Unexpected fun in 1st edition

[Halivar]

So I started a 1st edition game (using OSRIC for initiative rules and NPC creation), with just a few folks who had a pretty hard time in the dungeon I rolled up using the random generation rules in the 1E DMG. Some folks at Enworld asked if we were using henchmen. We weren't. So I went back, the players scrapped the dungeon they were dying through, and set off for T1: Hommlet.

In Verbebonc they stopped to recruit henchmen, spending just about all the money they had heretofore acquired to do so. In preparation, I initially expected a quick how-do-you-do and moving on to Hommlet with new compatriots. When I read the rules, however, on interviewing henchmen, I realized I would need a huge pool of henchmen printed out (for the task, I wrote a web-app [linked in sig] for generating piles of 1st level NPC's). The interview process, I imagined, would take up to half an hour at most, and be drudge-work before the fun started.

When we sat down to play, I was armed with over a hundred small slips of paper with 1st level NPC's. The party decided to use all available avenues of recruitment. They rolled the dice. 50 people lined up looking for work. I gasped inside. Unruffled, I counted out 50 slips of paper; this was going to be a long, long night, unless they took the first few respondents.

Instead, the party decided to interview each and every single one of them, producing 3 hours of some of our funnest roleplay. Making a unique personality for each and every NPC was quite challenging, but the whole group was kept in stitches pretty much the whole time. Most NPC's refused to work with them (all chaotic party), but a few lucky reaction rolls netted them their favorite (and probably this campaign's more memorable) NPC's:

• Braandis, a fighter with 18.75 STR who speaks like a simpleton but is actually quite smart.
• Scabs, a 12-year-old thief who, when dismissed for being too young, handed the mage back his stolen spellbook ("Wait! You're hired!")
• Angelica, a zealous teenage paladin, who, though exceedingly beautiful, is also violently chaste. A later interviewee with only one-arm attested to this. (Also, "interested in wine & spirits???" This complete contradiction makes her the party favorite.)
• Darrin, a CE fighter/m-u/cleric of Wee Jas. The party managed to ask him all the wrong interview questions.

Due to the amount of time spent hiring henchmen and interviewing people in Hommlet (Elmo was another case where the party decided to extend the roleplay for hilarity's sake), we were unable to get into any actual combat. But I can say the unexpectedly pleasant experience of hiring henchmen makes 1st Edition (so far) one of my favorite RPG's of all. I can safely say I will miss henchmen when I play later editions.

 

[Sekhmet]

Henchman exist in 3.x, as well.

This sounded like a fun night. NPCs tend to get glossed over all too frequently, and it is really nice when your players take notice of one and keep it in their memories.

 

[Empirate]

Nothing stops you from having the same scene in 2E, 3E, 3.5, Pathfinder, or basically any number of RPGs where you don't play the last person on earth. Good roleplaying is often (though not always) independent of ruleset used.

Other than that slight criticism, good work! Coming up with 50 (!) NPC personalities on the fly is a challenging bit of DM's work indeed. Congratz on pulling it off so well that you all had fun!

 

[Halivar]

You can have lower-level NPC party-mates in 3.x and later, but game balance does not necessarily presume their use. We've found that in 1E they are well nigh essential. I could be wrong, though, as we are all very new to 1E at this point.

 

[Sekhmet]

If you recall the "suggested DMlayer ratio" of 1:20, AD&D played really smoothly without henchman.
The last time I had 20 players sitting around my table was never, though, and henchmen help bridge that gap.

 

[Halivar]

If you recall the "suggested DMlayer ratio" of 1:20, AD&D played really smoothly without henchman.
The last time I had 20 players sitting around my table was never, though, and henchmen help bridge that gap.

Hah! Glad I never played it with my old 3.5 group, then.

I already know what some of the players would have said:

"Ok, on the way back to town, we kill all the henchmen in their sleep and take their gold for ourselves. We can't afford to split XP that many ways."

 

[Sekhmet]

There is a very noticeable difference in how 3.x and AD&D plays. I think that the lethality of AD&D creates a greater sense of cooperation and consideration for your teammates, because you honestly never know when they're going to be the one deciding if your character lives or dies, or even the entire party lives or dies.
With 3.x, one properly optimised character can pretty much do everything himself, dragging his party along behind by the coattails.

Interestingly, this is why I have seven AD&D characters currently petrified in Baalzebul's castle, and one (previously) level 16 Lawful Good Paladin serving an eternity at Fierna's side on Phlegethos.

Yay, trying to save allies who could later rescue me!

 

[grodog]

• Braandis, a fighter with 18.75 STR who speaks like a simpleton but is actually quite smart.
• Scabs, a 12-year-old thief who, when dismissed for being too young, handed the mage back his stolen spellbook ("Wait! You're hired!")
• Angelica, a zealous teenage paladin, who, though exceedingly beautiful, is also violently chaste. A later interviewee with only one-arm attested to this. (Also, "interested in wine & spirits???" This complete contradiction makes her the party favorite.)
• Darrin, a CE fighter/m-u/cleric of Wee Jas. The party managed to ask him all the wrong interview questions.

I may have to steal these for my children's game, Havilar: they've got a crew of henchmen and hirelings, but I try to have more available so that they're forced to mix up the membership from time-to-time

 

[Water Bob]

Nothing stops you from having the same scene in 2E, 3E, 3.5, Pathfinder, or basically any number of RPGs where you don't play the last person on earth. Good roleplaying is often (though not always) independent of ruleset used.

Yeah, but were those statted NPCs? It's a hell of a lot more work to create 50 fully statted NPCs in 3.x than it is in 1E AD&D. Exponential.

There is a very noticeable difference in how 3.x and AD&D plays.

Absolutely. I saw an old player of mine from years back, today. He hasn't gamed in a few years and lives now on the other side of town. We were talking about the difference in our old 1E/2E AD&D games and 3.5.

I said, "In 3.5, there's a roll for everything. People get lazy. If a player gets suspicious about a trap, they roll their Search skill. If they want to persuade the gate guard to allow them entry into the town after sundown, they roll their Diplomacy.

"In 1E, we always roleplayed that stuff. If a player thought that there might be a trap, he grabbed his 10' pole and started tapping it on the floor in spots. Speaking with the gate guard always defaulted to roleplaying

"It's not that you can't do that with 3.5 too, but since there is a skill, and the player is putting points into that skill, he wants to use it. It gets easy just to roll the dice."


I much prefer the 1E way of doing things, and I am slowly trying to make my 3.5 Conan game work that way.

Or course, I don't want the players to think its useless to put points into skills, either. So, what I've been doing is rolling the PC's Diplomacy and the gate guard's Sense Motive behind the screen as the roleplay begins, using the results of the throw to temper how I role play the encounter. If the Diplomacy check utterly bricks, then I'll give the gate guard a sour personality and give the roleplaying player a hard time. If he's successful, I'll use that as an indication that the gate guard isn't that hard to talk to--maybe he's sympathetic.

 

[Halivar]

I said, "In 3.5, there's a roll for everything. People get lazy. If a player gets suspicious about a trap, they roll their Search skill. If they want to persuade the gate guard to allow them entry into the town after sundown, they roll their Diplomacy.

"In 1E, we always roleplayed that stuff. If a player thought that there might be a trap, he grabbed his 10' pole and started tapping it on the floor in spots. Speaking with the gate guard always defaulted to roleplaying

"It's not that you can't do that with 3.5 too, but since there is a skill, and the player is putting points into that skill, he wants to use it. It gets easy just to roll the dice."

I much prefer the 1E way of doing things, and I am slowly trying to make my 3.5 Conan game work that way.

In all my years as a gamer (started with 3.0), I have never seen a player roleplay haggling with a shopkeeper. Until now.