Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Blackadder23 wrote: As far as having pet NPCs - not me! There's nothing I love more than having any and all NPCs melt into green slime, choke on yellow mold spores and turn a ghastly jaundiced color, get eaten by gnolls while still alive and screaming, get riddled with pixie darts, turn purple and swell monstrously after suffering a fatal poisonous bite, get turned into something awful and (usually) embarrassing, be slowly crushed to death under a mill stone, or (on more than one occasion) spontaneously combust. It lets the players know what's probably in store for them.

I love it, but it must have some effect upon morale rolls. Played in the same vein as:

Matthew wrote:Right, but players who played in the module would be well aware that they could play multiple characters.

Anyway, the point was never what TSR encouraged in the long term, just that there is a strong precedent for players controlling more than one character at once in AD&D that derives from its earliest days. The same is true, of course, with regard to experienced players starting higher than first level in a new campaign [i.e. the DMG indicates this is expected], but it is not very common practice as far as I can tell. In my campaigns I am very unlikely to allow players to operate more than one character at once, but neither am I adverse to them directing the actions of hirelings, henchmen and associates. It takes the burden off me, allows them the pleasure of doing so (assuming they want to do it) and there is clear precedent for it. Possibly it may detract from their immersion in their own characters, but I have not observed that in practice, nor am I really very strongly into the "immersion" aspect of adventure games, role-playing for me is a fun adjunct to, rather than the purpose of the game itself (which I deem to be adventure).

Well, that's pretty much how I do it as well, and I share your observations. If a PC controls the actions of the NPC hirelings in a reasonable way, there's no problem. I tend to control Hirelings the first few sessions, until they start to like (or trust) the PC at which point the player just seems to naturally take over (though at points of conflict, ie. "you guys go walk down that hallway ahead" as trap detectors, I step in). The true motivations aren't always known by the player. Every now and then a thief or assassin pretending to be a 0 level hireling might join up. Its reasonable for careless players to fall prey to this sort of thing. As for immersion, I'm talking about picturing stuff in your head as if it were happening to you (not your piece). A player can imagine being a 1st level MU running from skeletons down a hall, surviving and gaining in power over time. By contrast, imagine if that same player was controlling some super-hero that started out ultra powerful. He wouldn't have that personal connection. It wouldn't feel like "him" but rather a piece or some removed character he controlled.

As for the way the game was played by the early groups, yeah, I've heard those stories as well.

Landifarne wrote:I love it, but it must have some effect upon morale rolls. Played in the same vein as:

In my last AD&D campaign, the local mercenary guild was actually called "The Red Cloaks". They lived up to their name.

Blackadder23 wrote:In my last AD&D campaign, the local mercenary guild was actually called "The Red Cloaks". They lived up to their name.

Oh, god... That's Awesome! I may need to plagiarize that!!!

Merctime wrote:Oh, god... That's Awesome! I may need to plagiarize that!!!

Please feel free to do so.