Quote from: Benoist;438691Yeah. I'm not absolutely sure what is meant by that. I guess it addresses groups where characters are not necessarily cooperating with each other, as in, not so much with an actual group dynamic, but more of a free-for-all game play.

I assume they are talking about a 'living world' in which there may be many PCs but none of them want to play with Tommy cos he smells

Again it's a implicit nod to how the game is being played at the time with large living games which PCs moving between a small cadre of GMs and games set in roughly the same world.

Quote from: Benoist;438689Thanks mate, by the way. I really don't mean to say that people can't enjoy the game the way they want, the way they did, or do now. That's totally cool. I just find it such a source of renewed fun to play this game now that I feel I can actually understand it, as opposed to twenty years ago where we just did it kind of cherry picking through stuff without knowing what we were doing. I love this game. I just enjoy reading through the books now. It's so awesome.

Oh, definitely great samples. Of course, the DMG has 10 pages on artifacts on relics, so if we're using wordcount like this, henchmen and hirelings were less common in campaigns than artifacts and relics. I personally don't think so.

Again, just because it was in the rules, doesn't mean those rules were necessarily used. I probably should have mentioned something to that effect before.

Doom. At this point you just sound to me like a kid who's kicking and screaming because he's been caught in a silly argument and tries to shift goalposts as quickly as he possibly can to still look credible somehow. It's not the text, it's the actual live testimonies. It's not the testimonies, but what the modules say. It's not the modules, but the actual word count. It's not the word count, but what that sentence actually means with that word instead of this one. It's not that word in that sentence, but what "baseline" means to you.

Jesus Christ. Enough. Shut the fuck up already.

Quote from: Benoist;438697Doom. At this point you just sound to me like a kid who's kicking and screaming because he's been caught in a silly argument and tries to shift goalposts as quickly as he possibly can to still look credible somehow. It's not the text, it's the actual live testimonies. It's not the testimonies, but what the modules say. It's not the modules, but the actual word count. It's not the word count, but what that sentence actually means with that word instead of this one. It's not that word in that sentence, but what "baseline" means to you.

Jesus Christ. Enough. Shut the fuck up already.

QTMFT!  His pathetic trolling attempts actually make miss the days of CavScout! :eek:

Quote from: Doom;438695Oh, definitely great samples. Of course, the DMG has 10 pages on artifacts on relics, so if we're using wordcount like this, henchmen and hirelings were less common in campaigns than artifacts and relics. I personally don't think so.

Again, just because it was in the rules, doesn't mean those rules were necessarily used. I probably should have mentioned something to that effect before.

That isn't entirely fair Doom.

Ben has said that he accepts not everyone uses all the rules. He is trying to construct a Prima Facie case that the default play mode is one that makes use of Hirelings using the RAW. If we adopt the stance of not eveyone used the RAW so it doesn;t matter then the last 4000 posts have been a waste of time

And word counts mean nothing. If there was a single paragraph that advised DMs to encourage Players to use hirelings to survive lower levels establishing this as a baseline then I would give him the point.

AD&D is full of crap rules that no one used like that one about 100gp per month living costs Ben quotes above or the actual costs and requirements of training for level advancement.
Rules can be discarded but as you pointed out the base play style 4 -6 PCs wandering round a dungeon is kind of key. Of course I discarded that pretty quickly too but I wouldn't argue that my shift to more character focused games was the norm, well not until the late 80s when the rest of you caught up with me

Quote from: Imperator;438676I totally get what you are saying, and agree with it. Things is, I do not see how anyone can make a flamewar out of discussing minutiae like how many times does the word hireling appear in the original edition of Blue Box, and stuff like that. That is what baffles me.

Discussing about use and enjoyment of hirelings = awesome.

Flaming about the exact page in which they appear = lame.

You will find no argument against that on my side. I can see how some interesting debates can be had, and I also think that trying to approach an old game with an open mind (I've done the same with RQ 3 recently) can be awesome.

I guess I have less and less patience for ridiculous flames about non-issues, because this is a topic that does not merit such angry discussions.

I agree with all this, Ramon, by the way. I'm looking at RuneQuest 3 the same way I've been looking at AD&D lately, and it's creating a whole new round of awesome in the same exact way. Some details I had not noticed before make sense to me now, other parts I obsessed over seem completely secondary, and I get a sense of enjoying the game anew with completely different eyes.

OD&D is a different animal entirely, because I didn't play it back in the day. But man, I love OD&D. It fires up my imagination in ways Swords & Wizardry doesn't. An example. There's a section in the Underworld and Wilderness Adventures (Book 3 of the LBBs) where you basically can explore the Wilderness as represented by the board of Outdoor Survival. There, some of the icons represent keeps. When the PCs walk within X miles or hexes of the keep, they basically trigger a duel with the Knight (or Cleric or Wizard) in that keep who will joust the fighting man in the group. Now that's the sort of thing that makes me see a setting, see? That inspires me to no end.

Quote from: Drohem;438698QTMFT!  His pathetic trolling attempts actually make miss the days of CavScout! :eek:

Shush, oh improperly neutered dog.

Quote from: jibbajibba;438700Ben has said that he accepts not everyone uses all the rules. He is trying to construct a Prima Facie case that the default play mode is one that makes use of Hirelings using the RAW. If we adopt the stance of not eveyone used the RAW so it doesn;t matter then the last 4000 posts have been a waste of time

But, nobody has argued about it being in the rules. Of course there are things in the rules. Lots of things are in the rules.

QuoteAnd word counts mean nothing.

Agreed, again.

QuoteIf there was a single paragraph that advised DMs to encourage Players to use hirelings to survive lower levels establishing this as a baseline then I would give him the point.

Agreed again.

QuoteAD&D is full of crap rules that no one used like that one about 100gp per month living costs Ben quotes above or the actual costs and requirements of training for level advancement.
Rules can be discarded but as you pointed out the base play style 4 -6 PCs wandering round a dungeon is kind of key. Of course I discarded that pretty quickly too but I wouldn't argue that my shift to more character focused games was the norm, well not until the late 80s when the rest of you caught up with me

Agreed, again, although I'm thinking the baseline might be closer to 9 (cf, p175, DMG).

I don't even come close to getting what Ben is doing here. We all agree there are things about henchman and hireling in the rules. We all agree some folks used them, some folks didn't.

As long as as that's as far as it goes, I think we're in agreement. Happy times, except perhaps for penisless dogs.

Quote from: Benoist;438697Doom. At this point you just sound to me like a kid who's kicking and screaming because he's been caught in a silly argument and tries to shift goalposts as quickly as he possibly can to still look credible somehow. It's not the text, it's the actual live testimonies. It's not the testimonies, but what the modules say. It's not the modules, but the actual word count. It's not the word count, but what that sentence actually means with that word instead of this one. It's not that word in that sentence, but what "baseline" means to you.

Jesus Christ. Enough. Shut the fuck up already.

This was readily apparent to me when I checked out about 30 pages ago. He has decided to hate 4e and his only purpose on this thread is to complain about it. Any argument presented will only serve to provide him with a platform from which to whine. The only sound tactic is to let the him have his precious last word and move along.

Quote from: Drohem;438698QTMFT!  His pathetic trolling attempts actually make miss the days of CavScout! :eek:

I roll to disbelieve.

Quote from: Benoist;438697Doom. At this point you just sound to me like a kid who's kicking and screaming because he's been caught in a silly argument and tries to shift goalposts as quickly as he possibly can to still look credible somehow. It's not the text, it's the actual live testimonies. It's not the testimonies, but what the modules say. It's not the modules, but the actual word count. It's not the word count, but what that sentence actually means with that word instead of this one. It's not that word in that sentence, but what "baseline" means to you.

Jesus Christ. Enough. Shut the fuck up already.

Ben. My 'silly argument' has been that some people used these rules. Some people didn't.

PLease, tell me why this argument is silly?

Quote from: Doom;438704I don't even come close to getting what Ben is doing here. We all agree there are things about henchman and hireling in the rules. We all agree some folks used them, some folks didn't.

It's not hard. Ben is like a born again D&Der  He has gone back to the books that I for one haven't read since I was about 15 and he is looking for a new truth.
He wants to play the way the rules are actually written and he thinks that hirelings are an essential part of the core rules.
Effectively if you want to play REAL AD&D you need to use hirelings is where he is headed. Obviously you can play any sort of D&D you like but REAL AD&D uses hirelings.

Is that fair Ben?

Now I am yet to be convinced. We all accept that lots of people didn't use hirelings, hey even Ben didn't, but the real question is are heirelings essential to the game design, part of its DNA if you will. Now I believe the rules quoted merely show that the designers were writing the rules knowing that a lot of their D&D player based used hirelings so they needed to be accomodated and covered in the rules but are not essential to it and I would even go so far to suggest that the core team here are already moving away from the wargame roots and are using hirelings less. I think this is displayed in the modules and from the tone of the majority of the rules arround spells, the way encumberance is described and a host of ther ruels that I think form the real body of the game the Core rules if you will.

Quote from: Doom;438709Ben. My 'silly argument' has been that some people used these rules. Some people didn't.

Dude, if that's all you really want to argue, this is an argument that's been over and done with pages and pages ago.

Quote from: Benoist;438719Dude, if that's all you really want to argue, this is an argument that's been over and done with pages and pages ago.

Indeed, I've only said as much in nearly every post.

My sincere apologies, Ben. I thought you were posting those rules as indication of something other than just evidence that they exist, and should not have responded beyond simple appreciation of your effort.

Quote from: jibbajibba;438690um but it says "or they are not co-operative ....." so a bunch of co-operative PCs ?

Yeah. That's the other condition. Shrug. Given the hobby's roots, it being the early days and all, and vague recollections of tales from Gygax's table, I'm not sure it would be unusual for a party to have clashing goals or be rife with conflict.

Seanchai