Moldvay Musings VII: Retainers, Mercenaries, and Specialists

A recurring idea in classic D&D that seems to be often overlooked by players is the option of hiring retainers and the like. When one looks at things like older modules, it's obvious that it was expected for the group to bolster their ranks a bit. It's a shame that too often today's players ignore the option. Whether it's a fear of book-keeping, or desire to keep the most treasure and XP for themselves, it often shortchanges the party's odds of survival and let them really get the most out of an expedition. I won't say I've never seen a group use hirelings of some sort or another, but it's far from the norm. 

As I am in the process of trying to start a new BX campaign (or at least run a few adventures), I've been thinking about ways to make features like this easier to introduce and handle at the table.

Retainers:

Retainers are first brought up in Basic (B21), so we'll start here. The idea behind a retainer is that they are an NPC (with a character class) of equal or lower level than the hiring PC. They ostensibly work for an individual PC, or at least that's who hires them. This is where those Charisma modifiers start coming into play. Most people think of sellswords/meatshields as your typical retainer, which is perfectly fair. But think of a spare magic user. Especially if people are low enough level that even one more spell is a significant boost. In a game where starting spells are determined randomly, imagine the demand for that apprentice who lucked out with Sleep. Of course, if one uses house rules like I recently described, unseemly types might see to it that such retainers have a lot of "accidents" and acquire new spells from their grimoires. But that's the sort of thing that would get the party a bad reputation re: hireling survival rates and the well may soon run dry. 

Another possibility with retainers in the party is the idea of instant replacement PCs. If the "main" PC is killed, the player can take over a retainer and still finish the adventure. Once "back in town," they can decide whether to keep playing the retainer or make a new PC. Of course the retainer will have earned some XP already, as opposed to totally new character. 

To make this easier for the players, I plan on A) having a ready stack of NPC characters pregenerated. There is a great BX character generator online one can use. B) I have incorporated locales in the "starter town" with reputations for being good places to find such people for hire. My hope is that once the players have been gently led to the well, they can find their way back as play progresses.

Mercenaries:

Mercenaries come up in the Expert rules (X22) with the focus being mainly on larger, more military roles. ie "Mercenaries are usually hired to guard a stronghold or castle."

While I see no reason that such "troops" couldn't be hired in small numbers for dungeon crawling, their inclusion in the rules seems to be more about the "endgame" where name level characters are manning keeps and fighting battles.

Side Note: 0 level noncombatants (torchbearers, porters, etc.) aren't really discussed in BX, but Barrowmaze's MEATSHIELDS is a nice NPC generator for their basic stats, etc. (LL-based, but quite compatible)

Specialists:

Honestly. What other image did you expect here?

Specialists, as per the Expert rules (X21) are generally hired for tasks, rather than to go on an adventure. Alchemists, Sages, Engineers, and Spies will often have missions or assignments that they complete for a fee. 

The thing I like most about specialists is the idea that there are non-adventurers in the world with sought after skills. It somehow fleshes the world out a little more to know that there are people who can command high fees for their services but may have never fought an orc or robbed a tomb. It sort of defines the adventurers as part of a larger setting. Even specialists like sailors (Seamen) and armorers have distinct skills that sets them apart from a common laborer as well as the sword-wielding warrior.

Specialists also fulfill a purpose for the game in giving the party (and the DM) ways to advance the character's knowledge when they can't answer a question or complete a task on their own. Getting a sage to look over an ancient map or an alchemist to analyze a poison might help further the plot if the players are drawing a blank. It's also a means by which to drain some funds from the party coffers!

In my starter town, I've placed a few specialists including an alchemist and a sage, I plan to make them known to the party very early on. Even if they have no need (or funds) to hire them, they'll at least know they're about. 

All of this is a very roundabout way of saying that these rules are well worth the time to integrate into one's BX game. They can add a lot of depth with not a lot of heavy lifting on the DMs part and continue to demonstrate the reasons I find this system so engaging. 

RMA: Roc

POLLY WANT A BIG CRACKER!!

While running my Barrowmaze campaign a while back, the party stumbled upon a small Roc as a random wilderness encounter. No combat ensued (hooray for non-hostile reaction rolls), but it did mean taking a good look at its stats. I commented on how interesting the beasts were as written and one of my players suggested that an RMA might be in order. So here it is.

Roc, S/M/L (from Cook)

AC: 4/2/0
HD: 6/12/36
Move: 60' (20'), Fly 480' (160')
AL: Lawful
Att: 2 claws/1 bite 
Dmg: 2-5, 2-5, 2-12/1-8, 1-8, 2-20/3-18, 3-18, 8-48
No. App: 0 (1d12)/ 0 (1d8)/ 0 (1)
Morale: 8/9/10

One omission in the Cook Expert entry is the Save As listing (typo). 

This one took a little research because despite the fact that the entry includes three different sizes, the descriptive text is pretty sparse. I cobbled together a mental picture of ol' Beaky between BX, LL, 1st ed. AD&D, and d20 (3e). 

One thing to keep in mind is that these are some truly formidable birds. Even the small one is no picnic considering there might be TWELVE of them flapping about. At 6HD minimum, Sleep spells are useless, too. The AC not great for the smaller ones, but it's not terrible either. Three attacks at middling damage can mean a bad day for someone who looks like bird food. Small Rocs are relatively skittish though, so you might scare them off.

Medium Rocs are significantly tougher (x2 HD than small) but otherwise similar. Their bite is impressive though.

The Large Rocs are crazy! More HD than a Dragon Turtle! AC 0! Attacking with both claws and beak can deal up to eighty-four points of damage per round! Despite their hugeness, rocs' flight speed (all three sizes) is unbeaten and nearly unmatched.

I assume that the sizes are age categories and all rocs eventually become large ones (if they reach full maturity). 

The alignment is worth noting. It is a lawful creature that reacts poorly to neutrals and chaotics. They are not particularly intelligent, though. It makes me wonder how they make distinctions with whom they are dealing.

They have a fair chance of treasure lying about the nest (mostly coins and jewels per the chart), but the real wealth would be to make off with some of the eggs. Such chicks can be trained as mounts, which should entice some PCs to risk tracking down a roc eyrie.  The 1st edition AD&D Monster Manual has a fun note, too:

"Rocs are occasionally tamed and used by giants." 

At first, I thought they meant as hunting birds, but no. According to the Storm Giant entry, they RIDE them! Imagine that encounter! A couple of giants flying at you on the back of a bird that can pick up an elephant! 

I Tap the Floor Ahead of Me With My 10' pole

I have recently become disenchanted with the sandbox setting. I find it is far too difficult to keep players motivated or to build up momentum for the campaign. Too often, PCs just flail around looking for the next hook to drop into their laps.

With this in mind I am pursuing a new type of adventure for me. The mega dungeon. I'm going to try running Greg Gillespie's Barrowmaze for my group. It is an excellently written dungeon crawl with many interesting features. Furthermore, I am hoping that it will give my players a little more structure without being an absolute railroad. I'm using LL/AEC and a few house rules.

I also chose a published module instead of writing my own because it would reduce the amount of prep time required on my part. I am a lazy, lazy creature.

I've added a few things of my own, like fleshing out the nearby town and giving it a name: Lychgate. I don't plan for the PCs to spends gobs of time there, but if they have a rough sense of the major NPCs and whom to talk to about what they need, I'll call it good enough.

We've had one session, and while the party didn't get very far, there were only three of them (plus a torchbearer/porter). The thief got poisoned by centipedes and that resulted in killing a week back at town while he recovered. In the end, they fought a few undead, opened a barrow, and got some treasure, so it was a good session by my reckoning.

What to run?

(Forgive the lengthy rambling. I'm working a few things out in my head as I type.)

So my group is talking about wanting a more extended campaign instead of a series of short adventures and round-robin GM-ing. After Night's Dark Terror (which ran almost a year), we kind of took a break from longer campaigns. I totally understand wanting to play the same character for a longer stretch though. The question: What to play?

I had suggested running an LL/AEC megadungeon campaign for them, using either Barrowmaze, Anomalous Subsurface Environment, or Stonehell. All outstanding products, BTW. (I wish I'd written one or all of them!) The thinking was that it gave the campaign a definite structure, or at least a sort of axis to revolve around. Also, if the PCs had a base of operations (nearby town, etc.), it would make it easier to change the party makeup when one player couldn't make it or one that missed the previous session came to the next (PCs coming or going from town).

I didn't get a lot of buy-in on the idea, so it left me wondering what to try next. I considered Kelvernia, but the cross-genre aspects were a turn off to some. I realized that you can't please everyone, so I should focus on running something I wanted to run. The trouble was none of these choices really "grabbed" me.

I pondered various settings, modules, systems, etc. for a while, but none seemed a good fit for various reasons. Some of them had to do with me, but I couldn't ignore that player buy-in was crucial to not only the campaign's health, but my enthusiasm as a GM as well. It's hard to sit down behind the screen week after week when the people at the table aren't having fun. Then it occurred to me that I could try approaching this in a different way. I decided to start with what I knew about the players at my table and what motivated them (much like Robin Laws' player types and hooks), then I could look at those things and see where it led my imagination. I've always been more creative with a springboard instead of cut loose in a void.

By the way, if you haven't read Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering, do so. NOW.

In the end, a series of distinct, but not wholly incompatible, trends emerged. Without naming names or pointing fingers, this is what I found defined my group as an aggregate. Some are more typical than others, but needed to be accounted for, IMO:

• A desire to see characters progress and "power up" through experience, influence, skill, loot, etc.
• Escapism into a fantasy world where the character can do cool things competently, including a reasonable amount of good old hack & slash.
• A chance to influence the story and the world around them.
• Opportunities to role play and character development through role play, including intra-party relationships and conflict.
• A fondness for military and martial themes (wars, invasions, special ops, etc.)
• A fondness for dark/horror themes.
• Different character types should have their chance to shine.
• A chance to think and act tactically, trying unorthodox or unexpected things. Also having the potential to be rewarded (in-game or meta) for doing so.

Not everyone displays all these traits, but almost none of them are utterly exclusive to one player. 

So what was my takeaway? 

1) A sandbox environment with no predetermined story arc. There should be good chances at combat, treasure, and magic.

2) The rules should allow for on-the-fly rulings that let players be creative and clever when dealing with the challenges in front of them, as well as a variety of challenges besides just dungeon crawls and combats.

3) Next, some sort of conflict like a war or rebellion would be a good hook generator, with a chance for the PCs to become involved, willingly or not. 

4) Ideally, there would be enough diversity and detail in the setting to make it immersive without being overwhelming, and provide RP opps for those who wished to interact with things like NPCs and forge ties to people and places. 

5) Lastly, there should be some element of darkness or weirdness to the place. It's shouldn't just be orcs and dragons. There should be real horrors out there that aren't going away because you can swing a sword.

What do I do with all this? Well, it gave me the germ of an idea. Let's just say that it involves LL+AEC and a published setting, but not a D&D one. Further bulletins as events warrant.