AD&D1 -- How many PCs? How many hirelings?

[Quasqueton]

In the Gary Gygax Q&A thread, Gary mentions:

I am using original D&D rules with only some few additions, so HPs and spells are limited drastically at 1st level. (At the time when those rules were written, it was assumed a typical adventuring party would have about 8 PCs plus as many hired men-at-arms).

The AD&D1 rules were definitely set up for, and seemed to assume that the PCs would be numerous and there would be many mercenaries with them.

The only real game use for the Charisma score was to determine how many hirelings a PC could have at any one time.

The DMG had lots of information on handling hirelings and mercenaries.

All the AD&D1 modules assumed 6-10 PCs.

Those of us who played AD&D1, did you actually (usually) have 6-10 PCs? Did the PCs usually have mercenaries and hirelings?

In my experience, 4 Players/PCs was the norm. Occasionally there'd be more at the table, but they were the unusual cases. And it was extremely rare for the PCs to have hirelings of any sort.

What were your experiences with the number of PCs and hirelings in AD&D1?

Quasqueton

 

[Bregh]

My current OAD&D group is comprised of seven player characters and five henchmen NPCs, which has pretty much been its size since 1999.

 

[francisca]

4-7 here. Even to this day, I prefer parties of 5-6 in size, probably due to my background in gaming.

Current 1E group is 4-6, depending on who can make it.

We generally didn't/don't do hirelings. When we do, we hire specialists and a band of mercs from time to time.

My 1E expereince, both past and present, is almost exclusively homebrewed, so it's never been an issue running through modules designed for big parties and a gaggle of hirelings. The DM always trys to provide a proper challenge designed for our party.

 

[Arnwyn]

Never really played AD&D1. But in the early days of 2e, the norm was 8 PCs and 2 or so henchmen.

4 players would have been considered a very small group to us. (Even nowadays, we stick with 5-6 players and a henchmen or so.)

 

[diaglo]

What were your experiences with the number of PCs and hirelings in AD&D1?

20 is optimal for OD&D.

when we switched to more 1edADnD style/rules... i had 14 players.

on avg about 8-10 PCs and 4-5 henchmen. with around 10 or hirelings/camp followers was the norm for us.

edit: not all of the players could make it every session. and also there was a high mortality rate. so some players were rolling up new characters that had to be inserted as play was on going.

 

[Henry]

Our experience in those days was anywhere from 4 to 6 people; in fact, we started getting worried that if we had 3 players it would get too tough for us. We rarely had the HUGE sessions with 8+ people; only twice in my life, and once was only for two games before about 5 people dropped out. The other time was in a 3E game!

Currently, my Eberron game has 6 players, with a 7th person just starting; in my old 2nd edition games, I often ran with only three players.

Hirelings were NEVER done - we followed the strong suggestions in the books about there only being one character per player, and even if we had most of us considered it too annoying to run multiple people, because we often forgot they were there.

 

[Chimera]

My original group of high school friends (1978 to mid 80's) was only four of us. We rotated GMing between us.

We each had 5 PCs plus numerous hirelings and mercenaries, all travelling in a pack or our own fleet (as we got wealthier). When we got to whomever's dungeon (usually) or other site for the actual adventure, each of us 3 players chose 2 of our PCs to make up a group of 6 PCs that would explore the dungeon or whatnot.

On one or two occasions, we actually sent our own groups into the dungeon at the same time. Stan had an (infamous) square in his dungeon of 100 10'x10' rooms in a big square, the doors between them occasionally changing (and some were only one-way, invisible from the other side). Dave (Mr. Oblivious) got his group lost in there for HOURS and slowly got ground to pieces. If I remember properly, Jim and I had to have our groups come to his rescue.

I also seem to remember a couple of adventures where we used much larger groups of PCs, like 3 or 4 each.

 

[rogueattorney]

I found 5 to 6 players to be optimal, and there was usually about an equal number of hirelings, mercenaries, and other assorted NPC's, varying with whatever was going on in the campaign at the time.

My current party has 4 pc's and 7 hirelings.

The early game was definitely set up under the assumption that there would be a lot of people going down into those dungeons. Often, complaints as to early adventure modules being meatgrinders with too much treasure being given out aren't taking into account that there were supposed to be about a dozen or so characters.

Oh, and determining the # hirelings was not charisma's "only" function. It also determined NPC loyalty, ability and price to hire hirelings, and NPC reactions. In my B/X D&D games, charisma might only be second to constitution in determining the survivability of first level characters.

R.A.

 

[painandgreed]

We typically had 5-8 PCs and one main NPC run by the DM in a party. in some cases, the PCs would run two characters. These typically were the high causualty campaigns. We'd experiment with animals or hirelings and henchment every now and then, usualy at lower levels but then drop them once they got killed. Even then, all hirelings and henchment were treated just like any other NPCs and run by the DM.

The one time we did end up having lots of hirelings, henchmen and the like, the party got up over 50. We were a normal adventuring party turned mercenary group and went from exploring dungeons to attacking military caravans and mass combats during a war.

 

[T. Foster]

We pretty much always had around 5-6 PCs (regardless of number of players -- if there were 3 or fewer players they ran multiple PCs, if there were more they ran 1 each) and a handful of NPC hirelings/henchmen (men-at-arms at low levels, classed henchmen at higher levels) in addition -- typically about 3 or 4 of these, so 8-10 party members was pretty standard. This seemed to be about the expected party size for most of the modules, so that's what we went with. Nowadays I wouldn't let players run multiple PCs even if I only had 2 or 3 players; they'd either have to go in undermanned (and try harder to avoid combat) or make up the difference with NPCs (either hirelings, henchmen, or "allied" NPCs -- like the various folks found in The Keep in B2 or Hommlet in T1).