An Army in the Dungeon

Dungeons & Dragons' roots stretch all the way back to wargaming and it has a subtle influence on play that's sometimes forgotten today. Early D&D relied heavily on henchmen and hirelings, who often rounded out a group that could number as high as 20 members. This sort of play affected the kinds of D&D, from expectations on mortality rate to distribution of treasure.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Hirelings​

Hirelings were hired soldiers of a variety of types, the true cannonfodder who were risking their lives for coin. Hirelings were governed primarily by how much the PC could spend, but Charisma played a role in attracting them. Additionally, PCs could attract more by establishing a stronghold.

Morale was an important part of managing hirelings. Rather than make these NPCs suicidal drones who did whatever the PC wanted, morale was introduced to provide a mechanic to manage them without requiring the DM to control all of their movements. A PC who abused his hirelings risked them quitting.

Henchmen​

Henchmen were non-player characters who had a wide range of abilities, like player characters. They could be just about anything, but their loyalties varied by their relationship with the PCs.

The distinction is significant. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons often presented classes in Dragon Magazine that were considered too powerful for players to use but could make interesting henchmen. This practice gave rise to the "NPC class" which was often used by players anyway, from anti-paladins to death masters.

Henchmen were a part of regular play -- they gained experience points at a slower rate than PCs, but they still advanced -- and were thus these additional characters were usually run by the player herself. In this regard henchman served a variety of roles, including as backup PCs should the PC die. As an extension of the PC, the number of henchmen were dictated by the PC's Charisma stat. Henchmen filled important support: healers, torchbearers, and baggage carriers who took loot out of the dungeon while the PCs continued on.

How it Affected the Game​

A mass of people moving through a dungeon changes a lot of dynamics in adventure design. Loot that could be pried up, that was heavy, that was not easy to carry, could be relegated to hirelings. Traps could be numerous because few PCs would put themselves at the front of the party. Non-combat characters like wizards could use their henchmen and hirelings to fill in their own combat weakness. Henchmen and hirelings were part of the army-building that was D&D's roots, as we discussed back when "name level" was a goal for PCs to aspire to. Peter V. Dell'Orto, who co-wrote the GURPS supplement, Henchmen, said:

Personally, I think the "meatshields," "mine detector," and "potion drinker" approach shows the wargaming roots of D&D. In a persistent wargame setting, it makes perfect sense to risk your least experienced and least valuable resources on the unknown. In a game growing out of a tabletop wargame, where you are moving your characters like pieces and promoting them between expeditions when they do well and survive . . . doing anything but expending your pawns and husbanding your queens and bishops and rooks and such would be foolish.

Henchmen and hirelings complicated the game considerably from an inventory and character management perspective, something that would likely not be nearly as feasible for later (and more complicated) editions of D&D. Encounters were freer with cash as well, because it was assumed to be spread out among the (very large) party. James Maliszewski explains:

The very fact that Grenadier produced an entire boxed set filled with torch bearers, guys toting treasure chests, and even a "potion tester" (he's figure E in the image above) tells you far more about the way D&D was played back in the day than I ever could. Old school D&D was not a game in which a small band of hyper-competent heroes braved the dangers of the world with only their swords, spells, and wits to protect them. No, they had a veritable army of hirelings and henchmen to assist them and these guys all got a share of the loot in exchange for their assistance. Considering that the life expectancy of a hireling could be measured in minutes in some cases, those that survived the dungeon certainly earned their share.

Although we don't use them nearly as much today, henchmen and hirelings were an important transitional step between PCs as leaders of armies and PCs as heroes. As D&D became more focused on the party and less about the army, they fell out of favor.

 

[Les Moore]

This... our groups back in the day had what I would consider to be followers... somewhere between hirelings and henchmen.

Enter Hernchlingman!

 

[jasper]

this really needs a Nodwick link.

 

[lewpuls]

Another reason to use hirelings/henchmen (and mules!): they could help absorb the effects of a sleep spell, which at 4-16 could wipe out an entire small party of low level characters.

 

[scourger]

Over the past 4 decades, I find it comes down to play style. I think D&D, in particular, benefits from ranks of "expendables" or "cannon fodder", especially with DMs & players that play truer to its wargaming roots of tactics & strategy.

Storytelling & power gaming (to which I lean more) benefit less generally from followers in D&D.

Savage Worlds better incorporates the idea with "extras" on both sides.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Hopefully lawful PC wouldn't use their hirelings, and especially trusted henchmen as cannon fodder but you are on the money there I think. Though being cannon odder is tough to avoid when its save henchman or PC.

My current group has one hireling, who I think is going to start asking to be trained under one of the group fighters and maybe gain a level and become his henchman.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Armies don't like to go into dungeons, as they don't like being cannon fodder, and Dungeons provide tremendous opportunity for the defender and enormous cost to the attacker, plus an army isn't quiet. The way a dungeon is laid out with encounters in each room waiting for the players to enter them, would be totally unrealistic. If an army is invading a dungeon, the residents of that dungeons aren't going to wait for that army to enter their room, they are going to go out and meet that army, and since only a certain number of people can enter a passageway at a time, this provides lots of choke points with an inferior force can hold off much larger numbers! Remember a soldier can't engage the enemy if he can't see the enemy and if offering melee combat, he can't attack the enemy with a sword if the corridors are packed with his fellow soldiers in between himself and the enemy. He basically has to wait for his fellow soldiers to be slain in front of him so he can attack the enemy!


If the players enter the dungeon with just themselves, the DM can assume that some of the element of surprise is retained, but if the PCs bring an army, assume their is no surprise, and the denizens of the Dungeon leave their encounter areas to move up to where the PCs army is, as they are quite noisy, and they know where they are!

 

[Les Moore]

Hopefully lawful PC wouldn't use their hirelings, and especially trusted henchmen as cannon fodder but you are on the money there I think. Though being cannon odder is tough to avoid when its save henchman or PC.

My current group has one hireling, who I think is going to start asking to be trained under one of the group fighters and maybe gain a level and become his henchman.

Before I did that, I'd want to make sure the henchman can hench really well.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Before I did that, I'd want to make sure the henchman can hench really well.

He is good with a pitchfork.

 

[the_redbeard]

I had a long answer to this typed up...and then I deleted it.

I guess the short of it is I personally don't think he's a trustworthy source for this kind of information. It's not that I think he's a bad human being, I just don't think he can be relied on to provide accurate information concerning old school D&D. There are, in my opinion, much better sources for this sort of information from people who were actually playing D&D back in the "old school" days he's writing about.

For further details, I leave you to your own Google search.

This kind of vague character assassination is pretty low. He failed to fulfill a kickstarter. That demonstrates he's untrustworthy at fulfilling a project, or handling money, or things of that nature. (As I understand it, his father died and he had a breakdown.) However, unlike others who have done the same, he delivered what he had done to others who did then fulfill it. Was there something else he did or failed to do?

I don't see what bearing that has on the nearly 3000 (2857) posts of his blog, Grognardia, that remain on the net as a insightful commentary on early D&D and other RPGs. His work contributed to the community and play style of the OSR.

You really do need to read the definition of Ad Homenim, which your posts in this thread certainly are. You've made vague assertions about his character but haven't said anything about the truth or falseness of what he said or challenged his credentials as a commentator (not publisher) of the game.

Ad hominem is a logical fallacy that involves a personal attack: an argument based on the perceived failings of an adversary rather than on the merits of the case. Also called argumentum ad hominem, abusive ad hominem, poisoning the well, ad personam, and mud slinging.

In their book Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of Interpersonal Reasoning (SUNY Press, 1995), Douglas Walton and Eric Krabbe identify three types of argumentum ad hominem:

1) The personal or abusive ad hominem alleges bad character for veracity, or bad moral character generally.
2) The circumstantial ad hominem alleges a practical inconsistency between the person and his or circumstances.
3) A third type of ad hominem, the bias or ' poisoning the well' variant, alleges that the person has a hidden agenda or something to gain and is therefore not an honest or objective arguer.

 

[Les Moore]

He is good with a pitchfork.

That's a great start! Mob tactics and familiarity with farm implements are the cornerstone of ANY good Hencher.