Quote from: jibbajibba;438714It'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?

Hm yes and no, in the sense that:

(1) I object to the born-again moniker, because that basically assumes I'd be completely opposed to variants or house ruling or whatnot, which is not the case at all - see Ptolus game, where I basically use an house rule that first came up in my OD&D game where I used the Perrin Conventions which evolved in their own way in that context to form a whole system that links back to Chainmail, multiple dice of damage, stunt system and so on, which I use in one of its previous forms with AD&D as an adaptation of the RuneQuest Opposition table for some checks when and if warranted. It actually plays well into the kaleidoscope of AD&D rules to me, if you will, without compromising the spirit of the whole.

(2) I want to understand the ins and outs of AD&D and embrace the tradition that comes with it to play my own games my way from there. I do want to play AD&D in a way that is consistent, enjoyable, and builds on tradition rather than dismisses it outright. I try to be faithful to the spirit of the game the rules convey, as I understand it now, and will not adhere to the rules to the point it would slaughter our enjoyment of the game and its permeating spirit. This requires me to understand the game first, and then to basically run the game for our enjoyment. If I lack rules for the game to function in a particular situation where rules would be called for, I'll house rule. If a rule stands in our way to enjoy the game itself, I'll discard it and run with the spirit instead of the letter of the rule. You can't do that if you don't try to understand the game as written in the first place. Once you do, you can run the game and make it work for you and your game table, whichever that is. It's a journey, it's not easy, but I love it.

(3) The whole debate here to me is to say "yes, AD&D basically defaults to the use of hirelings in the game." From there, people can do whatever the fuck they want with their game. I'm not the AD&D police. But if you ask me what the game intends, I'll tell you what I think it intends from reading, playing and running the game. To me, the use of hirelings is clearly thought of as an integral part of its game play, not an option, not an Appendix afterthought, but part of the game itself.

Quote from: jibbajibba;438714Now 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.

Whereas I think hirelings and henchmen are part of the game's spirit, or "DNA", if you will. Maybe this is in part why I can't stand AD&D 2 anymore. To me 2nd ed is wishy washy. It's either a gimped first ed, or a gimped third ed, depending how you look at it. It's a game that has no soul, to me. The settings, alright! You've got some awesome settings in 2nd ed. But the rules themselves? Tastes like cardboard to me.

Quote from: Doom;438720My 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.

I'll take that at face value. Takes balls to write this. I appreciate it.

I was reading The Keep on the Borderlands last night. Gary pretty much wrote that if you only had three or four PCs, you had better get yourself some hirelings to bolster the group's survival chances.

I remember playing this module with a group of four PCs. Gary was right!

Quote from: PaladinCA;438731I was reading The Keep on the Borderlands last night. Gary pretty much wrote that if you only had three or four PCs, you had better get yourself some hirelings to bolster the group's survival chances.

I remember playing this module with a group of four PCs. Gary was right!

First time through, we had seven - only one survived.

Quote from: Benoist;438723Hm yes and no, in the sense that:

(1) I object to the born-again moniker, because that basically assumes I'd be completely opposed to variants or house ruling or whatnot, which is not the case at all - see Ptolus game, where I basically use an house rule that first came up in my OD&D game where I used the Perrin Conventions which evolved in their own way in that context to form a whole system that links back to Chainmail, multiple dice of damage, stunt system and so on, which I use in one of its previous forms with AD&D as an adaptation of the RuneQuest Opposition table for some checks when and if warranted. It actually plays well into the kaleidoscope of AD&D rules to me, if you will, without compromising the spirit of the whole.

(2) I want to understand the ins and outs of AD&D and embrace the tradition that comes with it to play my own games my way from there. I do want to play AD&D in a way that is consistent, enjoyable, and builds on tradition rather than dismisses it outright. I try to be faithful to the spirit of the game the rules convey, as I understand it now, and will not adhere to the rules to the point it would slaughter the spirit of the game itself. This requires me to understand the game first, and then to basically run the game for our enjoyment. If I lack rules for the game to function in a particular situation where rules would be called for, I'll house rule. If a rule stands in our way to enjoy the game itself, I'll discard it and run with the spirit instead of the letter of the rule. You can't do that if you don't try to understand the game as written in the first place. Once you do, you can run the game and make it work for you and your game table, whichever that is. It's a journey, it's not easy, but I love it.

(3) The whole debate here to me is to say "yes, AD&D basically defaults to the use of hirelings in the game." From there, people can do whatever the fuck they want with their game. I'm not the AD&D police. But if you ask me what the game intends, I'll tell you what I think it intends from reading, playing and running the game. To me, the use of hirelings is clearly thought of as an integral part of its game play, not an option, not an Appendix afterthought, but part of the game itself.


Whereas I think hirelings and henchmen are part of the game's spirit, or "DNA", if you will. Maybe this is in part why I can't stand AD&D 2 anymore. To me 2nd ed is wishy washy. It's either a gimped first ed, or a gimped third ed, depending how you look at it. It's a game that has no soul, to me. The settings, alright! You've got some awesome settings in 2nd ed. But the rules themselves? Tastes like cardboard to me.

My last post as its 1am and I find myself watching late night poker stars.....

I didn't mean born again as insult I mean it quite literally in that you are going back to first principles and have rediscovered the game. As I say you are happy with however people want to play but you think there is a way to play that captures some truth about the game that you missed first time round.
I think that is reasonable.

I love 2e, as I have said before, because it has all the flex of AD&D but it moves the focus to characters and that is where we were at a long time before. We have given up on dungeons and moved into the dark backstreets of the city or the courts of princes long before UA or 2e came along.

When I said that hirelings aren't in the DNA of AD&D I pointto the overall feel of the game.
i) The Size and shape of encounter tables. You don't meet a party of NPCs and 8 soldiers, you meet things that seem sized for that group of 4-6 PCs.
ii) Spells seem to pitched at the same level, there is no mass heal spell etc. If you were pitching a game where you expected low level parties to have hirelings you would include spells to aid hirelings
iii) Encumberance - its pitched at a PC level not easy tables for 4 hirelings can carry Xgps and move at 12"
iv) No class gets specific hireling helping skills, yes a few have odd reasons why you can't hire folks, as Ben pointed out, but very much tacked on the end.
v) No mass save tables for hirelings which I would certainly add if I thought they were ubiquitous

There are numerous other points but I guess I just get the feel of the game the way the bits fit together and I can't ignore the fact that I was able to play without hirelings and nothing ever broke whereas I suspect that if I had used them a host of creatures from jackwares to hidden lurkers would have been a lot less challenging.
Certainly by 2e Hirelings don't go on adventures and I think that probably represents the mood of the playbase in just the same way that Minions represents the play base now, if they last into 5e that is (well I had to try and tie it back to the OP )

I think at this point everybody recognizes that Doom is an idiot, but I just can't help myself from commenting on the more outrageous absurdities he spouts. For example:

Quote from: Doom;438628Do you want me to show that character sheet on YOUR BLOG, that has no place to put these 10 soldiers that are the 'expected baseline of play'?

Okeedoke: http://www.thealexandrian.net/images/20110124-large.jpg.

The most obvious thing, of course, is the odd-ball assumption that you HAVE to put the stats for a henchman or hireling on the PC's character sheet in order for the henchman or hireling to exist in the game. This is, of course, pretty silly. (Personally, when people announce their intention to hire somebody I grab a full sheet and quickly roll up some stats.)

Second, of course, is his bizarrely quixotic quest to "prove" that he knows more about my gaming table than I do because he's read some posts on my blog.

Third, he's claiming that the only way something could possibly exist in my game is if it appears on a PC's character sheet. An intriguing claim. But apparently he didn't spend enough time looking at the character sheet to notice that it doesn't include a spot for spells, either. So, according to Doom, magic-users and clerics must not get spells at my gaming table. (This is the point where Doom will file "Justin claims magic-users weren't part of D&D" right next to "Justin claims that horses weren't part of D&D" in his atrophied brain. Of course, everybody here who isn't afflicted with Doom Logic is probably capable of recognizing reductio ad absurdum for what it is: The process of making Doom look absurd.)

Fourth, deciding to hold up a character sheet as an acceptable standard of evidence for "what happens at a gaming table" when he already knows I've cited hirelings and henchmen being included in official AD&D record-keeping products. Even if he, personally, doesn't have access to TSR 9029 Permanent Character Folder, it might have at least crossed his mind that if TSR decided to include henchmen and hirelings in their DM's log, they might include it on their character sheets, too.

Which, of course, they did: In a section for "followers, hirelings, associates, and relatives important in the life of the character", the Permanent Character Folder includes 20+ slots "ideal for keeping track of these personalities". The Adventure Record in the same product similarly features a section for detailing the character's followers.

(Prediction: Doom will obsess over the inclusion of "relatives" and, in a display of nega-brilliance, proceed to shift the goalposts until he's demonstrated anti-conclusively that hirelings would never actually be written down in those slots.)

Now, to be fair, I don't seem to see any text here saying that TSR would send around gestapo troops if you didn't list hirelings in the pertinent sections of the Permanent Character Folder. So when Doom makes up some batshit claim that I've said "TSR would send gestapo troops to kill you if you didn't use hirelings in your game", he will be quite right in concluding that TSR 9029 contains nothing to suggest that the TSR Gestapo was a real threat in 1979.

Although my copy appears to be from 1981. And as we all know, the TSR Gestapo had already been disbanded at that point. (Officially, anyway.)

Quote from: Justin Alexander;438626This is a more interesting conversation to have.

Justin, I'd be interested in hearing more about your experiences and observations with the impact of hirelings and henchmen in D&D - your Thracia game, for example, or by contrast if you've had a lot of experience with them in 3E.

We had a couple of henchmen threads recently, such as this, if you wanted to splinter off.

For example http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=19319

Also some discussion spun off of a Henchmen vs. Minions thread around this page give or take a few posts: http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=436265&postcount=30

This thread is reminding me of why I hate Gygaxian zealotry as much as 4e zealotry, and thus, managed to drive me away from AD&D for eight long fucking years.

Congratulations, Abyssal Maw....on manipulating everyone into completely derailing this thread, simply because Doom and a couple other posters expressed distaste for the slow, clunkiness of 4e combat. Well played, you disingenuous fuck.

And for the record, Doom....I don't think you're an idiot at all, and believe that you raise some valid points.

Oh, and by the way, if any of you motherfuckers want to discuss henchmen and hirelings, can you knuckleheads at least take it to an entirely different thread, instead of fulfilling Abby's mission statement and utterly derailing this one?! For Christ sakes.... :banghead:

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;438783Oh, and by the way, if any of you motherfuckers want to discuss henchmen and hirelings, can you knuckleheads at least take it to an entirely different thread, instead of fulfilling Abby's mission statement and utterly derailing this one?! For Christ sakes.... :banghead:

Yeah, because the OP is so fucking fascinating in the first place, right? :rolleyes:

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;438783Oh, and by the way, if any of you motherfuckers want to discuss henchmen and hirelings, can you knuckleheads at least take it to an entirely different thread, instead of fulfilling Abby's mission statement and utterly derailing this one?! For Christ sakes.... :banghead:

Touche, and apologies.

So, let me try to move things back to the 4e postmortem.

How do others feel about all the errata? Having posted that a few hours ago, I'm still conflicted about it. Yes, it's good to try to fix things that clearly needed fixing...but I hate that my books went obsolete so quickly.

My old DMG may be a poorly written mess with many barely useable rules, mind you, but somehow I'm more comfortable that the rules were never errata'd...a different world, of course, and I concede the cognitive dysfunction of thinking my old book, that can't work without considerable houseruling, is somehow better than the new book, that can't be used without writing in a bunch of errata.

Another thing that's interesting about the errata was when I played 4e, my players and I honestly felt FAR less inclined to houserule, even when the rules were obviously borked all to heck (a certain paladin paragon path comes to mind, and ridiculously overbloated healing was problematic as well).

Were I not committed to giving 4e a fair shake, I might have held off for a few months instead of getting it when it first came out. And if I'd seen the steady stream of errata, that might well have turned me off.

Anyone on the fence about 4e, but ultimately decided not to bother buying the books because of the steady errata?

If my group didn't decide to drop 3.5E in favor of trying out 4E, I probably wouldn't have picked up the 4E core books on the first week of release.  I think I would have waited for the next printing with the errata incorporated.

In hindsight, I would have been waiting forever.  In the end, it wouldn't have mattered anyways.

EDIT:  The second printing of the 3E PHB1 had errata incorporated in it.  It was released in November 2000.

I don't give a shit about errata. If you can't manage to get your game right that you have to write page after page of errata for it, then something's wrong with the way you write for the game in the first place, or the game itself, for that matter.

What I do is read the game and play it. If I see some issue, or know about it before hand, I'll just fix it when necessary and keep on gaming. The whole idea that official errata are more important than what's going on at the actual game table is a load of insane bullshit, in my opinion. So that whole part of the WotC hobby? Fuck it. Set it on fire. Let it burn to the ground.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;438783Oh, and by the way, if any of you motherfuckers want to discuss henchmen and hirelings, can you knuckleheads at least take it to an entirely different thread, instead of fulfilling Abby's mission statement and utterly derailing this one?!

I'm in favor of that - I think it's pretty pointless to debate the degree to which hirelings/henchmen are assumed in a given version of D&D, but I'm definitely interested in the topic of the effect henchmen and hirelings have on play and people's experiences and observations from having played using them. I've used them a lot in D&D and overall I think they add fun possibilities to the game.

One Horse Town started a recent henchmen thread over here: http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=19319

and later on in the "minions vs. henchmen" thread there were some discussion about hirelings in practice over around here: http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=436265&postcount=30

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;438783This thread is reminding me of why I hate Gygaxian zealotry as much as 4e zealotry, and thus, managed to drive me away from AD&D for eight long fucking years.

Congratulations, Abyssal Maw....on manipulating everyone into completely derailing this thread, simply because Doom and a couple other posters expressed distaste for the slow, clunkiness of 4e combat. Well played, you disingenuous fuck.

And for the record, Doom....I don't think you're an idiot at all, and believe that you raise some valid points.

Oh, and by the way, if any of you motherfuckers want to discuss henchmen and hirelings, can you knuckleheads at least take it to an entirely different thread, instead of fulfilling Abby's mission statement and utterly derailing this one?! For Christ sakes.... :banghead:

If anything the thread was rerrailed into talking about gaming rather than some pussy-resentment about a game he doesn't play.

If you have a personal problem with me, you really need to email me directly. Otherwise you are probably better off just staying out of threads where gaming is being discussed. Squealin's for piggies, Barry.

Quote from: Benoist;438785Yeah, because the OP is so fucking fascinating in the first place, right? :rolleyes:

Okay, fair enough. You do have a point. But if you had such a problem with the basic premise of such an obvious flame bait thread, then why didn't you just ignore it, and simply create a new thread about henchmen and hirelings and stuff?

Henchmen and hirelings for D&D. Interesting topic...but totally unrelated to the premise of this flame bait thread. That's all I'm sayin'... :pundit: