Equipment In a Medieval World - Anyone Got a 10' Pole Handy?

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Exactly!
Why so many people don't do that, there's surely a reason that's just not readily apparent to me. Surely you'd even fight better if you're rested, fed and possibly clean:shade:?
I think it's a combination of:
  • It doesn't fit that well with the fantasy fiction players may have in mind when they envision the game. The fellowship of the ring didn't bring a train of servants with them, Conan is often traveling alone, Elric is normally on his own or in the company of Moonglum only, etc. Or to reach farther back, in Arthurian romances the questing knights are generally solo, without even a squire.
  • It can remove the spotlight from the player-characters, to some degree, and may become a bit of a hassle if a combat occurs. Instead of players just running their own characters, they have to deal with their n.p.c.s as well.
So if you are playing the game as a simulation of exploration in dangerous environments, with a focus on careful preparation and caution (what used to be called 'fantasy f-ing Vietnam') then a train of servants makes sense. If you are aiming at something closer to fantasy fiction or movies, then not so much.

I know that, although OD&D had rules for hirelings and made it clear you really ought to have them for wilderness exploration at least, we almost never used them back in the 1970s. A pack of servants or helpers just didn't match what we wanted from the game.
 
I think it's a combination of:
  • It doesn't fit that well with the fantasy fiction players may have in mind when they envision the game. The fellowship of the ring didn't bring a train of servants with them, Conan is often traveling alone, Elric is normally on his own or in the company of Moonglum only, etc. Or to reach farther back, in Arthurian romances the questing knights are generally solo, without even a squire.
  • It can remove the spotlight from the player-characters, to some degree, and may become a bit of a hassle if a combat occurs. Instead of players just running their own characters, they have to deal with their n.p.c.s as well.
So if you are playing the game as a simulation of exploration in dangerous environments, with a focus on careful preparation and caution (what used to be called 'fantasy f-ing Vietnam') then a train of servants makes sense. If you are aiming at something closer to fantasy fiction or movies, then not so much.

I know that, although OD&D had rules for hirelings and made it clear you really ought to have them for wilderness exploration at least, we almost never used them back in the 1970s. A pack of servants or helpers just didn't match what we wanted from the game.
When my players have run with retainers and servants in the past, only a select few are willing to actually go into dangerous environments. Most stay with the pack animals and the wagons. Then the people investigating the dungeon/haunted house/burial mound or what have you are the PCs and their loyal (or not so loyal) henchmen.

As for the Lord of the Rings, that's what they had Sam for anyways. He's the one who does all the cooking and stuff, and he brings a pack animal (until they reach Moria). And 9 people is rather large for a group where everyone just has their one PC. In the Hobbit, I've argued before that only one out of every dwarf name group is a PC, with the rest being henchmen/retainers.
 
I know that, although OD&D had rules for hirelings and made it clear you really ought to have them for wilderness exploration at least, we almost never used them back in the 1970s. A pack of servants or helpers just didn't match what we wanted from the game.
I agree with most of your post but this last part. Our group back then almost always made use of more meatbags err hirelings to watch our gear and animals etc and absorb some damage as well.
 
Honestly, I never much got into game participants that weren't directly impersonated by the players on a 1:1 ratio myself. Whether that's the old-fashioned porters & torchbearers or the more recent animal companions & cohorts. Or PCs from absent players. Too much mental overhead.

Never mind that my first fantsay game didn't really feature them, so I wasn't weaned on them, and so my immediate precedents always seemed rather problematic or silly (Tarzan and garden gnomes).
 
When my players have run with retainers and servants in the past, only a select few are willing to actually go into dangerous environments. Most stay with the pack animals and the wagons. Then the people investigating the dungeon/haunted house/burial mound or what have you are the PCs and their loyal (or not so loyal) henchmen.

Yep, same with my groups. Experienced ones often have lackeys and/or apprentices who mostly stay behind and look after the train.

I think it's a combination of:
  • It doesn't fit that well with the fantasy fiction players may have in mind when they envision the game. The fellowship of the ring didn't bring a train of servants with them, Conan is often traveling alone, Elric is normally on his own or in the company of Moonglum only, etc. Or to reach farther back, in Arthurian romances the questing knights are generally solo, without even a squire.
  • It can remove the spotlight from the player-characters, to some degree, and may become a bit of a hassle if a combat occurs. Instead of players just running their own characters, they have to deal with their n.p.c.s as well.

Well ... on the first part, not all that many fictional sources worried about alignment, or whether they had the "proper" balance between fighter/MU/cleric/thief.

On the second, hm. How many GMs out there make the players run the hirelings? I can think of only one time the players ran the NPCs in the last twenty years, and that was the time I brought my 1970s dungeon out of mothballs (I still had the maps and writeups) at the group's request. As an added fillip, I told them they could each bring along a former PC/NPC of their acquaintance, no matter how powerful, if they could justify knowing the person, and they ran the NPCs they picked.

Other than that one-off, I run the NPCs, and if the lackey manages to get the killing shot off, no one complains. Although I'd humbly suggest that a party worrying about whether the teamsters, squires and apprentices will steal their thunder either has some serious self-assurance issues or should work harder at self-improvement ...
 
When my players have run with retainers and servants in the past, only a select few are willing to actually go into dangerous environments. Most stay with the pack animals and the wagons. Then the people investigating the dungeon/haunted house/burial mound or what have you are the PCs and their loyal (or not so loyal) henchmen.

As for the Lord of the Rings, that's what they had Sam for anyways. He's the one who does all the cooking and stuff, and he brings a pack animal (until they reach Moria). And 9 people is rather large for a group where everyone just has their one PC. In the Hobbit, I've argued before that only one out of every dwarf name group is a PC, with the rest being henchmen/retainers.
In wilderness adventures in OD&D, it's danger all the time. If your lackeys won't come into the wilderness, then they really don't exist for game purposes. If for some reason the dungeon/place of danger is in a civilized area, then you probably don't need lackeys or servants anyway.

Well ... on the first part, not all that many fictional sources worried about alignment, or whether they had the "proper" balance between fighter/MU/cleric/thief.
True, but so what? The appeal of the game is putting yourself in something like the fantasy fiction you enjoy, whatever that may be. Or to put it another way, if keeping track of and interacting with the lackeys adds to excitement and drama, why is it so rare in fantasy fiction, movies, etc.?
On the second, hm. How many GMs out there make the players run the hirelings? I can think of only one time the players ran the NPCs in the last twenty years, and that was the time I brought my 1970s dungeon out of mothballs (I still had the maps and writeups) at the group's request. As an added fillip, I told them they could each bring along a former PC/NPC of their acquaintance, no matter how powerful, if they could justify knowing the person, and they ran the NPCs they picked.

Other than that one-off, I run the NPCs, and if the lackey manages to get the killing shot off, no one complains. Although I'd humbly suggest that a party worrying about whether the teamsters, squires and apprentices will steal their thunder either has some serious self-assurance issues or should work harder at self-improvement ...

The original question upthread was--why don't players bring lackeys--which I was attempting to answer. Personally, if my players wanted to have a large entourage of lackeys and servants, I would put the onus of dealing with them on those players. I have enough to do with running the significant npcs, monsters, or other folks they might encounter; I don't want to be burdened by their impedimenta.

One could counter: 'But it's no bother! Just a question of hiring the folks and a little handwavium and character schtick now and then.' In which case I would ask what the point of having the train of followers is. I don't think it would significantly add to my player's enjoyment of the game, or my own.

As to the spotlight issue, it's simply a matter of time and focus. It's not that hireling A will save the day and outshine the player-characters, it's that every second spent dealing with hirelings A through Z is time and energy not spent focusing on the p.c.s. Or from my perspective as game-master, time spent dealing with npcs I have no interest in.
 
In wilderness adventures in OD&D, it's danger all the time. If your lackeys won't come into the wilderness, then they really don't exist for game purposes. If for some reason the dungeon/place of danger is in a civilized area, then you probably don't need lackeys or servants anyway.

True, but so what? The appeal of the game is putting yourself in something like the fantasy fiction you enjoy, whatever that may be. Or to put it another way, if keeping track of and interacting with the lackeys adds to excitement and drama, why is it so rare in fantasy fiction, movies, etc.?

Look, you can either argue "it should mimic D&D dungeon fantasy" or "it should mimic fictional sources." You can't really do both. I agree that a lot of OSR campaigns -- fueled by early Judges Guild material and run-the-gauntlet video games -- operate off of the premise that ten feet out of the city/save point's gates is a warzone where you not only have to keep a round-the-clock watch, but if you've got only a couple of combat encounters a game-day the DM's being soft on you. So stipulated. Not only is not every campaign remotely like this, but the aforesaid fictional sources don't replicate it either. The Fellowship doesn't fight its way all the way down to Moria, Conan doesn't roll for wandering encounters every page, and really most fictional sources only throw in the vicissitudes that are reasonable for the milieu in which they travel.

On the second point, I dispute that interacting with the lackeys is rare in fictional sources; it's actually pretty common. Does it generally add to "excitement and drama?" Not often, no, but that's not the point of having lackeys and servants; it's not only that pesky roleplaying thing, but the job of servants on a march route is to make life easier for the principals. Setting camp, preparing meals, dealing with the locals, caring for the mounts, this is needful in civilized areas as much as anywhere else.

Now perhaps you prefer campaigns that don't bother with travel: you leave the save point, the DM says "Okay, so you travel through the wilderness for two weeks until you get to the mouth of the dungeon," and that's that. And fair enough; in campaigns like that there's little point to paying attention to logistics. Alright, you do you.

Would you care, however, to concede that not every campaign runs in lockstep with your personal preferences, and that "the appeal of the game" to others are these interactions and minutiae?
 
In wilderness adventures in OD&D, it's danger all the time. If your lackeys won't come into the wilderness, then they really don't exist for game purposes. If for some reason the dungeon/place of danger is in a civilized area, then you probably don't need lackeys or servants anyway.
Well, you know where my current campaign takes place and I would postulate that in 16th century Italy, having servants for dealing with the pack animals etc is probably a good idea if venturing out into the countryside, but simply being in the countryside does not represent a great risk for a group. But as with so many other things, this is going to vary massively from campaign to campaign.
 
The porters guild isn't too fond of random encounters.
Yup. In my campaign guilds accommodate mundane jobs like escorting you from point A to point B or building a camp but exploring and looting a monster-filled dungeon is not on the menu. The hirelings my PCs bring into dungeons are often desperate or have more greed than sense.
 
Look, you can either argue "it should mimic D&D dungeon fantasy" or "it should mimic fictional sources." You can't really do both. I agree that a lot of OSR campaigns -- fueled by early Judges Guild material and run-the-gauntlet video games -- operate off of the premise that ten feet out of the city/save point's gates is a warzone where you not only have to keep a round-the-clock watch, but if you've got only a couple of combat encounters a game-day the DM's being soft on you. So stipulated. Not only is not every campaign remotely like this, but the aforesaid fictional sources don't replicate it either. The Fellowship doesn't fight its way all the way down to Moria, Conan doesn't roll for wandering encounters every page, and really most fictional sources only throw in the vicissitudes that are reasonable for the milieu in which they travel.
I would disagree--as I'm sure you'll be surprised to hear. My remark was a response to the idea that the hirelings don't go into dangerous areas, but stay with the animals, etc. It is true that fantasy fiction does not follow the game mechanics of 'roll for encounter' etc. but it can represent travel as dangerous, in which the protagonists have, in effect, random meetings with foes. This happens in Tolkien, surely--the dwarves and Bilbo's meeting with the trolls, or for that matter with the goblins in the Misty Mountains. It's less common in short stories, of course, since there is not space for things not directly related to the plot.
On the second point, I dispute that interacting with the lackeys is rare in fictional sources; it's actually pretty common. Does it generally add to "excitement and drama?" Not often, no, but that's not the point of having lackeys and servants; it's not only that pesky roleplaying thing, but the job of servants on a march route is to make life easier for the principals. Setting camp, preparing meals, dealing with the locals, caring for the mounts, this is needful in civilized areas as much as anywhere else.
Whether these interactions occur in fiction is an empirical matter. I cannot provide examples of them not happening, precisely, since I cannot prove a negative. Thinking about the fantasy fiction I've read in the last year or so, I'm hard put to think of protagonists who travel around with or routinely have their own servants or lackeys.
  • Most recently, Karl Edward Wagner's Darkness Weaves--the protagonist, Kane, sometimes does travel with others, but there's not much in the way of lackeys. A noble who comes to see Kane does have a bodyguard, and Kane has a friend/sidekick who is an assassin, though they're not always together. There are bodies of troops involved throughout--Kane commands armies. But traveling with an entourage of servants, no.
  • Darrell Schweitzer's Mask of the Sorcerer: Sekenre, the main character, mainly travels alone, or with a mother-daughter duo he happens to encounter (and who are of high status).
  • Henry Kuttner's Land of the Earthquake--the hero, who is thrust into a strange otherworld, has no servants or followers on his travels, nor do his opponents, though they are highly-placed nobles (or their equivalents).
Now perhaps you prefer campaigns that don't bother with travel: you leave the save point, the DM says "Okay, so you travel through the wilderness for two weeks until you get to the mouth of the dungeon," and that's that. And fair enough; in campaigns like that there's little point to paying attention to logistics. Alright, you do you.

Would you care, however, to concede that not every campaign runs in lockstep with your personal preferences, and that "the appeal of the game" to others are these interactions and minutiae?
Yes, and yes. It's not a question of hand-waving all travel, though, so much as it is a disinterest in some of its mechanics. Similarly (it seems to me) a number of people recently on the board said they don't like bothering with precise calculations of money or wealth in modern games--they find it too fiddly.
Well, you know where my current campaign takes place and I would postulate that in 16th century Italy, having servants for dealing with the pack animals etc is probably a good idea if venturing out into the countryside, but simply being in the countryside does not represent a great risk for a group. But as with so many other things, this is going to vary massively from campaign to campaign.
Sure and the more historically-based a campaign is the more sense it makes to include servants and an entourage. If you and your players want it, then go to it, I say.

All of this makes me wonder if one reason why many campaigns, and much fantasy fiction, does not include servants is that we (for the most part) live in societies where no-one has servants and we are not familiar with or perhaps comfortable with the idea. I know that, personally, having someone wait on me always gives me a frisson of disquiet.
 
All of this makes me wonder if one reason why many campaigns, and much fantasy fiction, does not include servants is that we (for the most part) live in societies where no-one has servants and we are not familiar with or perhaps comfortable with the idea. I know that, personally, having someone wait on me always gives me a frisson of disquiet.

Quite likely. There are any number of elements in RPGs that cater much more to our prejudices as modern Westerners than to the realities of low-tech life. And especially in the United States, we're conditioned to reject the trope. Even where servants are involved, we don't order them beaten or killed if they offend us (or if we're in a snit), we don't order them into our beds, and we're expected to treat them like human beings.
 
An awful lot of fantasty fiction that has protagonists travelling around in small groups were Tolkien imitations written in the 80s and 90s such as David Eddings books in which the characters reliably quest for the macguffin through every corner of the map. The characters basically did that beccause Fellowship of the Rings did it. I think the last I can really recall of that kind was Abercombie's First Law trilogy which was a deconstruction of that particular subgenre just before it pretty much died for good.

I'll note that while Conan's adventurs tend to happen when he is alone (or in the company of one woman), often he is alone because of necessity and is inbetween being a member of some much larger band of marauders or mercs (One thing I noticed when I reread the stories a few years back was how much of their interest to me as a kid was probably the much more interesting stories that were being hinted at just out of sight).

I think the modern idea of rpg parties was heavily influenced by a player base that saw The Fellowship of the Ring (and it's many imitators) as the model for fantasy adventuring.
 
An awful lot of fantasty fiction that has protagonists travelling around in small groups were Tolkien imitations written in the 80s and 90s such as David Eddings books in which the characters reliably quest for the macguffin through every corner of the map. The characters basically did that beccause Fellowship of the Rings did it. I think the last I can really recall of that kind was Abercombie's First Law trilogy which was a deconstruction of that particular subgenre just before it pretty much died for good.

I'll note that while Conan's adventurs tend to happen when he is alone (or in the company of one woman), often he is alone because of necessity and is inbetween being a member of some much larger band of marauders or mercs (One thing I noticed when I reread the stories a few years back was how much of their interest to me as a kid was probably the much more interesting stories that were being hinted at just out of sight).

I think the modern idea of rpg parties was heavily influenced by a player base that saw The Fellowship of the Ring (and it's many imitators) as the model for fantasy adventuring.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Since it came up in the thread yesterday, though, I've been trying to think of how fantasy stories handle travel and how often they include an entourage of servants as part of the process. I can't come up with many examples of it happening, off the top of my head. Sure, there are some, like Gillian Bradshaw's Kingdom of Summer, where the viewpoint character is Gwalchmai (Gawain's) servant on his travels, and as raniE raniE pointed out above Sam is basically Frodo's batman. But in both those cases, the servants are the equivalent of player-characters. I'm not sure that it was more common to feature servants as traveling companions in fantasy before Tolkien either; I recently read Henry Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis stories, written in the 1930s, and he is generally traveling with his sidekick (another fighting-man) or in much larger groups--part of an army, on a ship, etc.

In fact, even stories that helped inspire modern fantasy fiction seem often to default either to (1) the hero travels alone or with a boon companions or (2) the heroes travel together in a band of warriors. Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to the Cedar Forest to kill Humbaba on their own; the epic gives us pretty elaborate descriptions of their preparations, but no hint of servants accompanying them. And Gilgamesh undertakes the quest for eternal life solo. The crew of the Argo is pretty large, but IIRC they are all presented as heroes--they don't bring servants with them. Likewise, Beowulf arrives at Heorot in the company of a small warband, apparently unaccompanied by hangers-on, and I can't remember an example of a hero from the Norse sagas traveling with a support staff. A lot of Arthurian romance involves questing knights, alone or in small groups, often without even squires to accompany them.

If we broaden the field a bit from fantasy to planetary romance, Burroughs' heroes are almost never accompanied by servants on their adventures. Sometimes they have allies, side-kicks, or love-interests who accompany them, but not servants. The closest I can think of to a servant accompanying a hero is Tavia in A Fighting Man of Mars, but she turns out to be the hero's love-interest (and someone he rescues, rather than a retainer he brings along).

Including servants as a natural part of traveling seems to be more common in historical fiction, which I guess makes sense, given its striving for accuracy. Dumas' musketeers are usually accompanied by their servants on their trips, though I suppose you could argue that characters like Planchet are so well-developed that one could consider them the equivalent of player-characters.
 
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I think it's a combination of:
  • It doesn't fit that well with the fantasy fiction players may have in mind when they envision the game. The fellowship of the ring didn't bring a train of servants with them, Conan is often traveling alone, Elric is normally on his own or in the company of Moonglum only, etc. Or to reach farther back, in Arthurian romances the questing knights are generally solo, without even a squire.
I was offered that argument once. I replied, verbatim, "that's what results from not paying attention when reading" (they managed to present me that argument when I was in a bit of a mood:devil:).
The Fellowship brings a damn mule until Moria, they just didn't manage to persuade it to follow underground. After that, they ran straight to the Elven Forest (TM), after which they were travelling by boats, or on Rohirim saddles, for a good portion of the road.
And you can say that Frodo was NEVER without his servant, because he brought Sam. You know, the guy who makes sure Master Froddo would have a decent place to sleep, something tasty to eat, and who cooks it for him:shade:!
Conan...you mean the guy who travels by horse, camel or boat whenever he can? Or as part of an army with baggage trains?
Elric also tends to ride along. Not to mention it's basically a deconstruction of S&S.
Questing knights aren't really a part of the picture for most fantasy gamers, so I'd suggest leaving them alone (also, I'm too lazy to open Le Morte D'Arthur right now:thumbsup:).


  • It can remove the spotlight from the player-characters, to some degree, and may become a bit of a hassle if a combat occurs.
So can dying, which also becomes progressively more likely if you're suffering from exhaustion.

  • Instead of players just running their own characters, they have to deal with their n.p.c.s as well.
Yes, that's the biggest issue IMO...some people just want to play the stereotype of "rugged and asocial" when they can.
But why a bard would avoid that, is totally beyond me, TBH.

So if you are playing the game as a simulation of exploration in dangerous environments, with a focus on careful preparation and caution (what used to be called 'fantasy f-ing Vietnam') then a train of servants makes sense. If you are aiming at something closer to fantasy fiction or movies, then not so much.
I don't think "careful preparation and caution" need to be restrained to dungeoncrawling, no. It works just fine in my favourite fantasy novels as well, and in my campaigns, which seldom have many dungeons:tongue:.

As for the "closer to fantasy fiction"...I'm disputing this, as you can see above.

I know that, although OD&D had rules for hirelings and made it clear you really ought to have them for wilderness exploration at least, we almost never used them back in the 1970s. A pack of servants or helpers just didn't match what we wanted from the game.
Shrug. As long as you still got what you wanted out of the game, I don't see the problem...:grin:
I just want a different playstyle - not to impose it on other groups.
 
I was offered that argument once. I replied, verbatim, "that's what results from not paying attention when reading" (they managed to present me that argument when I was in a bit of a mood:devil:).
The Fellowship brings a damn mule until Moria, they just didn't manage to persuade it to follow underground. After that, they ran straight to the Elven Forest (TM), after which they were travelling by boats, or on Rohirim saddles, for a good portion of the road.
And you can say that Frodo was NEVER without his servant, because he brought Sam. You know, the guy who makes sure Master Froddo would have a decent place to sleep, something tasty to eat, and who cooks it for him:shade:!
Conan...you mean the guy who travels by horse, camel or boat whenever he can? Or as part of an army with baggage trains?
Elric also tends to ride along. Not to mention it's basically a deconstruction of S&S.
Questing knights aren't really a part of the picture for most fantasy gamers, so I'd suggest leaving them alone (also, I'm too lazy to open Le Morte D'Arthur right now:thumbsup:).
I fear we are arguing past each other here. I didn't say, or mean to imply, anything about using animals, pack or otherwise. It is pretty standard in fantasy gaming and in fiction for characters to have them. I was discussing bringing servants along.

As I said above, there are examples in fantasy fiction of servants on journeys, but they tend to be (in effect) player-characters. Traveling with a caravan, warband, etc. is also an entirely different kettle of fish, in my view. It does happen in fiction, and in games, but it's not the same thing as having your own coterie of servants or lackeys accompanying you.

I don't think "careful preparation and caution" need to be restrained to dungeoncrawling, no. It works just fine in my favourite fantasy novels as well, and in my campaigns, which seldom have many dungeons:tongue:.
Again, I think we are arguing past each other. I did not have dungeon-crawling in mind, but rather wilderness travel and exploration.
As for the "closer to fantasy fiction"...I'm disputing this, as you can see above.
Well, you're welcome to. I would be happy to see more evidence that heroes/protagonists in fantasy fiction travel with servants. Personally, I can't find much in the way of examples.

In some ways, this whole discussion puts me in mind of an essay of Poul Anderson's, "On Thud and Blunder" in which he takes fantasy writers to task for ignoring, or being ignorant of, the realities of the pre-modern world. Which is fair, as far as it goes. He notes this about horses:

Thus our hero will usually do better to go pedestrian or equestrian. As for the latter choice, writers who’ve had no personal experience with horses tend to think of them as a kind of sports car. ‘Tain’t so.

You cannot gallop them for hours. They’ll collapse. The best way to make time in the saddle is to alternate paces, and have a remount or two trailing behind, and allow the animals reasonable rest. Don’t let your steed eat or drink indiscriminately; it’s likely to bloat and become helpless. In fact, it’s a rather fragile creature, requiring close attention — for example, rubdowns after hard exertion — if it isn’t to fall sick and perhaps die on you. It’s also lazy, stupid, and sometimes malicious. All of these tendencies the rider must keep under control.

All of which is, I suppose, quite true--my experience of riding horses is pretty minimal, and decades ago. The thing is, when you look at the equivalent of adventure fiction written back when people did ride everywhere, it tends to treat horses, well, like sports cars. That is, the hero gets on them and rides away. There isn't usually a lot of description of how he (or she) alternates pacing, or brings a string of remounts, or anything like that. I can't think of an Arthurian romance, for example, where a knight's horse is anything more than a useful mode of transportation and combat platform. There's usually not even any description of stabling, or tethering horses for the night, or anything of that sort. It's just assumed and left out, because it wasn't really germane to the story, or particularly engaging for the author or the audience.
 
I fear we are arguing past each other here. I didn't say, or mean to imply, anything about using animals, pack or otherwise. It is pretty standard in fantasy gaming and in fiction for characters to have them.
Cool, we agree on that. So what are you loading them with?
I mean, you have a pack animal and you'd still not carry stuff that makes your life more comfortable? Because that's what I was discussing...

I was discussing bringing servants along.
Like Samwise:devil:? Literally Frodo's servant? Meant to be exactly that, according to a Tolkien's letter?

As I said above, there are examples in fantasy fiction of servants on journeys, but they tend to be (in effect) player-characters. Traveling with a caravan, warband, etc. is also an entirely different kettle of fish, in my view. It does happen in fiction, and in games, but it's not the same thing as having your own coterie of servants or lackeys accompanying you.
Thing is, fictional protagonists often lack the funds for a coterie... or they would have it.
And travelling with a warband means you've got camp followers and cooks, and other people who take care of (most of) your needs.


Again, I think we are arguing past each other. I did not have dungeon-crawling in mind, but rather wilderness travel and exploration.
Sorry, I associate "Fantasy Fucking Vietnam" with dungeoncrawling...so I replied to that.
But my point that you might well show more restraint without needing to go full-bore old-school still stands. Case in point, Far Away Kingdom, off the top of my head. Travelling across the wilderness is what most of the book is about.


Well, you're welcome to. I would be happy to see more evidence that heroes/protagonists in fantasy fiction travel with servants. Personally, I can't find much in the way of examples.
As pointed out above - some do, many don't, often because they haven't got the means to pay a servant in the first place:grin:!
But I wasn't talking about all heroes, I'm talking about Frodo and Conan (an unlikely pair to be sure:tongue:). Now, Conan preferred some privacy even from his pages and the like, but that's because he was Cimmerian. It was noted in Hour of the Dragon that yes, he had pages and that the other nobles considered his ideas of privacy as kinda weird...:grin:

In some ways, this whole discussion puts me in mind of an essay of Poul Anderson's, "On Thud and Blunder" in which he takes fantasy writers to task for ignoring, or being ignorant of, the realities of the pre-modern world. Which is fair, as far as it goes. He notes this about horses:
One of my favourite essays, BTW:thumbsup:.

All of which is, I suppose, quite true--my experience of riding horses is pretty minimal, and decades ago. The thing is, when you look at the equivalent of adventure fiction written back when people did ride everywhere, it tends to treat horses, well, like sports cars. That is, the hero gets on them and rides away. There isn't usually a lot of description of how he (or she) alternates pacing, or brings a string of remounts, or anything like that.
I'd contest that. Ivanhoe is exactly from "when people did ride everywhere", and it mentions taking care of horses, how knights ride a different horse in order not to tire their warhorses (including in the frigging opening scene!), how Richard lets his horse pass to a different walk in order not to tire it, and tethers the huge animal before finding Friar Tuck, and so on and so forth...:skeleton:
I can't think of an Arthurian romance, for example, where a knight's horse is anything more than a useful mode of transportation and combat platform. There's usually not even any description of stabling, or tethering horses for the night, or anything of that sort. It's just assumed and left out, because it wasn't really germane to the story, or particularly engaging for the author or the audience.
Again, I'm not planning to re-read Le Morte D'Arthur, but I'm pretty I'd find some stuff if I did. But even if the author did skip over it...so what? There's hundreds of things authors choose to skip over. And I am giving you a counterexample, above.
Here's another:
 
The lone hero or part of a small band of comrades, or comrade, is pretty standard myth and legend fare. From Mesopotamia to Greece to Beowulf to Conan, etc. Classic hero (or heroes) journey stuff when on the actual adventure. Tolkien is right in line with that as believe once read he was looking for an epic for England.
I'd say the D&D idea of a troupe of hench folk is the odd man out when it comes to genre. Now when it comes to supervillians... I follow 21...HENCH4LIFE :smile:
 
One thing to note is that, IIRC, the Fellowship of the Ring basically runs from just about every fight that comes their way. They are not, in the book, a large enough group to actually fight Orcs head on. It's not "you encounter some orcs/fight/kill/loot bodies/ continue". It's more fighting retreat, or flat out running.

If their goal was to actually move into orc occupied territory and fight orcs and retrieve gold, they would have needed a lot more warriors.
 
One thing to note is that, IIRC, the Fellowship of the Ring basically runs from just about every fight that comes their way. They are not, in the book, a large enough group to actually fight Orcs head on. It's not "you encounter some orcs/fight/kill/loot bodies/ continue". It's more fighting retreat, or flat out running.

If their goal was to actually move into orc occupied territory and fight orcs and retrieve gold, they would have needed a lot more warriors.
Of course, since they're also the equivalent of spies sent on a sabotage mission for destroying critical infrastructure of the Enemy:shade:!
 
Yeah. It's not so much that small groups of travellers don't make sense in some circumstance; it's just they don't make sense as a band of "adventurers". (A special forces team with a particular mission operating stealithy in enemy territory, makes perfect sense.)

At least if you want something grounded in reality. It is of course, completely irrelevant to the, built upon pop culture references, comic mode that basically consitutes modern D&D.
 
At least if you want something grounded in reality. It is of course, completely irrelevant to the, built upon pop culture references, comic mode that basically consitutes modern D&D.
"Modern"? People wandering around somewhat aimlessly is pretty much a core element of RPGs, whether that's fantasy, horror or sci-fi.

And I still believe that this isn't that much out of a desire to emulate references, it's simple logistics: You got X people on one side of the table, so scenarios where X people are the sole protagonists on one side are favored. Being in the wilderness is just a classic excuse for such a setup, just like "the cops don't believe you". Letting other people take care of stuff just doesn't make for interesting fiction.

The GM controlling characters on the PCs side, whether they're servants or the dreaded GMPC feels a bit odd. As are players controlling more than one speaking role. The latter lead to a lot of "pets" these days to avoid that, non-speaking servants/hirelings just has a different air to it. Especially for the players who didn't come from the wargaming background, but apparently even then.
 
I think it get's a bit circular.

Wandering adventurers have become the default assumed structure of games, because games often don't really put in the work to create an alternative structure for games, and just assume the default D&D structure (but even there that has drifted over time to something more complex on the level of individual characters).

And that means you end up with rules sets that make it a pain to deal with things like extra bodies and the like. If the game becomes based around skirmish level conflict between individual actors then of course having two dozen extra warriors in your warband in a pain in the neck. However, the issue itself arises, because of the assumptions that went into the design of the game.
 
That makes a lot of sense to me. Since it came up in the thread yesterday, though, I've been trying to think of how fantasy stories handle travel and how often they include an entourage of servants as part of the process. I can't come up with many examples of it happening, off the top of my head. Sure, there are some, like Gillian Bradshaw's Kingdom of Summer, where the viewpoint character is Gwalchmai (Gawain's) servant on his travels, and as raniE raniE pointed out above Sam is basically Frodo's batman. But in both those cases, the servants are the equivalent of player-characters. I'm not sure that it was more common to feature servants as traveling companions in fantasy before Tolkien either; I recently read Henry Kuttner's Elak of Atlantis stories, written in the 1930s, and he is generally traveling with his sidekick (another fighting-man) or in much larger groups--part of an army, on a ship, etc.

In fact, even stories that helped inspire modern fantasy fiction seem often to default either to (1) the hero travels alone or with a boon companions or (2) the heroes travel together in a band of warriors. Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to the Cedar Forest to kill Humbaba on their own; the epic gives us pretty elaborate descriptions of their preparations, but no hint of servants accompanying them. And Gilgamesh undertakes the quest for eternal life solo. The crew of the Argo is pretty large, but IIRC they are all presented as heroes--they don't bring servants with them. Likewise, Beowulf arrives at Heorot in the company of a small warband, apparently unaccompanied by hangers-on, and I can't remember an example of a hero from the Norse sagas traveling with a support staff. A lot of Arthurian romance involves questing knights, alone or in small groups, often without even squires to accompany them.

If we broaden the field a bit from fantasy to planetary romance, Burroughs' heroes are almost never accompanied by servants on their adventures. Sometimes they have allies, side-kicks, or love-interests who accompany them, but not servants. The closest I can think of to a servant accompanying a hero is Tavia in A Fighting Man of Mars, but she turns out to be the hero's love-interest (and someone he rescues, rather than a retainer he brings along).

Including servants as a natural part of traveling seems to be more common in historical fiction, which I guess makes sense, given its striving for accuracy. Dumas' musketeers are usually accompanied by their servants on their trips, though I suppose you could argue that characters like Planchet are so well-developed that one could consider them the equivalent of player-characters.

One of the things that complicates comparing RPG parties to fantasy literature groups is that there is often a strong tendency to not play characters who are in a master/servant or even boss/employee type relationship. Very often in fiction you'll get characters who are all part of the story and could be considered the equivalent of PCs, but where one is the boss and another the employee. That's far less likely to happen in an rpg, in my experience.
 
One of the things that complicates comparing RPG parties to fantasy literature groups is that there is often a strong tendency to not play characters who are in a master/servant or even boss/employee type relationship.
Well, fantasy storylines being a hackneyed mass of cliches often center around a single chosen protagonist, with the rest being decidedly less well written. You wouldn't really want to emulate that in a game.

I do see a lot of *theoretical* employee relationships e.g. where one of the players is the lordling and the rest mercenaries. But in game that quickly gets lost. And to be honest, better that way. Ars Magica works with a different structure, but has a rather important premise to make that work better.

I'm not sure whether it's all about the rules, though. Sure, with more complex rules it gets harder to control more bodies. But simpler rules don't automatically result in more characters on the board. I think it's more about the level of abstraction or dare I say "immersion".
One thing that does drag you out of this is gridded combat. I think we see more PC-controlled tokens once you're already not doing theater of the mind, but watching everything from above. Savage Worlds, recent D&D editions...
 
I'd contest that. Ivanhoe is exactly from "when people did ride everywhere", and it mentions taking care of horses, how knights ride a different horse in order not to tire their warhorses (including in the frigging opening scene!), how Richard lets his horse pass to a different walk in order not to tire it, and tethers the huge animal before finding Friar Tuck, and so on and so forth...:skeleton:
I'm glad you brought up Ivanhoe, because the one type of adventure literature that does tend to get into things like this is historical fiction. The reason for this is pretty obvious--part of the point of the writing is to evoke the texture and nature of a vanished world. So authors are (or can be) a lot more interested in making everyday life and mundane occurrences realistic; it helps create the illusion of the past. Scott is of course one of the creators of this trend.

In fact, when I was thinking about the stuff I've read in the last year or so, about the only examples I could find of protagonists having and traveling with servants came from the historical novels I've read set in the Roman Empire.

But, my impression is that if you look at the rough equivalents of modern fantasy written in earlier periods--things like the Arthurian romances--this interest in evoking the minutiae of daily life just doesn't exist, for the most part, and heroes are not that likely to travel around with an entourage of servants, even if the medieval nobles and gentry who formed the audience for the tales almost always did.

And I still believe that this isn't that much out of a desire to emulate references, it's simple logistics: You got X people on one side of the table, so scenarios where X people are the sole protagonists on one side are favored. Being in the wilderness is just a classic excuse for such a setup, just like "the cops don't believe you". Letting other people take care of stuff just doesn't make for interesting fiction.
Yeah, though I would argue that fact is what is shaping the literature that is being emulated. Gilgamesh and Enkidu don't take servants on their trip to the Cedar Forest because it would just slow the tale down and shift the spotlight from them.
One of the things that complicates comparing RPG parties to fantasy literature groups is that there is often a strong tendency to not play characters who are in a master/servant or even boss/employee type relationship. Very often in fiction you'll get characters who are all part of the story and could be considered the equivalent of PCs, but where one is the boss and another the employee. That's far less likely to happen in an rpg, in my experience.
Sure. I've argued a couple of times upthread that Sam in LotR is in rpg-terms a player-character. It seems to me that the groups I've gamed with have over time become a bit more open to a 'party-structure' where player X's character is the boss and the other characters are his/her henchmen or hirelings. I'm not sure if it's a question of increasing age of the players or of having gamed together for a considerable length of time. But I can recall the groups I was involved with in my teens and twenties; there everyone's character had to be his or her own boss.
 
One thing to note is that, IIRC, the Fellowship of the Ring basically runs from just about every fight that comes their way. They are not, in the book, a large enough group to actually fight Orcs head on. It's not "you encounter some orcs/fight/kill/loot bodies/ continue". It's more fighting retreat, or flat out running.

If their goal was to actually move into orc occupied territory and fight orcs and retrieve gold, they would have needed a lot more warriors.
Oh indeed. Tolkien had a different concept of heroes than the epic literature....all for the good in my mind.

Moving into occupied territory I don't count as classic fantasy adventure (or from the old literature) that is more a D&Dism to build an outpost...not that I don't like it....it also seems to be more fantasy Vietnam with the establishment of a forward fire base....or more Ragnar Lothbrok :smile:

Now one could also argue the small D&D group that "you encounter some orcs/fight/kill/loot bodies/continue" is more a seek and destroy mission meant to terrorize the orcs, never hold territory. Loot being a primary form of "pay" to the common medieval soldier and I guess murder-hobos as well. :smile:

D&D is also a little less hero journey as the characters are not so extra-extra ordinary like Gilgamesh, Hercules, Jason, Ulysses, Sigurd and Beowulf. Although one could say D&D is about growing into such legendary figures...after all they didn't start off slaying dragons.

I seriously doubt most have an idea of heroic adventure based on ancient Egypt, but there you will find more wizard-priests and the agent of the pharaoh types (kind of spy-explorer-warrior) a little closer to more modern ideas in that these folks were not necessarily chosen ones just really learned / skilled...then later deified in some instances.
 
As to the larger question, do henchmen and hired hands even make sense, to me it depends on the setting. What is the motive for people to sign on for this adventure given the level of danger they perceive? Sure lifelong retainers and apprentices may be along for the ride, but anyone else has got to be motivated by something...desperation, greed, delusional need for adventure, obligation (as if the PCs are helping the locals) etc.

Even if the hirelings "just" watch the horses, that is not safe if one is in an area where orcs, etc. roam. In fact likely less safe as they are a sitting target, let alone with all that stationary horse flesh just standing there for a hungry monster.

Also, for me, hirelings lack needed skill. That is assuming you can trust them. They have no stealth, their saving throws are crap (last thing you need is a charmed hireling turning on you), hit points and combat ability pitiful, and if they die who knows who you will upset. Of course some DMs just treated them as fodder, if they died or got left behind no one ever asked any questions...such games usually had other puerile aspects in abundance so never played in such campaigns much.

Tried hirelings in the day, they never lasted long, more trouble to keep alive than they were ever worth. Found it better to wait until could get an apprentice or follower with some real skills. Give me a well trained mule (and a Druid) any day over a hireling.

Now one could hire a mercenary but hire too many and they may turn on you (because they may well out gun you, especially when emerging with loot galore and few HP) and if you bring them in the dungeon to help fight the DMs I played with always divided your xp with them, let alone treasure.

Although it all depends on setting, if dungeon delving is a common thing perhaps guilds arise to serve this need, The Guild of Adventurous Hirelings :smile: and mitigate risk for those hired, or perhaps there are large numbers of desperate poor who will risk near anything.
 
Hmm, some thoughts on all of this...

OD&D (and even AD&D) did present parties with numbers of hirelings. Now one thought on XP is that if you use the original rules where the bulk of the XP was gold, even if the combat XP was divided evenly (and I'm not sure it was ever divided among hirelings, only class and leveled henchmen), the gold was not divided evenly to hirelings. This creates less of a downside of a party bulking up with hirelings. I also wonder how prevalent area effect attacks were in Greyhawk Dungeon, at least until the PCs hit higher levels.

But whatever the direction of influences, it's clear that D&D supports a "fellowship" of PCs and there is plenty of fiction that also supports it. I tend to look more often at how D&D does NOT support the lone hero. While I agree that it would seem more realistic for most "adventures" to be tackled by a larger force than a fellowship of PCs, the fellowship structure works so well for play that it's my assumed model.

On PC leaders - this becomes somewhat of an issue pretty quickly with games like Traveller where you have a captain of the ship. Most of the play groups I've had have come up with some power sharing structure so the captain isn't the primary decision maker, though sometimes the shared decision making is at the player level not the PC level. I know that some games run by others did have captains who were the primary decision maker, sometimes with the player of the PC captain setting up a mission with the GM outside of the session. In D&D we ditched the caller (though I pushed for it in my play by post games where it really does help keep things moving) and most D&D (or D&D0-like fantasy with other systems) games ran with player/PC power sharing.
 
Well, fantasy storylines being a hackneyed mass of cliches often center around a single chosen protagonist, with the rest being decidedly less well written. You wouldn't really want to emulate that in a game.

I do see a lot of *theoretical* employee relationships e.g. where one of the players is the lordling and the rest mercenaries. But in game that quickly gets lost. And to be honest, better that way. Ars Magica works with a different structure, but has a rather important premise to make that work better.

I'm not sure whether it's all about the rules, though. Sure, with more complex rules it gets harder to control more bodies. But simpler rules don't automatically result in more characters on the board. I think it's more about the level of abstraction or dare I say "immersion".
One thing that does drag you out of this is gridded combat. I think we see more PC-controlled tokens once you're already not doing theater of the mind, but watching everything from above. Savage Worlds, recent D&D editions...
I didn't say it was all about rules, but about structures (although my example was a rules one). Ars Magica, as you mention is a good example of a game that gives an alternative structure. A Song of Ice and Fire rpg, in which the characters are all members of a noble house is another.

A lot of games don't really provide an alternative to the 'band of adventurers' structure, even while creating settings that are very different to default D&D.
 
But whatever the direction of influences, it's clear that D&D supports a "fellowship" of PCs and there is plenty of fiction that also supports it. I tend to look more often at how D&D does NOT support the lone hero. While I agree that it would seem more realistic for most "adventures" to be tackled by a larger force than a fellowship of PCs, the fellowship structure works so well for play that it's my assumed model.
Let's be clear, I don't think this discussion is about D&D sucks, but more about thinking through the kind of assumptions that are made.

Historical 'adventuring' would mostly be this. Get a band of warriors together, find a ship or a bunch of horses. Look for some defenceless villages. Burn pillage etc, steal their valuables if they have them, or at least their livestock. Go home. Boast about what brave warriors you are.
 
You know, I think we should all take the time to appreciate that this far into this thread not a single person has made a 10" pole joke.
 
Let's be clear, I don't think this discussion is about D&D sucks, but more about thinking through the kind of assumptions that are made.

Historical 'adventuring' would mostly be this. Get a band of warriors together, find a ship or a bunch of horses. Look for some defenceless villages. Burn pillage etc, steal their valuables if they have them, or at least their livestock. Go home. Boast about what brave warriors you are.

Well, sure. You can get killed if you have to fight!
 
I'm glad you brought up Ivanhoe, because the one type of adventure literature that does tend to get into things like this is historical fiction. The reason for this is pretty obvious--part of the point of the writing is to evoke the texture and nature of a vanished world. So authors are (or can be) a lot more interested in making everyday life and mundane occurrences realistic; it helps create the illusion of the past. Scott is of course one of the creators of this trend.
Non-accidentally, that's also what I look at when I want examples of RPG-relevant fiction:thumbsup:.


In fact, when I was thinking about the stuff I've read in the last year or so, about the only examples I could find of protagonists having and traveling with servants came from the historical novels I've read set in the Roman Empire.
The Templar also travels with his Saracen servants-bodyguards:shade:.


But, my impression is that if you look at the rough equivalents of modern fantasy written in earlier periods--things like the Arthurian romances--this interest in evoking the minutiae of daily life just doesn't exist, for the most part, and heroes are not that likely to travel around with an entourage of servants, even if the medieval nobles and gentry who formed the audience for the tales almost always did.
That depends on the fantasy, I believe.
Is a batman a servant? An arms-bearer, who has to take care of the knight's horse and armour? Is Iolaus to Hercules?
In short, there might be many more examples. But the general fantasy protagonist, being always dirt-poor, simply doesn't have the means to hire servants...and in modern fantasy I suspect it's glossed over because of the sensibilities of modern readers who might disapprove of such strongly hierarchical relationships.

Yeah, though I would argue that fact is what is shaping the literature that is being emulated. Gilgamesh and Enkidu don't take servants on their trip to the Cedar Forest because it would just slow the tale down and shift the spotlight from them.
No, they don't take servants because they hate digging ditches, and leaving the bodies of the deceased servants is a no-no in their world:thumbsup:.

Sure. I've argued a couple of times upthread that Sam in LotR is in rpg-terms a player-character.
While I'd argue that he is a hireling, along with M&P:grin:!

Why? Simple: In my view, if Tolkien was writing a campaign, it would be one where all PCs shared the same fate. Thus, all the PCs left with the elves at the end...and the world was left behind for the former hirelings to rule, leading to a less shiny age!
Which, you know, mirrors exactly what happens in Exalted and Glorantha when Ages changed:tongue:!

It seems to me that the groups I've gamed with have over time become a bit more open to a 'party-structure' where player X's character is the boss and the other characters are his/her henchmen or hirelings. I'm not sure if it's a question of increasing age of the players or of having gamed together for a considerable length of time. But I can recall the groups I was involved with in my teens and twenties; there everyone's character had to be his or her own boss.
My bet would be on "age and maturity", yes:devil:.

You know, I think we should all take the time to appreciate that this far into this thread not a single person has made a 10" pole joke.
Because it's 11", of course:skeleton:!
 
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