The Care and Feeding of Henchmen and Hirelings

Since I'm in San Francisco taking in the sites, eating the delicious foods, and all-around enjoying myself, this entry is going to be brief, and on the subject of the invariably put-upon members of any D&D party: the henchmen and hirelings. I'm heading to the MAP conference in Santa Clara later in the week to give a paper on the Liber Eliensis, so I'm also pretty busy getting that up to snuff for presentation insofar as the performative aspects of giving papers go.

Modern incarnations of D&D have forgotten all about these characters; in a dramatic situation, it is thought of as bad form to upstage the main character by giving the action to some lesser fellow. Of course, this is a rule mostly followed in action movies and obeyed to a much lesser extent in serious literary works. However, since a lot of people play D&D like an action movie, and because most modern RPGs exist to paint the player as the prime actor, the idea of henchmen and hirelings have fallen by the wayside. We are warned to be wary of upstaging PCs with NPC actions, lest they feel as though they didn't accomplish the important tasks in the game. Mike at Really Bad Eggs wrote about something similar recently, concerning the primacy of PC actions (and whether or not it really needs to be Prime).

This attitude springs, I think, from the same abuses that most of the other Player's Rights issues arose from. Indeed, I think this is a cornerstone of the Player's Rights movement—that nebulously defined set of core rights that no GM should violate. It is probably true that Bad GMs have foisted characters onto parties, characters that had no right to be there, who conquered all the foes and took all the treasure and essentially made the game into a masturbatory exercise of power. Again, like all Player's Rights issues, I think this is a problem with bad GMs rather than with rules and should be handled as such; the players do not necessarily have a right to primacy of action, but they have demanded it to head off GM abuse.

This has led to the decline of the henchman. I'm guilty, myself, of punishing parties that want to use hench- and hirelings. I once angrily informed a player that they would have to split their xp with their hirelings (even animals, were they to buy them)! What fit of foolish Player's Rightisms sent me into paroxysms of rage I cannot begin to say. My thought was that the players should accomplish their achievements ALONE, without the aid of GM assistance in the form of hired hands. This is patently ridiculous! These penalties were wrong-headed of me; I might consider splitting the xp a few additional ways (ie, count hirelings as members of the party) but to force someone to cut their own xp with a hireling is just nonsense.

Hirelings and henchfolk are an important resource, and no one should be docked for using them.

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...

Tomorrow at 8am I'll be going to San Francisco for the Medieval Association of the Pacific's yearly conference. I'll be there for a week, so posts will be few and far between (or non-existent) as I make sure my paper is up to snuff and go to all the great places in San Fran that I've missed for so long.

I yearn to be different

After some cursory thought and introspection, I've developed a theory on the differences between the way characters are handled in later editions and how that separates them from the earlier methods of character creation (and running your character). Here, I present these thoughts in rough and unfinished form: My thesis for consideration is that earlier editions of D&D (and earlier roleplaying games in general) tend to ask you to define your character in terms of who they are while modern editions of D&D (and other roleplaying games that have followed, or perhaps inspired, this trend) ask you to define your character based on what they can do.

This may seem like a fatuous division. After all, what is the difference? Let us examine the consequences of who they are style thinking. For ease of use we can coin the terms existential (who they are) and agency-based (what they can do) just to make what we're talking about a little easier to digest and perhaps fill the conversation with complicated jargon to confuse outsiders. Anyhow! Existential thinking in character creation does not ask you, necessarily, to find rules reflections in who your character is. More important than his statistics and skills is his past and personality, and in older roleplaying games it should be a very sparse past indeed.

Grognard Gazeteer: The Dragonfall Uplands

Today I have another one of the Grognard articles that was written to accompany the Cock and Crown. This is a gazeteer of the northern Agstowe region known as the Dragonfall Uplands and its chief town of Rickton in particular. It is written from the perspective of the extremely nationalistic and self-centered author, Reynarius di Llun.

On the Importance of Dying

Death, that horrible finality, is what makes life. It is the ultimate ending, the last word, the balancer that brings completion to every existence. Without the closing that death brings, life itself would have no meaning. It is defined by the very mortality that we strive to overcome. But certain games don't necessarily need to include death amongst their list of options. After all, if you're playing a video game and you die, what is the penalty? You must restart from the last save or, if the game is old enough or hard enough, play from the very beginning. The first is a false penalty that only serves to eat up time. The second is a penalty that stresses completion and skill as important factors in gameplay. Both are slowly falling by the wayside in modern game design.

There is a line of theory, and a good line it is too, that says that since dying in modern games is generally just a minor irritant, there's no reason to even include it in the game. It is a false penalty, one that wastes time but fails to have any real impact on the player other than forcing them to replay things they have already done. This issue was brought to the forefront for me by the excellent game Braid in which the player actually cannot die. And for video games, this is perhaps a valid argument. It certainly played out well for Braid.

Fantastic Religion: The Necromancer

Here is an article that was originally from the now-defunct Grognard. It was part of the series on faiths and religions. This particular excerpt deals with the demigod known as the Necromancer.

The Rulebound Watchmaker

I've mentioned my dislike for the logic that belies the 3.x and 4e rules repeatedly here, but I've never really addressed the heart of the matter. Now, there are people who will tell me that I'm wrong because it is the job of the DM to make the game function and, regardless of what WotC publishes, a good DM will make it work. I take umbrage at that, since the books that WotC release not only train the new generations of DMs, they also train the new generation of players to expect the types of treatment that WotC prefers for their games. Specifically, the underlying presumption that I've grown to truly dislike is that the campaign world is a clockwork mechanism where things react within narrow realms of predictability.

Now, this has its roots in the battle between Enlightenment Theism and Democritian Atomism. On the one hand, we have the belief that the universe is ordered, sensible, and predictable. This is a mechanical view of existence. By the mechanical view, we can predict all things in nature as long as we know enough about the circumstances. At its most reductionist, this is a completely fatalistic system. Determine the exact mechanical starting point of the universe and one can then extrapolate every piece of history that will follow.

In just seven days... I can make you a man

I have a friend who likes all the wrong things in fantasy. He prefers the Lord of the Rings movies to the books. He likes third edition D&D way more than the earlier editions. He likes fast-paced escapist fantasy much more than slow meditative worldbuilding. Whenever we talk about it, there's always an element of tension in the air. Yet, a few days ago I hit upon a revelation about why he likes the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons even though he's old enough to remember AD&D. This is a story of that revelation.

I've been valiantly trying to catalog the differences between older editions of D&D and newer ones for years. It's a never ending conversation that I have with the entire world, posing the questions to everyone I speak with at one point or another. There may be interruptions for other things (such as actual playing) but the question is always there. Why don't I like third and fourth edition? What makes them so fundamentally different from that which came before? In addition to all the things I've discovered through reasoned use of logic, there is this fact that has escaped me again and again. It took looking at the game through someone else's eyes to really understand it.

Zaany Fiction: Journey to the Infinat

This here's a bit of fiction I wrote to help explain what the Orbidium of Zaan, that satirical setting I posted about yesterday, was like. It contains some strangeness and may not be suitable for all audiences, but if you can play D&D you can read this.

Habernath the Scutling

Olomeryn was always uncomfortable in Nibenlibe’s house. That he was her archrival was known all throughout Ugram, but elves do not take umbrage at dining with their foes. Nibenlibe was handsome enough in his way. He was lissome and languid, his flesh a pale blue-white that was aswirl with prickly tattoos. He was smiling, which Olomeryn found irksome. His lithe body was draped across a mound of pillows and his tunic was a silvery sheer. His fingers glimmered with rings. Olomeryn knew that each one was the symbol of a long-lasting pact with ancient powers and she bridled at the way they flashed when he moved his hands, each more obscenely arcane than the last.

Zaan: Magic Users

In addition to designing the 10th Age, some folks and I are working on an OSR setting/system modification known as Zaan. The idea is a sort of insane fantasy setting that reflects the kinds of ideas that twelve year olds might come up with if fed pixie sticks and allowed to doodle in their notebooks all day.

The concept of Zaan is that of a dying world peopled by warped versions of standard fantasy races. The Orbidium of Zaan is being consumed by the Cosmic Devoid, a side effect of the lugubrious and lazy elves magical meddling. Magic is dangerous and sword and sorcery-like, resulting in horrific alterations to the human body. Elves can use it without worry, of course, but they are too lazy to try to save the world. Here as a factor of interest, is the Magic User section of the Zaanual.

Medieval Stasis and the Status Quo

Those Scythians!

While not every fantasy setting is "medieval," many endeavor to capture that milieu. This has led to many questions, particularly those regarding the a-historicity of a setting that seems to be perpetually stuck in the middle ages no matter how much time passes. As a historian, I think it is an interesting question with a conclusion that is far from forgone.

The first issue will be identifying what a medieval setting even means. As a medievalist I have a very specific view on the time period, which perhaps colors my perceptions of this argument. What many would classify as medieval (Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance) I would tend closer towards calling pure fantasy. They have a semi-medieval base, but each of these settings makes liberal use of elements from the Renaissance as well as wholly contrived ones in such a way as to truly obscure anything about them that is particularly medieval.

Fiction: The Pillars of Hercules

This is a short story that was inspired by this post over at Really Bad Eggs.

I, Giancarlo, had never before been on such a ship. The waves rocked her at a fever pitch, for the shallows of Cabrita are not friendly. In this case I had been hired by the Portuguese scoundrel Marquês das Minas, João de Sousa, to travel aboard the little flotilla headed to Gibraltar to break the floating siege that had ringed the southern bay of the Rock. The French were trying to drive out the Allies and prevent them from using Gibraltar as a port of call. I, of course, had no dog in this fight until the Marquês approached me in Lisbon. I was down on my luck and had nearly spent every last rei that I had, so of course I agreed.

Admiral Leake (an unfortunately named Englishman!) took me aboard with no question when he learned of my provenance, particularly what I had done during the Battle of Cremona. Through no ideological commitment of my own (you should know by now that my only ideology is to eat and have a place to call a bed at night) I had been one of the men who infiltrated the French garrison alongside that infamous prince, Eugene.

The Bells of Freedom Ring

I was having a discussion the other day with my friend the Marquis when we began to chew over some of the thoughts that I've brought up here before. We talked about games past and games future; I explained the way in which the 4th Edition works, attempting to take the point of view of the creators rather than my own so as to allow him to judge it on its own merits and flaws. The one thing we kept hitting upon in our conversation was the idea of false-freedoms and that which separated pen and paper roleplaying games from computerized ones.

If we were to make a list of the things that both types of games possess, we can try to see what makes pen and paper roleplaying games special. Let's take Skyrim as our "computer game" example, since that's the latest fantasy craze.

Encounters from the Grognard: Cock and Crown

So, I promised that I'd eventually be putting up stuff that was reserved for the Grognard (the AD&D magazine I so desperately wanted to get going) to be free for all on this blog. This is the first of those old Grognard articles that I've gotten ready for the public.


This particular piece was part of what was going to be a running article of encounters of various kinds. This "encounter" details a large roadside inn and wayhouse known as the Cock and Crown, which is located in Agstowe along the Gemway. It should be fairly easy to transplant the Cock and Crown to any setting that has a good dose of fantasy just by changing some names and some clerical classes.

Enjoy!

All Worlds are Alien

It's easy to forget that people aren't the same all over. After all, we're all people, aren't we? This is a common error made by historians when approaching the past; we tend to take for granted little social cues and learned responses and assume that everyone has always had them, that everyone has always behaved more or less like us. That couldn't be further from the truth! In history, we must attempt to reconstruct lost social identities in what is called histoire des mentalités, the study of cultural mindsets. We must constantly remind ourselves that we take our entire worldview for granted. Without proof that people in the past thought just so about a certain subject, we cannot assume anything about it. We need to reconstruct, carefully, the elements of the past that make up cultural norms. When we find someone in some piece of history that thinks like us, we can crow and dance and be happy that everything perhaps isn't quite so alien—for example, the riddles of the Exeter Book, which are mostly veiled penis jokes.

We cannot simply ignore this fact when we're making settings for roleplaying games that are not based on our own time. Well, we can, but we do it at our peril. 

The Syngvia Arunï, Song of the North

Today I have a poem from the world of Arunë rather than an essay. It was written in the Fifth Age about the Fourth Age emperor, Tallëor Twice-born and his conquest of the last trollish kingdoms. It begins with a common formula that recounts the creation of the world up until the point of the poem's narrative.

Syngva Arunï (Song of the North)
The world was dark, and whole, and dead
when Mother Night reared up her head,
from seas of ageless timeless doubt
she came within from without. 

The Delicate Balance

There has always been a sort of balancing act in roleplaying games, from the very first, though it went unrecognized then. In the games of Gygax and Arneson, the balance was weighted completely towards the referee; the DM had all the power to say yes or no to the players. Players were at the mercy of their DMs, who controlled every aspect of the game. If you asked your referee a question and they said no, that was the end of it. There was always, of course, some wiggle room for rules compromises, but in the end the final decision was left up to a ruling by the game's referee. In those days, it was implicit that the person running the game was someone that you could trust.

These days, there seems to be a highly adversarial relationship between PCs and DMs. I attribute this to the blowback of rules that followed years of subpar and downright poor DMs taking advantage of their position as ultimate arbiter to torture and violate their players. The relationship between players and their referee is a sacred one, one that is tantamount to that between a teacher and student or a parent and child. Abusive breaches of trust erode the power of the game and have resulted in a backlash of player-centric content.

Roleplaying and Doubt

I've been integrating elements of doubt into the 10th Age since I began designing it a few years ago. For doubt and uncertainty form the core of our experience as human beings and I would feel remiss if I didn't include that uncertainty in a setting meant to emulate life (albeit a very fantastic life). At the core of our experience there is an eternal questioning, and enfolding that questioning into a game is an effort to recognize that and to reward it.

While types of existential doubt are manifold, the type of doubt I'm talking about here is something more basic. We generally assume that we can obtain information in roleplaying games, that the information will be correct, and that if it is not it is because someone is deliberately misleading us. This is a straightforward approach that is reminiscent of the modernist way of thinking. There is a certain truth, and the road to uncovering it is one that is generally linear; any potholes that we hit on the way may delay us, but they in no way invalidate the central the fact that our journey has a destination.