies, let's just focus on the 10 light footmen that AM was originally talking about.

Looking for some basic confirmation that this was an expected baseline of play in AD&D, we don't have to look any farther than the ability score tables. Looking at these tables we see things like Hit Probability, Damage Adjustment, Weight Allowance, Open Doors, Additional Languages, Max/Min Spells Per Level, Magical Attack Adjustment, Chance of Spell Failure, Defensive Adjustment, Hit Point Adjustment, yada yada yada. All basic, universal stuff that's pretty much basic, assumed content of play.

And then we come to the Charisma Table, which exists solely and entirely for the purpose of talking about henchmen. Which it treats on par with bonus languages from Intelligence and the chance of opening a door in the dungeon. And we note that any character with Charisma 17 can have a maximum number of 10 henchmen... and that's before we even start talking about hirelings.

Plus, that's just for one character. An average Charisma gives you 4 henchmen, which in a party of 6 characters translates to a maximum potential pool of 24 henchmen. (And these are followers who don't actually get paid a salary -- they work for share of treasure.)

It's an assumed baseline of the mechanics of the game. The DMG says, "Henchmen, whether male or female, are greatly desired by the discerning players, for they usually spell the different between failure and success in the long term view." Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz, and many others are on record as saying "yup, that's how the game was played." What, exactly, would it take to convince you that you're wrong about this?

And while we're on the subject, let's talk modules.

You're right. The G modules don't give the pregens henchmen. But they also don't give the pregens horses. Are we to assume from this that PCs were never expected to have mounts in early D&D? The A modules say that wandering encounters should not be used. Does this mean that wandering monster checks weren't an expected part of early D&D?

The reality of course is that these modules are (a) tournament modules and (b) aren't re-treading the most basic gameplay outlined in the core rulebooks. (You'll notice they don't review the rules for bonus languages, either.)

Where would we find this sort of thing in early adventure modules? Maybe those explicitly designed for introducing new players to the game? Modules like those in the B series perhaps?

In module B1 we can find multiple references to hirelings and henchmen, including some guidelines for randomly determining available NPCs (including personality traits).

B2 talks about the hiring of men-at-arms at the Keep.

B3 includes a table of NPCs similar to B1's, although their use "as NPCs" is kept generic instead of being specifically for hirelings/henchmen.

B4 includes a NPC table and talks about using NPC retainers. B5 includes an abbreviated table and still talks about NPC retainers (although at this point it's recommended only in the context of supplementing undersized parties; the mid-'80s have arrived and the game is changing).

Another random example: TSR 9036 Dungeon Master's Adventure Log from 1980 included guidelines for including henchmen and hirelings in the log. They were an expected part of any adventuring party.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;438222And then we come to the Charisma Table, which exists solely and entirely for the purpose of talking about henchmen. Which it treats on par with bonus languages from Intelligence and the chance of opening a door in the dungeon. And we note that any character with Charisma 17 can have a maximum number of 10 henchmen... and that's before we even start talking about hirelings.

Plus, that's just for one character. An average Charisma gives you 4 henchmen, which in a party of 6 characters translates to a maximum potential pool of 24 henchmen. (And these are followers who don't actually get paid a salary -- they work for share of treasure.)

Question here: at least in 2nd ed. I believe IIRC it suggests Henchmen are one-at-a-time - maximum # of henchmen is used consecutively rather than currently i.e. after a while they just stop being replaced if you smell. Is Blue Book different to 2E??
(Not contesting the point generally - mostly just curious as to if there's some sort of trend operating between the editions)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;438222Over the past several pages of the thread you have systematically exaggerated AM's original statement until "10 light footmen" have become "soldiers en masse" and "an army of some sort". But I'm not going to get sucked into your bullshit. Despite the fact that the blue book actually does talk about hiring armies, let's just focus on the 10 light footmen that AM was originally talking about.

I am pretty sure you don't want to do that.

For example, a squad (in the Army) is around 10-15, give or take.  Something like two fire teams.  This already requires a sergeant to keep them in line, so we have a non-commissioned officer to keep these 10 footmen in proper discipline...  wait, did the party hire the footmen or the sergeant, because it is starting to sound like the footmen are really the henchmen of the sergeant.

And despite your further misquote, we do have a sergeant in the mix.  In other words, we have essentially two fire teams wandering around with the party, under the command of a sergeant.

Are you now going to contend that was the expected norm for the vast majority of groups out there?  I mean, aside from your recollections, you have some way of demonstrating that a dozen extras was normal; a demonstration which doesn't involve fairly fanciful interpretations of how rules were applied, right?  In other words, you have some means of showing that not having a squad of additional NPCs along for the ride was the abnormal condition?

QuoteAnd then we come to the Charisma Table, which exists solely and entirely for the purpose of talking about henchmen. Which it treats on par with bonus languages from Intelligence and the chance of opening a door in the dungeon. And we note that any character with Charisma 17 can have a maximum number of 10 henchmen... and that's before we even start talking about hirelings.

And how many characters out of say, one hundred, will have a Charisma of 17?  I mean, your quote makes it sound like a 17 Charisma is average, or fairly de rigueur.

And the Charisma table "...exists solely and entirely for the purpose of talking about henchmen" in a way that totally ignores the Reaction Adjustment percentage that is used when "...meeting and dealing with persons and creatures encountered".  Unless you are now going to state that every encounter with a 'creature' is supposed to start with a negotiation as to whether or not they will eventually hire on with the PC.  In fact, the explanation of the Reaction Adjustment says nothing whatsoever about hirelings, henchmen, or followers specifically.

QuoteIt's an assumed baseline of the mechanics of the game. The DMG says, "Henchmen, whether male or female, are greatly desired by the discerning players, for they usually spell the different between failure and success in the long term view." Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz, and many others are on record as saying "yup, that's how the game was played." What, exactly, would it take to convince you that you're wrong about this?

I know what it would take for me to be convinced.  If your claim is that using a dozen or so henchmen was the expected norm, and that mode of play was all but universal, it will take more than a half dozen fourth or fifth hand anecdotes about how everyone they knew played it that way, too.

The DMG also says "It is not uncommon for players to be weaponless at some stage of a game - or for better players to wish to attack an opponent bare-handed in order to most effectively neutralize that opponent's potential" (pg 72; emphasis mine).

So, are you also going to contend that veteran players would routinely go about completely unarmed because that is clearly why the Strength table is entirely concerned with nothing but combat modifiers and this passage demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that unarmed combat was the ideal form of game play?  I assume there are anecdotes about how every group that played in the early days eschewed the silly, non-genre trope of using weapons (of all things!), rather than brawling their way through every adventure like Conan did that one time.

You have some pretty smart stuff to say most of the time, but are you sure you want to back this line of reasoning?  I mean, I can pretty much guarantee that AM swiped his entire 'henchmen' argument from blog posts RandallS or James M wrote a couple of years ago; more likely it was a couple of grognards reminiscing humourously on some message board or another.  I would strongly advise picking a different battle to fight.