Do you ever use "expendable henchmen"?

[Li Shenron]

Sometimes I want to drop a monster with a very scary special ability or otherwise a wicked trap into an adventure. The problem I often have is that I want the thing to look deadly and gory, and sometimes I really really want the players to "preview" it

I've seen it done in some movies: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, final "dungeon" with the traps. The first trap is scary because you can feel it being triggered (a faint wind starts blowing the giant webs all around) but you hardly see the trap springing, just the head of the unlucky character go off. In the movie the "preview" is achieved by having the evil guys force one anonymous henchmen to "test" the trap. Then of course Indy is the next sent into it, but being the main character he gets the trap right and beat it. Still, it was a nice idea to show the trap in full effect.

How often do you use this idea of sacrificing some NPC to scare off the players? I don't know how to actually call them, so I just call them "expendables" I've done it a couple of times with animals (but I'd rather target normal animals like horses or mules, not animal companions or familiars) but usually our group tends not to bring henchmen along, just to avoid the mess during combat. Also, important NPCs or cohorts of course shouldn't be expendables.

Anyway, I just wonder if other gamers find the idea good or bad/boring/cliche.

 

[Nailom]

I used something like this. When the PC's entered the dungeon they found it robbed and a lot of really though creatures (for their party) lying slaughtered on the floor. Then they found the adventuring party ripped to pieces.

They were pretty scared

 

[Gez]

In our group, adventuring parties don't tend to have henchmen, expendable or not. Usually under the rationale that if they did, all the henchmen would be killed before the main fight anyway, and then you'd have to pay their widow -- quite inconvenient.

However, when we've got a cleric or a wizard with low-level summon spells ready, it does happen that a celestial dog would be sent to trigger a trap. Heh, it's just a summoning -- the celestial dog is not really harmed anyway.

For a related reason, our adventurers no longer use ordinary mounts or pack animals. Class-granted pets, okay. Summoned magical steeds, okay. Anything that's not much, much more resistant than a standard critter? It just begs to be eaten by the first wandering wyvern, bullette, pyrohydra or whatever else we stumble upon.

 

[Whisper72]

In the past we had a lot of 'red shirt syndrome' going on. This was partly because we only had 3 players, and this was way to few for most adventures, so each player had a 'main PC' and 2 or 3 henchmen. Henchmen were 'rotated' a lot...

always good plot hooks as well. You not only have the family of the PC's to go after, but those of the henchmen as well. Old enemies from the henchmen from which the PC's were honour bound to help out etc., revenge for the slaying of henchmen (in or out of the dungeon).

And yes, they were also sometimes used a cinematic cannon fodder...

 

[Li Shenron]

I should have been more clear!

When I said "expendable" I didn't mean that the players send them to the slaughter, which isn't something very nice, although quite popular I suspect...

I meant that the DM purposefully targets a henchman or a mount (instead of a PC) with a deadly attack to display the monster/trap's power before the characters engage it. Just because targetting the PCs immediately may be too harsh on them if they are killed outright, or otherwise the coolness of the trap may be missed if the attack is unsuccessful.

I'm thinking about using this "movie trick" only for really cool traps or special save-or-die monsters' abilities, to display the effect fully before the players measure themselves against it.

 

[Whisper72]

Hmm.... as to your clarifiaction, that is kinda nasty to do to real henchmen... imho...

I would reserve real save/die traps/effects/attacks for NPC's which are fully DM controlled which for some reason tag a long (for example, the poor hapless prisoner just rescued by the PC's accidentally stumbles across a trap and POOF!, gets zapped in some really cool/nasty way).

 

[Clavis]

I think that its a great storytelling idea to use NPCs to demonstrate the deadliness of a trap/monster/spell effect. Not only does it allow the DM to use deadly situations without players whining about getting "no warning", it gives the players a real feeling of accomplishment when they do overcome the trap/monster/spell. After all, they've SEEN what could of happened to them.

I've used the "kill-an-NPC" technique before, especially with monsters. It really increases the tension and excitement at the table. Its even better if the situation allows you to have the monster shred an innocent child. Then the players (if they're decent human beings) have the added fun of being guilt-free, righteous avengers!

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I've done this from time to time.

In my first Ivalice game, the PCs were about to fight their first (albeit depowered and only partly manifested) lucavi (a powerful Ivalician devil). Due to the circumstances of the summoning, the first thing the lucavi did was soak a hit from an NPC grand master in one of the local knightly orders - and then turn around and rip him apart.

Set the mood nicely. (I had a backup 'red shirt' NPC around for that battle, too, but she actually survived because the party hit hard and fast enough.)

In my last Spelljammer game, I pulled this off once: some Valenar elven riders got killed by dinosaurs before the PCs' eyes. Then the PCs and a named Valenar NPC almost got killed by same, because I conflated MM3 CRs with MM1 CRs. :\ They managed to pull through after dropping unconscious multiple times, though.

I tried it on a couple of other occasions, but each time, the PCs and NPCs in the encounter managed to bring down the enemy before even the red shirts could die! Partly due to pitifully low rolls on the monsters' parts, but still.

 

[Roadkill101]

I can't say that I've ever offed any npc's to serve as a demonstration of deadliness for the players. But then I've never really had any NPC's that could be considered loose baggage to fit the demonstration role.

Nor have my players been ones to employ the use of henchmen/hirelings. Though at the moment this is changing, as they now have a few to set up their camp and mind their mounts while they explore the dungeon. I've been working with them to see the value in hiring others to handle some of the more mundane tasks, so they are freed up to handle the bigger issues.

Some of those henchmen/hirelings have offically become red-shirts. My younger, inexperienced players like to charge headlong into whatever crops up, damn the consequences. Maybe offing a few of the red-shirts will teach them a bit of caution.

 

[SiderisAnon]

I meant that the DM purposefully targets a henchman or a mount (instead of a PC) with a deadly attack to display the monster/trap's power before the characters engage it. Just because targeting the PCs immediately may be too harsh on them if they are killed outright, or otherwise the coolness of the trap may be missed if the attack is unsuccessful.

I have done this before, though I do it infrequently. The most amusing example for me was one where the players managed to realize a trap was about to happen and save the NPC from the first death trap, and then the second, and then were so determined to keep the poor sap alive that he ended up a a long-running henchman. In fact, he ended up outlasting some of the PCs.

For dungeon traps, I do like to leave remains behind sometimes. They see a corpse riddled with holes and know something bad is up ahead, so they start looking. If I have a really powerful monster or a monster with a cool trick, I have the party find a victim, often a recent one, as part of how they are tracking the monster.

I am also prone to warnings from NPCs, like "A group went to that site six months ago. None of them returned."